Avengerous Tales 2.21 - Avengers #112-#113

To read Avengerous Tales 2.20, go here!

New headcanon: Wanda’s ever-changing hair color isn’t a mistake, she just likes dying it back and forth for the heck of it.

 We begin in Africa (couldn’t get any more specific than that, could you?), where an ill-fated American (?) reporter goes in search of an African god (?!), finds one called the Lion God, and is promptly sacrificed to him.

 

I find this scene offensive and wrong.  Everyone knows that African primates don’t have tails, so the monkeys shown here are clearly natives of South America.  What, are they on vacation?

But let’s go hang out at Avengers Mansion now, where Scarlet Witch is showing Black Widow around her new home.

 

“Spared no expense.”

What pressures would those be?  Well, for one, the people of Wakanda keep writing and begging him to come back like he’s a skinny, tech-savvy Santa Claus, AND a bunch of black folks are literally banging down the door to Avengers Mansion and threatening to kill him if he doesn’t go back to Wakanda where he’s needed most.  The latter group is being led by the poor schmo from earlier, who is apparently now a human vessel for the lion god.  And also he has mind control powers, hence the unruly mob.

With the use of those powers, the Lion God takes control of Black Panther’s mind and whisks him away to a cave, where he chains him to a wall.  Turns out that the Lion God is jealous because the Panther God has way more followers than he does, so the Lion God wants Black Panther to help him destroy the Panther cult or else he’ll kill everyone he loves.  Panther tells him to “go spit in the ocean,” which is a phrase I will be incorporating into my vocabulary immediately.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Asia…

 

Mantis and her mysterious shadowy lover will become super important in a few issues, so even though they only show up for three panels here, I’d be remiss not to mention their first (ish) appearance.

Anyway, back with the Avengers, who are debating how to track down the Lion God.  Before they can decide, the Lion God makes that decision for them, busting through the roof and ready to murder them all as a helpless Black Panther watches. (Well, not that helpless.  He busts out of the chains in a few pages because he’s awesome, but anyway.)

 

“No, not multi-colored polka dots!  My only weakness!”

Although Thor is the first one down, he’s also the one to defeat the Lion God, shooting him with enough electricity to send him back to his own spiritual plane or wherever he came from.  He’s not really defeated, just weakened, so we’ll definitely be seeing him again down the road.

The Avengers are real happy about their victory, obviously, and this latest battle has shown T’Challa that he is needed in America at least as much as he’s needed in Wakanda, so he elects to stay with the Avengers.  Black Widow, however…

 

EAT IT, HAWKEYE.  Oh, er, that is, good luck, Natasha.

We now turn to Issue 113, which is where Bob Brown, who worked for both DC and Marvel throughout his decades-long career as a penciller, takes over as our regular artist.  Finally!

Before we dive into this issue, though, can we talk about this cover for a sec?

 

Ignore Righteous Fury Wanda for a second and just look at the background.  Look at what Iron Man’s doing.  He’s helping Captain America shoot a guy who Cap has already knocked off his feet.  There are like ten other dudes to the right that Iron Man could be beating up, but no, he has to concentrate on the one guy that could potentially threaten Cap even though said threat has already been resolved.

Man, it has been so long since I last made a Superhusbands reference.  IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK BABY.

We start off with the Avengers at the Statue of Liberty, putting our poor Lady back together after she was destroyed by a villain named Gog in Astonishing Tales #18.  Apparently Ka-Zar and Bobbi “Mockingbird” Morse are too lazy to clean up their own messes.

 

Next thing we know, a bunch of reporters are camped out in front of Avengers Mansion, asking the public what they think about the mutant/android romance.  Most are supportive, but some are, um, not.

…Couldn’t you just send a petition around the neighborhood?  Have a bake sale?  Run for president?

But no, the Living Bombs (that’s actually what they call themselves) do exactly what you’d expect a group of people with that name to do: run over to Avengers headquarters, and whoever finds Vision first is the lucky person who gets to blow him up.

 

Well, that was a short issue.  Who’s up for shawarma?

No, of course not.  The Vision wasn’t able to become intangible fast enough to prevent being damaged, but he did survive, and Thor flies off “in search of” Dr. Donald Blake while Iron Man transports the Vision to Stark Industries so Tony can help save him too.  Blake, Stark, and T’Challa all answer the SOS (Save Our Synthezoid) and gather at once to assess the damage.

While they’re operating, Captain America encounters the remaining Living Bombs.  Scarlet Witch and Iron Man—Tony was appraised of the situation and ran off to “find” his “bodyguard”—help out as best they can.

The Golden Avenger appears between Captain America’s legs!

Okay that one was bad.  Go ahead and hit me for that one.  I don’t know, man, that cover unleashed a monster.

So Iron Man fights for a while and then goes back to the operating theater to ask Blake to find Thor.

 

Stop flirting with Thor, Tony, you have a boyfriend.

But yeah, in all seriousness, this is the first time one of the original Avengers revealed their secret identity (at least voluntarily), although this was less of a reveal and more of a ‘yeah we were pretty bloody obvious about it let’s just stop embarrassing ourselves by pretending.’

The Scarlet Witch magnetizes a wall behind the Living Bombs, yanking their stun guns away and distracting them long enough for Thor to create a whirlwind that sucks them all into the air.  Before he can retrieve them, however, they blow themselves up, ending their cult for good.

But Wanda’s not so naïve as to believe they are the only ones who disapprove of her relationship with the Vision and, as soon as Tony announces the Vision will live, she storms out of the building, yelling, “If it’s the two of us against the world, that’s the way it will be!  But look out, world!”

So I won’t pretend that the modern, real-life prevalence of suicide bombers targeting people whose lifestyles they disagree with didn’t make reading this last issue a tiny bit awkward, but if you can get past that, it’s fine.  We knew that the Vision/Scarlet Witch romance was going to become an issue eventually—granted, I wasn’t expecting fanatical suicide bombers, but, y’know, comics.

That being said, I am curious to see if Marvel will be mature enough to realize that prejudice doesn’t always present itself as big splashy hate crimes.  Usually it’s a dirty look, or a rejected application, or someone crossing the street when they see you coming, or pulling you over for reasons other than your driving.  Hopefully we’ll see our head-over-heels heroes dealing with some of that in the future rather than just the tiny percentage of people demented enough to strap a bomb to their chest.

To read Avengerous Tales 2.22, go here!

Images from Avengers #112 and Avengers #113