Avengerous Tales 1.11 - Avengers #21-#22

To read Avengerous Tales 1.10, go here!

I love how Wanda looks like she’s swooning on the cover of Issue Twenty-One.  “Oh Pietro, my brother, that Power Man is so hot!  Please bring me my smelling salts before I am overcome!”
 

I’m gonna let Stan Lee open today’s review.

“Have never known aught but victory”?  I mean, I expect anything written by Stan Lee to be over the top, but has he read this comic?  I don’t think he’s read this comic.  In their four issues of existence, this “new team of Avengers” fought the Mole Man to a stalemate—it could even be argued that Mole Man won, since he basically kicked them all out of his house—and let the Swordsman slip through their fingers.  How do those qualify as victories, exactly?  Because nobody died?  That is such a low bar to set that Hank Pym could hop over it while ant-sized.

Anyway, we begin with Hawkeye trying to change a fuse in the control panel.  Cap catches him at it and flips a gear, since the equipment is so expensive and delicate that only Tony Stark is allowed to touch it.  Seems impractical, but okay.
 

 

I know I’ve joked about Tony and Steve crushing on each other before, but I am legitimately beginning to wonder.

The Avengers fight each other some more (shocking, I know), before we leave for a location where something is actually happening.  Specifically, South America!  Man, we haven’t been there since Avengers #15, when Zemo accidentally killed himself.  Ironically, the exact opposite has happened for Erik Josten, one of Zemo’s former soldiers.  A wanted criminal, he has taken to hiding out in the jungle and searching for Zemo’s old laboratory, where he turned Simon Williams into Wonder Man.

Just as Erik is weighing the pros and cons of using dangerous equipment to give himself the same powers that killed Williams—you’d think DEATH would be a huge check in the con column, but anyway—the Enchantress suddenly pops up.  Apparently she’s been keeping an eye on the old lab because [insert reasons here], and when Erik arrives, she offers to help him out in the hopes that he’ll succeed where Wonder Man failed. 

 

I somehow doubt St. Nick approves of your activities here.

What is this, the second time the Wonder Man plot has been redone?  First with Kang and his Spider-bot, and now with Enchantress and this loser.  Marvel must have really thought it was a good story.  And it was, which is why they should stop trying to remake it already.

The machine works—but with the same caveat about Erik needing regular injections so he doesn’t keel over—and Enchantress gives him a costume she just happened to have lying around for absolutely no reason.

Back at Avengers HQ, the all-but-forgotten-and-with-good-reason Teen Brigade call in to report a monster roaming around outside.  The Scarlet Witch is oddly skeptical about this, given they fought the flipping Minotaur a few issues ago, but off they go anyway.

 

The Avengers keep trying to stop the monster, causing more and more destruction to the city, until the monster conveniently disappeared just as the cops show up.  Needless to say, they aren’t impressed.  But the Enchantress and the newly-dubbed Power Man (Luke Cage called.  He wants a word with you.  With his fists.) are quite pleased with the way her illusion worked out.

And that’s just the start of their anti-Avengers campaign.  After making it look like our heroes purposefully blew up a train AND that Cap was trying to stop Power Man from stopping some robbers, our dastardly duo “lets slip” to a newspaper where Power Man’s hideout is.  Hawkeye, unhappy about the treatment his team has been receiving, immediately snaps up the bait.

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch independently decide to investigate the hideout as well, which is a good thing for Hawkeye since he’s getting his butt handed to him.

 

Why do I get the feeling he’s speaking from personal experience?

Regardless, the Avengers lose this fight, and Power Man calls the police and has them arrested for trespassing on his property.  That’s the last straw for all the cranky white guys on the city council (a.k.a. the entire city council) and they vote to force the Avengers to disband.  How they plan to force a group of super-powerful beings to do something they don’t want to is never brought up.

 

Yeah, it’s all Cap’s fault for making you investigate Power Man’s hideout!  Oh, no, wait, that was literally everyone else but Cap’s idea.  At this point, I am imagining Cap as John Adams from 1776—“Consider yourselves fortunate that you have Steve Rogers to abuse, for no sane man would TOLERATE IT!!”

But Hawkeye’s words apparently strike a chord with Quicksilver, because Issue Twenty-Two starts with, big surprise, MORE INFIGHTING.  The original Avengers didn’t always get along great either, but at least they learned eventually… after driving Hulk from the team, but still.  Eventually.  These idiots just can’t seem to pull themselves together.  If they spent as much time fighting villains as they did each other, maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Eventually, the fighting dies down and the ex-Avengers go their separate ways, sort of.  Cap strikes out on his own to angst, while the other three try to break into show business.

 

That’s okay, guys, I’m sure MTV will scoop you up for a sleazy reality show in no time.

Just as they’re starting to lose hope, they get a telegram from a circus that is willing to hire them.  True, it’s a circus run by the Ringmaster, an evil hypnotist, and his equally-evil underlings, but don’t tell the Avengers that.  It’ll spoil the surprise.  Besides, they find out soon enough and have no choice but to defend themselves against the Circus of Crime.

Unfortunately for them, the Ringmaster pulls the same trick that Power Man did: he calls the cops and accuses the Avengers of throwing the first punch.  Having superpowers, the Avengers escape, but now their futures look dimmer than ever.  The police have officially started a manhunt for the wayward heroes, and the public is divided right down the middle regarding whether or not the team deserves it.

 

I really have nothing to add to this.  Is “pickles” a metaphor for something?  Know what, I don’t even care, this is hilarious.  This is going right up there with “don’t gimme that keg o’ horse apples, ya lop-eared yahoo” on my list of favorite lines from a comic book.

Back with Power Man and the Enchantress, where Power Man continues to address her as “baby” and “doll” and completely ignores her when she tells him to cut it out, jerkoff.  Instead of smiting the pompous misogynist jerk like she should, Enchantress just tells him to get the door.

Their visitor is a press agent, who tries to sell them his services by suggesting they form a new team of Avengers and even tries to take credit for the Avengers’ break-up.

 

But the Enchantress figured it out too late: press agent is actually a disguised Captain America, who recorded the entire incriminating conversation.  Power Man beats him up, but fortunately, the other ex-Avengers show up just in time to finish the job.  (Apparently, our heroes all kept their transceivers on them after the break-up, and Cap accidentally hit the emergency signal during the fight.)  Enchantress promptly abandons Power Man, who doesn’t see the point in continuing the battle if he doesn’t have his lady love beside him.  Because apparently even though he made a habit of ignoring and demeaning the woman he claims to love, I’m supposed to feel sorry for him when she checks out, which, HA, no.

 

So basically, while Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Hawkeye threw in the towel at the first sign of trouble and got out of crime-fighting altogether, Captain America refused to give up and got enough evidence together to clear all of their names.  What do you idiots have to say to that?

 

And then Cap declares that he is permanently leaving the Avengers and storms off.  Good for him.

I think what we’ve got here is a classic case of “be careful what you wish for.”  Early on, I complained that the Avengers were too dull and didn’t have any personalities, and now that we have new Avengers who do have personalities, half of them are douchebags, and half of the half that weren’t just walked out on us.  I am reeeaaally sick of seeing heroes fighting heroes—I don’t expect everyone to agree all the time, but why do we even have supervillains if the superheroes are just going to spend all their time squabbling amongst themselves?

And since Issue Twenty-One brought up the Teen Brigade, I figure now would be a good time to ask: where the heck did Replacement Bucky go?  He abruptly vanished with no explanation after Issue Sixteen.  He hasn’t rated so much as a mention in The Avengers or in Cap’s solo adventures in Tales of Suspense in ages.  What gives? 

For the answer to that burning question… well, no, that question isn’t really burning.  Smoldering, at best.

For the answer to that smoldering question, we must turn back the clock a bit.  Remember in Avengers #17 when the Avengers went after the Hulk and just kept missing him, unbeknownst to them?  Well, the full tale of the Hulk’s adventures that day is recounted in Tales to Astonish #69, which you may recognize as Ant-Man’s old book but has now been turned over to the Hulk and, eventually, the Sub-Mariner.

Anyway, the Hulk is being chased by the Army, who believe that he collaborated with Bruce Banner to steal some technobabble.  Rick Jones overhears General Ross’s orders—because CLEARLY a huge military base has no security and allows a random teenager to wander the grounds at will—and decides that he must forsake his place at Captain America’s side to help his old friend.

And then he got thrown in jail and blabbed Hulk’s secret identity to the army and all sorts of fun stuff.

To read Avengerous Tales 1.12, go here!

Images from Avengers #21 and Avengers #22