Avengerous Tales 1.26 - Avengers #49-#50

 

To read Avengerous Tales 1.25, go here!

SUPER CLICHÉ COVER DEPLOY IN 3, 2—

If you’ll remember from last issue, we had two main plotlines going on: Magneto kidnapped Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, and Dane Whitman wanted to restore the family honor by becoming a heroic version of the Black Knight.  Now forget you remembered all that, because we’re starting a whole new plot thread.

 

I knew the Hercules bits were leading up to something, but couldn’t they have finished their other stories before devoting themselves to this one?

Anyway, Angry Eyes there is Typhon, another figure from Greek mythology.  But in the original myths, he looked less like a guy in blue armor and more like this:

 

I couldn’t find anything on whether the original Typhon liked indulging in evil monologues, but this one sure does.  Basically, Zeus banished him because Typhon is a Titan and Zeus has some issues with them.  In revenge, Typhon destroys the Promethean Flame, which keeps the Olympians alive.  The moment the flame is destroyed, all of the gods vanish, leaving only Typhon and, now, Hercules.

We then get a brief scene with the Avengers where Hank and Jan bicker a little and Clint broods over Cap leaving him them but let’s just skip ahead to join Magneto, who has taken Wanda and Pietro to a tiny island where he has built a new HQ for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  You’d think they’d try to escape now that they’re untied, but Pietro says they should learn everything they can about Magneto before making a break for it.

Or maybe…

 

Sensing Pietro’s wavering, Magneto tries to convince them that he’s not trying to put the Brotherhood together after all; rather, he wants to turn the island into a refuge for mutants.  So, what, he’s Ursula the sea witch now?

To prove he means well, Magneto takes them all to the U.N., where he plans to talk to the General Assembly that is conveniently in session right now.  But of course there are guards to prevent wackos from barging into Assembly meetings.

 

“I COME IN PEACE, IDIOT!” *throws guards around*
“Wow, what a sweetheart of a guy!”

Magneto demands that mutants be given their own country and starts throwing things when the Assembly obviously refuses.  That’s when the Avengers show up—Magneto’s initial entrance was broadcast on live TV—and that’s when it really hits the fan: Magneto uses his powers to make a couple of guards shoot Wanda.  The bullet only grazes her, but Pietro loses his marbles.

 
Overreaction?  Yes, but he was already bitter at humanity to start with, and after three issues of listening to Magneto about why his bitterness is justified, I guess it was inevitable that he’d go postal at some point.

The mutants escape with an unconscious Wanda in tow, and the Avengers slink home to lick their wounds.  Meanwhile, Typhon is still fighting Hercules, but now he’s summoned help from Stanley Kubrick’s nightmares.

 
The monster’s name is Tartaro, jerkface, and he’d probably be a lot less angry if you’d use it instead of calling him names.  P.S. No, the artist did not forget Hercules’s beard.  Hercules shaved it a couple of issues ago.

Hercules straight-up murders Tartaro, so Typhon finally does what he should have done in the first place and banishes Hercules to the same limbo where the other gods are trapped.  As for Typhon, he has his sights set on conquering Earth (of course he does).

I’ll spare you the Avengers’ bickering that opens Issue Fifty—I’m sure you could write the scene yourself by this point—and skip straight to the action: since they have no idea where to begin looking for Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, they decide to seek out Hercules, who by this point has been missing for several days.

 
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Hank’s been having power problems again.  Growing larger is too much of a strain for him, but he can still shrink and talk to bugs, which you may recognize as his initial power set.  Why Wasp and Hawkeye think this will be a problem when Hank has proved he’s perfectly competent as a crime-fighter with those skills is beyond me.

And yes, Wasp changed costumes again.  Take a drink.

Back in limbo, Hercules meets up with the Olympian gods.  Zeus immediately accuses him of being the one who banished them all here in revenge for being exiled to Earth, proving once again that some people should not be allowed to have children.  In any event, since Hercules is only half-god, Zeus can zap him back to Earth, where Typhon is attacking a Mediterranean battleship because he can.  Fortunately, the Avengers followed the homing beacon in Hercules’s ship to the same area.

 

I meant “fortunately” for the people on the battleship, not for Hawkeye.

Ant-Man’s ants save Hawkeye from a skull-cleaving, and then Hercules arrives in the nick of time to join the fray.

 
…Did Typhon rip off his leg?

The fight ends when Hercules judo-flips Typhon into unconsciousness.  It ends up being his last action as an Avenger: after Typhon’s defeat, he triumphantly returns to Olympus and restores the gods by rekindling the Promethean Flame.  Hercules then elects to remain on Olympus.  You’d think he’d want to stick around Earth long enough to ask about the Scarlet Witch—surely he noticed she wasn’t with the Avengers during that last battle.  Was he just not crushing on her as hard as I thought?

We then get a brief final scene with the Avengers.

 

Uh, the only one who has definitively joined up with Magneto is Quicksilver.  The Scarlet Witch never got a chance to say anything before being shot, and if you were paying attention earlier, she was clearly less radical about mutant rights than her brother.  Shouldn’t you be trying to track them down, at least for the sake of making sure Wanda’s okay?  I mean, Magneto still kidnapped them—whether or not there’s now Stockholm Syndrome involved doesn’t erase the original crime.  You can’t just end their story here!

 
…They just ended their story here.  Ooookay.

This storyline went on waaaaay too long.  At least I assume it did, because it’s hard to tell what the storyline was supposed to be here.  Assuming it was about Magneto and company, they could have gotten this entire four-issue plotline done in two if they’d cut out the flashbacks and pointless fluff.  Why is the Black Knight even in this?  His role could have been filled by a tracking device in Wanda’s tiara that was then conveniently dropped or lost when Magneto took them to his island.  Then we wouldn’t have had to waste all that time on his pointless subplot.  I’d say Dane Whitman deserves better, but Dane Whitman is a jerk, so he kind of doesn’t.

The Hercules stuff was fine—we knew he’d probably go back to Olympus eventually, since he was only exiled for a year—though I was kind of surprised by how quickly and easily he ran off to go home.  I thought he’d bonded with the Avengers, but he barely even said good-bye.  Especially since his dad is a horrible person, much worse than the Avengers.  It’s the same question I have about Thor: you have some amazing friends who love having you around.  Why stay loyal to your horrible, abusive, murderous fathers?  Guess Pietro’s not the only one with Stockholm Syndrome.

To read Avengerous Tales 1.27, go here!

Images from Avengers #49, Wikipedia, and Avengers #50