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thebibliomancer · 2 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #291: Shadows of the Future Past!

May, 1988

Let’s Party!

Fancy dress? Someone punching Dr Druid? Sounds like a party to me!

Joking aside (or is it?) Thor wielding Mjolnir while in fancy dress makes me laugh for some reason. Who can say why things are funny.

I gotta laugh at the cover because I have a bad feeling about the contents. I remember... something. Secondhand rumor of Marrina and Monica...

Well! We’ll get to it when we get to it! Maybe sooner, maybe later!

Let’s just enjoy Dr Druid getting punched!

So the broad strokes last time on Avengers: the Masters of Evil taking over Avengers Mansion was a black mark on Wasp’s otherwise very successful run as chairwoman. And even though she handled the aftermath well, she decided it was time for her to take a vacation. The senior Avengers on the team like Captain America and Thor were too busy with their own personal biz to devote the necessary time and energy to leading the team so with encouragement, least new of the new Avengers, Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau became the new leader of the team.

She’s done a good job!

She’s led the team through several high stakes situations and proved herself one of the heavy hitters.

And then for whatever reason, Mark Gruenwald, the editor that had overseen the book when Monica became the chairwoman and led the team successfully several times decided he wanted Monica to be out of her depth and incompetent so that Captain America would come take over. Writer Roger Stern objected so now he doesn’t write this book.

So for the past bit, Monica and everyone around her has been bemoaning that she sucks, actually.

I might be being a little uncharitable with this read but I’m not feeling charitable based on the last story arc where Monica was entirely unable to do nearly anything the whole story and had to sit in a bubble and wait for Captain America to bail the team out.

ANYWAY.

Dr Druid has a sex dream.

AN OMINOUS SEX DREAM.

He has some sense of a terrible thing coming that he and he alone must face. And also a sexy blond woman makes out with him and places a crown on his head.

OMINOUS. SEX. Dream.

He doesn’t really remember them when he wakes up. Leaving only that foreboding feeling and possibly apprehensive morning wood.

Dr Druid doesn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it this morning though because there’s a loud CKRUUNCHH! outside the window as She-Hulk and Black Knight clean up the mess by Heavy Metal’s attack on Hydrobase.

Black Knight slices rubble with his extremely cursed sword into manageable chunks and She-Hulk throws them onto a barge.

We have a new writer on this book, Walt Simonson. And I don’t know if he really... gets these characters?

Or at the least has gotten only the most cursory of cliff notes.

Black Knight is sexist now.

When She-Hulk tells Dr Druid to come out and help them clean up, Black Knight decides this is an okay thing to say about FUCKING SHE-HULK.

Black Knight: “Yes, Dr Druid, this is unseemly work for a woman’s hands.”

She-Hulk just flicks his helmet to bounce his noggin and tells him

She-Hulk: “Listen, buster. Knighthood may have been in flower 800 years ago with the crusaders in Jerusalem... But if you don’t manage to pull yourself into the 1980′s, I may just pull you up by the roots!”

C’mon, Simonson. Geez.

Dr Druid practically pulls that “they don’t know” meme on his fellow Avengers as he walks off to meditate on the beach.

‘They don’t know about the palpable sense of menace in the air’

But then he thinks wait what if the sense of impending doom is just me being too mixed up by ominous sex dreams?

So he meditates and has a vision of the sexy blonde faceless woman saying that meditation will “restore you to that which you seek so desperately. Come hither to me, doctor... and know me better.”

Oh god, its upgraded to an ominous sex daydream.

Back at the rubble cleanup, Captain Marvel shows up and decides to help by blasting the rubble.

Since this is the character assassination era, this was the wrong thing to do and She-Hulk berates Monica for making the job harder and Monica flies away berating herself for fucking up yet another thing.

Captain Marvel: “Ever since I became leader, everything I touch seems to go wrong, no matter what I do!”

This is why I’m not charitable with this book.

Because. Look. The first two panels would be a funny gag if the constant refrain wasn’t “Monica is terrible at everything.” On its own, it could be funny.

I’d be reminded of the humor back in Shooter’s run, where he wasn’t afraid to make the Avengers look silly and fallible sometimes. Like when Donald Blake transformed into Thor in a restroom and then had to awkwardly walk out the front door because he didn’t want to punch a hole in a restaurant.

Namor and Marrina KER-SPLASSH out of the ocean and are being That Couple this morning. The couple that’s all about the PDA.

Black Knight, because Simonson I guess thinks he’s actually from the Crusade times, grumps “such public displays of affection should be more restrained.”

I swear, I don’t remember him being quite so much of a fuddy-duddy earlier.

She-Hulk tells Dane off as the stuffiest hero she knows because heck Namor and Marrina are a cute couple. But even she gets a little sick of how gooey Namor and Marrina are when they go off for a morning swim together and Marrina says “To cleave the waves with you, my darling, is all I could ever desire.”

Thor shows up, yawning, and She-Hulk teases him for sleeping the morning away while she and Black Knight were cleaning up after Heavy Metal and from damage caused when Grog the God Crusher invaded Hydrobase looking to god crush Thor in #390 of his book.

Fun fact: That’s the issue where the Captain America lifts Mjolnir for the first time.

Unfun fact: Even in another book with a different writer and a different editor, Monica is still doing the ‘geez I suck, the Captain America should be in charge.’

ANYWAY.

POINT BEING.

She-Hulk razzes Thor for not helping clean up when his book contributed to the damage. But Thor argues he was doing the most important task of all.

Telling Jarvis to make them all breakfast.

Okay. That sounds bad.

He was getting Jarvis from the hospital and bringing him to Hydrobase so he can get back to work.

Okay, that still sounds bad.

I swear its heart warming.

Everyone is happy to see him, he’s happy to be back. Its great. Its Jarvis!

I’m happy to see him.

After breakfast, Monica Marvel returns from her pity party with good news.

She decided to work on improving the Avengers’ PR and she got the team an invite to an exclusive party!

A fancy party will surely improve team morale and make them look good. Provided nothing catastrophic happens! Ignore the cover of this book!

Pfft. Fancy dress Avengers is a wonderful thing. Monica and Dane being the only one wearing little masks because they’re the only ones on the team that have a real secret identity.

I forget sometimes but Dr Druid was kind of a celebrity before joining the Avengers. I wonder if he still takes time to make tv appearances.

Also, Thor in a suit! Just like I wished for back during the Trial of Yellowjacket! Wow. That was so long ago...

Anyway, the Avengers spread out to mingle. This is about boosting their reputation with the public. Or at least the narrow slice of the public that got invited to this party.

So there’s a lot of cool snippets of conversation that we see the Avengers subjected to. Some dude tries to convince She-Hulk to do endorsements for the International Federation of Body Builders. Despite Namor’s potent ‘don’t talk to me’ face, some guy expresses wonder that Namor functions in both fresh and salt water. Some lady tries to convince Thor that the Avengers should move to Tulsa so that property insurance rates in New York will drop. And some dude tries to convince Dr Druid that the world would be better off without superheroes. Some guts on that dude. Dr Druid is, technically, a superhero.

Anyway, Dr Druid thinks he sees his Sexy Ominous Dream Girl in the party and walks away from the conversation to speak to her but it turns out to not be the Sexy Ominous Dream Girl at all.

Black Knight is still being written as if he’s fresh from the Crusade times as he comments “I should rather face a company of Saracens... than meet the reporters who wait in ambush without.”

GOD DAMN DUDE.

It’s been like six years and almost seventy issues since you came back from the past-times. This is not who you are!

Thor gets ambushed by a bunch of women who are simply agog that he is not married and suggests maybe he’d like a nice Earth girl to show him the town.

Thor: “You have my gratitude, fair ladies. But though I have no spouse, I am not without a keeper of my heart.”

Party lady: “Wouldn’t you know it! Just like every other man in this town!”

Thor at least takes the conversation in good humor judging by his little smile. Same can’t be said of She-Hulk as she deals with some dude who tries to recruit her to lead the department of consumer affairs.

Some dude: “Are you kiddin’, honey? You’d be a natural! The She-Hulk in charge of the consumer affairs department! ‘The Big Green Machine is on your side to save your green!’ You’d knock ‘em dead!”

She-Hulk: “You have no idea, ‘darling’, how close you are to being right about that!”

Try not to kill anyone in public, Jen!

I probably didn’t need to spill this many pixelated ink about party banter. But you know what? We should appreciate the silly banality of the Avengers having small talk made at them.

Y’know. Given what’s about to happen.

Which is this:

Another some dude who works at the New York Aquarium tries to convince Namor and Marrina to come visit the aquarium some day. Partially because the guy wants Namor to look at some of their exotic specimens.

Namor isn’t enthused about the idea because he’s one of those dudes who hates zoos except aquariums in this case.

Marrina just isn’t paying any attention to the conversation at all. Instead she’s grabbing a goldfish out of a fish tank and just scarfing it down.

It’s not the snack that smiles back.

Namor tells her maybe don’t do that at a party but she starts screaming about needing food. She smashes the fish tank, scarfs some more fish, and then runs out of the party.

He chases after her but she goes all monstery when he grabs her arm and punches him off of her.

The behavior apparently reminds him of how she acted in Alpha Flight #40 when she was... drawn to her genetically predetermined mate or something?

She’s an alien fish lady.

But aforementioned mate is dead so she shouldn’t be having this reaction. For no reason. Out of the blue. At a party.

While the Avengers run off to see what’s going on, a party-goer snarks that “this wouldn’t have happened if Donald Trump had thrown the party!”

Now there’s a line that aged badly.

Namor chases Marrina to a dock. She’s glowing, radiating heat, apparently transforming into a turtle judging by her head right now.

She jumps into the water and despite making a little splaash! when she jumps in, her swimming away creates a massive SCHLOOSHHH! that threatens to capsize a ship.

Namor jumps into the water as well and swims after her because dammit, she may be turning into a monster but she’s the woman he loves!

You know what? You’re an okay guy sometimes, Namor.

The Avengers arrive just in time to see Namor jump in after Marrina. And also just in time to see Marrina’s quick exit capsize a container ship.

Thor thinks fast and tells She-Hulk to help him push back on the ship so it doesn’t roll over onto the dock.

Of course, this is the character assassination era, so Monica bemoan that she didn’t think fast.

Captain Marvel: “Once again, the leadership of the Avengers seems to slip further and further away from me without conscious effort. It’s as though I seem incapable of taking command!”

Uuugh. In a way, it’s going to be a relief when the trigger gets pulled on Monica because at least then I won’t have to be putting up with the constant self-deprecation that has to be designed to to undermine her appeal.

Speaking of undermining.

Monica does think to turn into her light form to search the waters for Namor or Marrina. But it’s so dark and dirty in the New York Harbor that Monica starts to lose cohesion.

HUH.

NOT A PROBLEM SHE SEEMED TO HAVE BEFORE.

>=[

Fuck sake. Even if her light form was losing cohesion, she can turn to other energies that are better at penetrating water. She can turn into any form of energy or radiation! She can turn into neutrons!

Bah!

Anyway. Monica returns to the surface so that Dr Druid can suggest everyone regroup at Hydrobase and Monica can unconvincingly say she was about to suggest the exact same thing.

Bah!

Somewhen else, this is suddenly a Kang story.

I thought we were done with that dick.

And since this is Kang, I don’t even know which Kang this is.

Wiki says its Kang from Earth-123488.23497.

There’s an infinite amount of universes. Why do we have to decimalize them too?

Anyway, A Kang.

Kang-123488.23497: “While my companions were slain, I concealed myself in the hidden corridors of time! Now the temporal displacement charge has expired and Kang the Conqueror, master of time, returns home! You might have destroyed me, Immortus, but you are a fool! For Kang still survives and you have much to fear!”

So I was wondering if he was a Kang that survived judgement and execution by the Council of Kangs by hiding with a temporal displacement charge. But he names Immortus as involved and nobody but Cape Kang (Prime Kang?) should know Immortus was involved because he was pretending to be a skeleton. So is this the Kang that absorbed every Kang’s memories and ran off screaming into Limbo, but the time one not the demon one?

God. Kangs just make things complicated.

Anyway, Kang-123488.23497 finds his base in shambles. And also finds himself under attack by someone hiding in a time dislocation and shooting a thermal lance.

Kang-123488.23497′s armor holds up but its failing under the assault so Kang-123488.23497 MacGyvers random laboratory junk into a molecular sealer that can shoot a quark beam across a “variable time net.”

Anyway. He smites his assailant. Smites him good.

And is surprised to find the dead, deceased body of a child dressed in Kang armor.

How weird!

Kang-123488.23497: “A child? Who has dared to mock the king of time?”

Lady Kang: “No mockery, my Lord Kang. Only an orphan of time, now an orphan no longer! But they do say the child is father to the man.”

Kang-123488.23497: “Who -- ?”

Lady Kang: “Or woman!”

Okay.

But what does any of this mean?

The lady Kang then mocks the dead, deceased child, calling him Kanglet and saying he lacked patience. But that the Kang she just seemingly disintegrated is an excellent substitution for the child that just died.

Lady Kang: “He may make a welcome addition to the great council! But we shall see.”

Another Council of Kangs? Wasn’t the last one just a ruse to kill all the other Kangs? APPARENTLY IT DIDN’T DO A GREAT JOB.

We just got rid of an infinite amount of Kangs and now we’re lousy with Kangs again. At least they’re more interesting than “Kang”, “Kang with a cape”, “Kang but he’s old and sad.”

We’ve got a lady Kang and a child Kang! ... Had. Had a child Kang.

No, but, seriously, why are we kanging again? We were just here twenty issues ago.

But back to the A-plot - where A stands for Avengers.

A ship sailing south of the Canary Islands runs afoul of A SEA SERPENT

Its many spinal spines rip open the underside of the ship and it sinks.

In other ocean-related disasters, a tidal wave just smash the shit out of Barbuda.

Here’s a downer, children explicitly die. Although its not shown.

Well. We did see a child gunned down a couple of pages ago so maybe that was easing the way into mass child death.

I’m just saying. This book sure has a lot more dead children now that Walt Simonson is writing.

Over at Avengers HQ Hydrobase, it’s been two weeks since Namor and Marrina disappeared into the ocean. The sea serpent wrecking a ship and a tidal wave wrecking Barbuda are just two of a trend of unexplained marine disasters.

Captain Marvel has searched the world in those two time-skipped weeks but hasn’t found either of the missing Avengers or a cause for the spate of disasters.

(I’m sure that the two points could not possibly be connected)

A news report comes on the giant technological television reporting that there’s rumors of the Biblical Leviathan in the Bermuda Triangle.

Because the Avengers are always getting their best actionable information from the news.

Since the news reader also says that “some fundamentalists are claiming this is the first sign of the impending Judgement Day” Monica complains that its impossible to separate the truth from the bullshit.

Dr Druid suggests she go look into it anyway because she can move the speed of light and it’ll take her like a few seconds.

Because this is the character assassination arc and Monica can’t do anything herself. She even complains that she has to let Dr Druid do her thinking for her.

... Which. Is dangerous with a mind guy. Monica. Don’t let a mind guy do your thinking.

After Monica leaves (briefly), Dr Druid has some thoughts.

Dr Druid: “Captain Marvel continues to seem unsure, unable to come to grips fully her role as the leader of the Avengers. And now, more than ever, I fear that the trouble I have foreseen approaches without warning. The stars themselves speak of some global disaster, something so devastating than all the super-beings of Earth may not be enough to forestall our total destruction. And if this is truly the beginning of those events, perhaps someone else might be better suited for the chairmanship here.”

I’M ONTO YOU, YOU DICK.

Anyway. As Dr Druid said because Monica doesn’t know how her own powers work, I guess, it only took her a few seconds to search the area so she’s back and with news! News that she spotted the sea monster!

Captain Marvel calls a Condition Red! Avengers Assemble! Specifically in hangar one! So they can take a Quinjet to the Bahamas!

Monica flies outside the Quinjet. She does move at the speed of light, after all. Flying in a Quinjet will only slow her down. She’ll fly ahead and emit radio waves so the Quinjet can use her as a homing beacon.

She leads them to the sea monster which just bulldozes through a small, “apparently uninhabited” island.

Geez.

The Avengers realize that this sea monster is clearly the cause of all the sunken ships and floods and tsunamis.

Black Knight: “It’s time for the Avengers to do what they do best! Defend the living... and avenge the dead! Let’s ride!”

But as the Avengers fly out of the Quinjet under their own power or on a cool Atomic Steed, a defender flies out of the water to protect the sea monster.

Namor: “NOOOOOOO!! He who first strikes the Leviathan does so only through me!”

The Avengers are confused why Namor is stopping them from Avengersing until first Captain Marvel and then Black Knight realize...

The sea monster is Marrina!

DUN DUN DUN!

And she’s headed right to wreck up Florida!!

DUN DUN DUNNNN!

Quick, Bugs Bunny! Saw it off and push it somewhere else! Bamboozle the Marrina kaiju!

Follow @essential-avengers even though this arc is not giving me a lot of hope. Like and reblog because I’m pushing through anyway. Comment, if you have thoughts!

#essential avengers #avengers #Kangs #just lots of kangs again #a sea serpent #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #Dr Druid #who is here for some reason #She Hulk #Black Knight #namor mckenzie #marrina #Thor #some awkward party small talk #body count in this issue is surprisingly high #essential marvel liveblogging

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