#if any of my moots have the wiki how to link on how to summon demons I’d really appreciate it

[staycatcher]

I have no Halloween Plans this year guess I have no choice but to learn demon summoning spells so I can get myself a girlfriend

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #253: CONQUERING VISION

March, 1985

The Vision vs. Quasimodo... in the heart of a machine!

ITS A ROBOT RUMBLE

ON THE INTERNET!

The Avengers seem very perturbed. Or maybe they’ve placed bets and are yelling at each other.

Anyway. Anyyyyyywayyyy.

Last time on Avengers: Vision became confined to a tube and was only fixed when Starfox hooked him up to Titan’s supercomputer ISAAC. While it helped Vision fix himself, it also seems to have changed his personality. Vision began conspiring with ISAAC to build a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device so he could take over the world for its own good and erase the evils and inequalities of man.

Vision was hesitant to pull the trigger on becoming a well-intentioned extremist and tried to gain power and influence by becoming the Avengers chairman and trying to make them more prominent with a branch team and closer ties to the White House.

But when anti-mutant arsonists burn down Vision and Scarlet Witch’s house during a new wave of anti-mutant fear, Vision decides ‘mmm yup, taking over the world time’. He distracts the Avengers by sending them to babysit the army as they poke Thanos technology that they shouldn’t poke and accidentally summon the Blood Brothers. And distracts Captain Marvel to go check out Thanos’ ship several light hours away past Pluto. Black Knight shows up unexpectedly but Vision shoves him into a tube to keep him out of trouble.

And now I guess Vision is going to fight Quasimodo the robot guy? Not sure how that fits in.

But first, some West Coast Avengers!

Like I said last time, they didn’t stop doing stuff just because their book is over.

Mockingbird happens to run into some drug runners while getting in some flight practice and figures heck why not beat up an entire boat full of gun-toting people as a light workout.

I guess the Quinjet can hover? Doesn’t seem to have thrusters or repulsors on the bottom or be a VTOL but hey, super advanced possibly Wakanda tech. It can do what it likes.

Mockingbird turns the drug runners over to the Coast Guard and returns to Palos Verdes and even gets to fly into one of those cool cliffside hangers disguised as a perfectly normal cliff. The West Coast Avengers revamped the hell out of the compound they bought.

Can you even legally excavate into a cliff like that? You can if you’re a superhero, I guess.

For some reason, there’s a fakeout where its implied Tigra is licking herself, cat style, but she’s just stretching. At least I hope the joke is that it sounded like she was cat cleaning herself and not something else.

One can never tell.

Anyway, I assume Hawkeye is just annoyed that he’s going to be vacuuming hair out of expensive equipment banks later. But really its that what if he threw a meeting and only he and Tigra came?

Mockingbird comes in not long after Hawkeye complains, slightly delayed from beating up drug runners. Wonder Man comes in shortly after, delayed by

FASHION

You know, this is a pretty great costume for Wonder Man. Its what all his modern outfits are based on when he’s not just dicks out energy man. I think I like the red jacket outfit more because being the only guy who dresses in ‘normal’ clothes while still looking somehow out of fashion with normal people fits for Wonder Man.

But I do love this one too. Its got a simple charm. Deciding that Wonder Man’s colors are black and red instead of Christmas green and red was a great decision and I’m sure that nobody will ever try to put him in red and green again.

Hawkeye grouses “Next, I suppose Iron Man will show up with a new chrome job!” but Iron Man is Sir Not Appearing in This Comic.

And the reason why is... looks like Tony and Rhodey are beating the crap out of each other in Iron Men armor this same month in Iron Man #192.

I don’t know the details but dammit Tony!

Anyway, over at last issue’s plot, the Avengers are still in Thanos’ ex-secret base in Arizona, still rolling their eyes and smh at the US Army for poking things what should not be poked.

Starfox and Scarlet Witch find a chamber blocked by rubble which has a symbio-nullifier which Starfox proposes to use to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

First, he flexes on the US Army.

Army Guy: “It must weigh tons!”

Starfox: “Tons? Yes. But only about eight-and-a-half! Hardly any bother at all!”

Good flexing, Starfox.

Meanwhile, Captain America’s scolding has born fruit. The Pentagon has agreed to seal Thanos’ base, pending further investigation. And Colonel Farnam agrees because his training never prepared him to deal with MONSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Also meanwhile, the army took pity on Hercules’ poor pantsless state and slash or were intimidated by it and have lent him a uniform.

He wears it as you’d expect Hercules to wear it.

With plenty of plunging neckline.

Since the Blood Brothers have a psionic link which makes them stronger the closer they are, Hercules has chained them up on very distant parts of the base.

But this precaution is rendered moot pretty quickly when Starfox returns with the  symbio-nullifier to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

Starfox suspected that Thanos had one of these lying around as a precaution if he was going to let the Blood Brothers into his base.

Hercules lightly complains that he didn’t get a good fight with the Blood Brothers especially since the hordes of Muspell and Maelstrom’s wacky minions were interesting but not all that much of a challenge for the prince of power.

Back at the Avengers Mansion, the giant holographic head of Vision is still dealing with Dane Black Knight Whitman. Mostly by showing him video footage of how the other Avengers are tied up.

Dane is confused for multiple reasons, including that when last he heard Wasp was the leader.

Vision: “My failure to anticipate your arrival was an unfortunate lapse. I regret that, as a result, you must suffer the indignity of incarceration.”

Dane: “But... why?! What does keeping me in a tube accomplish?”

Vision: “It prevents you from interfering! You see, I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can fulfill my duty to make the Earth a safer place... is to run it myself!”

Dane: “What?!? But that’s crazy! Uh... I mean, you can’t possibly...”

Vision: “Exactly the sort of reaction I expected!”

Vision: ‘See, this is why you’re a tube boy now.’

Vision turns off the hologram saying that Dane will understand when its all over.

As usual when somebody says something like that, Dane isn’t reassured, just more convinced he needs to break out and warn someone.

I’m not sure if its not already too late since Vision is safely ensconced in his take over the world chair in his secret take over the world room.

ISAAC’s head hologram shows up to Vision and asks him what the delay is, chop chop get to taking over the world for its own good.

Vision: “Sorry, ISAAC... I was just remembering how much I enjoyed having a body.”

Oh my god.

ISAAC: “What’s the sense of that? This entire world will soon be your ‘body’! How can the mobility of a single humanoid form compare to that?”

Vision: “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, ISAAC. It’s odd, though, so many times others have controlled my body... the robot Ultron, the Mad Thinker, Necrodamus... All have tried to subvert my mind and take me over. And now here am I... about to initiate the greatest takeover of all. One would almost think there were some mad connection -- !”

ISAAC: “Vision! You must not tarry!”

.................. Um, okay. So, rather than just being influenced by his brush with death and also brush with supercomputer, I think Vision is being actively manipulated into this by ISAAC.

I don’t know why but I do know that Vision continues being a viable character for decades so he probably can’t be burning all his bridges here.

Anyway, Vision uploads his psyche into the internet.

And like immediately starts taking over everything. One page montage immediately. The Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, SHIELD, satellites, the Kremlin.

Presumably the best security systems in the world barely warrant a mention for Vision’s mighty synthezoid brain.

He’s pulling a Skynet (for the world’s own good, so he says) and its barely an effort.

The scenery of being on the internet is, I dunno, pretty standard? Bright colors  and dashes of light? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot of places.

But if we’re on page 13 of a book and Vision is effortlessly Skynetting, whats the rest of the issue going to be about? Interestingly, to me anyway, despite this being Vision’s turn villainous or well-intentioned extremist, another villain gets shoved in anyway for him to fight.

As Vision is nyooming around the Kremlin’s computers, he nearly runs into another AI, Quasimodo.

Helpfully, we get a recap of Quasimodo’s ENTIRE LIFE STORY because this is pre-fan wikis and I don’t think Quasimodo has appeared in Avengers before.

He was created to be the ultimate computer by the Mad Thinker but was abandoned when he developed a mind of his own.

Quasimodo was found by the Silver Surfer who used the cosmic powers of the Power Cosmic to transform Quasimodo from a computer into a robot.

Turning to the wiki for more information: He turns on Silver Surfer because he doesn’t like the body he got, so Surfer turns him into a stone gargoyle. Let that be a lesson about ingratitude.

Somehow, he stopped being a gargoyle and fought various people until he was defeated by the Fantastic Four and the Sphinx and wound up a disembodied intelligence in a Russian computer system. And here we are!

Quasimodo begs Vision to help him escape this digital hellhole but Vision just turns and leaves because he doesn’t have time for these shenanigans. And also because he knows Quasimodo is a villain who tends to turn on the people who help him so fuck that.

Quasimodo: “You know of my past - of my power - and you still would dare deny me?! There can be but one name for such as you... and that is fool!”

He then hauls off and punches Vision. Because they’re both digital intelligences on the internet they can punch each other and have a fight scene. That’s how internet works.

That’s why Mega Man X can beat up so many people in cyberspace.

Quasimodo says if Vision doesn’t help him get back to the physical world, he’ll destroy him.

Vision: “Now, listen to me... I am consolidating all computers worldwide. I gave up my own physical body to do this, and I’ll not tolerate any interference from the likes of you!”

Quasimodo: “You willingly abandoned your body?! You’re not a fool... you’re mad!”

Faced with an irreconcilable set of priorities, Quasimodo trips them both into “the irresistible currents of the IMPULSE VORTEX!”

Sure. That sounds like how internet works.

Meanwhile, over at Pluto is very far away, Monica Marvel nyooms past the moons of Uranus. Apparently her visual acuity is REALLY good because she takes in the scenery while she’s nyooming and finds it frighteningly beautiful out in the outer planets.

Anyway, Vision scolds Quasimodo for plunging them into a torrent. Which makes me laugh. Surely its too soon for torrents to be a thing. He’s just using it in a metaphorical sense.

Quasimodo tries to shoot EYE BEAM at Vision, which misses the digital synthezoid but obliterates an electron.

In a cutaway that would be at home in a Marvel movie, the scene briefly shifts to a Soviet computing center and a guy named Alexey complaining that his program just crashed.

Quasimodo does Vision some punches but Vision decides to start trying since Quasimodo’s attacks risk alerting people that something is amiss on the internet. And Vision’s powers work just as well on the internet as Quasimodo’s do. In fact, screw that, they work better! Vision just gets more and more powerful the longer he spends on the internet!

Vision: “You might have slain me earlier, but now this world is mine -- and there is no place in it for you!!”

And at Vision’s command the internet launches Quasimodo from Earth itself.

The internet can do that.

Meanwhile, back at Avenger’s Mansion, Dane Whitman determines that the tube he’s a tube boy in may look like glass but its as strong as steel. He’s not punching his way out of here.

But his recently uncursed cursed sword (the curse never stays not cursed for long so I hope Dane enjoys having a notcursed but very enchanted sword) is just a few feet away with the rest of his luggage. And there’s a mystic bond between himself and the sword so if he just thinks about the sword hard enough, surely it’ll manifest in his hand.

Like the Force but slightly more convenient.

Dane Whitman: Nothing’s happening. Must not... be concentrating hard enough! Maybe the link was broken with the curse. No... no, I mustn’t even think that! I need my sword! I must have my sword! I must!

He do it!

The Notcursed Ebony Sword appears in his hand and he slices through that steel glass like its just glass.

Meanwhile, over at Arizona, the Avengers finish up nullifying the Blood Brothers and putting them in suspended animation, or if you prefer, naptime timeout.

Captain America receives a buzz from Hawkeye who wonders what he’s doing within hailing range, ie in the western half of the US.

Captain America: “Arizona... government business... And I’m as surprised to hear you, as you are me! I take it that your team finished its mission in the Pacific early!”

Hawkeye: “Mission? What are you talking about, Cap? We haven’t been on any mission!”

Which is a dun dun dun considering their whole reason for being sent on this mission was that the West Coast Avengers were ostensibly busy.

And Vision lying about that raises a whole lot of questions for the Avengers.

Cap and Wanda Witch rush over to the Quinjet and contact the Mansion.

Vision: “Then you’re aware of my deception. I... am sorry, Cap. I didn’t want to mislead you, but I felt it necessary to carry out my plan.”

Scarlet Witch: “Plan? Vision, what do you mean? What have you done?”

Vision: “I... well, there is no easy way to put this... But I have taken over the world.”

You never want to hear “I have taken over the world” from a friend, unless its followed with “and I want to get you in on the ground floor of this exciting new opportunity.”

Vision promises the two that he’s taking over all of Earth’s computers for a really good reason like ending war and strife. And signs off by telling Wanda everything will be alright and that he loves her.

Aww?

Cap: “He meant it... he meant every word.”

Scarlet Witch: “He’d been upset lately, but I never thought... Cap, we have to stop him!”

Cap: “Yes. If there’s still time!”

DUN DUN DUN!

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I don’t know when I’ve been more excited to get to the next issue! Like and reblog?