Avengerous Tales 1.4 - Avengers #7-#8

To read Avengerous Tales 1.3, go here!

 

Hey all!  Yet again, I’m going to provide you with some backstory before we start the official review so that everything will make more sense.

In Tales of Suspense #56, Tony had a bit of a midlife crisis and decided to quit being Iron Man and start having fun with his life instead.  (For what it’s worth, ‘having fun’ largely consisted of being a jerk to his friends.)  The other Avengers tried to call Iron Man to go after a new villain called the Unicorn (I’ll give you a second to stop laughing), but Tony told them that Iron Man was on “vacation” and therefore unavailable.  If you’re wondering why the other Avengers couldn’t just go after the Unicorn themselves, well… um… I don’t know, Bonanza was on?

Long story short, the Unicorn attacks Stark Industries, thus forcing Iron Man back from “vacation” and snapping Tony out of his very brief “I do what I want” phase.

Also of importance is Journey into Mystery #103.  All you need to know is that the Enchantress and the Executioner (in their very first appearance) tried to banish Thor’s love interest, Jane Foster, to limbo, and in Avengers #7, Odin exiles them to Midgard as punishment.  Not punishment for attacking Jane, mind you—Odin hates her and was totally on board with that part—but for attacking Thor.  Uh, I’m sorry, but why is Loki considered Thor’s arch-nemesis and not Odin?

Issue Seven begins with the Avengers interrogating Iron Man for failing to answer a call to assemble.  Iron Man takes the fifth when they ask what’s up—and since they’ve all agreed not to pry into each other’s personal lives, he’s allowed to do that.  Still, as a result of this failing, the Avengers basically ground him for a week, i.e. go to bed without your avenging, young Iron Man, and you think about what you did.  And no dessert, either.

But that’s all window dressing.  The real tale begins with the exile of the Enchantress and the Executioner.  Unfortunately, their exile failed to come with a visitors’ guide, so our down-on-their-luck villains have trouble fitting in.

 

I WALK A LONELY ROAD
THE ONLY ONE THAT I HAVE EVER KNOWN
DON’T KNOW WHERE IT GOES
BUT IT’S HOME TO ME AND I WALK ALONE

The Enchantress is a bit cleverer than her henchman and decides they need a native earthling to show them where all the best villain lairs are.  After reading a newspaper headline, she decides to recruit our old buddy Baron Zemo.

Meanwhile, we find out what Captain America likes to do in his spare time: go down to the local gym and pay for the privilege of humiliating their best wrestlers in combat.  As you can imagine, the fight does not last long and soon Cap is back home, angsting over Bucky yet again.  I guess it’s understandable enough—watching someone you care about die and not being able to prevent it, and then “dying” yourself, must be traumatizing. 

Said trauma is not helped when Replacement Bucky, who I guess is living with him now and is referred to as Cap’s “young friend” (uh… ew?), decides to root through Cap’s closet and try on the original Bucky’s outfit.

 

A few things here:

1. Please stop talking, you’re making me uncomfortable.

2. Snooping through people’s closets and putting on their dead… partner’s… clothes without permission is the very definition of BEYOND UNCOOL, and Replacement Bucky totally deserved to get yelled at.  Seriously, what is wrong with you.

3. How did that Bucky outfit even get there?  I’m pretty sure Bucky died in it, and even if that’s a spare, wouldn’t it have gone to the military or a friend or even a museum someplace?  How did Cap get it?

4. Is Rick his Replacement Bucky or not?  Cap keeps taking him on all of the Avengers’ missions and training him for a sidekick role, but here he’s saying that he doesn’t want a new partner at all…?  I’m not crazy about the kid, but either make him your sidekick or quit leading him on.

5. I mean ‘quit leading him on’ in EVERY sense of the word, you dang creeper.

Anyway, back with Zemo, who is once again being a jerk to the natives in whatever corner of South America he has conquered.  Enchantress projects an image of herself and the Executioner to visit Zemo and offer a team-up.  Zemo is surprisingly trusting and accepts the deal pretty much the second they mention he’d be able to get vengeance on Captain America with their help.

The Avengers, as always seems to happen just when they’re about to be needed, have split up.  Giant-Man and Wasp are off to New England for some insect-based research, Thor is off doing whatever, and Iron Man is presumably in his room grousing about how he didn’t want dessert anyways, so that leaves Captain America and Replacement Bucky to deal with the mysterious stranger, who introduces himself as an ex-ally of Zemo, who sneaks up on them.

 

Cap runs off after Zemo, instructing Replacement Bucky to stay behind.  In case you hadn’t guessed, the ex-Nazi is really the Executioner, who has lured Cap away so that Thor will have no back-up when the Enchantress puts him under a spell in what I’m pretty sure is the only time Thor has been mind-controlled without the controller taking the opportunity to rape him.  You just wish I was kidding.

But that’s a story for another day.  For now, Enchantress just makes Thor think the Avengers are his enemies with the aid of this spectacular panel.

 

Have I mentioned that I love Jack Kirby?  Do I even need to?

Thor lures Giant-Man and the Wasp back to New York, where he promptly attacks his fellow Avengers.  Iron Man sees a news report about the incident and decides that, grounded or not, he is going to that party.  Before long, it’s a free-for-all in the middle of New York City, much to the pleasure of our amoral Asgardians.

Meanwhile, in South America, Cap fights off Zemo and the native people who are forced to fight for him.  Zemo tries to make a break for it, but Cap uses his magnetized shield (remember last issue when Cap fanboyed all over Iron Man for making the magnets for him?) to hitch a ride on the outside of Zemo’s plane.  And you thought economy class was uncomfortable.

Back with the Avengers, Iron Man ends Enchantress’s mind control by… flashing some sunlight into Thor’s eyes.  Apparently the Enchantress borrowed her spell from a vampire, because it’s only weakness is sunlight.

 

D’awww, lookit his widdle face.  He looks like a kid asking his parents if Santa Claus is real.  Which, considering this is the Marvel universe, he probably is.

 

Zemo’s plane arrives not long after, and he meets up with Enchantress and Executioner.  They knock out Captain America and try to fly to safety, but Thor creates a space warp with his hammer and sends them off to… somewhere.  Guess they’re someone else’s problem now.  And of course, “over there” has to take care of itself, so potentially inflicting three powerful and evil individuals on a populace unable to fight them is totally okay.  Thanks, Thor!

Before we start with Issue Eight, I just want to point out something about this cover.

 

No one wants to see the Teen Brigade in action, Marvel.  They are non-characters shoved into the spotlight to give the teen boys reading this comic a chance to put themselves into the action without writing any terrible Gary Stu self-insert fanfiction that will later come back to haunt them when their parents discover it hidden under their beds long after they’ve forgotten about it and moved out for college.  Either give the Teen Brigade some actual personalities or make them GO AWAY.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s begin.

The Avengers are telecommuting with the Pentagon.  Oh, and Replacement Bucky is there too, even though we plainly saw last issue that Cap doesn’t WANT a Replacement Bucky, so a) why did he train him to be, and b) what is he doing at a high security meeting with the government?  You’d think the Pentagon would object to random teenagers listening in on such sensitive meetings.

Well, that’s the Pentagon’s problem, not mine.  Nameless General tells us about a UFO in Virginia that has a vibration ray capable of destroying tanks.  The UFO’s only occupant is this guy, Kang the Conqueror…

 

…who I assume was on his way to an intergalactic midnight showing of Rocky Horror.  Rock those thigh-highs, Kang!  Also, shut up Jan.

Kang wants to conquer the world, hence his name, so the Avengers head on down to Virginia to try to talk him out of it (as you saw above).  Unfortunately, Kang has better toys than they do and handily hands them their heinies.  That’s when some Department of Defense guy shows up and gets Kang monologuing about his origin.  The ten-cent version of it is that he’s a bored time-traveler who’s made a hobby of going to different time periods to see if he can conquer them.  It’s more complicated than that (duh, it’s comics), but if I explain it all now, you’ll probably forget by the time it actually becomes relevant in future comics and I will be too lazy to explain it all again.  So.

The Avengers try to stop him (again) and are repelled (again).  Wasp tries to futz with the power source in Kang’s helmet, but…

 

DAMMIT JANET.

Kang uses an electro-doohickey to suck the Avengers into his ship, keeping them each hostage in individual cells.  Only Wasp and Replacement Bucky get away, and they devise a two-pronged plan: Wasp will search Avengers HQ for any weapons that might be able to stop Kang, while Replacement Bucky gathers his Teen Brigade to infiltrate Kang’s ship and search for the missing Avengers.  In other words, according to this comic, teenage boys are better suited to go on dangerous espionage missions, while the only thing the fully-grown* female Avenger is good for is playing fetch.

Let me repeat that.

TEENAGE BOYS are more reliable on DANGEROUS, POTENTIALLY DEADLY missions than AN ADULT WOMAN who has been involved in handling dangerous missions before.  And NO ONE sees a problem with this.  Ugh, is it the eighties yet?  I know the eighties were awful for, well, pretty much every other Avenger, but at least they made Jan useful by then.

Anyway, the Teen Brigade goes up to Kang and says they want to be on his side.

 

They may be wise, but Kang sure isn’t.  Yes, Mr. Conqueror, just let the random teenagers who you know nothing about wander inside your ship at random.  That can only end well.

By sheer coincidence and random button-pushing, Replacement Bucky frees Thor, who in turn smashes the other Avengers free.  Meanwhile, Wasp has found a gun-looking thing, but considering it was invented by Tony and modified by Hank, it probably shoots magnetized ants.

 

Or that.

Kang tries one last ditch effort to defeat the Avengers: he has his mask emit radiation that he is immune to but that will kill humans.  Thor’s hammer absorbs all of the radiation, though, and Kang hops aboard his ship and time warps his way to another era.  IT’S JUST A JUMP TO THE LEFT—

So not to give Kang ideas or anything, but since he’s a time traveler, why doesn’t he just travel back to the time his battle with the Avengers started?  He knows where he went wrong now—all he has to do is start over, disintegrate the Teen Brigade, and boom.  Victory.

Speaking of the Teen Brigade… nah, I won’t complain about them anymore.  From what I remember, they didn’t last long as supporting “characters” in the grand scheme of things, so we’ll just wait them out.

Sadly, this rather weak and annoying issue marks the end of Jack Kirby’s run on The Avengers, although he continues to draw the covers for a while.  Starting next issue we get art by Don Heck, who was also drawing Tales of Suspense at the time.  He’s good.  You’ll like him.  His faces look a little weird sometimes, but hey, whose don’t?

To read Avengerous Tales 1.5, go here!

 

Images from Avengers #7 and Avengers #8

*In absolute fairness, Wasp’s first appearance in Tales to Astonish #44 indicates that she is young also, and Hank has referred to her as “kid” at least once that I can remember.  That being said, a) in Avengers #227, Hank tells us that Jan was “barely twenty” when she became the Wasp, so she definitely was an adult if a very young one, and b) Wasp is an actual Avenger and should be the one taking on the dangerous missions instead of sending civilians.  That’s like Superheroing 101.