To read Avengerous Tales 2.21, go here!
Apparently the Swordsman and Mantis have gotten into Hank Pym’s store of growth serum. So has that bug, for that matter.
So Wanda’s still pretty PO’d about the events of last issue, as you can imagine, and her mood is not improved when she sees Cap and Iron Man testing the Vision to make sure he’s combat-ready.
It’s not the
testing itself that annoys her—who could possibly object to that panel?—but
rather what Cap says next: that if Vision had been human rather than an
android, he’d be all over the sidewalk right now. A true enough statement, but Wanda is sick of
the constant reminders that she and Vision are different and decides to go for
a walk to clear her head.
It doesn’t help:
the second she steps outside the gate, a bunch of jerks try to flirt with her
and insult her taste in men at that same time, which seems
super-counterproductive, but again, they are jerks. She hexes the heck out of them, but one gets
near enough to slap her.
Enter Mantis!
Mantis even
walks Wanda home to make sure she’s okay.
At the Mansion, Wanda tries to invite Mantis inside, but Captain America
refuses, stating that “unauthorized personnel” are not allowed in Avengers
HQ. Given what happened the last time
they ignored that rule, he’s perfectly right to be nervous about this.
His fears are
further heightened by the fact that Mantis didn’t arrive in the city
alone. Her boyfriend and former Avengers
foe the Swordsman is here too, and he wants to be let back into the Avengers
because Mantis has made a new man out of him, etc., etc.
Cap still isn’t
buying it, but the others are willing to give Swordsman a chance. In the name of democracy, Cap stands aside. As for Mantis, she doesn’t want to join the
team, but she does want to stick close to her sweetie pie, so she’s staying at
the mansion now too. Wanda’s super happy
about that, since she’s tired of being the token girl.
Was Steve
Englehart also writing a romance comic at the time? Because I think he got the scripts mixed up.
ANYWAY. Thor is super impressed by the Swordsman and
recommends that they make him a full-fledged Avenger. Cap, however, still harbors doubts,
especially after they all view a news story about how Hawkeye is back in New
York (he and the Hulk kicked Zzzax’s electric fanny in Hulk #166). The Swordsman
reacts by saying what a showboat Hawkeye is and how they totally don’t need him
in the Avengers so don’t even THINK about asking him back.
Cap considers
following Swordsman as he leaves the room, but nah… he’s just being needlessly
suspicious now, right?
Cap is going to
be paranoid forever now.
The Lion God
storms Avengers Mansion with Swordsman and Mantis leading the charge.
But not all is
as it seems. Just as the Lion God is
about to burn Black Panther at the stake, the Swordsman and Mantis hypnotize
him (???) long enough for Iron Man to recover and trap him in an adamantium
cylinder, which Thor then shoots to another dimension. Huh?
Well, Mantis is
sort of an empath, and when she sensed the Lion God’s return was imminent, she
and the Swordsman planned this whole charade to lure him out and defeat him for
good. The Avengers (except Cap) accept
this explanation and move on as if it never happened.
Now it’s time
for our next adventure, which takes place in England. Or it will, if the British government lets
them in.
Not sure why
Mantis is being punished for the Swordsman’s crimes. She hasn’t done anything to deserve being
banned, as far as we know.
But the Avengers,
being the Avengers, convince Mr. Stick-in-the-Mud that they will be responsible
for the Swordsman’s actions, and so he’s temporarily allowed to visit “merrie
olde England” with his teammates.
So just what are
the Avengers doing in England? They’re
here to yet again rescue the missing Black Knight. Poor guy: he was really happy to be named an official Avenger, but the only time he shows up in this comic is
when he gets kidnapped or put in a magic-induced coma.
To add to the
mystery, the Black Knight’s home, Garrett Castle, is surrounded by an
Avenger-proof force field. They are
displeased.
Mantis uses her
empathy nature powers to tap into the field and learns that Doctor Strange is
the one who put it up, though she can’t tell why.
And then a bunch
of literal troglodytes pop out of the ground and attack everybody. Apparently they have trouble telling us
surface dwellers apart and blame the Avengers for whatever happened to the
Black Knight, from whose castle they would often pilfer food. The troglodytes’ king, Skol, also exposits
for no reason about how he and the others are descendants of English peasants
who fled underground after being accused of poaching.
Anyway, the
Avengers obviously don’t know what happened to the Black Knight or why Doctor
Strange erected the force field. Skol really,
really doesn’t like that answer.
I’ve always wondered what the heck a ‘troth’ is and why Asgardians would swear by it, so I looked it up. The explanation is pretty dull, actually—troth is just a 12th-century word for faith or loyalty. It looks like it derives from the word ‘truth,’ which is kind of obvious when you know it.
Now that we’ve
got that boring English lesson over with, let’s get back to the action. Mantis kicks the skele-bug’s behind, which
angers the troglodytes enough that they douse all the torches, leaving the
Avengers in total darkness. Fortunately,
Black Panther’s cat-like eyesight spots the tunnel through which the
troglodytes are about to attack them.
With Panther’s
help, the Avengers line up in front of the tunnel entrance, ready to defend
themselves.
There’s also a
brief coda where a blinded Loki teams up with a demon named Dormammu, who is
currently banned from Earth, in a plan to expand Dormammu’s own hellish
dimension until it engulfs the Earth.
That would create a loophole through which Dormammu could invade Earth
like he wants, since it’d technically be part of his territory.
But I’ll explain
more about that next time.
To read Avengerous Tales 2.23, go here!
Images from Avengers #114 and Avengers #115
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