Welcome, nerds
and nerdlings, to a very special era of The
Avengers that I like to call ‘Why the heck is Wanda’s hair black on the
covers and red on the inside?’
We begin with
the Avengers trying to build a device that will allow them to travel to Arkon’s
universe.
Quicksilver
takes their failure about as well as you’d expect and stomps off, passing by
Goliath, who doesn’t have the technical knowhow to help with the travel device
and is in the gym creating a giant bow and arrow out of random junk. Goliath’s powers confuse me, to be honest—we
haven’t seen Clint Barton at normal size in quite some time. We know he can shrink, since he was defeated in Avengers #70 by growing too big too fast. But unlike Hank Pym, who preferred to stay at
his natural height unless strictly necessary, Clint seems to prefer staying
huge.
Maybe this plays
into what we discussed when Clint first gained superpowers, about how he
always felt like the weak link on the team and stole Hank’s serum to
compensate. Maybe he’s more comfortable
around his superpowered teammates if he’s constantly reminding them that he,
too, has superpowers and is therefore just as strong/capable/valuable as they
are. He must miss archery, since he’s
creating giant bows for no apparent reason, but I guess he’s willing to
sacrifice his passion in exchange for tenuous self-confidence.
Enough
psychoanalysis. Goliath’s workout is
interrupted by the Black Widow, who pops out of the ceiling a la Ceiling Cat just
long enough to tell him that they can never see each other again. Again.
Now let’s check
in with the Scarlet Witch.
This is #2 on my
list of Signs He Might Not Make Such a Great Husband. #1 is ‘he cosplays as a Roman soldier 24/7.’
The nuclear
scientists Arkon kidnapped at the end of last issue are not cooperating, so
Arkon subjects them to the Ultimate Persuader—a machine that extracts the
necessary knowledge directly from their brains.
The long-term effects of the machine aren’t made clear. It’s said the scientists will survive, but we
don’t know what condition they’ll be in after getting their brains picked.
Anyway, with the
Earth scientists’ stolen smarts, Arkon’s chief scientist Greybeard creates a
nuclear device of his own, one that Arkon must detonate at a specific place in
order to destroy Earth and save his own world.
Arkon, in a bid to get the Scarlet Witch to like him better, lies about
Greybeard’s achievements, telling her that they’ve found a way to save Arkon’s
world without blowing up Earth.
Wanda’s reaction
is basically “Great! Can I go home
now?” Arkon says no but he gives her a
flower, which apparently makes it all better.
This “““touching
moment””” is interrupted by the Avengers, who used Thor’s hammer to travel
across dimensions and are here to bring Scarlet Witch home. Arkon’s forces are more than prepared to
fight back, and Arkon himself rides a dinosaur into battle, which I have to
admit is awesome even if Arkon is still a Grade A dirtbag.
The Avengers
squish Arkon’s armies like play-doh, so Arkon prepares to nuke the Earth. The Scarlet Witch realizes Arkon lied to her
about sparing her home planet, but she can do nothing as Arkon teleports them
both back to Earth. Fortunately, Thor’s
hammer works almost as quickly and the Black Panther, Vision, Goliath, and
Quicksilver find themselves back in New York, where Arkon is standing atop the
Empire State Building with his captive/betrothed, ready to detonate the bomb. Clearly Arkon has never seen King Kong.
The
Avengers are losing badly when Mr. Deus Ex Machina, alias Greybeard, appears in
the sky to tell Arkon to knock it off.
While he and the Avengers were fighting, Iron Man and Thor figured out
how to turn on the energy rings that power Arkon’s world, so he can go back
home without blowing stuff up.
Arkon is
amenable to this and bids farewell to the Avengers, even oh so generously allowing the Scarlet Witch to stay and not marry
him against her will. And Wanda’s powers
are now restored because dimensional travel is the new cure-all, I guess.
After Arkon
leaves, Wanda gazes sadly at the flower he gave her and mourns what might have
been. Urgh. I think this is what the creators WISH women
were like—willing to forgive even the most grievous infractions as long as the
guy apologizes in the end—even though, um,
hello, Arkon kidnapped a bunch of people and was more than happy to attack your
friends and blow up your planet and the only reason he didn’t was not because
he learned something but because your friends fixed his problem.
Also, what the
hell happened to the Toad? He was
kidnapped along with Wanda, but the last we saw of the poor schmuck, he was
chained up in Arkon’s dungeons. Along
with the kidnapped scientists, for that matter.
Anyone want to go rescue them?
Just a little?
Basically, the
wrap-up to this story was sloppy.
Interesting idea, haphazard execution.
Speaking of
executions, Issue Seventy-Seven begins with the Avengers executing an abandoned
building.
“Is he doing the
hokey-pokey?”
The explanation
for all this is provided in a flashback: the Avengers have been hired by a
smarmy rich guy named Cornelius Van Lunt, who bought this building before the
city could waste the property by turning it into a children’s playground. But now, thanks to the Avengers’ instant
demolition, he can turn around and sell the property to someone else for a
massive profit. That’s way better!
But why would
the Avengers sell their services to a character like this? Turns out Tony Stark hasn’t been charging
rent on Avengers Mansion all these years, but now Van Lunt is putting the
squeeze on Stark Industries and Tony needs to raise some cash pronto. And we are talking SERIOUS cash here—$120,000,
which is a ton in today’s environment, I don’t even want to know what that
looks like when adjusted for inflation.
All the Avengers
are willing to help… all except T’Challa.
While this is
going on, a ragtag group of henchmen—they’re like one Native American short of
being the Village People—are displeased with their employer, a masked man named
Kronos, who is much too mysterious for their tastes. He’s way more powerful than they are, though,
so they have no choice but to deal with him.
After showing
them some films of their previous failed robberies and pointing out all their
mistakes, Kronos declares that he has a plan to stop the Avengers from butting
into their business once and for all.
This is right around the time that the Avengers suddenly realize they
need jobs.
What a coincidence.
Van Lunt admits
his shenanigans with Stark Industries were a ploy to get the Avengers to work
for him for some reason. Because he
totally knew that Stark would go running to the Avengers for rent and that the
Avengers would in turn go looking for jobs if he just pressured Stark
Industries enough.
Van Lunt agrees
to pay them an exorbitant sum AND stop hounding Stark if the Avengers agree to
be his wrecking crew for a week, and our heroes sign the contract.
Back in the
present, T’Challa has gotten his teaching job under the name of Mr. Charles.
But this has
nothing to do with the rest of the issue, so let’s get back to Kronos. He’s planning a bank heist, while at the same
time, Van Lunt sends them all (minus Black Panther, who’s busy, as we saw) to demolish
a condemned tunnel under the East River.
When the Avengers go in, Kronos sets off an explosion there, supposedly
killing them all. Then he and his
Split-Second Squad merrily head out to lift some gold bars from the bank
because now they’re free to be as evil as they want, ahahaha!
So it turns out
Quicksilver radioed Panther for back-up before they even went anywhere, and
since they suspected the tunnel thing was a trap, they hid out in their submarine
instead, so everybody’s fine. Also,
surprise! Kronos is actually one of Van
Lunt’s lackeys, who figured that pinning the Avengers’ murder on his boss was a
good way to get revenge for Van Lunt stealing his company many years ago.
When Van Lunt
tries to pay the Avengers for services rendered, the Avengers refuse his dirty
money, saying he’ll get what’s coming to him someday. I’m not sure that letting the greedy jerk
keep his dough is a good way to teach him a lesson. He’s just gonna reinvest it in his slimy
business schemes. Shouldn’t they have
kept the money and donated it to the city so they could build that playground
or something?
Anyway, I’m not
quite sure I buy into Lackey’s evil plan here.
If he was that upset at Van Lunt, why didn’t he try to murder him
directly? He clearly has no problem with
killing people. Maybe he figures death
is too good for the bum. I don’t
know.
Also, holy cow,
I knew that Tony being outrageously generous was a popular trope in
fan-fiction, but apparently it’s canon if he lets a bunch of superheroes live
in (and occasionally trash) his house for free, I mean wow. Does he buy their food and clothes too? I guess he must, since none of them had jobs
outside of kicking bad guy butt.
To read Avengerous Tales 2.4, go here!
Images from Avengers #76 and Avengers #77
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