Codename: Spitfire Issue Guide #4

Issue 9:
Strung-out to the M.A.X.

Two weeks after the disappearance of Jenny Swensen, we catch up with Eduardo and Terry, both hanging out in his dorm room (or apartment?) as the strong-arms unit is being destroyed. We learn that Giotti was a bit shaken by his almost killing the Steel Hawk - even though that was his intention all along - and had determined that he must destroy the strong-arms to keep himself from hurting others.

As the strong-arms wreck each other with their amazing strength, the two remaining Troubleshooters find themselves hoping that this is finally the end of their troubles. Of course, Giotti had failed to kill the man intent on slaying him and his friends. We see the fate of Steel Hawk soon after, resting in a hospital bed in snow-swept Scandanavia, his body severely broken.

While the woman who loves and rescued him, Varna, looks on, Steel Hawk's doctor indicated that in addition to all his physical damage, the man was also suffering brain damage. Varna was having none of that however, and refused to believe the mass murderer she loved so much was gone. She went on and on to him in his hospital bed as he stared off blankly into the middle distance, unable to understand her.

Elsewhere, the cause of everyone's misery was meeting with Edmund Roth. As he tried to convince Jenny Swensen to work for him and the C.I.A., she imagined ripping the man limb from limb in her M.A.X. suit. He seemed to want her to build it for him so desperately, she fantasized about doing so - and then tearing the sneaky kidnapper to tiny little pieces with it in a cathartic rage.

Of course, Jenny wasn't proving too amenable to Roth's proposition, so he played his trump card. This was of course a video recording of her father, Karl, inexplicably prompting her to a) respect Roth, and b) to be open minded about his proposals for using the M.A.X. technology for the government. All of this considering he'd been an avowed pacifist his entire life, a trait that got him killed.

Saying she'd 'think about it' to Roth, Jenny prepared to leave, her two week 'vacation' in Roth's compound finally coming to a close. By the time her airplane was ready, Jenny absolutely hadn't changed her mind, and left on the craft alongside another of Roth's 'guests', Jake Travest. As they flew off, Roth remained in his compound, working on a new computer generated Karl Swensen missive...

Once in the air, Jake tried repeatedly to strike up a conversation with Jenny, though she wasn't having any of it. She minded her own business despite Travest's incessant rambling, only pausing to check out the library on Roth's private plane. Finding the book she was looking for, one on astral navigation, she noted that the stars indicated that she was not flying to Boston as indicated before.

Once this was found out, she and Jake were greeted by a video recording made by Edmund Roth. It told them that as they'd determined, the duo were not flying to Boston (or Travest's home in Atlanta), but instead to Afghanistan. Why Afghanistan, you ask? You see, Roth had received intelligence that the Soviets had gotten their hands on M.A.X. technology, and he wanted the two to check it out.

Not that Jenny worked for him by any means. But when Travest had something of a meltdown after Roth threatened to release 'Slash', he leapt out of the plane soon afterwards... as did Jenny, who didn't want Travest to get killed down there in his wrecked mental condition. They did a H.A.L.O. jump and landed near two of Roth's contacts, both of whom were on horseback. Not that this lasted for long.

One of the Mujahedin was wiped out almost instantly... seemingly by a laser! Rallying with the surviving contact, Danjit, Jenny and Jake tried to flee the scene, though Danjit was captured by their laser-wielding foe. Jenny couldn't see it for sure, but the shape seemed to indicate that it was a Mark 1 M.A.X. suit, apparently sold to the Soviets by none other than the recently deceased Fritz Krotze!

Though they tried to elude one, the two found that there was a second M.A.X. lurking nearby, and it ambushed them from behind!

Issue 10:
Codename: Spitfire

Picking up immediately after the cliffhanger from issue 9, we rejoin Jenny Swensen and Jake Travest as they reel from the assault launched at them from dual Mark 1 M.A.X. suits! The two Americans were knocked off of the horse they'd claimed after its former occupant was killed by a M.A.X. moments ago, though Jenny was thinking fast, if not on her feet, by grabbing the lasso from her horse.

Knowing the characteristics of the Mark 1, Jenny threw one end of the rope to Jake, prompting him to help her trip the thing up as it advanced on them; while advanced, the Mark 1 couldn't stop once it was on an incline as steep as the one it barreled down at them on. Though the M.A.X. pilot tried to lase their rope, he failed to break it in time, and they easily toppled the knockoff suit.

After its detonation, the two apparently also rescued Danjit from the other M.A.X., and made their way to his rebel camp. There, they stayed with the Mujahedin rebels for several weeks, learning that the Soviets were testing out their M.A.X. technology in Afghanistan. Jenny didn't know if Krotze sold it to them directly or if they received it from the Club, but either way the results were the same.

The M.A.X. technology was being abused. Severely.

As Jenny and Jake tried to help Danjit's rebels to fight off the M.A.X. enhanced Soviets, Jenny began to get a handle on Jake's unique 'quirk' - his bizarre, multiple personality. The situation was essentially a stalemate for some time, until Jake slipped out of the camp one night to go 'hunting', and happened upon a lone M.A.X. suit. Thanks to Jenny's inside knowledge, he commandeered the armor.

Leaving its pilot beaten and broken, Jake returned ot the camp with the suit, though not having announced his plan, he almost died when Jenny took his suit out by shooting it in its weak point. Opening it up, Jenny and her allies found Jake inside, and got an incoherent story from him about how he got the thing, which he couldn't totally remember due to his 'blacking out' again.

Realizing that Jake had left the M.A.X. armor's pilot for dead, Jenny had several of Danjit's men go look for the hapless Russian, and they found him soon enough. They subjected the man to interrogation and sodium pentathol, but he wouldn't talk. That night, Jake broke into the Russian's cell and terrified him, threatening to kill him if he didn't talk. He quickly came around, and sang like a canary.

When Jake got out of control, Jenny appeared from nowhere to knock him out though.

Acting on the intelligence the Russian soldier offered, Jenny repaired the M.A.X. suit she'd disabled, and modified it to include a sonic disruptor weapon. This device was designed to disable the other M.A.X. armors the Soviets were testing, and the plan was to sneak it back into their secret base to zap them all before they knew what hit them. The trick was getting it there, however.

Knocking Jake out (again), Jenny carried him off towards the Russian base. Upon being spotted by them, Jenny feigned a radio malfunction to get them to open up, and as soon as they opened their secret door, the trap was sprung. Jake pretended to disable the M.A.X. suit with a 'secret weapon', and it gave off oodles of obscuring smoke. By the time the enemy arrived, Jake was missing.

Dragging the suit back into their base, the Soviets found that it, too, was empty. Furthermore, they found the sonic disruptor device - but it never had a chance to go off. You see, Danjit had made an extra modification to the captured M.A.X. suit, namely a bomb, and it went off before Jenny's device. Though furious, Jenny was mollified by Jake somewhat, who reminded her that this was war, here.

Even though she tried to defeat the Soviets without killing them.

With the Soviet M.A.X. operation destroyed - at least for now - Jenny and Jake were extracted by Roth's agents back to the United States. There, he met with them anew, and explained that he needed their unique abilities to deal with the M.A.X. threat, one which was rapidly expanding in a global fashion. Realizing that he may be right, Jenny reluctantly agreed to join Project: Spitfire!

Issue 11:
No Win

This episode of Codename: Spitfire begins off the coast of Nicaragua, where we find the brand new, Mark 3 M.A.X. suit being hauled out of the water. It's dragged to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, where the Spitfire team is standing by with a crash cart. Once the M.A.X. suit was on (relatively) solid ground, the Navy personnel on hand helped to extract a heavily burned Jennifer from the armor.

As Edmund Roth laments the failure of Jenny and Jake's mission, we find the fate of poor Mr. Travest as well. Though Jenny escaped the failure of their mission, Jake was captured by men loyal to Nicaragua's War Tiger, and was currently bound onto a medical exam table. As the War Tiger's men begin to torture Jake, we learn the villain is in cahoots with certain Soviet purveyors of M.A.X. technology.

Elsewhere, as Jenny is undergoing surgery to save her life, Edmund Roth is being railed at by the Secretary of Defense, who is furious that not only did Roth's team fail - but their failure was made public by the Nicaraguans! While she's under the knife, Jenny flashes back in her head to the events leading up to this situation. It started when she and Jake were flown into the jungle over Nicaragua covertly.

While Jake advanced on foot, Jenny flew in with her brand new M.A.X. suit towards a small base commanded by the War Tiger. The team was on location to both find a reporter being held captive by War Tiger, and to seek out M.A.X. technology that was supposedly being tested in the area by the Soviet Union. Upon entering the War Tiger's compound, the duo found out that there was indeed M.A.X. tech present.

This tech came in the form of an electronic scrambler, one which succeeded in disabling the new M.A.X. armor until War Tiger's men could almost shut it down with an assault helicopter. As War Tiger's men gunned Jake down, Jenny tried to deal with the helicopter attacking her, and though she succeeded, the damage was done. When her armor caught on fire, Jenny ditched in the ocean nearby.

With her operation complete, Jenny woke up in a haze, and wanted to immediately get back into her M.A.X. suit - it having since been fixed by Anne Pollicino - but Edmund Roth refuses, noting quite correctly that Jenny is being held together by stitches and little else. Of course, Jenny refuses to leave Jake to rot despite her general misgivings about his mental health.

Convincing Anne to help her, Jenny slowly makes her way to the M.A.X. suit. While it is not currently 100%, Jenny decides that it'll have to be enough, and rockets off in the thing even as Roth finds out what the two techies are up to. Shakily flying her way back to War Tiger's camp, Jenny arrives as the sadistic villain is working on Jake with a variety of medical tools to get information from him.

Though being armed with a large variety of highly advanced weapons, Jenny decides to instead pick up a jeep and hurl it at some of the War Tiger's goons. Before she can find her teammate, Jenny is menaced anew by an attack helicopter, but not being jammed as she was before, Jenny manages to handily take the enemy vehicle out. Surveying the area, she then locates Jake by his faint voice print.

Smashing her way into the building he was being tortured in, Jenny frees Jake from his restraints - only to be attacked by more of War Tiger's men. She deals with them by swiping their weaponry with a magnetic field generator in her gauntlet, and then chases them off. Collecting Jake, Jenny then flew back to the Karl Vincent, so that Jake (and herself) could get vital medical treatment.

Days later, the team is recovering from various procedures in the ship's medical bay, when Edmund Roth appears to chew them out. Despite having recruited multiple civilians and a deranged psychotic, he seems surprised that their spy mission in Nicaragua did not go as smoothly as planned. He then took the opportunity to say the whole idea - his idea to begin with - was probably a bad one...

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