Wait, why are we
back to the old font? I guess people
didn’t like the new one…?
So after Cap,
Thor and Goliath vanished, the others just sort of sat around Kang’s castle for
a while, waiting for something to happen.
Kang finally has enough of that.
But in this
case, the Grandmaster was just telepathically communicating with the living
computers on his home world, telling them to find the perfect foes for the
missing three Avengers. We already saw
last time that these opponents are the Squadron Supreme, but in case you were worried
about this not being a fair fight, Iron Man shows up to join the fray.
As I’m sure you
could have guessed, the operation from last time was a success, providing Tony
with a good-as-new synthetic heart and eliminating the need to wear the chest
plate all the time. Now he can beat up
as many people as he wants without having to worry about heart attacks. Every man’s dream come true!
Apparently, no existing supervillains were good enough for the Grandmaster, so the Grandmaster went screwing with time, grabbing four random humans and turning them into supervillains for the express purpose of defeating the Avengers.
The images of
the Squadron vanish, leaving behind images of the Statue of Liberty, the Taj
Majal, Big Ben, and the Sphinx. The
Avengers correctly assume that these four locations are where their foes lie in
wait, and they each take off for one of the landmarks.
Captain America
ends up at the Statue of Liberty because of course he does. Nighthawk captures him in the stupidest way
possible: by lying a rope on the ground like an animal trap and waiting for Cap
to step into it. It works. Did the Super Soldier Serum not give you the
ability to see at night? Come on!
WHERE ON EARTHCAN SHE BE
But when
Nighthawk tries to send Lady Liberty crashing back down to Earth, Cap starts
taking things seriously and knocks him unconscious. Kang is delighted, obviously, but there’s
still three battles to go before Ravonna—and Earth—are truly safe.
Over at the Taj
Majal, Iron Man’s battle with Dr. Spectrum really isn’t worth spending much
time on because it’s over so fast.
Spectrum mouths off, accidentally gives away his one weakness
(ultraviolet radiation), and the Taj Majal is saved. Next!
Thor encounters
Hyperion in Egypt, and by encounters I mean “gets monologued at by.”
Anyway, Hyperion
was embiggened by the Grandmaster and now he’s here, promising vengeance
against Earth for crimes against… atoms.
Please don’t let this turn into Marville.
Fortunately,
Thor’s hammer can do whatever the writers want it to, and in this case, it
shrinks Hyperion back down to size and traps him in a glass bubble. That just leaves Goliath in London.
During the
fight, it seems like Goliath is down for the count. Our old friend, the London-based Black
Knight, naturally tries to come to his rescue.
The Grandmaster is annoyed at the interference, which is basically the
equivalent of flipping over the table before the end of a chess match, and
whisks Goliath and Whizzer (pffff) back to the future, leaving the Black Knight
puzzled but determined to follow and fix whatever he broke.
Issue
Seventy-One begins with the Black Knight holding a séance with his ancestor, a
previous Black Knight named Sir Percy of Scandia. Apparently the Black Knight armor is now a
family heirloom—I’m really not well-versed on this character, but since it
doesn’t seem particularly necessary to understanding the events in The Avengers, we’ll just move on.
Black Knight
continues to watch the action as, in the 41st century, the second
phase of the Game of the Galaxies begins when Grandmaster whisks the Vision,
Yellowjacket, and Black Panther away to Nazi-occupied Paris, where they
encounter…
Wait, “we
THREE”? Why isn’t the Wasp with them? We saw her get kidnapped along with all the
other Avengers, meaning Kang specifically chose her to be one of his
“champions,” and yet the Grandmaster appears to have excluded her from the game
for some reason. I wonder why. (I KNOW WHY.)
Our old-school
heroes are obviously under the mistaken assumption that the Avengers magically
teleported them to Paris, and that the Avengers are in fact Nazis. You’d think T’Challa would end the fight in
two seconds just by taking off his mask, but no, it’s fighty time!
But not for the
Black Knight. Apparently that’s the end
of the free preview from Percy, so the Black Knight now must find a way to get
himself to Kang’s time to help the Avengers.
Fortunately, Goliath accidentally took the Knight’s sword with him to
the future, and Black Knight uses his psychic connection with his sword to time
travel two thousand years.
What? You got a better idea?
The Black Knight
finds Jan locked in a room, and they do the logical thing and free the Avengers
who aren’t currently trapped in the 1940s, as they’ve been trapped in a stasis
field. I’m not sure why Kang felt the
need to do that, since the Avengers had agreed to help him earlier, but hey,
megalomaniac. He doesn’t have to make
sense.
Back in the
1940s…
Our heroes win
the fight when the Vision flies through their opponents while partially
materialized, knocking them all out.
Kang rejoices, but there’s a catch: since Kang only won half the
game—the first half ended in a stalemate thanks to the Black Knight—Kang only
gets the power of life OR death, not both.
Kang is on the
verge of asking for the power of life when the freed Avengers come charging in. Obviously they’re not happy about the whole
being-kept-in-stasis-for-no-reason thing, but they’re willing to call it even
if Kang will just send them back the 21st century.
Like a nimrod,
Kang of course chooses death for the Avengers instead of life for Ravonna, but
he’s foiled by a technicality: the Black Knight is not an Avenger, so he alone
is able to strike the final blow.
With Kang
defeated, the Grandmaster generously transports everyone to their own time,
where they decide to honor the Black Knight by making him a true-blue Avenger. Of course he accepts—though since he lives in
England, he’s more of a reserve member than a regular one—and we end on a
full-page image of everyone yelling AVENGERS ASSEMBLE in celebration.
I notice that
for a game called “The Game of the Galaxies” there are remarkably few actual
galaxies involved. And even if Kang did
win the game, what exactly was he planning on telling Ravonna when he revived
her? “Hey there, snuggle muffin, I just
risked billions of lives to gain godlike powers to save you!” Does he really think she’d be happy about
that?
Also, I assume
Cap, Namor and the Human Torch’s memories of this fight were erased. Otherwise that could get awkward.
But in all
seriousness, these issues were great. High stakes, nice artwork, triumphant heroes. What more could you ask for?
The end of this
review also marks the end of Avengerous Tales 1.0. That’s right—Issue Seventy-One was the last
issue with a 1960s cover date, so in a week or two I’ll make a sum-up post, and
then I’m going to take a short break from posting to let my review reserve
build up again. When I come back in September, we’ll
dive right into Avengerous Tales 2.0—the 1970s!
Images from Avengers #70 and Avengers #71
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