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In the time between this issue and the last, the New Masters of Evil have taken the Avengers on board an airship that they got from someplace. All are unconscious except the Wasp, whom the Klaw is keeping in a jar because she’s a bug get it ha ha next.
After an
unsuccessful escape attempt by Goliath, the Crimson Cowl reveals his plans to
the Masters of Evil: he’s going to put the Avengers inside a hydrogen bomb and
drop it over Manhattan. If, however, New
York City agrees to their unspecified demands (they probably want a lifetime
supply of Ray’s Pizza), they’ll drop the bomb into the ocean instead—the
implication is that this will be a harmless alternative, but anyone who knows
anything about radiation knows that they’ll just give a bunch of fish cancer,
which will both murder anyone who eats them and effectively destroy the fishing
industry.
Either way, the
Avengers will be like super-mega dead.
Anyway, the
Crimson Cowl is such an egotist that he inserted a window into his hydrogen
bomb so that the Avengers can look out and get a final glimpse of their
murderer. Said murderer is not who you
thought he was, either. Or maybe he
is. If you thought the robot from last
issue looked kind of familiar, then feel free to no-prize yourself, because
here he is!
Jarvis manages
to make it to the Mansion where the Black Knight was, I don’t know, sitting
around eating Cheetos. But he’s more
than willing to fly to the rescue upon hearing Jarvis’s story, and he
intercepts the Masters of Evil just as they’re about to drop a bomb on the
Empire State Building. First order of
business? Free the Avengers!
But of course
the Avengers forgive him for this stupefying betrayal of trust, even as Ultron
hides in his evil lair and swears revenge for reasons that will be elaborated
upon, um, eventually. For now, let’s
start Issue Fifty-Six, which starts right in the middle of the action: the
Avengers have been summoned to a creepy old castle, presumably by Captain
America, but there’s no sign of him or anyone else.
When they do
find Cap, he’s hiding behind a curtain for no reason.
Wait, he was
lost in thought about Bucky… behind a curtain?
I don’t think I want to know any more than that.
As it turns out,
Cap summoned them all to the castle because he’s begun to have doubts about
whether or not Bucky really died. For
those who don’t know the story, at the end of World War II, Captain America and
Bucky tried to stop Baron Zemo’s drone plane from taking off. They leapt on just as it took off, but it
turned out the whole thing was a trap and the plane was rigged to blow. Cap lost his grip and fell, landing in the
ocean where he was then frozen for twenty years, but Bucky got caught in the
explosion and died, supposedly. But hey,
Cap figures, if he was able to survive against all odds, couldn’t Bucky do the
same?
Obviously, as denizens
of a post-Winter Soldier society, we’re all nodding our heads and going
“Yup! Seems reasonable to me!” Even back in the sixties and seventies,
Marvel looooved playing around with the ‘Bucky Is Alive’ scenario. In Tales
of Suspense #88, the Red Skull used a Robo-Bucky to lure Cap into a trap,
and a couple of years after Avengers #56,
we get Captain America #131-#132, in
which Modok hired Doctor Doom to build Robo-Bucky 2.0 to lure Cap into yet
another trap. So basically it should
have come as a surprise to precisely no one when it turned out Bucky really did
survive.
Back to the
story. The castle Cap called them to is Doctor Doom’s old castle, which
contains a time machine because of course it does. What kind of loser supervillain builds a
castle but doesn’t add a time
machine?
But whatever, they’re
off. They quickly arrive in the hangar
where the drone plane took off from twenty years before, and the Avengers—who
are intangible and invisible—stand back to watch the action. It all happens just like Cap remembers it,
but this comic has embellished the story a bit.
Here, Zemo orders a giant android to knock them unconscious and tie them
to the drone plane. As for how Cap and
Bucky got into the army fatigues they so famously wore during their last
adventure…
Retcons: Making Everything Creepier Since 1968
Speaking of
1968, Wasp, the only Avenger left in the present, literally falls asleep at the
control and hits a button, causing her time-skipping companions to suddenly
materialize. Everyone understandably
freaks out, and then things get really nuts: another android appears, and then
the U.S. Army shows up to be useless, and punches and arrows are flying
everywhere…
I’d tell Hawkeye
to grow up, but it’s too much fun watching him fawn over Cap at every
opportunity. Earlier this same issue, he
said again how much better Cap was than Black Panther. He sure got over Natasha in a hurry, didn’t
he?
In the middle of
the fight, the Avengers suddenly start to disappear again. Before vanishing for good, Cap throws his
shield to free his past self from the drone.
(Prime directive, moron!) Captain
America and the Avengers, now intangible once more, can only watch as Steve falls and Bucky dies.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Avengers
manage to return to 1968 without Jan bungling it again, and they all leave Cap
alone for a while so he can mourn the fact that Bucky is really, truly,
unmistakably, irrevocably gone.
…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Originally,
Hawkeye’s little war chant comment was going to put him back on the Worst
Avenger Ever pedestal, but honestly? If
I held a grudge every time a character did something racist or sexist in the
1960s, I would literally have no one left to like, ever, no exceptions. So until then, unless they do something
spectacularly horrible, I think I’m gonna have to chill a little.
That’s not to
say I’m going to stop calling them on their bigotry, because that is what I
live for. But I’m not going to hold it
against them in the long run.
Issue Fifty-Six
felt like filler, to be honest. This was
around the time when Steve had some sort of delayed negative reaction to being
defrosted, where he spent a lot of time obsessing (some might say whining) about
how he had no friends and how it was all his fault Bucky died and how hard it
was to be so young and strong and healthy.
It was all over Captain America
at the time, but I don’t see the point of bringing it into The Avengers if Cap is no longer a regular member.
And what did
this adventure accomplish? Nothing. Cap knew right from the start he couldn’t
prevent Bucky’s death but he chose to go back and watch it again anyway in the
slim, desperate hope that Bucky might have survived. I don’t think this was so much an attempt to confirm
the past as it was a chance for Cap to punish himself for Bucky’s death. And the Avengers just let him do it without
comment.
I’d suggest they
get Cap to a psychiatrist, but he actually tried that in his own book. The doctor’s name was Faustus. I’ll let you imagine how well THAT went.
To read Avengerous Tales 1.30, go here!
Images from Avengers #55 and Avengers #56
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