Avengerous Tales 2.17 - Avengers #104-#105

To read Avengerous Tales 2.16, go here!

 

We have lots of goodbyes to say in this review.  I hope you brought your Bat-hanky. *sniff*

So Quicksilver and Larry Trask arrive at the Sentinels’ base and see the Avengers fighting.  Instead of getting involved, Quicksilver wants to find his sister NOW and Larry shows him a secret entrance as the Avengers battle on.

 

“Go on.  Lick it.  It tastes like strawberries!”

It’s actually the Vision who saves the day by phasing through each of the Sentinels.  The Avengers dive into the giant anthill and begin racing around in search of the machine that’s making the sun go kerplooey.  Speaking of which, let’s check in with the Scarlet Witch, who’s been chained to funky-looking machine.  The Sentinel guarding her helpfully shows her what it’s doing.

 

“YOU’RE GOING TO CANCEL FIREFLY?!!?!?”

Actually, Wanda’s the power behind the solar flare machine, but the Sentinels seem to believe they have it completely under control.  Instead of burning Earth to a cinder, it will simply render all of humanity sterile.  Then the Sentinels will create a new, mutant-free race of humans, thus eradicating the mutant menace forever.  It’s actually a pretty clever plan, except I’m pretty sure exposure to all that radiation would cause rampant cancer and radiation sickness, which would violate the Sentinels’ orders to never harm a regular human, but we can pretend they’re in such control of the flares that they can control radiation exposure, too.

Suddenly, the intruder alarm goes off, and the Sentinel guarding Wanda stomps off to investigate, leaving her alone.

That Sentinel quickly encounters Quicksilver and Larry.

 

But Quicksilver doesn’t (or can’t) stop.  He smashes straight into the wall and so does the Sentinel.  While the Sentinel is shattered, Quicksilver survives, but he’s banged up enough that he can’t go on.  It’s now up to Larry Trask to stop the Sentinels and save the world, which he vows to do.

Elsewhere in the compound, the rest of the Avengers have 99 problems and the Sentinels are all of them.

 

Wow, when did Captain America become a Mean Girl?

So remember how I said earlier that Sentinels are forbidden to harm humans?  Well, Sentinel Number Two has said ‘nuts to that’ (though it might be because he’s been cheesified damaged) and blasts the Avengers off their feet.  Luckily, Vision broke away earlier and freed the Scarlet Witch, and they put an end to the immediate danger.

But let’s not forget Larry Trask, who sneaks in and plays a hunch: he turns on a mutant detector, causing all mutants in the room to start glowing… including Sentinel Number Two???

 

And now we know how he could teleport earlier: mutant ability.  Because robots can be mutants now, I guess.  I’m confused.

And, of course, since Sentinels are programmed to make mutants harmless, the others turn on Number Two in the only way that will prevent him from harming anyone else: by totally destroying him.  Yikes.

With Sentinel Number Two gone, the others keel over, accidentally crushing Larry Trask.  Yeah, remember how he foresaw nothing but darkness?  That was his own death he was seeing, not the Earth’s.  Poor guy.

So the Avengers get out of there and bury the whole place, not realizing that Quicksilver is still injured in there somewhere.  We’ll find out what happened to him later, but before we get into the next issue, we need to do two very important things: say goodbye to writer Roy Thomas, and say hello to editor Roy Thomas.

Yup, apparently between Issues 104 and 105 Mr. Thomas got himself promoted, and the issue I just reviewed was the very last one he wrote.  And this isn’t like all those times I kept letting you know who the artists were as they changed.  Thomas was on this book for a LONG time, since Avengers #35.  That’s seventy issues over almost six years, plus the first two annuals, which I’m pretty sure is either a record or close to a record for this book.  He gave us a lot of great stories in that time, especially towards the end of his run.  And he certainly left his mark on the team, bringing us new members like the Black Knight, Vision, and Black Panther, and new villains like Ultron and the Grim Reaper.

Of course, he also made Hawkeye a dickbag again, co-created Man-Ape, and brought us the disaster that was the Pym/Van Dyne wedding, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

At least we get solid replacements for the creative team: Steve Englehart is our new writer, and John Buscema and Jim Mooney are here to make pretty artses for us.  Let’s see how they do!

 

Oooh, looks like someone’s jealous that Panther decided to visit Daredevil first.

(FYI, the house guests Hawkeye’s talking about are Thor’s friends: Fandral, Sif, Balder, Hogun, Brunnhilde, Tana Nile, and Silas Grant.  In Thor #203, Odin endangered everyone on Earth to create a new race of gods because he felt like it, Thor called him out on it, and Odin threw a tantrum, banishing Thor and all his buddies to Earth until Thor said sorry and meant it.)

Their catching-up time gets cut short by Wanda, who’s been burning the midnight oil trying to find her missing brother.  She hasn’t found him yet, but she did discover that three scientists have disappeared from Tierra del Fuego, an island off the southern coast of Chile, and she figures that maybe this has something to do with Pietro’s disappearance.

In Chile, the Avengers (plus Sif and minus Captain America, who was in the Bahamas beating up his evil twin) explore the cave where the three scientists disappeared.  Along the way, T’Challa confronts the panther-shaped elephant in the room.

 

They find themselves in the Savage Land, a jungle hidden beneath the Antarctic ice, and are promptly attacked by the natives.  After a brief tussle, they forge ahead to a village which, as revealed in X-Men #62-#63, was created by Magneto as a place where he could transform the indigenous Swamp People into mutants in yet another world-takeover bid.  Local hero Ka-zar didn’t take real kindly to that, to say nothing of the X-Men, and Magneto supposedly died in the ensuing fight.  Man, why do people always pick on Jean Grey for being resurrected all the time?  Magneto’s already done it twice BEFORE 1970.

The Avengers assume the village is abandoned, right up until the mutants Magneto created show up to throw boulders at Thor’s face.  Hawkeye, meanwhile, insults one of the mutants until he passes out from pure rage.

 

To be fair, this mutant (also called Brain Child) has the emotional maturity of a three-year-old, but how many three-year-olds do you know who knock themselves out because you called them a Pekingese?  (Seriously, that’s what Hawkeye said.)

Meanwhile, Iron Man defeats a Count Vertigo knock-off by rollerblading in circles; Sif and Thor jointly defeat a four-armed man; Scarlet Witch restores the sight of a blind giant, which distracts him long enough for Black Panther to knock him out; and Vision… um…

Behold, the master strategist at work.

Obviously Amphibius gets his slimy butt handed to him in a hurry, but one of the other mutants has an ace up his non-existent sleeve: the token female mutant, Lorelei.  Just like the myth she’s named after, she can entrance all men just by singing.

Sure enough, all of the male Avengers fall under her spell.  Time for Scarlet Witch and Sif to save the day!

 
Or you can go ahead and steal the spotlight, Vision.  (P.S. I think you mean ‘stonily.’)

Vision knocks out Lorelei, but he’s upset because he wasn’t affected by her song, thus proving once again that he’s not really human.

So all’s well that end’s well: the mutants had kidnapped the Chilean scientists in the hopes of creating more mutants, but now everybody’s safe and sound—except of course Pietro, who’s still missing.  Jarvis shows them a news report about a man who spontaneously vanished while walking down the street, and Scarlet Witch once again decides to investigate just in case it will lead her to her brother.

The comic ends with Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Black Panther and Iron Man going off to avenge stuff, leaving the Vision behind as he stares thoughtfully at the Grim Reaper’s amulet…

This story isn’t quite done, obviously, but as of now, it’s going alright.  I’m a little disappointed by how underused Sif was here.  You’ve got a GODDESS guest-starring in your book but she barely gets any screen time, and by the end, she’s gone off with Don Blake someplace and neither of them appear in the next issue (or, in Sif’s case, ever again).  I wanted to see her stab someone, dangit!

To read Avengerous Tales 2.18, go here!

Images from Avengers #104 and Avengers #105