To read Avengerous Tales 2.25, go here!
I really want a
Zodiac story where we see them auditioning someone for Ophiucus but he’s such a
loser that they kick him out, and Ophiucus is really mad and wants revenge but
he’s still a loser so he doesn’t even try until he gets bit by a radioactive
snake charmer and gains the power to control reptiles or something and then he
goes on a rampage.
Marvel, you are
not allowed to steal this idea. If you
want it, you have to pay me, and by ‘pay me’ I mean ‘gimme an Avengers movie
where they don’t spend 50+% of the time hating each other.’ (What, me bitter?)
So the team is
hurtling into orbit inside a warehouse-cum-rocket ship. What’s the plan, Stan?
How will they
have graves if everything to make them is back on Earth?
Well, well,
well, ain’t this an interesting development?
RIP creepy
orange men who kidnap the children of people too weak to fight them. You will… be missed?
To read Avengerous Tales 2.27, go here!
Well, Iron Man’s
first idea is to break out through the giant picture window in the side of the
building, which is a terrible idea because a) they are in space, b) there is no
air in space, c) breaking the window would expose everyone to the hostile
vacuum of space, thereby d) murdering everyone who wasn’t Iron Man or Thor. Fortunately, the window turns out to be an
unbreakable force field rather than glass.
Again the
Avengers luck out. Thor’s hammer does
break through the force field, but the force field immediately closes up behind
it and, by the time the hammer returns to the spot where it was thrown, the
warehouse has drifted away, leaving Thor Mjolnir-less. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Thor lose
his hammer, so for those who don’t remember, Thor can only be without it for
sixty seconds before he reverts to Dr. Donald Blake. Thor manages to hide behind some crates
before anyone can see him transform.
‘Anyone,’ of
course, includes half of Zodiac, who see the desperate dive and conclude
something is wrong with the God of Thunder, which would make this the perfect
time to pummel him. The Avengers, even
those who don’t know Thor’s secret, aren’t about to let that happen, and
everyone fights until the Vision yells at them.
Back with the
jerk who started this mess, Cornelius Van Lunt/Taurus is telling the remnants
of Zodiac about their teammates’ demise and how he’ll kill them all if they try
something similar. Libra confesses that
he knew of Aries’ plot but refused to go along.
Rather confusingly, this just makes Taurus madder, and he scolds them
all for not having the guts to fight him.
Kinda sending mixed messages there, guy—you don’t quash future
rebellions by encouraging future rebellions.
As soon as
Gemini and Libra leave Taurus’s office (I guess all the others used another
door), Libra attacks Gemini, ties him up, and hurries off to rescue Gemini’s
twin brother Damian. He then asks
Damian to keep Taurus busy for a while.
Back in space,
Zodiac agrees to stop being a pain in the Avengers’ collective behind, allowing
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to focus on rescuing everybody. The Scarlet Witch opens a hex sphere in the
middle of the force field, giving Iron Man just enough time to rush out. Then he powers up the jet boots and pushes
the weightless warehouse back towards Earth.
He even grabs Thor’s hammer along the way, commenting how he’s lucky
it’s weightless too or else he wouldn’t be able to carry it.
You may have
noticed some problems with this scene.
First of all,
Thor can breathe and survive unprotected in space, meaning that Asgardians and
Asgardian objects do not obey Earth rules when it comes to space. I don’t see why Odin would make the hammer
any more liftable in space than on Earth, given the number of space menaces
there are in the Marvel universe.
Second, it
shouldn’t be a hammer at all at this point.
After sixty seconds away from Thor, it should have transformed back into
Don Blake’s walking stick, which any old schmo can lift and so Iron Man
shouldn’t have had to worry about this anyway.
But then we
couldn’t get this exciting scene.
We get a brief
scene at Avengers Mansion, where the Swordsman is getting paranoid that Mantis
likes the Vision better than him because she dared to praise his skills when
he saved her life and Vision dared to express admiration for the self-healing
trance she put herself into. And here I
thought he was trying to be a better boyfriend, not a paranoid and controlling
one. (Though, unfortunately, it turns
out he’s only half as paranoid as he thinks he is.)
His fears aren’t
helped when Mantis suddenly leaps out of bed, declares the Vision is in
trouble, and rushes off to save him. The
Swordsman is still weak from his own injuries and can’t follow.
But back to
Zodiac. Damian Link does a very bad job
of imitating his brother and Taurus punches him. Discovering that Libra is also missing
doesn’t make his day any better, and he, Capricorn and Virgo rush off in search
of their missing members. They clamber up
to the roof, where Libra, the rebel Zodiac members, and the Avengers have just
landed, and they’re none too happy with Taurus.
In the ensuing
fight, Vision knocks Taurus into Zodiac’s rooftop pool… which was presumably put there for
the benefit of the water signs or something since Taurus can’t swim. The Vision, just like in the quicksand in
Dormammu’s dimension, freezes up, requiring a just-arrived Mantis to dive in
and save him.
When grilled
afterwards, the Vision can provide no explanation for his recent lapses. When Libra is grilled on why he chose to
rescue the Avengers, he says it’s because he thought Mantis was with them. He also pulls a Darth Vader on her. Yup, that’s right—he is her father! The only difference is that Mantis isn’t
suspended over a giant pit during Libra’s announcement… although his
declaration does end the issue, so she’s hanging from a cliffhanger if nothing
else.
Avengers #123 opens with Mantis’s
response to Libra’s revelation. It’s
basically “wtf you jerk that’s not cool stop lying.” The Vision points out that it’s probably not
a great idea to have this discussion while almost a dozen dangerous criminals
who hate you are just standing around within listening distance. After dumping Zodiac (minus Libra) at the
police station, the Avengers regroup at the Mansion.
In 1953, Libra
was a German mercenary working with French forces in Vietnam. As you probably guessed, Libra fell in love
with a local woman named Lua. (Not sure
if that’s a real Vietnamese name or if the writer just liked the sound of
it—anyone know?) They married just two
months after they met. Apparently this
wasn’t enough time for Lua to warn him about her xenophobic brother Monsieur
Khruul (yes, the same guy the Swordsman was working for), who forces them to
flee.
While on the run,
they found time to have a daughter, the woman we now know as Mantis. Unfortunately, Khruul’s assassins show up to
murder them with flamethrowers not long after Mantis’s birth. Lua dies and Libra loses his sight, but he
manages to grab Mantis and run off into the jungle. Days later, he stumbles upon an ancient
secluded temple. Don’t even pretend like
you’re surprised.
While the
priests agree to care for Libra and teach him how to get along without his
sight, they don’t approve of his past and don’t let him visit his daughter at
all. They do take good care of her,
however, training her in multiple forms of martial arts. Years go by and Libra, having had no contact
with his daughter in all that time, forgets his love for her and returns to a
life of crime, eventually joining Zodiac.
Mantis still
refuses to believe all this and attacks Libra. When the Avengers try to stop her she turns
her fury on them, kicking the ever-loving crud out of them all. Libra, who received the same training she
did, pins her to the floor. She calls
out to the Swordsman for help. Not real
sure what she expects him to do, since he couldn’t even stand up without
fainting last issue, but in any event…
Actually, it’s
more serious than that. While Mantis
doesn’t believe Libra’s story, the Swordsman does, and it’s caused his hatred
of Monsieur Khruul to shoot up to Murderous Vengeance levels. He steals a quinjet and flies off to Saigon,
and the Avengers can’t follow, since they left their second quinjet in New
Jersey and T’Challa’s personal ship is built only for one. Iron Man has no choice but to fly to Jersey
and retrieve the second quinjet, thinking to himself as he does so, “Being an Avenger
is like living in a madhouse!” Ehh, don’t
sweat it Tony, all old comic books are like that.
Over in Saigon,
the Swordsman storms Khruul’s palace and is immediately knocked unconscious by
his ‘roided up lackeys. Well that was
quick.
It takes the Avengers
an hour to make it to Saigon, but by that time Khruul has tortured the
existence of the Priests of Pama out of the Swordsman. Wow, this guy has even less luck than the
Black Knight. It’s comically tragic: the
harder he tries to be a hero, the worse he fares.
Khruul and his
lackeys then left to go get revenge against the priests for daring to care for
Khruul’s hated niece. While the Scarlet
Witch gets the Swordsman to a hospital, the other Avengers hasten to find the
Priests of Pama, with Libra leading the way.
The Avengers
don’t take kindly to murder in any event, and they make short work of Khruul’s
minions. Khruul himself, however, is
nowhere to be found, until the Avengers hear him screaming from inside the
temple. By the time they get to him,
he’s practically dead and only has time warn them to “beware the star-stalker.” What is the star-stalker? The Avengers don’t know, but us readers are
treated to a nice big panel of a dragon stalking the depths of the temple…
We’ve been
getting a lot more big epic storylines lately, which I feel is both good and
bad. I kind of miss the simplicity of
the old days, where they could tell a story in one or two issues. Currently, even when an Avengers story only encompasses one issue, said issue is actually a
callback to previous events in another book or part of a bigger crossover
event, meaning that they feel a lot longer.
However, the longer storylines do allow for more consistent continuity
and character development, which is nice.
Oddly, it seems
like most of the character development in this book focuses on the new (or
relatively new) members, e.g. Vision’s freezing up, Mantis’s past, etc. Guys like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America,
who were once basically the headliners of this book, have been relegated to
supporting characters in everyone else’s drama.
I’m guessing that’s because they all have their own titles in which to
grow and change, whereas the newbie Avengers (as far as I know) were limited to
this one title. I don’t mind… at least
not yet. Hopefully all of the Avengers
will get their share of personal trials and tribulations, especially since personal
drama in the individual books is rarely dealt with in any tangible way in The Avengers, as we shall see.
To read Avengerous Tales 2.27, go here!
Images from Avengers #122 and Avengers #123
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