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thebibliomancer · 3 months ago

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Essential Avengers: The Terminus Factor - First Half

1990

The TERROR Begins!

The terror of another Annual Crossover! Oh noes!

But, but, but! Instead of trying to make one event for the whole company, Marvel has split into fiefdoms.

The Avengers and related books have their own event, the Terminus Factor. The X Books are doing Days of Future Present. The Spider-Man books apparently have a crossover called "Spidey's Totally Tiny Adventure." And the rest of the annuals (Punisher, Daredevil, Incredible Hulk, and Silver Surfer) get lumped together for Lifeform.

The takeaway here is that I don't have to kill myself trying to cover 14 annuals, Atlantis Attacks. There's just five annuals in the Terminus Factor: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, West Coast Avengers, and Avengers. All relevant to my interests and within my wheelhouse.

And all written by Roy and Dann Thomas! It's still a lot of material to cover in one post so I'll still be splitting it up. But limiting things to the Avengers and having the same writers for the thing means it should stay on the rails and not go off into some drug subplot so Punisher can play.

Sure, the focus is Terminus and he's nobody's favorite cosmic jerk. But everything is working in favor of this being a better event than Evolutionary War or Atlantis Attacks.

That's a low bar so fingers crossed, knock on wood.

Captain America Annual #9: You ARE What You Eat

Something already neat about this event is this table of contents. Instead of just Part 1 or Chapter 1, the parts are labelled Stage One and so on and seem to refer to... uh, Terminus' life-cycle. Which he apparently has.

Also, Hercules killed him. But it doesn't seem to have stuck. Or, considering the life-cycle... maybe Terminus laid some eggs before he got Hercules'd?

We're gonna find out!

Also, this Captain America Annual starts in the wildest place. Tony Stark dropping Captain America into a volcano.

Okay, once again with context. Captain America is accompanying vulcanologist Dr Ramona Napier in a special capsule to study Mt. Saint-Cloud from the inside. Tony Stark asked Cap to ride-along. The capsule gets dropped into a volcano by helicopter.

I don't know what kind of wonder capsule this is that it's actually dense enough to sink in magma. Truly science is amazing.

But deep in the new volcano, a mechanical looking egg EXPLODES and releases glowing blobs which start rising upward.

The glowing blobs twine around the capsule, so bright that they're blinding in what should be a pitch black environment (despite how magma is usually depicted as warm orange and reds, even in this very comic). Dr Napier bumps the controls and accidentally locks the capsule to plummet deeper into the volcano.

Observers near the throat of the volcano see the glowing blobs shoot out of the lava and into a nearby stream. They have no idea what to make of that.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark.

He's waiting outside the mountain. Anxiously. Because they lost communications with the capsule.

Which, by the way, they tested in simulated lava! Because, honestly, if you're going to drop your friend into a volcano, it'd better be in a capsule that's already proven lava-proof.

One of the engineers manages to track the capsule as sinking out of control. Tony tells the engineers to do what they can while he goes for a walk and think.

Some Guy: "'Think'? What good'll it do him to go walking off into the woods now? He claims he cares so much about the human beings in Persephone-1... Was that all just a pose?" Another Guy: "Nuts! To blazes with Tony Stark, Boy Industrialist! We've got people to -- Huh? IRON MAN!?"

Yup, Tony Stark went for a walk out of sight and then Iron Man shows up.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, being his own bodyguard is one of those things where you have to suspend him disbelief. But in this instance... Tony Stark goes for a walk, Iron Man shows up and goes 'wow good thing Tony had me on call, just in case!' yeah, I wouldn't question it.

Also a good thing that Tony designed the Iron Man armor to withstand 2000 degrees... well, for a few seconds. Just can't fit as much heat-proofing on an Iron Man armor as you can on a volcano capsule.

Iron Man: "See you soon -- or not at all!"

This story could go in a very grim direction.

Also, Iron Man just plunges right into the lava. Yadda yadda density. Although, he once shoulder checked a rock the size of Manhattan. I believe he could force his way through dense molten rock.

Inside the volcano and inside the capsule, Captain America manages to pull the capsule out of the dive. So they're not sinking. But the heat refracting tiles are coming loose so they're cooked regardless.

THEN BIG HERO MOMENT

Iron Man carries the capsule to the surface of the lava. Then he has to fuck off to cool his armor down before it goes into meltdown.

Which does leave Captain America a chance to be cool too. The door is still locked and it's still ridiculously hot inside... because, well, they're resting in a pool of lava. So Captain America kicks the door down and jumps to the lip of the volcano!

Volcano rescue makes for a pretty amazing opening. Probably not remotely scientifically accurate but comics seldom are.

Meanwhile, the glowing goop from the volcano landed in a stream. One of the engineers comments that something that unusual is what they're dropping capsules into volcanoes to study but what can ya do. No harm done if it lands in the stream, right?

Anyway, the goop is eaten by trout who get weird eyes. A bear is fishing in the stream but is scared off by some people from Georgeville who cast a net to catch some fish for a fry.

A fish fry hosted by the that Iron Man, Captain America, and Dr Napier attend. Tony Stark was scheduled to attend too but whoops, he had to go back to California and people have definitely seen him and Iron Man in the same room at the same time.

Cap and Dr Napier don't eat anything at the trout feast, already feeling queasy from being bounced around inside the volcano capsule.

Also, the thing where Tony's fellow Avengers aren't sure whether or not he's Iron Man continues. They also continue to strongly suspect it's him.

I dunno the point of this subplot. It hasn't really gone anywhere.

Anyway, Cap is distracted mid-conversation with Dr Napier when the mayor suddenly gets the same red with white crackle eyes as the trout and starts growling.

He jumps at Captain America, who grabs him mid-leap and flips him headfirst into the ground. Ouch.

Captain America: "Maybe I had to rough up his honor a bit more than I'd have liked -- but that was more to stop him from really getting hurt than to protect myself. No northwoods politician -- not even one who suddenly turned into a raving maniac -- is any real threat to a guy who's gone toe-to-toe with the Red Skull."

But he quickly realizes it's not just the mayor. It's the whole crowd. It's Iron Man.

It's nearly everyone aside from Cap and Dr Napier.

Cap quickly deduces that something was wrong with the food so even though all these people are trying to kill them, he doesn't want to hurt them unnecessarily. Or let them hurt those in town unaffected. Or let the berserkers hurt themselves.

He sees an adult man and a child running at a terminal box. The man rips the live wires out and gets electrocuted. The child nearly gets the same but Cap tackles him out of the way and shoves him in an ice barrel so he can't try it again.

Meanwhile, Iron Man lands so Captain America throws his mighty shield and all who oppose his shield must yield their ass to the floor.

Weirdly, the crowd piles on Iron Man instead of continuing to go after Cap. Also, notably, the child Cap shoved in some ice seems to have recovered, regaining his speech and asking if he can get out.

Cap tells the boy to run home. And the gears in his head must have been turning because he suddenly seems to have a plan.

He tells Dr Napier to get to tha choppa, he's got a theory. And just as he predicts, Iron Man throws the dogpile off of himself and takes off after the helicopter.

Captain America flies towards the mountain and nearly gets there when Iron Man blasts the rotors.

The helicoptor crashes on the snowy mountain. Luckily, Cap and Dr Napier survive the crash. Good piloting, Launchpad.

But the townspeople are marching up the mountain path after the helicopter "like the cast of 'Night of the Living Dead'! and Iron Man is circling overhead.

Captain America: "IRON MAN! If you want me -- if there's enough of your brain functioning for you to have any idea what you want -- COME AND GET ME!"

And Iron Man swoops down and fires his repulsors at Cap. And when the guy just backflips away from that, Iron Man punches him in the face.

This glowy eye trout food poisoning sure is an odd beserker status. The people affected don't seem able to talk anymore but Tony is operating a complicated suit of powered armor. Weird.

Anyway, Iron Man beats the shit out of Captain America. And Captain America baits him into flying into a snowbank and also SPTANNGs him in the chest.

It's a very disproportionate fight. As one would expect when a dude, even a peak human dude, is trying to fight a war machine.

Iron Man punches Captain America off a cliff and then repulsors the rock he's clinging to. But as Cap is falling to his death, Iron Man seems to regain his sense and his non-glowy eyes.

He flies down really quick and catches Captain America and flies him back up to the clifftop.

And now is when Captain America Explains It All.

Captain America: "Something in those fish turned people into raging psychopaths -- beserkers attracted to energy sources, like a terminal box and your armor -- or you, to the chopper. But you snapped out of it -- just in time, by my reckoning -- because cold somehow seems to reverse its effects. An accidental ice-dip had worked on that boy -- so I had to pray it'd work on the rest of you. And it did, once the townspeople had tramped up here to the snowline chasing a power source -- you! As you can see, they're slowly returning to normal."

Well, that sure was a lot of correct conclusions you jumped to, based on the available evidence.

Dr Napier adds that the weird glowing stuff they saw shoot out of the volcano was probably to blame. It landed in the same stream that the trout were fished from.

Iron Man: "Then, whatever that glowing substance was -- we can't be sure the menace it posed is over, can we?" Dr Napier: "No. Of course, it's possible that all of it was absorbed by those particular fish -- or else dissipated harmlessly in the flowing stream --" Captain America: "But if it wasn't, it could be way downstream by now. It could be... almost anywhere... And, if something else ate some of those tainted fish... the whole world could be in big trouble!"

Oh no, the bear from earlier was infected by eating a glowy fish!

TERMINUS LIVES!

Well, the cover has Terminus on it and the title of the crossover is the Terminus Factor. So it's not a huge surprise.

But I guess the glowy stuff was Terminus goo and now that bear is Terminused. Got the red eyes.

This introductory issue was not bad. An excuse for Captain America and Iron Man to fight, with Captain America getting to be the smart one. An interesting new angle for Terminus, who was just budget Galactus before now.

And the Iron Man Annual is next so I assume Tony is going to have to fight a bear.

Let's find out!

Iron Man Annual #11: If the TERMINI Come...

THE BEGINNING of the END!

That Terminus-infected bear is looking pretty gruesome. Like an animatronic that has seen better days and is also into murder.

Also, hi, Aaron Stack!

Feels like it's been a while since I've seen you in something. I don't remember if you appeared in any of Essential Avengers before now so it would be the Earth X liveblog instead.

Anyway.

We start with some Aaron Stack, Machine Man (X-51), status quo. Apparently, the Captain's team of ad hoc Avengers found Jocasta's disembodied head floating in the ocean after she blew up the High Evolutionary's gigantic boat. And lacking the ability or motivation to do anything about it, they mailed the head to Aaron.

... That's what Iron Man did with Victor Mancha's head too, when he 'died' in the Vision series.

Avengers, stop mailing people robot heads!

As Aaron tries to repair Jocasta (or at least reactivate her head? She's missing most of her), he's kept company by Peter Spaulding.

Anyway, suddenly a very angry bear bursts through the wall.

Aaron shoves Peter to relative safety and tries to restrain the bear. But it knocks him away, tearing its fur in the process and revealing

ROBOT BEAR.

Wow, Terminus infection is a hell of a thing.

It completely hollowed out that bear and replaced the body with metal, leaving just the fur.

I would have had a seemingly normal bear be the threat for a while, delay the metallic reveal. Perhaps during Aaron's very ineffective attacks on it.

He tries tackling the bear, to no effect. He tries shooting the bear with his finger gun (he has a .357 Magnum built into his pointer). He even tries using his knuckle flamethrower. Which would have been a good time for the fur to be burned away and show what Aaron is really dealing with.

Aaron even tries an extendo-punch but the bear rips off his arm and starts chowing down on it.

Getting his arm ripped off knocks Aaron the fuck out. Peter Spaulding has stuck around despite Aaron telling him to run and he won't leave Aaron to be snacked on. He manually activates Aaron's boot jets and sends him flying out of the shack. Aaron even manages to snag Jocasta's head, despite being unconscious. Nice!

Then Peter Spaulding figures, this thing wants to eat metal, I'll give him metal to eat. He throws a container of liquid titanium at it. While the METAL BEAR chews on that, Peter tries running out the Aaron hole.

But the bear snags his leg and drags him back into the shack. And considering the scream and the SNAPP!... Yeah, Peter Spaulding isn't making it out of this one.

And by this one, I mean this story.

What's weird is that this isn't the end of Peter Spaulding. For some reason, despite dying here, he was brought back ten years later in a X-51 series with no explanation.

SO NEARLY TWENTY YEARS AFTER THAT, Marvel Comics #1001 has to establish that the Peter Spaulding was an impersonator.

Why was someone impersonating Peter Spaulding? Iunno.

Sometimes retcons amount to little more than a shrug. Anything to get out of a seemingly irreversible writing decision.

Over on the Iron Man side of this Iron Man book, Tony Stark is being given a tour of the Baintronics Inc factory by Sunset Bain.

Tony Stark: "Hope you won't mind my asking -- is 'Sunset' your given name?" Sunset Bain: "Yes. Given by me... to myself. I'm very much a self-made woman, Tony."

Tony and Sunset vibe for a bit over robotics. Sunset has a nostalgia for the robots you'd see in old sci-fi. And muses how she always wanted to grab a can-opener and see what was inside.

Odd lady, Sunset Bain.

Something triggers the Baintronics Inc factory reconnaissance radar and Sunset cuts the tour short to go check it out. Tony being Tony decides to check it out too, after finding a spot to change into Iron Man.

Iron Man spies a missile that is very much shaped like a man just hurtling through the air past the Baintronics compound and towards the Columbia River.

He uses his repulsors to nudge the object into landing on the shore and discovers that it's no missile, it's Aaron Stack, Machine Man! Minus an arm and plus a Jocasta head.

Iron Man scoops up Aaron and takes him into Baintronics factory. He lie/explains to Sunset that he took Tony Stark to safety and that he'll call later. But hey, look at this Machine Man.

Tony Stark, that resourceful, clever man, definitely has some tools at his Los Angeles plant that can help repair Machine Man so he asks if he can leave Aaron there for an hour while he goes to get those tools.

Sunset Bain says that's no problem and that's because she's up to no good.

My cursed future knowledge of Dan Slott's Iron Man run makes me aware that Sunset Bain is actually evil. And she has the supervillain name of Madam Menace. She reveals her true colors the second Iron Man is gone.

She's been after Machine Man for a while and now he was just dropped into her lap? Everything coming up Sunset!

She has the deactivated Aaron taken to the Duplikatron, which scans his body and creates a duplicate except with both arms.

And she would have gotten away with it if this wasn't taking place during a crossover.

The Terminus-infected robot bear OH YEAHs into the Baintronics facility and starts tearing its way through men and machines.

Begrudgingly, Madam Menace Sunset Bain sends out her evil mooks to go deal with the robot bear. She doesn't like Madam Menace business mixing with Sunset Bain business. And she also errs on the side of caution and commands Iron Man to turn around and come back.

Sunset Bain: "You've got to get back here!"

Iron Man: "But I'm already halfway to Fresno!" Sunset Bain: "I don't care if you're halfway to the Moon! Get your tin can back here -- fast!"

Iron Man turns around but he sourly thinks that he doesn't really care for that attitude.

And in fairness, she hangs up on him without actually explaining jack. He's reasonably irritated.

When he arrives and sees the giant hole in the skylight and the robot bear terrorizing, he concedes okay this is a real emergency.

Iron Man jet boots right at the bear to welcome it to the slam but gets smacked back, FTHAK!

Iron Man: "That huge metal thingie -- it's terrorized those men, and now it looks like it's eating those titanium rods. Ordinarily, I like to find out what's going on before I take sides in a squabble -- but this time, I think maybe I'd better make an exception! ARRRGN--! On the other hand -- maybe there's something to be said for the diplomatic approach."

So Iron Man tries approaching the bear and asking what its deal is. The bear does not respond... uh doy... so Iron Man resumes resorting to force. He repulsors it against a wall but it manages to force itself loose and KTHANGs him again.

This time Iron Man got a good look at its eyes and recognized the look from what Captain America told him about the Georgeville, Washington fish fry incident. The stuff that shot out of the volcano and infected the fish and the people that ate the fish!

And for some reason, Iron Man also leaps to the conclusion that this is Terminus! Even though he's never been around on the previous times the big guy has been encountered.

I wonder if that's just narrative convenience to establish that this is a Terminus thing or if it will be important in the plot that the word Terminus leapt to Tony's brain.

Anyway, the link to the fish fry incident gives Iron Man a thing to try. Cold killed the terminus spores (or whatevers) in that case. So he'll just dump a big vat of frozen liquid titanium on the bearobot.

(I don't think titanium is liquid at cold temperatures actually... But it sure is in this story)

Unfortunately, the robot bear just absorbs the inexplicably frozen liquid titanium and grows bigger.

Then it smacks around Iron Man some more, except with bigger claws.

Meanwhile, Sunset Bain is trying to relocate the Machine Men out of the path of the bear rampage but her workers tender their resignations, no two weeks notice because they do not want to get beared.

A power surge wakes up Machine Man. He remembers his own encounter with the metal bear and follows the sounds of an exciting action packed comic book fight to see what's been going on without hi.

(Luckily for Sunset, the copy Machine Man was on a lower platform than Aaron and he doesn't look back once he gets going.)

Machine Man joins the fray and Iron Man catches him up on how things have been progressing. He also asks Aaron whether he's ever heard the name Terminus. he has not. And since Terminus was 150 feet tall...

Machine Man: "May we assume, then, that our present foe is still growing?" Iron Man: "At this point, we can't assume anything -- including our survival!"

Stakes: raised.

Aaron mentions that when he ran into this thing and it took his arm, it looked more like a bear. Fur and whatnot. And Iron Man says maybe it was and explains how a more microbial stage was able to mindjack anything that ate it.

There's an error with who the speech bubbles are pointing to but I think Aaron comes up with the idea to try molten metal if frigid liquid metal didn't work.

Machine Man has to swoop down and scoop up Sunset Bain (who has changed out of her Madam Menace mask) when the giant metal bear starts chasing her.

Sunset Bain: "But -- what's Iron Man doing with that vat of hot liquid metal? " Iron Man: "whatever -- i can -- lady -- unnnh! -- Whatever I CAN!"

And he just dumps that vat of piping hot metal all over the giant metal bear. Who melts.

Aaron was right about the first and second Terminus stages having different needs and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, out of the frying pan into the fire.

Right after finishing off the bear, Iron Man, Machine Man, and Sunset Bain hear a news report of hordes of animal-shaped robots swarming towards Seattle's aircraft factories, shipyards, and the Baintronics complex. On the hunt for Titanium.

Metal birds, metal fish, and metal beeeeees.

The problem was not limited to one net full of fish and one bear. Those Terminus spores have gotten all up and down the food chain.

Iron Man and Machine Man head off to go tackle the problem while Sunset Bain stays behind to capitalize.

One of her guys asks if she wants to activate the duplicate Machine Man so he can help deal with the robot animals. Sunset calls him an idiot. She's keeping the duplicate. Going to have to change some details around since the original is still kicking. Maybe use that random woman robot head Machine Man left behind.

Sunset Bain: "What's the difference? After all -- they'll only be robots. Our robots! It's not like robots have any real feelings or anything!"

Scene cut to Machine Man being very sad that (eventually retconned into an imposter) Peter Spaulding got super killed by the robot bear. He also has to comfort friend Gears Garvin who is feeling a lot of survivor's guilt for not being around.

Also, apparently, the horde of animal robots have diverted from Seattle. Iron Man suspects that there's some kind of group mind that told them one of their number got destroyed. Also, he's dubbed the robotocized animals Termini.

Aaron gets a new arm and he and Iron Man take off to go fight lots of things!

So many things.

As covered in one of the annual's back-up stories, which takes the form of a news broadcast about the "Terminus Plague."

Gonna be honest. Terminus Plague sounds like a better name for the crossover than the Terminus Factor.

Apparently, as Iron Man explained it and the KSNN broadcast conveyed it "'Termini,' which is apparently a sort of electronic virus that infects living organisms and slowly transmutes them to rabid, robotic creatures."

Which seems right.

It's cool to follow up directly from Iron Man and Captain America having a weird Terminus-related situation to Iron Man dealing with the same problem but bigger.

Just something you can do with these more contained crossover annuals which just have one writing team.

But, geez. I'm not very familiar with older Iron Man comics but Dan Slott must have loved this era. Sunset Bain making a copy Machine Man and having Jocasta's head. That's all stuff he repeated during the Iron Man 2020 event.

It's always weird, reading through older comics and recognizing some plot points as having been recycled later. Bendis ripping off Darker Than Scarlet. Morrison doing their own take on That Which Endures. Dan Slott loving this Iron Man era, apparently.

Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. Onto the next annual.

Thor Annual #15: Can Terminus Be Far Behind?

The Return of the ORIGINAL Terminus!

Is Thor shoulder dropping Terminus? Because that would be awesome.

More awesome than the title of this part of the crossover. The Captain America annual got to have a title that hinted at the story. "You are what you eat." People ate Terminus spores and got infected by Terminus.

"If the Termini come..." is a little ominous. What are the Termini? What happens if they come? And by the end of the issue, after Iron Man and Machine Man spend most of the story fighting one, they learn there's a whole bunch more. Uh oh!

But then it turns out that the Iron Man annual title and the Thor annual title are just one complete thought. "If the Termini come... Can Terminus be far behind?"

I dunno! I guess not! But, like, so what? Last time Terminus showed his face on Earth, Quasar yeeted him into space. Kind of diminishes the threat of having a bunch of guys presumably growing into Terminus if the big news is the original guy is coming back.

Well, let's dig into things.

Not going to be a lot of panels to share this time because this is the only part of the crossover not on Marvel Unlimited.

Shrug!

So, Thor and Hercules are booking it by hammer throw to San Francisco because Iron Man asked Thor to keep an eye out for the Termini.

Despite the news report back-up story of Iron Man and Machine Man fighting various Termini, according to Tony now in this Thor Annual, the two of them only managed to destroy the bear one. I guess the fights with the others were inconclusive or the Termini fucked off.

Iron Man had to take a break to repair Machine Man at the Stark Enterprises Oregon plant. So he gives Thor the rundown on the fish fry fiasco, the fight with the robot bear, and how Tony thinks Terminus is involved based on zero evidence.

Thor decides to dig into that link so he leaves Hercules behind and fucks off into the depths of space.

Hercules, by the by, barely knows what's going on. Thor brought him to San Francisco without explaining much. Thor does mention that this might be Terminus related, to Hercules' confusion.

Hercules: "Terminus? Why I once did unshell that behemoth like a pitiful lobster!"

Thor: "That, I am told, was not the true Terminus..." Hercules: "What? Dost thou mean -- someone dared make sport with Hercules?" Thor: "So sayteh Quasar, who lately propelled the true Terminus into the depths of space!"

So, apparently... In Quasar #7, Quasar met Terminus and also threw him into space. But before he did, Terminus apparently clarified that the Terminus that destroyed the Savage Land wasn't him.

One wonders why that was retconned. There's some tug of war going on with the canon of a character that's not very interesting. Ah well.

Thor tells Hercules that if he runs into any of the Termini, extreme heat is super effective.

Speaking of the Termini, a bunch of them bust into the Blackrock Nuclear Plant facility. A wolf, an eagle, and a bunch of fish.

And they are brutal. We didn't see a lot of the bear Termini killing people but these ones just shred anyone they come across in the nuclear facility.

Also, they talk now! Which is creepier than all the murder, honestly.

Termini: "Food" Termini: "FOOD"

Meanwhile, Hercules is just hanging around San Francisco. Remember, he barely knows what's going on and has no idea how to find any Termini.

But some cops found him and asked for autographs which Hercules signs with a lot of 'true heroes' flattery. And while he's doing that, the cop car gets an alert about animal-shaped robots attacking Blackrock.

And Hercules goes oh right, that's the thing I'm looking out for and asks the cops to take him there.

After killing or at least maiming everyone, the Termini at Blackrock start upending a giant container of nuclear fuel. Which they succeed at right as more Termini arrive - strangely adorable ones like squirrels, rabbits, and beavers.

All the Termini drink and cavort in the radioactive fuel and transform from animal robots to vaguely human-shaped ones.

They've also gone from just saying FOOD to parroting what people around them are saying.

Even creepier.

Hercules and the cops come in just about then. Unfortunately, not soon enough to save that survivor.

The cops start shooting at the Termini (to no effect, duh) so Hercules tells them to fuck off and cordon off the area. Then he gets down to the business of monster slaying, which is his spech ee ality.

Also, the life cycle of Terminus continues getting weirder. Starting off as microbes that infect other lifeforms and makes them go rabid and be drawn to energy sources. The infection can be slowed or stopped by cold temperatures. If the infection progresses enough, it replaces the creature's meat with metal and makes them crave titanium to nom. The Termini become immune to cold but lose the microbes immunity to high temperatures. These things originally came out of a volcano, remember.

Then there's kind of a gap in my understanding here. A lot of the Termini look pretty shrimpy so it's not like they were eating as much titanium as the bear one. But at some point in the animal robot stage of the Termini, instead of titanium, they start craving radiation instead? And enough transforms them into bigger human-shaped forms. Is it titanium consumption that pushes them to start craving radiation? Just enough Termini in an area? If it's just about Termini population density, what's the point of the titanium? Just so they congregate in the same areas? I dunno.

Meanwhile, Thor.

It is his annual, after all. He should do stuff in it.

And he uses Mjolnir to warp to where Quasar stranded Terminus in space.

And Terminus is just kind of floating in space. Quasar broke his lance so the guy can't propel himself anywhere.

Terminus sends Thor a psychic warning "Worm of Earth -- do not come near!" and Thor, of course, ignores it.

Then he tries to beat the shit out of Terminus. I'm not sure why. And he's not accomplishing much. Hitting Terminus in space just pushes him in the direction of the blow. And Terminus' armor is so strong (despite the imposter Terminus being easily bodied by Hercules) that Thor is having trouble smashing him open. And zapping him with Mjolnir isn't having any effect either.

Terminus is kind of angrily flailing in space, since he can't really control his positioning but he almost manages to hit Thor a couple times before nailing him with a swat.

This makes Thor SO MAD that he finally succeeds at hammerthrowing himself into Terminus' chest.

Like... inside it. He managed to penetrate into Terminus' gooey yet technological insides.

And Thor decides the point of this exercise is for him to GAIN MENTAL MASTERY OVER TERMINUS, THE WAY HE DID TO ATUM IN ATLANTIS ATTACKS!

Sure.

I don't think of Thor as being very psychic but he does have a powerful will and has out-willed things like the Destroyer armor before.

Except this time, Terminus' mind overwhelms Thor's.

But it does provide an exposition dump. So that's helpful, for the readers.

THE SECRET BACKSTORY OF TERMINUS

Once upon a time, the Celestials blew a planet the fuck up. Because the planet wanted to conquer the cosmos and sometimes the Celestials have opinions on that.

The warmongery unnamed alien race couldn't fight the Celestials. So they created a new microbe they called the Termini, shoved it into a rocket, and blasted it off from a doomed homeplanet.

So Terminus is germ Superman?

Anyway, the microbes were created to multiply, infect, evolve into more complex forms of life, and eventually become the Terminus we all know and know. And Terminus is engineered to just hate the shit out of the Celestials.

So Terminus would fly around the universe, finding planets that the Celestials didn't blow up, and basically plunder them. Then he went to Earth and Reed Richards sent him to the center of the Earth.

Terminus didn't die, duh. Instead, he started clawing his way back towards the surface. But, on his way, he met Jorro, a weapons-maker for the Deviants. And instead of continuing to climb back out of the Earth, Terminus deputized Jorro to go pretend to be him. Which got Jorro super-murdered by Hercules after Jorro destroyed the Savage Land.

Meanwhile, Terminus decided to take some of the shit he plundered and recreated the Termini bacteria. And with those ready to go, he continued his climb. Which led to him getting yeeted into space by Quasar.

Just 0-3 for Terminuses around here.

Anyway, that's THE SECRET BACKSTORY OF TERMINUS.

While Thor was distracted getting exposited at, Terminus prepared his blood corpuscles to kick Thor's ass.

Thor fights back but, yeah, he gets his ass kicked. He gets leeched and Terminus tentacle yoinks Mjolnir.

Thor gets thrown out into space with no propulsion while Terminus uses the power of Mjolnir to fix his lance so he can fuck off.

Meanwhile, Hercules continues fighting the man-shaped Termini. Except they start fighting with each other, glooping together, and merging into one big Terminus (with a tail).

Then, the original Terminus arrives.

I like that New Terminus has a different design than Classic Terminus. They grew up in different environments and given what we now know about his life-cycle, it makes a lot of sense.

So, that's the first half of the Terminus Factor.

I liiiiiiiked the Captain America and Iron Man Annuals. Seeing the volcano bacteria infect a town and drive them rabid was spooky and knowing it had SOMETHING to do with Terminus left this ominous note even after Cap saved most of the day.

Then the infected bear from the first part came back and we got to see how dangerous a single Terminus-infected animal was, only to learn that there were dozens more.

Things kinda took a dip in the Thor Annual. Guy barely got to be in his own story, since he had the burden of facilitating all the exposition needed to finish retconning the Savage Land encounter and to give Terminus an origin. And unfortunately, the origin is... meh? Incredibly vague Some Planet and Some Jerks create a germ to plunder as part of a vague plan to get back at the Celestials. Except has any of Terminus' MO been about the Celestials?

And he had to physically make more Termini germs? I dunno. I think it would have been better if spreading Terminus spores is just something that happened after he was dunked into the Earth.

At least the Hercules side of the plot continued showing more of the Terminus life-cycle. So now we kinda have most of the whole picture.

Next post will have the annuals for West Coast Avengers and Avengers and we'll see where the plot goes now that we've got two Terminuses.

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