To read Avengerous Tales 1.11, go here!
The moral of
today’s Avengerous Tale is that love conquers all, even when you are an actual conqueror,
as long as you are being written by a man in 1965.
Okay, so I’m no Aesop. So sue me.
So the remaining Avengers argue over who to blame for Cap leaving, and Hawkeye completely fails to take responsibility even when the Scarlet Witch explicitly calls him out for being an insufferable twit. (Of course, she neglects to blame her brother for also being a jerk to Cap, but anyway.)
Speaking of the
ex-Captain America, Steve gets a job upstate as a boxing trainer. I’d make a Rocky joke, but I haven’t seen it in years and I didn’t like it
enough to want to see it again. Make
your own, if you like.
But of course, a
superhero ain’t a superhero without a supervillain to face down, and that’s
where our old pal Kang the Conqueror comes in.
The extra floor is,
of course, a Kang-designed trap. It
doesn’t take him long to lure the Avengers into it—big surprise, dumping an
extra floor onto a building is really
flipping loud—and he sucks the oxygen out of the room, knocking them
out. Can’t wait to see how Hawkeye
blames Captain America for this one.
Also, Scarlet Witch has a hex power—why didn’t she just bust open a hole
in the wall and let in some air?
Kang takes them
to his palace in the 30th century, where he rules as dictator
through puppet rulers Princess Ravonna and her nameless father. And obviously, where there’s a princess,
there’s a jerk with a crush on her. The
jerk, in this case, is Kang.
Accept Kang the Conqueror as your lord and savior today!
The Avengers,
meanwhile, find themselves trapped in unbreakable glass cages—unbreakable, that
is, to everyone but the Scarlet Witch.
The comic actually has the audacity to describe her as... well, see for yourself.
B
U
L
L
C
R
A
P
R
A
P
I don’t know
what the writer was smoking, but it was obviously something that caused his
common sense valve to lock itself shut. Hell,
I always considered Wanda the STRONGEST member of the team—certainly stronger
than frigging Hawkeye—but
now they have the nerve to introduce some cockamamie story about how she can
only use her powers once before needing a recharge. Back in Issue Seventeen, she took out the Minotaur
AND found her captive brother SINGLE-HANDED with not a single sign of
exhaustion. This is bull, pure and
simple.
Anyway, Scarlet
Witch busts them out, nearly passing out in the process (@#*&$!!!!). They make a break for it, but Kang ain’t having
none of that and sends his troops after them.
You know, she has an actual name, jerkface. Do you even KNOW her name? I don’t think you’ve used it once in all the time you’ve known her. In this issue alone, he’s called her gorgeous, baby, doll, dreamboat... she’s your teammate, show some respect.
Kang knocks out
Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch with hi-tech nerve paralyzing laser things. Just as
he’s about to do the same to Quicksilver, Captain America, thanks to the magic
of technobabble, has figured out Kang is behind his old team’s disappearance
and yells at him from the 20th century. Having found out about the kidnappings from a
radio report, Cap demands that Kang come out and fight. Ravonna is watching, and Kang is so desperate
to impress her that he transports Cap to the 30th century so they
can duke it out. For some reason, these
evil types never seem to figure out that ladies aren’t impressed by their
suitors murdering a bunch of innocent people.
“Besides, you’re tone deaf.”
Cap and
Quicksilver devise a plan, which promptly fails. Kang then commands Ravonna to make her
decision: marry him, or watch as his armies destroy her kingdom. She’s about to say yes, for the sake of her
subjects, when Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye reappear, ready to do battle. Thanks to this renewed hope, Ravonna tells
Kang to take a hike. He decides to
signal his army to attack instead, and that’s where we pick up our tale in
Issue Twenty-Four.
Kang gives the
Avengers the slip, but they don’t have time to worry about that now: there’s an
army advancing from outside, and they need a plan. Cap immediately takes charge, and the
Avengers finally rally around him. Gee,
it only took eight issues, time-traveling ten centuries into the future and the
prospect of facing an entire army of technologically advanced soldiers to whip
them into shape.
Outside, Kang
and his soldiers shell the city, taking out the only defensive weaponry
Ravonna’s people had. Quicksilver,
meanwhile, spots a woman trying to run to safety with her baby so he saves her,
only to get hit by, um, the color red, I guess?
WHEN
ONOMATOPOEIAS ATTACK.
Quicksilver is
just the first to fall. Princess
Ravonna’s defenders are dropping like futuristic flies, and the Avengers soon
go down as well (though Scarlet Witch allows herself to be captured to give her
hex power time to recharge even though
she shouldn’t have to do that). Kang
sends them all (minus Quicksilver, who’s still in the care of the woman he
saved) to the dungeon. Then he demands
Ravonna marry him, only to hit a snag: his own battle code dictates that he
must slay all defeated monarchs so there’s no chance they’ll rebel against him. Translation: bye bye Ravonna.
Now if you’ve
been paying attention, this restriction shouldn’t really apply to Ravonna at
all since she’s a princess, not a queen.
Her father is still alive and presumably king, so the rule should only
apply to him. But whatever—on with the
unnecessary drama!
Kang tells his
stickler-for-rules commanders to bug off and only come back when they’re ready
to grovel for forgiveness.
Baltag and
company send some assassins after Kang, who handily dispatches them all. But with his army turned against him and
Ravonna’s life at stake, Kang cuts the Avengers a deal: help him save Ravonna,
and he’ll not only release the city, he’ll also return the Avengers to their
own time. Cap agrees, and they quickly
gather Ravonna and a group of loyal citizens to attack the palace, where Baltag
is being paranoid and crabby and generally not adapting well to the
high-pressure life of a dictator.
La de da, lots
of fighting, and Kang and the Avengers emerge victorious. Quicksilver even shows up at the end to help
round up Baltag and the rebels. Gee, I’m
glad that subplot about him saving the woman’s life wasn’t completely pointless
or anything.
With their
mission accomplished, Kang keeps his word and prepares to send the Avengers
home. But just as he hits the button,
Baltag grabs a guard’s gun and…
In case you
couldn’t tell, these two issues were not my favorite, which is a shame since
it’s the first big sweeping epic we’ve seen in this series (Time travel! Futuristic cities! A kingdom to save! Rampant sexism! Wait, what?). The plot was mostly okay, but in terms of its
portrayal of women, this is probably the worst I’ve seen in The Avengers thus far. Throw in some bonus racism for no reason, and
you’ve got a two-part story that I’m happy to put in my rearview mirror. At least there’s hope Hawkeye will quit being
such a big behind… to Cap, anyway. Now
let’s see if he can learn Wanda’s name.
Images from Avengers #23 and Avengers #24
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