To read Avengerous Tales 1.32, go here!
A quick pit stop
at Dr. Strange #178 before we begin
today’s tale:
With his dying
breath, the villain Asmodeus utters a spell that will cause the fire giant
Surtur and the frost/ice giant Ymir (whom you may recognize from both Norse mythology
and Thor comics) to come wreak havoc
on Earth in one hour. The only people
who know how to break that spell are the Sons of Satannish, who are being held
prisoner in the sixth dimension by a jerk named Tiboro. Strange doesn’t really want to go there alone,
so he tracks down our old pal the Black Knight—whose sword contains mystical
properties—and enlists him as a road trip buddy.
And everything
seems to go great. Dr. Strange and the
Black Knight defeat Tiboro, who agrees to release the Sons of Satannish. Problem solved, right? Well…
They’re
interrupted by the “ethereal form” of Doctor Strange—who didn’t even bother
knocking, by the way—who tells them that he needs their help for unspecified
reasons. The Avengers, trusting souls
that they are, agree to go with him—except the Vision, who had too much to
drink and needs to sleep it off. No,
really, that’s what happened.
Strange leads
Hawkeye and Panther to a mausoleum, where the Black Knight is lying on the
floor in a magical coma. See, in case
you couldn’t tell from the fact that they’re called the Sons of SATANNISH, they
weren’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of helping a couple of
superheroes.
(I have been waiting
an embarrassingly long time to make that joke.)
Strange gets the
Crystal and manages to get Marduk to tell him enough that he realizes the
Crystal is the only thing that could potentially stop Surtur and Ymir. But first, we got a Knight to save. Dr. Strange, being a doctor ‘n’ all, manages
to save the Black Knight. Why he didn’t
do that before running off to get the
Avengers, I don’t know, but Dane is grateful anyway.
But there’s no
time for back-patting—Surtur has already arrived, causing volcanoes to erupt in
Antarctica. Right on his flaming heels
is Ymir, who has covered Wakanda in ice and snow. Sounds like a job for the Avengers! Hawkeye and the Black Knight head to
Antarctica, while the Black Panther and the Vision go to Wakanda. Strange stays behind for reasons we’ll find
out later.
In Wakanda,
Panther and Vision accidentally crash the quinjet—this is the first time
they’ve used a quinjet, and it was apparently designed by T’Challa instead of
the ubiquitous Tony Stark—into Ymir’s face, which does absolutely nothing.
In Antarctica, Hawkeye
and the Black Knight aren’t faring any better since Surtur is made out of
actual fire and is therefore basically unshootable.
While the
Avengers hold off the giants as best they can, Doctor Strange has figured out
how to work the Crystal of Conquest and uses it to teleport Ymir and Surtur to
the same location.
Well, that was a
nice breezy little issue. It’s basically
fluff, but nothing wrong with that.
Issue Sixty-Two
brings us a new title font! It does not,
however, bring us Doctor Strange, who apparently went back to his own book
without bothering to make sure the Avengers got home okay. Which they did not. They are stuck freezing their tails off in still-snowy
Wakanda. (They build a fire out of
Hawkeye’s arrows. It’s hilarious.)
Fortunately,
T’Challa has a private spaceship, which he summons electronically and uses to
fly them all to a slightly more inhabited region of his kingdom.
The Avengers
(plus the Black Knight) are greeted by gunfire.
No, T’Challa’s subjects aren’t doing a fancy gun salute for their
guests—they are actively shooting at them.
Panther isn’t pleased by this reception, especially when he finds out that
the order to attack was given by M’Baku, whom Panther left to rule Wakanda
while he was away.
As you probably
guessed, M’Baku is very interested in removing the ‘temporary’ from his
position as ‘temporary ruler.’ To allay
Panther’s suspicions, M’Baku says he ordered the shooting because he’d heard
rumors that Panther’s old enemy the Klaw had escaped. Panther sorta buys it.
Clearly Panther has not watched enough American movies, or else he’d know to never accept drinks from creepy men. Even Vision drinks the wine because of plot reasons, and they all fall unconscious.
By the time
Panther wakes up, M’Baku has adopted a rather unfortunate change in name and
clothing.
Okay, those all
suck, but not as hard as Man-Ape.
Panther and
M’Baku (screw you, I ain’t calling him ape anything) kick each other around for
a while, eventually ending up in the city control center. Which looks suspiciously dark and abandoned
for a place that’s supposed to keep all that gadgetry we saw running, but
there’s actually kind of an explanation for that, so whatever.
Anyway, M’Baku led
Panther into the control center as a trap, which would explain the lack of
people. They end up suspended over an
atomic furnace, which is actually kind of cool.
Unfortunately, Black Panther loses this fight when M’Baku grabs some
wires and shocks him unconscious.
When Panther
wakes up (again), he is tied to a stone slab beneath a giant stone effigy of a
panther, which M’Baku plans to crush him with for maximum irony. I don’t know why he didn’t just skip straight
to this plan before instead of wasting time chasing Panther around with
uprooted trees, but hey, that’s just me.
And I’m sure zero percent of you are surprised to find the panther idol
“isn’t falling—it’s crumbling…”
Like with the
last issue, this one is a simple yet enjoyable story, except with bonus racism. Obviously it would have been a lot better
without that, and I prefer the Doctor Strange crossover for just that reason,
but both issues had their high points and were fun and easy reads.
Images from Avengers #61 and Avengers #62
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