Sunday, February 22, 2015

Avengerous Tales 1.10 - Avengers #19-#20


To read Avengerous Tales 1.9, go here!
 
Today’s tale begins not with The Avengers but with Strange Tales, which at the time featured stories about Dr. Strange (you probably could have guessed that) and, more importantly for our purposes, about White Nick Fury.

In Strange Tales #135, a historic event occurred: Nick Fury was put in charge of SHIELD.  SHIELD’s nemesis, Hydra, wasn’t too crazy about that and put out a hit on Fury, who spent most of #135-#136 running around in flying cars and stuff trying to defeat them.

Yes, this is relevant, I promise.  Head behind the cut to find out how!  (Was that shameless enough?)

Today’s tale begins with a guy calling himself Swordsman breaking into Avengers Mansion.  AGAIN.  Does Tony Stark just have a thing against locks?

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are quick to defeat the Swordsman, who then insists he was following the Hawkeye method of introductions and “testing” the Avengers to see if they were good enough for him to join them.  Aaaand then he proceeds to knock Quicksilver on his butt.  Geez, even Hawkeye knew when to give it a rest.
 
 
“I only broke into your house and knocked your brother unconscious!  WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING ME?”

As soon as Wanda knocks him out, Captain America shows up (oh, sure, now that the danger is past, you come running).  He looks up the Swordsman and discovers that he is a dangerous European criminal.  The time he spent Googling, however, could probably have been better spent cuffing the Swordsman, who soon wakes up and turns off the lights, enabling him to escape.
 
While Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver go after the intruder, Captain America slinks off to mope about how Nick Fury hasn’t written him in ages and why doesn’t he call and what if he doesn’t like me anymore???  Then Hawkeye shows up and is horrified to hear of the Swordsman’s appearance because, as it turns out, they used to know each other.

It’s SECRET ORIGIN TIME!!

 
I… I don’t think swords work that way.  Or boomerangs.

Long story short, Clint was an orphan who was taken in by the Swordsman, a circus performer, and trained by him to become an archer.  One day, he discovers the Swordsman stole money from the circus—hence the scene above—and that basically sours their relationship forever.  And by that I mean the Swordsman tries to kill Clint, assumes he succeeded, and leaves him for dead.  And I thought Batman was a tough father figure.  Although this does explain where Hawkeye got the bright idea to “audition” for the Avengers by breaking into their house.

Meanwhile, my synopsis of Strange Tales finally comes in handy as we see several Hydra agents spying on Nick Fury’s office.  It’s empty, of course, because Fury is out getting firebombed, but he conveniently left the letter in which Captain America asks for a job, unopened, on his desk.  The Hydra goons read the letter but get upset when it doesn’t contain any greeting cards with puppies on them and throw it into the street.

The letter is found by a nameless two-bit crook, who tries to sell it to the Swordsman for a thousand dollars.  The Swordsman promises to pay up… AFTER he’s used the letter to capture Captain America.  Something’s telling me the poor sap’s gonna be waiting for a really long time.

Speaking of Cap.

 
Gee, Cap sure seems excited about Fury “wanting” him, doesn’t he?  Sure hope no one takes this panel out of context or anything.

Cap happily ditches the Avengers like a fifth grader who just found some cooler kids to hang out with.  But as we already know, Fury’s response was faked.  Hawkeye soon learns that when he busts a couple of robbers, one of whom happens to be the opportunistic schmuck from earlier.  Hawkeye, still bitter about Cap running off, debates whether he should act on this information.

 
Hawkeye’s favorite pin-up is Thor.

The Swordsman, meanwhile, lures Cap to a warehouse and tries to fight him.  It takes him about a page to realize this was a bad idea.  An unlucky incident with a hydraulic lift knocks Cap unconscious, and the Swordsman takes him to the roof.

But the Avengers are hardly slackers—they’ve used a tracking device in Cap’s belt to locate him and speed to the rescue.  By the time they get there, the Swordsman has Cap at swordpoint at the end of a board on top of a construction site.  His demands?  Make him the Avengers’ new leader or watch Cap fall to his death.

 
“Not until you teach us how to set the clock on the microwave!”

To save the team from making such a decision, Cap takes the initiative and leaps from the roof.  That’s the end of the issue, so technically it’s a cliffhanger, but I’ve still got room to review one more comic in this post, so there goes the suspense.  I’m sure none of you could have predicted that the Avengers would use their powers to slow Cap’s fall until he could save himself.

 
The Swordsman, as you may imagine, is somewhat less impressed with their teamwork and tries to take them on single-handed.  Because that worked out so well before.  This time, however, much to everyone’s shock (including the Swordsman’s), he suddenly vanishes in the middle of the fight.  The Avengers each blame each other for failing to defeat the Swordsman and, still fuming, stomp off to HQ to try to figure this out.

Us readers don’t have to wait that long, though.  As it turns out, Swordsman has been abducted by someone who rather forcefully offers to upgrade the Swordsman’s sword so that he might actually stand a chance against the Avengers.  Swordsman isn’t exactly thrilled, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

 
blaaarraehuhajghldj

Okay look, I know the Mandarin is supposed to be “““Iron Man’s Greatest Nemesis””” or whatever, but I don’t see the appeal.  He’s just another jerk looking to TAKE OVER THE WORLD, and the only thing that makes him unique is the power rings, which are kinda cool but nowhere near enough to overcome the character’s hideously racist overtones.  I guess if I’d grown up reading the old comics or watching that hilariously awful ‘90s Iron Man cartoon (in which Mandy is depicted as a literal hobgoblin, which is clearly okay because it’s not like the U.S. has a history of drawing Asians as subhuman or anything), I’d be able to put on the nostalgia goggles and deal.  But I didn’t, so I can’t, so you get to read this long rant about why the Mandarin should have been permanently killed off decades ago.

Ahem.

The Avengers, meanwhile, have completely forgotten that they’re supposed to be looking for the Swordsman and bicker amongst themselves over who should lead the team.  The only things Hawkeye and Quicksilver can agree on is that Captain America stinks at his job and that they hate each other.

 
Yeah, Wanda, quit being a supportive sister and go make the team some sandwiches.

Out of the blue, Iron Man shows up, insisting that they’ve all misunderstood poor woobie Swordsman because he himself sent the guy to join the Avengers.  Obviously, this isn’t the real Iron Man—rather, it’s an image projected by the “oriental oddball” (ACTUAL QUOTE) and his reluctant stabby sidekick.  But the Avengers buy it, at least enough to let Swordsman onto the team.

And of course, the second the Avengers’ backs are turns, he plants a bomb that the Mandarin will set off from the safety of his castle hideaway.  He has one regret, however, and that is that the Scarlet Witch is “too beautiful” to be harmed.  Geez, she might as well be a statue from the way he’s talking about her.  What is this, The Swan Princess?

 
“YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL!  YOU’RE ALL I’VE EVER WANTED!”
“THANK YOU BUT WHAT ELSE?”
“WHAT ELSE IS THERE?”

At least the Swordsman is a villain, so he has an excuse for being a clueless jerk.

But the Mandarin cares not for Swordsman’s obsessions and visits him in the night like the Ghost of Christmas Racist to say that he will be exploding the bomb tonight.  The Swordsman, much like Wonder Man before him, has an abrupt change of heart and detaches the bomb from the control panel, which apparently means it can no longer be detonated for some reason.  Unfortunately for him, just as he's completing his good deed, he is busted by Captain America.

 
“I can explain”?  Uh, no, I really don’t think you can, though I’d like to see you try.

The Avengers attack, but thanks to his Mandarin-modified sword, the Swordsman escapes into the night.  (All the best products are made in China. *slaps self*)  However, the minute he’s out the door, the bomb the Swordsman is still holding is detonated by the Mandarin… even though the Swordsman JUST SAID detaching the bomb from the control panel meant it COULDN’T be detonated.  And if the Mandarin could have blown it up the whole time, why didn’t he do it five minutes earlier?  Then Swordsman and the Avengers would all be dead, just like he wanted.

But of course, the Swordsman managed to get rid of the bomb just in time (he’s Batman?).  He laments that he is now enemies with both the Avengers AND the Mandarin.

I’m not really sure what to make of these issues.  The Swordsman is clearly not a nice dude, but… was his desire to join the Avengers sincere?  Before teaming up with Mandy, he doesn’t appear to have had any other motivation for trying to join Earth’s Mightiest Heroes besides genuinely wanting to be a hero.  But if that’s the case, we never get any explanation for why the Swordsman would want to turn over a new leaf after trying to murder young Clint and terrorizing Europe, and he clearly wasn’t ready to reform if his first reaction to being rejected was to put out a hit on Captain America.

Also, I don’t see the purpose of having the Swordsman be a figure from Hawkeye’s past.  After Hawkeye explains the situation to Cap, it’s never brought up again—there’s no indication that the Swordsman even recognizes his former protégé.  I doubt it was used as an excuse to make Hawkeye belligerent towards his new team member.  He’s already belligerent towards everybody else for no reason.

Maybe it comes up again later, though.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

To read Avengerous Tales 1.11, go here!

Images from Avengers #19 and Avengers #20

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