Avengerous Tales 2.16 - Avengers #102-#103

To read Avengerous Tales 2.15, go here!

And we’re back to the floating head covers.  Great.  Also, like the last story, Roy Thomas is responsible for the script but not really the story idea.  That credit goes to Chris Claremont, who we’ll be talking more about down the road, although the comic just says this is “based on an idea from Chris Claremont,” so I don’t know if he provided Thomas with a full synopsis or just turned to him one day over coffee and was like “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…?” and then let Thomas run with it.

In today’s Avengerous Tale, the Vision receives on anonymous letter that apparently says “meet me in a meat locker downtown I totally won’t try to kill you I promise.”  Vision obeys the note and, after scaring some would-be assailants on his way there, encounters our old pal the Grim Reaper, who has FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY learned how to dress himself.  HALLELUJAH.

 

Quick recap for the uninitiated: an Avengers’ foe named Wonder Man redeemed himself by sacrificing himself to save our heroes, and the Avengers kinda-sorta returned the favor by preserving Wonder Man’s brain patterns on tape.  Those tapes were then stolen by Ultron, who used them to create the Vision, which Wonder Man’s revenge-obsessed brother the Grim Reaper found out about during his last encounter with the Avengers, and now he apparently considers the Vision to be his brother even though he’s not really.

All of which explains 90% of the reason why the Reaper thinks the Vision will help him in his lifelong quest to destroy the Avengers.  The last 10% is because Reaper’s off his nut.

To sweeten the deal, Reaper presents a corpse that he says was Wonder Man, and that he will be happily to transfer Vision’s brain into Wonder Man’s body in exchange for the Vision’s cooperation.  The Vision, long disturbed by the fact that he will never be a real boy, takes a second to think things over.

He says no, though, and Reaper takes it surprisingly well, just offering him an amulet that Vision can use to contact him if he changes his mind.  (Spoiler alert: the amulet is never used and entirely pointless except if you want to see the Vision in pretty jewelry.)  The main reason Vision even considered Reaper’s offer is the Scarlet Witch, who he’s in love with.  She’s back at Avengers Mansion, totally unaware of the Vision’s meeting.

 
SHE’S AN UPTOWN GIRL
SHE’S BEENLIVING IN HER UPTOWN WORLD

Scarlet Witch goes downstairs for monitor duty and is immediately creeped upon by Hawkeye.  She tries to tell him she’s not interested, but he basically tells her to shush and kisses her without permission because he’s a total dickhead and I take back every nice thing I ever said about him.

Naturally, the Vision catches them smooching and sneaks off before they see him, and after he’s gone, Scarlet Witch finally gets the chance to tell Hawkeye she doesn’t like him that way.  For once in his life, he finally shuts up and leaves.

But enough with the icky stuff.

 

Where did Iron Man’s right foot go?

Unbeknownst to the Avengers, a bunch of Sentinels have just flown out of the sun and are headed for Earth.  If you’re familiar with the X-Men at all, you probably know that the Sentinels are giant robots invented by Dr. Bolivar Trask.  They’re designed to track down and eliminate mutants. 

But what were they doing in the sun, you ask?  According to Quicksilver’s flashback to X-Men #57-#59 from 1969, the son of the not-so-dearly departed Dr. Trask revived the Sentinel program to avenge his father’s death.  Even though mutants and the X-Men had nothing to do with the elder Trask’s death, Larry Trask blames them anyway because hey, why not?  The X-Men (and a couple of their mutant allies, including Pietro and Wanda) are taken one by one until its revealed that Larry is himself a mutant and the Sentinels cease to obey him.  In the end, Cyclops outwits them Spock style (i.e. with logic): he says that since the Sentinels must protect humanity from mutants, they must investigate the source of all mutations, and so the Sentinels throw themselves into the sun, the radiation from which causes mutations.

So that’s why the Sentinels are suddenly streaming out of the sun now (because they could totally survive the inside of the bleeping SUN).  It’s actually a really good read.  I’d recommend taking a peek if you get the chance.

Back with the Avengers, Wanda goes out for a walk and a Sentinel tracks her down.

 

You know how everyone’s always telling you not to go walking in Central Park at night?  This is exactly the reason why.

The Avengers rush to the rescue, though, being the Avengers, they can’t help squabbling as they do so.

 

Uh, Pietro, I know English isn’t your first language, and I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think that idiom got lost in translation somewhere…

Anyway, the Sentinel escapes with our magical mutant, disappearing into a wormhole-like thing.  Sentinels have never had the ability to do that before, so clearly someone else is involved in their return…

The Avengers regroup at the Mansion, which is how Issue 103 begins.  Quicksilver, however, as always seems to be the case when his sister is involved, impulsively dashes off on his own to try to rescue her himself.  He’s not exactly the world’s greatest team player, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

 

His hunch is both right and wrong.  While the old HQ is empty, there are signs (e.g. removed equipment) to indicate that someone has indeed been here recently.  He figures that Larry Trask might know what’s up and finds him at the house of Larry’s friend, Judge Chalmers.

 
“DON’T CHANGE THAT CHANNEL LAUGH-IN IS ON.”

When Chalmers pulls a gun on him, Quicksilver kidnaps Larry.  Meanwhile, the Avengers get a call from Peter Corbeau, a scientist who created a sun-observing satellite called Starcore One.  Needless to say, this ain’t exactly a social call.

 

Corbeau has traced the source of that outside force to the Australian Outback—which really narrows things down, since it only covers half a continent after all—and the Avengers make plans to travel there with all due haste.  But first, we’ve got one last dangling plot thread to snip: Rick Jones.

Rick comes barging in, demanding to go along with the team even though he isn’t a part of that team, and the Avengers tell him that this mission is too dangerous for him.  I’m not sure if that’s hypocritical, given the kinds of stuff they’ve let him do before when he was even younger, or if they’ve finally come to their senses.  Either way, Rick gets the message and he leaves to once again rejoin Captain Marvel in his own comic.

In Australia…

 

Somewhere, Hank Pym just stood up and screamed “THAT’LL TEACH YOU TO LAUGH AT MY POWERS!”

The Vision, in an uncharacteristically rash move, decides to scout ahead and ends up getting knocked out when Sentinels come crawling out of the anthill.  The Avengers gear up for a fight.

Back with Quicksilver, Larry Trask seems to have no memory of his evil exploits… until Pietro removes his medallion.  Said medallion, also invented by the prolific Bolivar Trask, keeps Larry’s mutant powers—clairvoyance—at bay.  Without it, Larry’s a bit of a mess, buffeted by visions from all over the place.

 
Larry finally recalls that his dad built a spare base somewhere in—you guessed it—Australia, and Quicksilver commandeers a jet to take both him and Larry there.  At Pietro’s urging, Larry tries to figure out how the Sentinels can suddenly teleport and ends up teleporting their own jet by tapping into the Sentinels’ still-unknown power source.

One more complication: Larry starts seeing into the future, and what he sees is the Avengers all dead and the Earth destroyed by solar flares, leaving nothing but darkness.

I kind of feel a tiny bit bad for Rick Jones; he’s constantly being shuffled between superheroes like a toy no one wants to play with.  It’s like the writers always start off real enthusiastic about his presence, then they get bored, forget about him for a while, and eventually punt him to another book as an afterthought.  I’m not really all that fond of him, but jeez, I hope you’re paying for all the therapy he’s going to need to resolve his abandonment issues. 

To read Avengerous Tales 2.17, go here!

Images from Avengers #102 and Avengers #103