The 1963 Markway Group (1963-1968)

Inception – The Markway Group was created in 1963 by the US government as an unofficial investigative team that would be on hand to assist the FBI. Designated as "X-Files," these investigations were primarily supernatural in origin; mansion hauntings, satanic cults, vampires, etc. That stated, the group was also known to investigate mundane serial killers and extraterrestrial life, although, given the existence of the clandestine Men in Black, and many 50s era "Spaceman" heroes still being active at the time, they were rarely needed to handle the latter. While the team was originally supposed to simply consult governmental authorities, as all of the members of the group were civilians and thus seen as having no place in potentially violent missions, it became clear within a few months of their creation that the group was more than capable of directly confronting whatever dangers they discovered in their cases, and that outside interfere was usually more of a liability than a boon.

Members

Dr. John Markway - Famous supernaturalist specialized in hauntings but also interested in various other paranormal activity. Regarded as a quack for most of his academic career, the events of his Hill House investigation finally got him reclaim, though the tragic circumstances of his rise to notoriety haunted him. Given his newfound attention in the public eye, Markway was approached by the government to lead their new paranormal investigation group and to recruit extraordinary people for it. While initially hesitant to accept such a role given what happened at Hill House, Markway nevertheless agreed after prompting from his wife.

Theodora Bloom - A bohemian psychic capable of sensing otherworldly forces in "thin places" like the infamous Hill House where she first meet Markway. Theodora, or Theo as she preferred to be called, was a lesbian with a long-time partner and was loosely involved with the 60s gay rights movement, and the wider counter-culture movement, but typically hid this information from others until she firmly trusted them. An outspoken and vibrant individual, Bloom tended to be the voice of reason in the group whenever Markway or Addams got carried away during an investigation.

Gomez Addams - An eccentric billionaire with an equally eccentric family. While seemingly just a mortal man with no supernatural abilities, Addams possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the supernatural that many sorcerers would envy. Incredibly charming and seemingly immune to fear, Addams was the most physical member of the group and would constantly be the first to leap into action if a fight was inevitable.

Sabrina Spellman - Descended from a long line of witches and warlocks from the centuries-old township of Greendale, Spellman was a teenage witch with various magical abilities. Given her young age, and her aunts decision to homeschool her instead of sending her to the American wizard academy of Ilvermorny in New York City, Spellman was inexperienced when it came to actually using her powers and would sometimes have them backfire on her. Regardless, Spellman was determined to show her worth and learn as much about the supernatural as possible, so much so that when Markway came to recruit one of her aunts for his group, she managed to convince him that she would be a better choice.

Dr. James Xavier - The group's most enigmatic member, Xavier was once a renowned optometrist who had found a way to create experimental eye-drops that could increase the average range of human vision. Unfortunately, his decision to use himself a test subject would turn out to be a tragic one as his eyes began to see things beyond human comprehension. The experience left him a broken man and while he did accept Markway's offer to join the group and use his strange ocular abilities for good, he never warmed to his fellow investigators and was very much a loner.

Team Dynamics – Good. Markway recruited them all personally, having been given total autonomy in assembling the team on account of the government not wanting to be too responsible for the group in case their experiment in recruiting civilians failed spectacularly. Thus, many of those recruited were friends or respected colleagues of Markway who shared his interest in investigating the paranormal. Addams and Markway, in particular, had been long-time friends before the group was formed, with Addams acting as Markway's biggest patron for his paranormal experiments. As already mentioned, Markway knew Bloom from his investigation of the Hill House haunting. While the events of that case had ultimately ended in tragedy, the two still kept contact with each for emotional support, forming a genuine friendship, with Markway even meeting Bloom's partner. Spellman was initially seen as particularly vulnerable by many of her teammates and was kept out of more intense confrontations the group encountered during their earliest cases, regardless of the fact that her abilities made her its most powerful member. This would change after Spellman, used the full scope of her magical abilities to save the group in a particularly difficult case. Afterwards, her relationship with the group became much more positive, especially with Bloom who taught her meditative techniques to hone her powers. Xavier was a distant loner, who while always willing to follow Markway's orders and assist his fellow investigators, never really warmed to them and would at times seem to be entirely engrossed in his own head. Given the nature of his abilities, this may have been literally true.

Cases

- The group's first case took them to Ivy Town, New York, where Triffids, a plant-based alien form that had ravaged the world only a few years ago, suddenly re-emerged there in the thousands, leaving most of the town's residents blind or dead. With a small military escort, the group infiltrated Ivy Town and tried to find the source of the infection before the military was forced to destroy the town entirely to stop the infestation from spreading further. With Xavier's abilities the group was able to find the cause of the infestation in Ivy University where Jason Woodrue, or the Floronic Man, had resurrected the Triffids and crossbreed them with the 'Audrey Jr' Venus flytrap strain in an attempt to take over the world. After successfully making an incredible escape from the Floronic Man's army of 'Neo-Triffids' due to Spellman using an experimental teleportation spell, the group was able to talk General Thaddeus E. Ross into allowing her to teleport several warheads into the heart of the Floronic Man's lair, hopefully ensuring that civilian causalities in the town would be kept to a minimum. As luck would have it the plan was a success and with the death of the Floronic Man, his supposedly superior Neo-Triffids immediately decayed into sludge. (1963)

- Going all across the states, and even abroad, to numerous haunted mansions, castles, hospitals, asylums, and even beaches. For the most part, many of these cases turned out to be hoaxes, but in some powerful spirits unwilling to move on were encountered. One of the most notable of such cases was in 1963, when the group attempted to help a young women who was being relentlessly pursued all across Utah by a carnival of spirits only to realize that she had been dead all along and that the spirits chasing her were simply trying to get her to accept this and move on. A perhaps even more tragic case in 1967 had them go to Los Angeles and banish the spirit of a young psychic girl who was killed after she herself had been possessed by several malicious spirits. (1963-1968)

- When the group is tasked with bringing in the Munster family for the crime of being a clan of literal monsters, Addams, Bloom, and Spellman outright refuse to comply with the order and even defend the Munsters when General Ross and a task force of B.P.R.D agents are sent to do the job for them. Before a violent confrontation between the two could occur though Markway, with the aid and political clout of B.P.R.D director Trevor Bruttenholm, was able to get the B.P.R.D agents to refuse the order as well, leaving Ross with no paranormal experts to detain the Munsters. Realizing that antagonizing their only two paranormal agencies for the sake of capturing one family of non-violent monsters wasn't worth the effort, government withdraws their order. (1964)

- In 1964, when the town of Peaksville, Ohio inexplicably disappeared leaving nothing but a crater, Markway theorized that the town could be located using Xavier powers. Tapping into the vast range of his abilities, Xavier was able to find the town trapped in a pocket-dimension. Together with Spellman's magic, the group transported themselves into this realm and investigated what caused the disappearance. It didn't take long for them to get the terrified townsfolk to admit that the one behind their disappearance was a sociopathic six-year-old boy with reality-warping powers beyond anything the group had ever encountered. When Addams tried to use his parenting skills to emotionally connect to the child and convince him to return the town back to Earth, he was banished to the mysterious "Cornfield" for his trouble while the rest of the group became the child-god's playthings like everyone else in the town. Fortunately, after a week of torture and humiliation, Markway came up with a plan. Believing that the boy was a mutant like the infamous psychic children that terrorized a British village in 1960, albeit one far more powerful, Markway thought that the boy could be killed if they shielded their minds with a similar mental trick used on the children at Midwich, allowing the group to bypass the boy's telepathy and kill him while he was unaware. The plan, unfortunately, failed when Markway was unable to kill the child with an improvised shiv while Bloom, Spellman, and Xavier distracted him. Miraculously though, before the boy could send them all to the Cornfield, Spellman was able tap into a wellspring of anger and frustration that had been building since she was forced to be the boy's "girlfriend," unleashing a stream of dark magic that destroyed the god-brat before he could even react. With his death, Peaksville immediately returned to Earth and everyone, including Addams, was returned from the Cornfield safe and sound. (1964)

- A spree of serial murders in rural California led the group to discover the last remaining descendants of the Webber clan, a family of inbred homicidal murderers cursed with a genetic defect called Merrye Syndrome. Originally believed extinct months ago after their familial estate was destroyed in a dynamite explosion, the Webbers had actually survived the explosion by hiding in a vault underneath their estate, afterward continuing their family's long tradition of murder and cannibalism. Fortunately, once the group was able to locate their underground hideaway the trio of murderers were quickly detained and sent to Arkham Asylum in Gotham, New York for experimental treatment. Unfortunately, they like many other inmates of Arkham Asylum, were able to escape the facility in 1969. Their current whereabouts are still a mystery, though many in the FBI theorize that the three Webber children may have gone to Texas where their equally infamous distant cousins the Sawyers resided. (1967)

- Saving not just the state of Pennsylvania, but possibly the entire world when the recently deceased in the state began to 'live' again as cannibalistic walking corpses. Desperate to cure this plague before it could spread further, the group captured one of the ghouls, took it to the Philadelphia office of STAR Labs, and performed an examination on the creature hoping for answers. While normal methods of an autopsy could find no natural, earthly cause for the reanimation, Xavier's increasingly farseeing eyes were able to detect an unknown form of cosmic radiation within the undead corpses. Connecting the origin of this strange to a space probe returning from Venus that had mysteriously exploded in low orbit, Xavier theorized that zombies would crumble if this Venusian radiation was destroyed. After escaping an almost overrun Philadelphia, the group was able to make their way to New York City where they brought their findings to Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. Together, Richards and Xavier were able to create a radiation cleanser using a customized version of Dr. Daisuke Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer as the payload. Within a week of detonating this bomb several miles above Pennsylvania, the ghouls across the state once again became inert harmless corpses. (1968)

- The final case the Markway Group undertook was investigating the opulent Bramford, New York City apartment complex after the body of a woman by the name of Rosemary Woodhouse was found brutally flayed there. Secretly notified of the murder by a small group of Aurors in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who feared that this obviously magical murder was being covered up by a conspiracy in the Magical Congress of the United States of America. With that information, the group decided to infiltrate the building by having Markway and Bloom pretend to be a married couple looking for a new home with Spellman as their daughter. Addams and Xavier meanwhile worked with the Aurors to uncover members of the conspiracy in the MACUSA. Within only a couple of days, it became clear that the tenets of the building were not who they claimed to be, with Bloom being able to sense malevolence in their thoughts. Unfortunately, the tenets also come to realize that newest family in their building was nothing of the kind, having identified Spellman as a descendant of the witches of Greendale. One night they ambushed the trio in their apartment, using spells of bondage to leave them hopeless. Dragging them to a secret basement the satanists revealed their Anti-Christ, a literal child of Satan created through the rape of the very women whose murder the group had been investigating. While technically only a few months old, the child had grown rapidly, appearing as an adolescent boy and possessing a much older mind. The child ranted about how he was destined to bring upon a new age, a dark millennia where he would rule over all humanity as a demonic demigod with his followers his dark apostles. Fortunately, Adams, Xavier, and several Aurors broke into the basement having managed to find the cabal of dark wizards who were shielding the satanists and force them to reveal the cult's apocalyptic motives. Regrettably, even with the rest of their teammates coming to the rescue and the Aurors knocking the satanists out with a sleeping spell, the Anti-Christ was far too powerful. With only a flick of his wrist, he flayed the Aurors alive and seemingly forced the entire Markway Group to kneel before him with his telekinesis. The sin of pride would be his undoing though as Markway had managed to hide amongst the corpses of the Aurors just before the Anti-Christ restrained his colleagues. Recognizing he only had one chance to catch the monster by surprise, Markway positioned himself behind the child as he continued to rant and was prepared to shot him in the back to save his team. Unfortunately, Markway still did not have the wherewithal to kill a child, even one that was the Anti-Christ, and hesitated allowing the child to notice him and attempt to kill him. Luckily, Bloom wasn't as hesitant, and as the Anti-Christ turned to around to kill Markway his telekinetic grip on the rest of the group was momentarily disturbed allowing Bloom to pull out her own hidden revolver and shot the child in the back killing him. (1968)

Dissolution – Feeling incapable and unworthy to lead the group after his second failure to do what needed to be done save his teammates, Markway decided to retire. With his departure, the other members believed that disbanding the group was only natural. The government officially considered the group disbanded in the fall of 1968.

Final Fates

As already mentioned in this report, Markway decided to retire, but not just from the investigation group but also from frontline paranormal studies in general, believing himself too physically and mentally exhausted to continue his studies despite the many assertions of his worth from his former colleagues. Instead, he would spend his retirement teaching at Miskatonic University as a professor of parapsychology, the position allowing him more time to spend with his family.

Bloom would likewise retire from investigating the paranormal and instead take on a new mission as an activist and leader for the growing LGBT movement in the United States with her partner. Recently Bloom married her partner in 2015.

Addams history after the Markway Group's disbanding is difficult to ascertain. If sources are to believed Addams and his family have sporadically been in the public eye, with the family having apparently almost lost their entire fortune in 1992 and somehow being involved with the gruesome Camp Chippewa Massacre and the then infamous "Black Widow" serial killer in the following year. If they were indeed involved in these events then it begs the question how Addams and his family have seemingly not aged since the 1960s and perhaps even beforehand.

Spellman returned to her hometown of Greendale as a young women who had gained a vast amount of life experience (and trauma) after spending five years with the Markway Group. Deciding that staying with her fellow witches in Greendale wasn't for her and inspired by the bravery of the Aurors during the Bramford Case Spellman joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in New York, quickly becoming one of its top agents in the next few decades.

Xavier fate would, unfortunately, be tragic. Within only a few years of leaving the Markway Group, Xavier's vision became even more powerful, allowing him to everything from microscopic material to astral planes beyond mortal understanding. The most powerful vision he saw though was that of their being a giant eye at the center of the universe that apparently belonged to an eldritch being of raw nuclear chaos. Driven mad by these visions and unable to contact his former colleagues for help, Xavier sought the aid of a Christian evangelist living in the desert. While we will never know what that priest told Xavier we do know that the brilliant optometrist ripped his own eyes and quickly died soon after. It is said that he died with a smile on his face.