A man with an oddly shaped head, wearing clothes that were both too formal and too warm for the swamp, emerged from the aircraft. A floating, coffin-sized box followed him down the ramp on its own power and stopped behind him.

If one had been close enough to see it, one would have seen that the top of the box was made of durable glass. If one was close enough to look down inside the box, one would have seen the beautifully preserved body of a beautiful young woman with her hands folded over her chest, her eyes closed in the repose of death.

The odd-looking man made his way across the clearing, after checking that the ground he had landed his craft upon was stable enough to not let it sink down into the swamp. He then cleared his throat, and began walking westward, carefully steering the floating coffin before him. Beams of moonlight struck him through the shelter of the cypresses, and his face became clearly visible.

He had an egglike head, and wore a small pair of glasses that only served to make his head look bigger. The man walked with the shambling gait of one who almost never left the laboratory. But he was armed with a pistol that he held at the ready.

Two large bloodhounds leapt into his path. Their eyes glowed an unearthly green, and they growled at the odd-looking man. One bared its teeth at him, as the other one began to bay an alarm.

The egg-headed man raised his gun and readied himself to shoot at the dogs, if necessary. But the bloodhounds' alarm had sounded a general alert. The bushes began to rustle, and the forms of what were once men and women shuffled out of the little shanties that lined the way to the mansion.

The figures made their way slowly and determinedly toward him. Their clothes were rags, but they were rags that had once been finery. Strangely enough, none of the figures called out to one another as they approached the visitor. The only noise that could be heard was the shuffling of their feet on the swampy ground as they came nearer and nearer.

The egg-headed man knew that he was among the undead, and he began to regret his decision to come here.

"Halt, my servants!" a stern voice called out, echoing through the swamp. "This man is my guest, and is not to be harmed!"

The gathering undead kept shuffling forward, then seemed to stop and listen to the voice. Then at once, they stood still where they were, waiting for their next order.

A lone figure walked through the midst of his minions, who shuffled aside as he passed near them. He wore a dark mask and beaked cloak. A reversed white cross was painted on his dark, muscular chest. The talons on his booted feet raked the ground as he walked.

"Black Talon," the visitor said warily. "I am here, with your payment, and with my daughter."

Black Talon stepped forward and gazed down into the floating coffin, beholding the beauty of the young woman within.

"Ah, yes. I can see, Egghead, why you wish this young lady to live again." A hand with long, clawlike fingernails caressed the glass covering the young woman's body. "Did you bring my fee?"

"Of course, Talon," Egghead said. He produced a satchel full of thousand dollar bills, which the Talon took from him, trying not to seem too greedy.

"Then we are ready," the Talon responded. "Follow me."

As they walked back toward the house, Black Talon noticed Egghead grimacing at the shuffling forms of his servants as they went back to their shanties.

"My servants make you uncomfortable, hmm?" the Talon chuckled. "They are quite loyal, although once in a while I have to discipline them. They are the guests of a cruel man who used to own this very plantation. He was infamous for his mistreatment of his slaves, here in Louisiana. It was said that slaves would rather have taken their lives than have been sold to him.

"In a not-very-well-documented rebellion, one of my ancestors incited the slaves to massacre the master and his guests while they were having a party. Many of the slaves died or escaped in the rebellion, but none of the guests nor the master escaped alive. My ancestor returned to the killing ground, and used the dark power of the bokors to revive the bodies of the dead whites and turn them into his slaves. He revived the slaves who had died in the rebellion and turned them into a killer zombie elite. And this is the way it has been here for almost two centuries."

Egghead looked outside saw the arm of one of the servants who was carrying a pile of wood drop into a swamp puddle. The undead servant kept shuffling to his destination.

"They are a little old, and so are rotting away slightly. I should probably begin replacing them."

They entered the plantation house, which was lit with dozens of candles. A group of large zombies stood about inside the house, staring at Egghead as disapprovingly as the undead could. They were armed with swords and cudgels, and seemed to have been some of the slaves

"My guest, my loyal lieutenants. Leave us."

The zombies uttered what sounded like a collective growl and shuffled away, closing the door behind them.

"Come into my private chamber, Egghead. It is there that I will conduct the ceremony."

The two men and the beautiful girl in the floating coffin went through a hidden door into a chamber that looked as if it had once been a huge dining room. It had been converted into an unholy chamber, with an altar adorned with decorations the likes of which Egghead had never encountered.

"Take the young lady out of that coffin and lay her here," Black Talon said, gesturing with a clawed hand at the altar.

As Egghead entered the key combination to unlock the coffin, Black Talon removed his cloak to reveal lithely muscled arms, which he began to decorate with amulets to assist him in the casting of his dark spell.

The coffin opened and the freshest perfume dispersed through the dank air of the evil plantation. Egghead lovingly picked up the limp form of his daughter and placed her on the altar.

Black Talon was ready to cast his spell. "Leave us alone here until I call you back, Egghead. The secrets of dark voodoo are not for the uninitiated to know."

Egghead stepped back and thought a moment. Whatever instincts could pierce his driven, maniacal mind were telling Egghead to not leave his daughter alone with the evil magician. But he shook that thought away; he had given this practitioner a lot of money to perform this service, to do what Egghead's science had failed: to bring his daughter back to life.

He stepped out of the chamber and closed the door behind him. Egghead began to think of the events that had led to his seeking Black Talon's assistance.

Egghead had secretly broken into his daughter's dorm room at Gotham State College and had found Scott's letters lying about in her room. In the letters, Lang revealed his heroic alter-ego, Ant-Man. Egghead and Lang, as Ant-Man, had had their share of conflicts, and Egghead had taken his losses to the Mighty Mite personally. But he would not lose his daughter to his enemy.

So he arranged to have a bomb placed in Lang's car on one of the nights the two did not happen to be going out on a date. Egghead did not know, however, that Scott and Trish would go out on that fateful school night. He did not know that Scott and Trish would stop by a roadside convenience store long enough for Lang to get out to get snacks at the very moment Egghead triggered the car bomb's explosion.

Egghead triggered the explosion, and then rushed to the scene, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the burnt body of his foe being dragged from a flaming car. However, when he reached the scene, he instead saw his daughter being dragged from the car. Once Scott had Trish clear of the burning vehicle, he had rushed back into the convenience store to call for help. At that very moment, Egghead leapt from his hiding place and abducted his dying daughter, taking her back to his laboratory.

Egghead's daughter was, by all medical definitions, dead, but he was determined to bring her back to life. Egghead's work with embalming chemicals and the work of surgeons such as the Crime Doctor had repaired the effects of the burns and had preserved Trish's body, but no science could bring the spark of life back into Trish Starr.

Egghead kept her body preserved in a condition near to that of the day when he last saw her alive. He was determined to find a way, any possible way, to revive her. Recently, Scott Lang's death in the Stark CleanJet disaster had given Egghead a small measure of satisfaction, but he wanted his daughter back.

In desperation, Egghead acted on a lead from one of his criminal colleagues to contact the Black Talon, an evil caplata, or practitioner of evil voodoo, who was rumored to be able to make the dead walk again. It was not long before the two were in contact, and an agreement was made for Trish to be revived at the cost of 5 million dollars.

Egghead had to dig deep into his personal fortune and sell some of his research equipment to meet this cost, but he felt it was worth it. And that was why he was here, in this plantation house full of the trappings of the occult, waiting for his daughter to be brought back to life.

His daughter lay there on the altar, seemingly alive. She was breathing, and her dark eyes were opening.

"Patricia!"

Trish sat up slowly, recognizing her father's voice, and tried to figure out where she was. The first thing she saw clearly was her father running towards her.

"Father!?" the newly revived girl exclaimed.

"Patricia!" At this moment, Egghead stopped his mad dash towards his daughter, noticing that although she was apparently alive, her skin was a ghastly shade of white, and her lips were black and lifeless. Her hair was darker than the color it had been while she was alive. Egghead was horrified at the creature that had taken his daughter's place.

At this very same moment, the newly undead Trish recalled her realization, at the moment just before her death, that there had been a bomb planted in Scott's car, a bomb planted by her own father, and that her own father had been responsible for her death.

She recoiled in fear from her father's incipient embrace, crawling from the altar. But she was instantly lulled into calmness by a command from the Black Talon.

"She is alive, Egghead," he said in a satisfied tone as he put his dark cloak back on.

"Yes, but only half so," Egghead replied, looking into his daughter's pale eyes. "She is as pale as the moon! What have you done to her?"

"I have brought her back to life, as I promised," the Black Talon responded arrogantly, "but she will serve me now."

Egghead's daughter stood confidently now at Black Talon's side. "She will now be called Nocturna, and will serve me as long as I live, perhaps even longer. She will never be able to see the daylight, but will be strong and irresistible to men by night."

Egghead was shocked, both by the Black Talon's words and his overwhelming realization that his daughter had found him out, that she knew that her own father had engineered the car bombing that had taken her life.

He stumbled away, dazed, not even thinking about trying to get back all the money that he had given the Talon for the revivification. He made for the door, which was blocked by two of Black Talon's armed lieutenants.

Egghead drew his pistol and shot the lieutenants, which stunned them, for the moment. He opened the main plantation door and ran down the front steps.

"Get him, my servants!" commanded the Black Talon.

"Run, Egghead! You won't get far before my servants tear you apart." The Black Talon let out an evil, cackling laugh, like a demonic rooster's crowing, that echoed across the swamp.

As Egghead ran for his aircraft through the misty swamp, he saw the Black Talon's undead servants leaving their toil and shambling toward him. He was able to shoot some of the zombies with his pistol, but all this did was sever their undead limbs. They were on him in droves, now, and were accompanied by the undead bloodhounds who had blocked his passage before.

Egghead pressed the remote control button to fire up the engines of his aircraft. Even though he was about twenty feet away from his vehicle, it looked as if Egghead would be clawed to death by the undead, and forced to join their ranks, along with his daughter.

But he was getting nearer to the means of his escape. With zombies snatching at him, he finally managed to reach his VTOL-craft, jump into the pilot's seat, and take off. The forms of the insistent undead clung to the aircraft as it rose into the air, but then they fell off into the swamp water below.

As he flew away, Egghead knew that his path would soon cross that of the Black Talon again. And he would have revenge for the Black Talon's treachery, and he would have his daughter back, no matter what it took.