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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #228: TRIAL and ERROR!

February, 1983

AT LAST! The trial of Yellowjacket!

Its been over a month in-universe and about a year out of universe but here we are. The Trial of Hank Pym.

Although the time getting here was mostly farting around with other stuff while Hank sat in prison. Can you believe Scott Lang is the only person we see visit him?

The Avengers found time to experiment on an immortal child who thought jumping into the sun was a good idea but not to visit Hank?

I’m not saying that Jan should have had to put herself through that and Tony is clearly feeling too guilty over the whole thing. But Cap didn’t visit? Hawkeye didn’t? Mr. Lets Bust Hank Out?

Possibly they did off-screen. The Hank arc has been kind of suffering from Shooter’s inability to balance writing and EICing. I feel that if redone, there would be more to the arc.

Anyway, the trial!

We skipped the first two days. Its the third day of the trial now.

The graphic guy went above and beyond for that Sad Composited Hank graphic.

I like the AN AVENGER’S DARKEST HOUR thing.

I also like the setup for recapping the necessary details.

Ex-Avenger attempts to heist the government would be big news so all the information is conveyed as this news report.

INCLUDING COURTROOM SKETCHES

God, that’s good.

That’s good comicing. Amazing.

Look at Thor in a courtroom sketch. Superb.

Look at that cheesy graphic for the coverage. Does anybody in Marvel even use a domino mask?? Everything about this is amazing.

People may say that Frank Miller revolutionized using media talking heads for social commentary in his comics. Maybe. Maybe so. But how many courtroom sketches did he include? Huh?

So apparently the reason why we’re on day three of the trial is that days one and two were entirely debates over whether Hank was even fit to stand trial.

I’d’ve thought they would get that out of the way ahead of time.

And Hank wants his day in court. So who was arguing he wasn’t fit to stand trial? The prosecution?

Apparently, the prosecution tried to argue that Hank’s history as a hero made his crimes more heinous, as a legal argument.

Which, uh? Um? Uh?

The defense objected that this was prejudicial but they were overruled.

The news recap ends when She-Hulk turns off the television angrily for reminding her of her legal career.

She-Hulk: “Leeches! I haven’t met Henry Pym, but he can’t be the creep they’re making him out to be! And that prosecutor -- ! I know it’s his job, but do they all have to be sanctimonious?! I hated that when I was a practicing attorney, and I don’t hate it any less since I’ve become She-Hulk!”

Reminds me that her nemesis in her original Savage She-Hulk book was an Assistant DA called Buck Bukowski who was a real sexist douche.

He mellowed out over the course of the book, mostly by learning that a death he blamed She-Hulk for was sorta his fault, but I wonder if she left LA so she wouldn’t be tempted to throw him out to sea.

She-Hulk is also still super bored (in New York??) and wanders downstairs to see if anyone is up to anything interesting.

Downstairs in the gym, she finds that the Caps are training.

The Captains America and Marvel.

Cap(tain America) is doing some combat training with Captain Monica Marvel.

This will not be at all confusing to have them on the same team.

Anyway, this training sequence is amazing so lets just have it all:

Cool stuff, Caps.

The training has to be cut short because Cap(tain America) has a prior commitment but still good stuff.

She-Hulk applauds Captain Marvel’s showing but Marvel waves it off as thanks to Cap(tain America)’s training. Which Cap(tain America) waves off as thanks to her being a quick study.

Its like a self-perpetuating modesty loop in here.

Cap excuses himself to go to his prior engagement.

Captain Marvel: “It’s easy to see why he’s called a living legend! He’s very good! And his grasp of strategy is second to none!”

She-Hulk: “Yeah, he does pretty well for a guy with no powers, but I could take him!”

What a this era of She-Hulk thing to say, She-Hulk.

Captain Marvel tells She-Hulk hey maybe not! Cap has stood up to some pretty tough customers, including Jen’s cousin the Hulk.

Which She-Hulk didn’t know!

Y’know, after Bruce (or recently implied to be Joe Fixit Actually??) started Jen’s origin story, the Hulk has not much further relevance in the Savage She-Hulk book. Jen doesn’t even give any indication that she’s keeping up with his exploits.

Not surprising, since the book was trying to be its own thing. And Jen’s life just starts to implode not very far into her solo so she doesn’t have time to also worry about Bruce.

Captain Marvel mentions that all of Cap(tain America)’s run-ins with the Hulk are recorded in the Avengers computer archives and She-Hulk concedes she should give that a look.

Hey, she finally has something to do in New York!

Captain Marvel also tells She-Hulk that she’s going to head home.

She-Hulk: “You have a place in the city?”

Captain Marvel: “Not this city... New Orleans.”

She-Hulk: “NEW ORLEANS?!?”

Captain Marvel: “Sure! It’s a snap to commute -- when you can travel at the speed of light! Take care!”

And then she nyooms off!

NYOOM!

It’s a good point! I hadn’t considered it but yeah, Monica can just commute. No need to uproot her life to become an Avenger.

I guess that’s why the decision was so easy for her to make.

She-Hulk is still at the window, wishing she could lightspeed to Malibu, when Thor and Janet arrive from court.

Janet thanks Thor for coming to court with her. Which he says no big to because “Time given to one’s friends is well spent. Would that I had given more time to poor Henry before this.”

You’re a cool guy, Thor.

The mention of Hank has Jan break down a little.

Jan: “Oh, Thor! Why has this happened to us... to all of us? We’re Avengers!”

Thor: “But still we are human -- aye, even a ‘god’ such as I! None of us are immune to wounds of the spirit. We err... we misunderstand. Janet? Is there anything more I can do?”

Jan: “No! No... I’m all right! We mustn’t dwell on the past. The future’s all that matters!”

Thor: “But...”

Jan: “I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”

Geez.

We’ve seen how affected the Avengers have been by what Hank has done and what they think he has done. We’ve seen Jan is more messed up by it than the smile she puts on lets on.

But the plaintive questioning of how this could be happening to the Avengers still hits hard.

Thor respects Jan’s wish to end the discussion to the frustration of She-Hulk who has been watching this conversation from the upstairs window.

She’s frustrated that Jan won’t just let it out, that Thor just let the subject drop.

She-Hulk: “It’s that blasted Avengers’ tradition of ‘respecting the privacy of members’ personal affairs.’ The founding members carry it too far! Can’t they see how it hurts them? And Jan -- ? Why does she hold in all that grief and heartache? Why doesn’t she cry and scream and shout and get it out of her system?!”

Jen and Jan are two very different people!

But She-Hulk, and Hulks generally, are about letting your feelings out. And Jan van Wasp has long been about playing the flighty sprite.

I’d crack joke about She-Hulk being this invested in the drama of the Avengers already but Jan is her friend. They presumably went car shopping together.

And She-Hulk has very few friends and almost zero female friends. Her one female friend died in a convoluted car accident and then She-Hulk mostly had a male supporting cast. Thank goodness she’s here on the Avengers with its two whole other women.

Meanwhile, at Stark International, Cap(tain America) has come to pay a visit.

He hasn’t been able to reach Tony in days. And Tony’s secretary told him that Tony has locked himself away in his private lab and that he doesn’t want to see anyone.

But if he didn’t want to see anyone, he should have thought twice about making it so that the security system will let in any Cap that flashes an Avengers ID.

Cap is particularly worried because of that nasty argument they had about Tony dating Jan. Tony has been pretty down since they broke up and Cap doesn’t want to see him fall apart like Hank did.

And.

Tony is. Doing. Maybe not okay.

He’s sweating a lot and unshaven and monomaniacally focused on a project.

Cap finds him holding up an enormous piece of machinery and doing SCIENCE.

This is the final evolution of Tony’s guilty conscience regarding Hank Pym.

Iron Man: “Remember how Moondragon used her mental powers to mess with our heads? Well, it’s my theory that she’s responsible for Hank’s recent troubles! I aim to prove that with this cerebral scanner! This baby should tell us whether or not Hank did the crazy things he did because of some outside mental influence! I hope I’m right!”

I mean, he raises a fair point! I don’t think its the case because what would it have benefited Moondragon to make Hank do what he did? And if its an inadvertent thing, she mind controlled a lot of people when the roster change-up was happening back in #211 so why did only Hank get affected? Plus, it doesn’t really match up with what both Hank and Jan have been saying about his behavior deteriorating before then.

But, Tony is going to Tony. And he, like many fans and writers and editors, just want a simple nonsense explanation that can make a distressing thing go away.

Cap points out that the ginormous machine can’t exactly be dragged down to the courthouse but this is just the prototype. Tony is going to have a miniaturized version ready by Monday.

Cap: “I see. Tony, how long have you been up?”

Iron Man: “I don’t know... 30... 40 hours, maybe. What difference does it make?”

Cap: “It makes plenty! You’ve had some rough sledding lately... You can’t keep on driving yourself this way!”

Iron Man: “But I have to do something for Hank. I feel that I let him down... In so many ways.”

Cap: “You can’t help him if you kill yourself in the process!”

Tony is going to Tony. I think that in some ways he might have a more overdeveloped guilt complex than Peter Parker or Matt Murdock.

For Reasons, I’ve taken a look at how things are going in the Iron Man book around this time and oof. Poor Tony.

Over in Leonia, New Jersey, Vision and Scarlet Witch are watching the trial coverage on the news and-

Okay.

1.) How do you make watching the network news so moody and dramatic, Vision? Do you ever actually relax?

2.) Do you two just wear your costumes around the house? Surely you must have other clothes? Vision? Do you have other clothes?

Some other stuff is that Wanda has been holding up Jan and Hank as the ideal marriage so this whole thing has been weirding her out. Although Vision has had a less rosy opinion of it, having been there for it with all of the marrying the split personality nonsense involved.

Although I don’t know why issue #68 is referenced. I don’t think that had anything to do with anything. Issue #60 is where the wedding happened.

Bet whoever put that caption wishes they had access to the internet.

I kind of wish we got more stuff like earlier, got to see Avengers not currently on the team and other heroes that worked with Hank Pym reacting to his disgrace exit from the team and then arrest. Wish we could have had Vision and Wanda try to visit him in jail.

Meanwhile, Long Island Sound.

A LOCATION OF EVIL

A suited man arrives and knocks on 13308 McKinley.

He is Dr. Chen Lu and he is expected.

Moonstone/Dr. Karla Sofen meets Dr. Chen Lu at the door and shows him in to the secret science basement where Egghead is running an experiment with the latest scientific equipment that can be begged, borrowed, or stolen.

I’m figuring... mostly stolen? Right? Like Egghead’s plan was to steal all the resources he needed? Because, ugh Effort?

Moonstone interrupts Egghead to let him know Dr. Chen Lu has arrived and Egghead is thrilled! He rushes from his seat to shake his hand.

And the sentiment is returned by Dr. Chen Lu who is eager to join Egghead’s project.

Y’know, Egghead is a jerk and is stealing all of his resources but his project will hugely improve medical science and he’s getting criminal scientists off the street and into some actual science jobs they can be excited about.

Dr. Chen asks how Egghead isn’t dead because he was pretty sure he was told Egghead was dead. And Egghead sure has a tale to tell!

In Defender #43, Egghead set up Cobalt Man to reach critical mass and explode to distract the Defenders so he could steal a magical star. When Cobalt Man found out, he was pretty pissed and decided to blow up Egghead.

Egghead: “We had a bit of a falling out, you might say... and he ended the situation most dramatically. Witnesses actually assumed we’d both perished. In actuality, I had been teleported by an experimental mechanism to relative safety in the New Jersey swamps... and unlike death, one can usually return from the state of New Jersey!”

Damn, Egghead! Criminal genius that you are, you’ve found the only New Jersey joke I’ve ever laughed at! Fiend!

I think its the glasses adjusting what does it.

Anyway, Egghead’s and Dr. Chen’s cool conversation gets interrupted by Tiger Shark and Shocker bursting through the ceiling fighting.

Beetle flies in after them and apologizes for the mess but says ‘really Shocker had it coming, man, fuck Shocker.’

Beetle and Moonstone jump in to separate the two.

Hey, you might be wondering how the Masters of Evil are out of jail when last time we saw them was getting arrested after attacking the Avengers like dumbasses?

Check that panel where Iron Man is lifting a really heavy thing. There’s a news broadcast about a bunch of prison escapes. Good job on the same issue setup, Stern!

Shocker complains that Tiger Shark called him a two-bit hood but Tiger Shark says in his defense that Shocker IS a two-bit hood (Not inaccurate...) who nearly screwed up the isotope heist. But Egghead says that Shocker is an important part of the operation.

Then Tiger Shark notices Dr. Chen Lu and says a slur.

C’mon, guy. Don’t be like that.

Dr. Chen Lu: “Speaking without thinking seems to be second nature to you, Tiger Shark. In the interest of our future partnership, I shall excuse the insult to my race... this time! But I warn you, do not use that word in my presence again, or you shall answer to -- THE RADIOACTIVE MAN!”

Tiger Shark hurriedly says that obviously he didn’t mean to offend. Because Dr. Chen Lu Radioactive Man fwooshed into his green skin (dammit comics whats with you and Asian people and green skin?) radioactive form and costume.

But with Radioactive Man on the team, the Masters of Evil are finally complete and ready for the next step of EGGHEAD’S BOLD PLAN.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye returns to his apartment from his day job, kind of looking a steady paycheck in the mouth. Sure the big wad of bucks is nice but its sooo boring. Thank goodness he has Avengersing to keep things exciting.

He then sings a short bit about “Best of both worlds -- !” because Hawkeye.

Hawkeye sees the news broadcast about the Hank Pym trial and even though he hasn’t been called to testify (because he wasn’t part of the team when Hank was caught with his hands in the government’s cookie jar) he figures what the heck, he’ll go to the trial anyway to show moral support.

And he does! In full costume!

In fairness, so are Thor and Captain America.

I guess Captain America and Hawkeye don’t have publicly revealed identities. But they couldn’t have thrown a suit on Thor?

Please put Thor in a suit. For reasons.

She-Hulk and Wasp are wearing nice court clothes.

Although She-Hulk seems uncomfortable in her nice court clothes.

(By the by, She-Hulk showing up at all makes Hawkeye warm up to her a little, since he figures that in her own way she cares about being an Avenger as much as he does.)

By the way, notice who wasn’t in that picture? Hawkeye leans over to whisper to Cap where is Iron Man? Annnnd Cap thinks maybe he just got wrapped up in his cerebral scanner project.

At this point in the trial (day 4), Hank has finally been called up to the stand to testify on his own behalf.

So, of course, given Hank Pym’s luck, the courtroom explodes.

What a dynamite conclusion to this arc!

The Masters of Evil (Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Tiger Shark, Shocker, and Beetle) jump into the court through the exploded ceiling, grab Hank Pym, have Shocker blow up the load bearing wall, and then run out while the Avengers are distracted holding up the entire ceiling!

An action scene fast enough that I can believe, yes, the Avengers didn’t have time to react to it before it happened.

But Thor is strong enough to hold up the ceiling, so Wasp orders Cap to get the crowd to safety and has She-Hulk and Hawkeye follow her to go after the Masters.

Cap: “Jan’s really coming into her own as group leader! Even Hawkeye’s snapping to at her orders!”

Good. I’m glad that people keep telling me that Wasp is doing a good job as Avengers leader.

Seriously. Given the way that the Avengers book handles teamwork and the idea that the Avengers even have a leader sometimes, I’m glad that the book is explicitly conveying that Wasp is doing good.

Hawkeye net-arrows Tiger Shark, She-Hulk tackles Radioactive Man, Wasp confronts Beetle, and nobody confronts Shocker because its just Shocker.

Beetle scoffs at Wasp trying to stop him but has to eat his words pretty soon. Her Wasp stings being souped up in this recent stretch of comics hasn’t stopped being a thing.

Beetle: “Ow! Maybe I was the one who spoke too soon! Even with my armor, I can feel a little of the Wasp’s bio-stings! If I can’t shake her, she might blow my micro-circuits!”

Very glad that Wasp continues to be an effective fighter in her own right and not just the distraction ‘fly around and pester people.’

She-Hulk just throws Radioactive Man out of the panel, mocking him for being green as her without any of her sweet moves.

Tiger Shark wants another go at She-Hulk after the way she stomped him in #222 but.

Oops guess I shouldn’t have mocked Shocker. Since he was ignored, he can sneak up behind She-Hulk and use HIGH INTENSITY VIBRO-SHOCKS to rattle her bones to dust.

Except, no. I should have mocked Shocker, a little.

Because even though the HIGH INTENSITY VIBRO-SHOCK rattles She-Hulk so that she chatters out “T-t-think a-a-again, y-y-you w-w-walking q-q-quilt!”, she grabs Shocker’s hands and holds him up in the air for Hawkeye to short out Shocker’s gauntlets with a couple of magno-volt arrows.

Shocker crumples, confused because one of the other Masters was supposed to be covering Hawkeye.

Radioactive Man tackles She-Hulk so She-Hulk just belts him away.

So Radioactive Man concedes, well, okay, She-Hulk is stronger than him. But brute force and being green aren’t the extent of his powers. He’s also radioactive, radioactive.

He hits She-Hulk with a controlled burst of gamma rays, which shifts her back into Jennifer Walters.

Hey, Jen! First time you’ve appeared in this book in this form.

She’s less than pleased. In fact, she starts screaming “No! Not this!!” and begging someone to help her.

Thankfully, the Masters put her out of mind as not a problem anymore.

And the dominoes fall.

Tiger Shark smacks Wasp out of the air, freeing Beetle to blast Hawkeye. And nobody can stop Moonstone from nerve pinching Hank Pym and pulling him into a truck.

Thor and Cap run out of the courthouse, presumably having gotten everyone to safety.

Thor: “Ho, villains! You’ve not won the day yet! Not as long as a single Avenger stands!”

Thor do what Thor do and what Thor do is throw Mjolnir.

Exceppppt its at Radioactive Man and Radioactive Man can still deflect Mjolnir with energy fields. Radiation can do that. Mjolnir doesn’t exist in real life so we can’t prove that radiation can’t do that.

Radioactive Man deflects Mjolnir right at Captain America. He gets his shield up in time but it still knocks him on his ass.

The Masters all book it into the truck while the Avengers get to their feet.

Wasp orders Hawkeye to shoot out the tires to the truck. But before he can and before it can be fruitless, a getaway truck explodes out of the truck and flies off more quickly than the Avengers can chase.

And by “the Masters all book it into the truck” I mean, “except Shocker” because they ditched him.

With the Masters escaped, Wasp turns on the shocked Shocker and rips off his mask and demands he tell them where the Masters are going.

But the shocked Shocker is too shocked to answer. He seems out of it, really.

So Wasp changes the question. Who is behind this? Why did they want to kidnap Hank Pym?

Shocker: “Why? It... it was his idea! Dr. Pym’s idea... He arranged for us to free him!”

DUN DUN DUUUUU- no wait we know thats not it

whats your game shocker

Sometime later, Hank Pym wakes up in Egghead’s lab. And, of course, immediately leaps up to kick the shit out of Egghead as soon as he sees him.

Alas, Tiger Shark holds him back.

Egghead: “Don’t restrain him too tightly, Tiger Shark! He’s of no use to us injured!”

Hank Pym: “I’ll ‘use’ you, Egghead! You’re responsible for ruining my life! You manipulated me into stealing that government adamantium... and set me up, when your scheme failed! You’re mad if you think you can make me help you now!”

Egghead: “Pish-tosh!”

Good rejoinder, Egghead.

God, this also cracks me up.

Egghead says that he’s in the middle of a great experiment and that he needs the world’s greatest biochemist, Hank Pym.

Hank is still on the ‘why the hell do you think I’ll help you, I hate you so much.’

So Egghead has the tv turned on.

Anchorman, Non Burgundy: “... Authorities were stunned by the news that Dr. Pym had planned his own abduction! The Avengers refused to comment on the Shocker’s confession, but polygraph experts confirmed --”

Egghead explains that Shocker was a patsy. His gauntlets were secretly rewired with special circuits that brainwashed him into believing what Egghead wanted him to. So thoroughly that it fooled a lie detector.

Egghead: “As far as the world is concerned, Henry, you are now most assuredly a criminal. No one will believe otherwise. Not the police... not even your former friends. You have no one to turn to in this world... except us! Join the Masters of Evil, Henry! We will give you a new life!”

Hank Pym: “All right... I’ll do it!”

DUN DUN DUN!!

Wow, so I guess Egghead wasn’t just being petty. He was also systematically destroying what little was left of Hank’s life to force him to work on SCIENCE project with him.

Proving his innocence and ‘getting his dignity back’ was all Hank had left to him.

Geez, sucks to be Hank Pym!

Psst, follow @essential-avengers? Like and reblog?

#Avengers #Egghead #Masters of Evil #Hank Pym #the Wasp #She Hulk #Hawkeye #Thor #Captain America #Captain Marvel #monica rambeau #Iron Man #not doing so well #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #SUPERHERO LEGAL DRAMhaha just kidding it gets interrupted #lot of interesting trajectories the avengers are going on in this issue #so far so good on the Stern run

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astraladvent · 5 years ago

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Prism: So far...

((A lengthly excerpt from the Prism Arc catch-up event!))

Berrod Armstrong looked around the room. "Ah, this is a good turnout. Thanks for comin'. There's -- a lot to go through, so I'll begin at the beginnin' and we'll work through it from there. Feel free to add any details you noticed or ask relevant questions as I go on. Won't spend too long answerin' questions before I'm done though."

Berrod Armstrong: "Some time ago, durin' a social gatherin' in Costa Del Sol, it so happened that we came into contact with a queer manner o'crystal. There was a fireworks show on, an' it seemed that the crystal fell outta the sky, skipped on the water an' hit a cliff wall near us. The spot on the cliff wall that it hit got streaked white an' chalky. The crystal itself was...strange. Colourful, bright an' packed with aether. Goin' near it or touchin' it was enough to wash a man in the stuff."

Berrod Armstrong: "Didn't take long for us to realise how much it enhanced not only our reserves of aether, but the things we could do with it. The white stuff on the cliff wall on the other hand, killed everything it touched. Stilled the aether in it until it ended up just as white an' dead as the rocks. Fortunately, it was contained to those streaks."

Louma'li Jinjahl looked sheepish. "Also brought out a few...undesirable qualities in a few."

Milo North: "Ick."

Berrod Armstrong eyed Lou for a moment and inclined his head slightly.

Louma'li Jinjahl: "You're really lucky ya didn't end up lickin' it."

Berrod Armstrong: "At -first-, we decided to let the La Noscean an' Lominsan authorities handle it. We arranged for the crystal -- the Prism, we called it, to be collected by the Yellowjackets an' taken back to the city proper for the Arcanist's guild to keep in their custody." He rubbed his face then, "Really wished it all stayed there, but the Gods had different plans it seemed. They cordoned off the streaked area, but a couple of our people got samples of the dead white rocks. They were harmless if you didn't let it touch flesh."

N'hara Tia: "Also got samples of some of the sea creatures it killed. Not the prettiest sight."

Orion Llewelyn stroked the lizard in his lap, attempting to lull the creature to sleep. It was having none of it with all the people around and hissed.

Soyer Perera entered and remained silent. No greeting and not motions beyond walking and picking a spot.

Berrod Armstrong made a face at the mention of the dead sea creatures, but nodded to acknowledge it. "Least chalky fish don't stink..."

Berrod Armstrong: "Anyroad, a couple weeks later the Arcanist's guild called us up for our help with a matter involvin' the crystal. Apparently since we were the once who had 'experience'--" He made quotation marks with his fingers then, "--with it, we were the ones they wanted. Turned out they tried to cast some standard protective stuff around it for safe keepin', but the crystals amplified the magic to the point that it got a bit -too- well shielded. We were hired to work with a fella named Hartsald to break that shield. From the reports it seemed like one hell of a job, but nothin' catastrophic, an' nothin' the team that went couldn't handle."

Berrod Armstrong turned to offer a tip of his chin to Soyer by way of greeting.

Soyer Perera nodded but made no sound.

Berrod Armstrong: "We used the success of that job to curry some favour with the Arcanist's guild, to the point where we managed to get a sample of the crystal for the company for our own to study. Unfortunately, a couple weeks after -that-, we got another missive from the guild. Hartsald had gone missin', an' from the investigation we launched into it, he'd gone barkin' mad before he vanished. He'd been drawin' nonsense on maps, rippin' up books, writin' over an' over again about somethin' called -blàths bloigh-. No language I'd ever heard of. With the help of those of us gifted in understandin' such things, we learned that it means 'blooming essence'. An' so the hunt for Hartsald began."

Natja Bafsk breezes on in like she was here all along, peering around and filing her nails into even pointier points.

N'hara Tia brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. Not a fun assignment…

Milo North: "Baths Bentlow, yeah."

Milo North: "... Blowfly."

Milo North: "... Blarfs."

Orion Llewelyn: "Spoilers: He was found."

Natja Bafsk nods her head agreeably at Milo's valiant effort, knowing damn well she can't do anything better.

Berrod Armstrong: "The hunt led us to the Blac--" He quickly and apologetically eyed Jancis in the distance, "Uh, the Twelveswood, where the search team encountered all sorts of mischievous magics. Weird plants, floaty-stuff. The reports were...wild. Even though that was dealt with, apparently the team came into contact with an anomaly that caused the same whitenin' effect from the cliffs in Costa. I still...don't really understand what I read about what the team there saw, but everyone came outta it okay."

Berrod Armstrong: "Mostly, anyroad."

Louma'li Jinjahl: "And one overly animated annoyin' blue...person."

Berrod Armstrong: "Ah, aye. Jock whatsisballs."

Louma'li Jinjahl couldn't remmeber how many Jock-Jocks it was.

Zachary Evans mouthed the phrase 'blue person' in absolute confusion.

Louma'li Jinjahl: "Jock-Jock somethin' Jock, covered in woad an' crazy, aye."

Milo North: "Somethin' made outta Light."

Bayan Dataq cracked a small smile. This was getting good. Now there were blue people. He wondered what strange Eorzean people that was.

Milo North shivers at the memory.

Berrod Armstrong: "He'd been hired to find Hartsald too -- an' now we know by who. But I'll get to that in time."

Louma'li Jinjahl had a sneaking suspicion of the 'who' but he'd be happy if fate decided to surprise him. Lou just nodded along with Berrod's assertion that they'd get to it, in time.

Berrod Armstrong: "Arcanist's guild hadn't made any headway either, an' so as more time went on, the more everyone feared Hartsald was dead. You know how it goes with missin' persons. Anyroad, -another- issue popped up in Mor Dhona that we went to investigate. After what happened in the Shr...er -- -Twelveswood-, we were expectin' to find Hartsald. Instead, we found a Hyuran fella with an axe an' way, -way- too much power. The team went in, accompanied by one Grave Shadow as an observer, the reports said. The Hyur -- Breaker, or Baby or whatever -- was subdued an' separated from a prismatic crystal that he'd been given with the promise of power. It was there that the monk twin ladies some of y'all came to know were sighted for the first time."

Orion Llewelyn leaned over to Bayan with a hushed voice, "That's where I came in." A thumb was jerked in Berrod's general direction.

Bayan Dataq nodded. The cast of characters was getting a bit much for him to keep track of, but he was doing his best.

Jancis Milburga looks thoughtful, "And that odd sludge that came off of him."

Soyer Perera || It occured to Soyer that it was around this time he had joined the Company too...He had a faint smile at the thought.

Berrod Armstrong: "Breaker was pretty badly affected by what had happened to him. He wasn't an enemy, not really. Just someone who'd gotten a raw deal. We took care of his recovery an' such,an' in doing so, found out he had a connection to those twins...like -- a thread. Oh--" He consulted his book then, "I shouldn't forget the group out in the ruins of Nym either. After the Hartsald incident, we went to investigate some aetherial spikes there an' did battle with an entire group enhanced with shards of prismatic crystal. It wasn't enough to make 'em -crazy- powerful, so they got taken down smoothly enough. One of 'em was above the rest though...Astrologian gal with a -weapon- made with one of the crystals in it. Our first encounter with a prismatic weapon."

Milo North: "Someone had fun lickin' crystals."

Zachary Evans shifted from foot to foot before finally deciding on doing squats. The whole chain of events had given the young man a surge of nervous energy.

Louma'li Jinjahl: "An' she up an' ran before we could finish kickin' her arse. Seems Shadow got to her though an' finished things."

Natja Bafsk 's expression slowly takes a turn for the morose, more and more.

Bayan Dataq 's face gave away he didn't really approve of leaving a mark alive in a hunt, but didn't say anything.

Zachary Evans: "I'm not exactly sure of -how- comfortable I am working with Shadow again...wherever the Shadows are, things go from worse to catastrophic."

Sarij Rahzersyn: "Alright, focus folks."

Zachary Evans: "Sorry, chief."

Sarij Rahzersyn: "And listen tah what Berrod has tah say, ya can ask shite after."

Natja Bafsk nods to Sarij Rahzersyn.

Berrod Armstrong: "It turns out that the Astrologian gal didn't quite get away -- so proven by a box sent to us by a -mysterious benefactor- at the time. It contained the prismatic weapon...broken, though that didn't make the crystal itself any less potent. The box itself was made with...arcane stuff written on it that turned it into a kind of compass that pointed us north, to Coerthas. Again, we decided to investigate, an' the team sent met -- another arcanist? Nah -- a uh, a--" He checked his notes, "Nymian-styled Scholar. He didn't quite have a prismatic weapon, but his -faerie- was made of the stuff. From what I read, his spellwork was...damn powerful."

Tiergan Vashir blinked at that. "His /faerie/ was made of /crystal/?"

Berrod Armstrong: "Aye. Bright an' colourful an' glitterin'...an' -potent-."

Autgar Bloode: "Yes, his fairy was a crystal. He was very strong."

Orion Llewelyn looked away to take a swig of his drink.

Tiergan Vashir frowns deeply, brow furrowing.

Berrod Armstrong: "Was around that time that our study into the crystal itself showed us some of what it was capable of. Like allowin' me to conjure as if it was nothin', for example. Healed a gash on my own arm with a twig an' it didn't even leave a scar." He offered his arm as proof.

Berrod Armstrong: "I should note that the crystal samples in our possession went up to two. The weapon, an' the sample we got from the Arcanist's guild."

Jancis Milburga furrows her brow at Berrod's arm.

Tiergan Vashir: "Did.... you have much conjurying ability before or did you go from none to suddenly proficient?"

Berrod Armstrong: "I tried to learn once. They were nice about tellin' me I would never be able to do it."

Aulen Mistbreaker was totally not taking a nap or anything as he showed up late.

Berrod Armstrong: "I don't have a lick of castin' talent, sad to say."

Orion Llewelyn: "Shame, that."

Louma'li Jinjahl: "Ya punch things better anyways."

Zachary Evans: "That's...disturbing. Granting that much power out of the blue is dangerous."

Autgar Bloode: "You've got plenty of other talents chief."

Tiergan Vashir: "So these crystals can turn anyone into a skilled mage."

Berrod Armstrong: "Nnnh -- well, I knew the -motions-, I just never made anythin' happen, you know? But that crystal changed that."

Milo North: "Or jus' let you throw enough power at a spell."

Orion Llewelyn: "An' those of us already skilled t'start with, well..." Orion leaned back.

Milo North: "That it makes it look like you can do it."

Soyer Perera frowned at that--he hadn't been told they could do that too.

Berrod Armstrong: "Go on," He urged Orion.

Milo North: "Scarier thought is what happens when someone like fuckin' black mage casts one of their clever lil' spells with the power of one of these."

Natja Bafsk nods to Milo North.

Orion Llewelyn: "Huh?" He sputtered. "Oh I've got nothin'. Just sayin' I can imagine how it'd be like for those of us with a lick o' talent an' skill."

Milo North: "Power and the nuance to properly use it."

Berrod Armstrong nodded, "Aye."

Tiergan Vashir: "Is that why Mountain's Shadow has an interest then?"

Martin Adler: "Probably." Martin grunts.

Autgar Bloode: "Save the questions folks."

Aulen Mistbreaker spoke up. "Well... back on the beach. A simple spell I used turned a small flame into a massive pyre by just being near the damn thing."

Berrod Armstrong: "Aye..."

Berrod Armstrong: "Alright -- back to Breaker an' his ability to trace the twins...much like the box had become a compass that led us north, he led a team of us south into the Sagolii to follow the twins' trail. From what I read, the trip was an interestin' one. They utilised their crystals to their full potential and put up a hell of a fight. It was hard, but our team won out with Breaker's help. Poor bastard ended up abed again, an' we took the twins into our custody. Treated them well, mind you."

Natja Bafsk smiles, but with a notable twinge of sadness.

Jancis Milburga: "Had to, those crystals were embedded."

Berrod Armstrong: "That fight was an' educational one, 'cause we learned about the flawed crystals. Turns out that they were not only different to the samples we had, but they had awful effects on the user. Uh --" He consulted his book again, and began to read directly off of it.

Orion Llewelyn: "They amplified the user's flaws."

Milo North: "They got real ugly?"

Berrod Armstrong: "Our samples achieved perfect resonance with the user's aether. Perfect prisms. The flawed crystals however, sought to compensate for their imperfection by resonating oppressively and affecting the user's aether in a detrimental manner -- usually to the tune of illness or behavioural changes."

Berrod Armstrong: "Aye, what Orion said."

Louma'li Jinjahl: "Not ugly enough to not fluster Autgar."

Autgar Bloode would remember that.

Orion Llewelyn snorted, "Not that kinda flaw. Made angry people angrier an' that kinda thing."

Bayan Dataq: "Weaknesses?" he asked softly.

Berrod Armstrong: "After some questionin' -- gentle, mind you, we never treated 'em badly," We learned that -Hartsald- was apparently creating the flawed crystals and temptin' people to power with 'em. First the twins, then he tried to get 'em to bring Breaker on board. S'what was happenin' when we met the lot of 'em in Mor Dhona. What was most interestin' is that they said that we couldn't just go -find- Hartsald. He had to be -summoned-. The ritual to do it was queer as all hells."

Tiergan Vashir: "Summon. Like some sort of voidsent?" There was audible distaste in his tone.

Milo North: "You can summon other stuff, too. Kinda."

Berrod Armstrong: "I would think that if the ritual wasn't...downright stupid."

Orion Llewelyn wavered a hand before Bayan at his question. "Sorta like that."

Berrod Armstrong: "Once again a team went out -- to the Cloud Sea up above the Spine. Aether's rich there an' it was far away from people just in case things got hairy...which they did. Still don't really understand what happened, but they called him. He was strange, with bright blue eyes with rings in 'em," He gestured at his own eyes, ever one to talk with his hands, "Talkin' funny too, not nearly the same as he was before. Borin' an' kinda stodgy."

Bayan Dataq perked up a bit. Sounded like the red haired hyur was describing him. Badly, but still.

Berrod Armstrong: "Seems like he tried somethin', but the team figured it out and put a stop to it before he finished. Unfortunately, one of the twins got turned into a plant -- or was it eaten by a plant...?" He checked his notes again, "Ah, she got turned into a bush. When they finally managed to put Hartsald down, a big ol' pair of flowers grew. One spat out the twin, the other...Hartsald's body. The -real- Hartsald. Poor bastard had been dead all along, an' somethin' was wearin' his face. Accordin' to what I read, he'd been killed long before, even though he wasn't rottin'."

Milo North: "So.... Voidsent."

Soyer Perera frowned a bit deeper. If he were the type to be ungrammatical, he'd say this entire thing was getting curiouser and curiouser.

Jancis Milburga swears to Nald'thal quietly.

Soyer Perera: "That doesn't sound like a voidsent."

Berrod Armstrong shook his head. "Would be simple if it was. Read more like a ghost to me."

Orion Llewelyn: "Aye, I'm inclined to agree with Berrod."

Bayan Dataq shook his horned head. This is why he preferred sheep and horses. Less magic and spirits. More things that were simple to skewer with his lance.

N'hara Tia: "This whole fiasco gets worse and worse when you really stop and think about it..."

Orion Llewelyn: "Like....another soul." He offered up.

Tiergan Vashir: "A ghost that turns people into plants and grows flowers that hold bodies?"

Milo North: "A ghost who makes people inta plants? Ashkin ain't that powerful. Or smart."

Milo North: "Mosta the time they jus' moan about how much it hurts or whatever."

Berrod Armstrong: "Team came back, though the affected twin hadn't regained consciousness. Reks examined her, an' it turned out there -- wasn't a soul in her body. I dunno how that was possible, or how it worked, but that's what happened. We decided to keep her safe, an' her sister didn't leave her side. Breaker was fully recovered an' decided to go out there an' try to make some headway."

Berrod Armstrong: "Took a couple weeks, but he came back...different. He'd acquired a bit of prismatic crystal, which somehow -fused- with him while he slept. It...made him strong. Real strong. I dunno if he's immortal now, but I know it's real hard to hurt him. Or was. We had to press him for answers, but even when he finally caved an' tried to give 'em to us, he couldn't speak of it, or even write of it. He'd been hexed, and pretty badly."

Berrod Armstrong: "The same night he came back to us, somethin' happened to the unconscious twin. Long story short, whatever had been masqueradin' around as Hartsald jumped into her, pulled a switch on us, an' ran off into the night. Was a damn mess, I'm told. Her sister an' Breaker went off to try an' find her."

Natja Bafsk stares down at her lap, ears drooping backward.

Berrod Armstrong: "'nother couple weeks went by. Breaker an' Rookmin -- ah aye, that was her name -- kept in contact, wrote to us an' stuff...an' then the contact stopped. Stopped for a worryin' while, with the last place they mentioned bein' Tailfeather up in the Dravanian lands. Of course, we sent a team up to find 'em..." He rubbed the back of his head then, "An' what a time that was."

Berrod Armstrong: "There were so many things -- a cave full o'gold dust. Talkin' to dragons...followin' the trail on a whole. The trail led to a white, magical coffin' with the words 'Let sleeping beasts lie' on it. Anybody who tried to tamper with the coffin got...frozen? Stilled -- though it came at a cost to the coffin's aether. With enough people triggerin' it, it eventually ran out, an' broke open."

Milo North: "W..."

Orion Llewelyn: "Nothin' like brute forcin' some magic."

Milo North places his face into his hands, "You opened the magic box sayin' please dun open."

Jancis Milburga: "And good we did." Her tone is sadder after the mention of gold dust.

Tiergan Vashir visibly tenses up at this portion of the tale, shoulders locking. He glances back towards Jancis once before his jaw sets and he looks to Berrod again.

Louma'li Jinjahl: "To be fair, at least we did it an' didn't die. Can't say if someone else woulda lived if they did the same."

Berrod Armstrong rubbed at his face with one hand. "I'm glad I can just give the facts here now, because at the time it was confusin' as all hells. Breaker, as it turned out, had been jumped into by the Hartsald-wearer. It was a bad combination, because Breaker himself was fused with a prismatic crystal an' powerful as all hells. Not only that, but in tryin' to resist the thing tryin' to ride him, he unleashed -- well, a beast, is the best way to put it. Y'all would be interested to know that one Mountain Shadow showed up, yellin' at the team for openin' the coffin. He looked pretty chewed up. Even lost consciousness, I think."

Cerina Borlaaq gave a very audible grunt of pure /disgust/ at the mention of Mountain, however, she didn't say anything about it.

Orion Llewelyn finished off what remained of his drink.

Berrod Armstrong: "We know now that Rookmin and Breaker had found the other twin -- Sumintra, which is when the...thing...jumped from her to him. Apparently Mountain was on their trail an' used that coffin thing to subdue the thing -- which we opened. Ah well. Anyroad...there was a fight. Details...don't matter. There was a fight that we won. Autgar managed to kill the thing...for good. Breaker was safe, though the twins were missin' still. Both of 'em this time."

Jancis Milburga glances back at Martin briefly before gazing at Tiergan for awhile, silently echoing Berrod's words.

Milo North: "Course he put a cryptic phrase on the fuckin box instead of, I dunno, -something explainin' exactly what was inside-."

Berrod Armstrong: "Mountain got extracted from the area an' we dealt with the fallout as we always do. Got some blessed quiet for a while after that. We needed it."

Louma'li Jinjahl: "An' he wrote it in ways that only people versed in an arcane science could understand. Coulda gotten better results with a slab o' wood an' some paint."

Orion Llewelyn: "That's got me wonderin' though. It /was/ quiet for a good bit. Us meetin' here though..."

Orion Llewelyn: "does that mean somethin's happened?"

Berrod Armstrong: "Quiet couldn't last, I suppose, 'cause who else came marchin' up to our gates a few weeks later but Mountain himself, with the balls to ask us to -leave it all to him-. Didn't need to consult leadership to outright refuse that, no matter how much I'd like to wash my hands o'this stuff." He smiled at Orion then, "I'll get to that in a lil bit."

Milo North: "Really. Is "There is an awful monster in here, this box is keeping it from killing you. No touch.' So hard? Fuckin' Mountain."

Orion Llewelyn: "Wait, he came /here?/ What'd he want?"

Orion Llewelyn: "Oh well, I guess you just said that." he leaned back again, slightly less agitated.

Sarij Rahzersyn: "To be fair... even if he wrote that people would have opened it."

Berrod Armstrong: "Aye. We said no an'...he was uh, awfully gracious an' decided that in the event of our refusal, -he- would leave it entirely to -us- instead. Apparently it'd be one or the other, so long as it meant we no longer clashed. So he officially withdrew from the matter, an' shared with us some information, includin' the whereabouts of some missin' people. The scholar, the twins, an' the Astrologian."

Mholi'to Valrei offered the room a brief wave as he walked over to an open spot to stand. He was quiet for now as to catch up on the current conversation.

Berrod Armstrong: "Apparently he'd convinced them all to withdraw from the whole ordeal, an' has managed to keep 'em safe in his own way." There was an unconvinced shrug from him, but he went on, "He also handed over his prismatic crystal -- the Scholar's faerie. We have three samples now."

Cerina Borlaaq: "So it is only a matter of time before he tries to swoop in again." She huffed. "We should have just cut him down when he showed up at our doorstep."

Orion Llewelyn: "He gave ya his faerie...?" Orion bunched up his brow.

Berrod Armstrong: "Hmn. Oh -- aye, though it turned back into a chunk o'pretty crystal when it left his side."

Orion Llewelyn ran a hand along his jaw, pensively, saying nothing further.

Sarij Rahzersyn: "Kindly keep murder plans to yerself. Mountain is a company owner of a known company and on the level in the terms of the governing bodies."

Sarij Rahzersyn: "I don't feel like going infront of a judge again."

Milo North: "I ain't sayin' anything about killin'. I'm thinkin' it real loudly though."

Cerina Borlaaq: "I did not ask for your assistance, Sarij. But do not make this company bend to him again."

Berrod Armstrong: "Speakin' of which, couple folks from here parleyed with 'im an' made some requests, one o'which he granted." Very carefully did he pull an envelope from between the pages of the book he'd been reading his notes from. The envelope was handed across to Autgar, though in stretching to do so, Berrod held it dangerously close to the candle's flame. "Ah -- shite, whoops. There y'go."

Bayan Dataq was starting to wonder why everyone was talking about some mountain. And why everyone hated a geographical feature.

Natja Bafsk peers over at the envelope questioningly.

Autgar Bloode plucked up the letter and held it infront of him on the table without a word.

Dylan Skye: "...What is that, Autgar?"

Orion Llewelyn leaned back forward, eyes shifting toward the envelope as well and then to Autgar.

Orion Llewelyn: "Aye, what he said."

Mholi'to Valrei took a few steps closer to Autgar to peek over the man's large shoulders out of curiosity.

Sarij Rahzersyn: "I am saying.... stay the hells away from 'em and not deal wtih em, so if as ya think he tries tah get his fingers involved wit us... we got solid feet undah us rather than having the Immortal Flames kicking in the door again to arrest folks."

Autgar Bloode elbowed Oli. "We can talk about it when were all caught up."

Bayan Dataq 's eyes shot open, and then he looked to Orion for clarification. “What kind of company was this anyroad?"

Mholi'to Valrei frowned as he was lightly jabbed. "Fine, fine," he grumbled. His curiosity still burned bright, but his eyes were forced back towards Sarij. "Honestly, the best thing to do in my opinion would be whatever the hells we intended to do before he showed up. Regardless of what he's offerin'. He smells like trouble."

Louma'li Jinjahl looked on skeptically as this was unfolding. He didn't have history with Shadow, but at this rate, he was hating him just out of spite.

Cerina Borlaaq: "That has certainly worked for us in the past when it comes to dealing with him, yes? Because he has not managed to weasel himself into the company, and out of what ever--" she waved her hand in front of her in frustration, "solid ground you are talking about. Figured you would know that better than anyone else."

Sarij Rahzersyn: "This company is not a wetworks." Sarij replied simply. "Berrod feel free tah continue."

Cerina Borlaaq scoffed loudly, but decided not to press on.

Autgar Bloode was scanning over the letter before he returned it to the envelope and rested it on the table infront of him.

Berrod Armstrong nodded at Autgar, then at Sarij. "I agree that we have to be careful. He's got a legitimate thing going an' -if- he means us ill, which I'll never rule out, he's gonna get us tangled up in a lotta legal shite before the final blow. Either way -- if he says he's out, I agree with Oli there...we press on like he's not around. Granted...it might mean followin' some of his...advice."

Soyer Perera: "And what's wrong with that?"

Jancis Milburga nods in agreement. "Coincidence."

Berrod Armstrong: "Or rather, followin' his methods. He said that he wanted to dissipate the crystals by givin' their aether to the land -- it's why Breaker was put in that coffin, to drain him of the prismatic aether he'd been fused with -- and contain that thing inside him too."

Soyer Perera: "Provided it doesn't harm anyone or the land itself--we have enough mages here to confirm if the method would actually put it back into the land, right?"

Mholi'to Valrei: "Then make sure that information is verified independently somewhere else. Facts are facts, regardless of who's sayin' it. Are you sure that it's the best method, all things considered?"

Berrod Armstrong: "So we have three samples. I want us to begin lookin' into ways to gettin' these crystals smelted down into the land, for lack of a better term. Once we find a way to do it safely, that's how we'll handle any o' the prisms we come into contact with goin' forward."

Berrod Armstrong: "Aye, those things are a menace in man's hands."

Mholi'to Valrei nodded back. "A broken clock's right twice a day."

#FFXIV #Crystal #Balmung #Astral Advent #Astral Agent #Prism #Story Arc #RP Event #Catch up Post

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smokeybrand · 4 years ago

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Smokey brand Reviews: Life Is Unfair

WandaVision finished last week and i had planned to write and entire review about it as, you know. ‘m a hardcore Marvel shill, bu i opted to wait a bit. I wanted time to let the show marinate and then revisit it all at once to see if i still felt the way i did during the initial run. I’ve written little standalone posts, her and there, about specific episodes or characters as the show aired but i wanted to kind of document everything good and bad, that i noticed watching the MCU’s fist attempt at long form content. Objectively, I'm probably still pretty bias toward the show because it’s been a year since we got any new MCU content so there might not be a ton of critique in this bad boy. Plus, i really like Darcy so this thing already starts with bonus points.

The Good

The overall concept of this how being Wanda’s journey through the stages of grief was brilliant. I don’t know if this was ever officially acknowledged, but you can actually see a stage for every two episodes. Denial is basically the entirety of the first two episodes while seven and eight are straight up Depression. Going back through knowing that really makes for a far more potent watch.

I mentioned Darcy before but i really liked how Jimmy Woo got to shine here as well. Dude was one of the best things about Ant-Man II and i just really want dude to get bumped up into SWORD already.

The acting in this is exceptional. I wrote about Lizzy Olsen’s outstanding performance in it’s own posts a while back, but i need to acknowledge Paul Bettany as well. Dude is great in his role as Vision and i was a little bummed he got bumped off so soon after his introduction. I’m so glad Feige gave him such legs with this role because it really did Bettany a service in letting him actually show us who his Vision truly is.

Actually, the entire cast was pretty dope, overall. The child actors were kind of whack but they’re kids so that stands to reason but everyone else, did a decent job. The writing was pretty temperamental overall but everyone did their very best with the material given to them.

This series was pretty dope to look at. Like, the visual effects were spectacular at times. Not all of the time. There are chinks in the armor but, as a whole, this thing was very pleasing on the eye.

But dat White Vision, tho! White Vision is the Vision i grew up with as a kid. He was in that Avengers game and, at the time i got into comics, the primary Vision on the Avengers squad. I’ve always preferred that version of the character, mostly for nostalgia reasons, but i understood the red and green was classic styles. I carried no illusions about seeing a White Vision in the MCU but then BAM! WandaVision brings MY Vision to the Little Big Screen and i am forever grateful.

The sitcom aesthetic was a fun framing device. I really enjoyed recognizing all these shows that i used to watch growing up. When they hit me with the Malcolm in the Middle episode, i was the only one among my friends that immediately knew the reference. Malcolm is a lost gem, a classic in the sitcom hierarchy that more people should definitely watch. It f*cking launched Bryan Cranston’s career. We wouldn’t have Walter White if not for Hal Wilkerson.

Wanda’s Scarlet Witch costume is dope as f*ck. I was surprised she actually got a suit as, if i recall, her character wasn’t supposed to ever go full hero like that that. She even said the tiara thingy was dumb. Fast forward a decade later and there she is, tiara thingy and all.

The Meh

That Fox-Men Quicksilver bait was superfluous. Evan Peters was great, as always, but superfluous. His appearance in this show was unnecessary. A lot of people were crazy upset about the “reveal” but i didn’t care. I was pretty sure this show wasn’t going to be the mutant backdoor everyone wanted it to be.

The Bad

Monica’s origin kind of sucks. The actress, herself, did a great job with what he had but the overall character arc was a little flaccid. They did a disservice to Teyonah Parris with that. There were hints that she’s capable of much more, particularly the opening seen where she returns from the Snap, but that potential was never fully realized and it’s unfortunate. It makes her overall character feel inconsequential.

Also, the f*ck are those powers, man? Monica in the comics is a straight up powerhouse, especially in her current Spectrum persona. It’s a little ridiculous to me that she would get dog-walked so easily by literally anyone she came into contact with. Bro, Monica is on the Ultimates. She shares space with Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Captain Marvel, and America Chavez. T’Chala is a top ten genius in the Marvel Universe, so is Adam Brashear on top of being a living anti-mater generator, Carol Danvers is probably the most powerful human hero currently in the 616, and America can literally punch her way into other dimensions. And Monica’s power set slides right in line with those people. Plus, they have a pet Galactus. But MCU Monica stopped bullets by letting them Vision phase through her body kind off. The audacity!

They did my girl Agatha so wrong. When she was Agnes, she was dope as f*ck! I loved her insidious suggestion and the way she just inserted herself into everything; It was delicious! Kathryn Hahn was great as Agnes. And then she went full witch and lost all of that charm. It was so disappointing, you know? She was well on her way to becoming a second Justin Hammer only to be relegated to the same level of clownery as Yellowjacket or Malekith.

While touching on Agatha’s generic villain-ness, her climactic battle with Wanda was so cliche. It as really disappointing. You have two, dumb powerful witches, and you resort to what is effectively laser beam in the sky. There was a distinct lack of imagination for so much potential available.

How is Vision a Vision without the Mind Stone? That was the bulk of his power. How is White Vision doing the same thing without the literally cosmic forced that predates the universe, powering his abilities? Questions for later i guess?

The pacing in this thing is mad wonky. Those first three episodes upon re-watch drag like nobody’s business. It picks up after that for three or four more episodes, but you can definitely tell those last few were mad rushed. It’s a crazy uneven show altogether but i can’t say it really takes you out of it

Tyler Hayward is a terrible villain. Arguably, the worst.

The Verdict

WandaVision was pretty okay, definitely the right show for which to introduce us to Phase Four. That said, it peaked way too early, man. Like, i enjoyed this thing thoroughly, it's a nice start to what looks to be a darker turn for the MCU, but it felt kind of wonky. Bad pacing, man, and SO many loose strings to tie going forward. There were some lackluster character choices, Monica feels dumb underdeveloped, but all in all? Not bad. If this thing were a movie, I'd say it'd be about upper mid tier. About as good as Endgame and, say, Guardians II. WandaVision is better than everything in Phase One but staggers against the better films in Phase Two and doesn’t even touch It can't touch the best in the Franchise. Iron Man, Infinity War or Winter Soldier blow this show out of the water. As a vehicle for Wanda Maximoff, it is excellent. This is definitely her origin story, even if it doesn’t stick the landing as assuredly as i would have wanted.

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squirrelno2 · 7 years ago

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Hey friends, or rather complete strangers who happen across this lengthy ramble and decide to dedicate their time to it, let’s talk about Ant-Man and mental illness.

(I know, you guys are probably like, “is this not already talked about?” No, actually, it really isn’t. Trust me, I spent two months researching this stuff.)

[Image Description: An oversized Hank Pym cradling Janet, who is wearing a wedding dress, and they are facing Hawkeye. Hank says, “What’s wrong with you, William Tell? Got something against happy endings?” and Jan adds, “’Specially where the good guy gets the gal?” Hawkeye responds, “Not ol’ Hawkeye, lady! But Yellowjacket – he said…” In a second panel, a close-up on Janet in Hank’s hand as she says, “ -That he had done away with Hank? True enough – in a way he couldn’t suspect! For he was Hank, with a king-size dose of accident-induced schizophrenia!” Hank says, “Better let me tell it from here, honey! With what we’ve now pieced together…”]

So I watched the movie Ant-Man for the first time last month. I knew absolutely nothing about the movie except that Janet van Dyne, my love, had been fridged, and it was focused on Scott Lang, who existed for me primarily as Cassie Lang’s father who spent most of her Young Avengers run dead. So this was an interesting place to come in, especially because I had no idea who the villain was going to be. Generally, movie adaptations pick the most iconic villains, not necessarily ones who appeared in the comic book origin, right? Vulture appeared a while before Green Goblin in Spider-Man comics, but it took a long-ass time to see a live-action Vulture. But Ant-Man… I don’t know, maybe there are iconic nemeses that I just don’t know about, because I’m by no means a comic expert, but the most iconic Ant-Man villain I can think of is Yellowjacket.

It's true that Yellowjacket is much more a Hank Pym thing, since he literally is Hank Pym, but that in itself is really interesting and something I want to come back to in a minute. A moment of background in case you have no idea what I’m rambling about – Hank Pym, the first guy to go by Ant-Man, had what generally gets called a mental breakdown? In the panel above, Jan calls it schizophrenia, but from what little I know about schizophrenia that doesn’t sound right to me. In my experience, people tend to confuse schizophrenia and identity disorders, and I think that’s what is happening here . Because the only things I can find that diagnose Hank seem like this, it’s difficult for me to say what, exactly, Hank is dealing with other than identity issues and increased violent tendencies. (On that note, there is also an infamous scene where he hits Jan, which is Not the focus of this analysis. We could have a super long talk about whether Hank is redeemable or an abuser or what-have-you but this is not that discussion.) The Yellowjacket arc has defined Hank Pym’s character, and while there have been others to use the name, this particular superhero identity is very much tied up in this character.

But this is not the case in the movie? Which like, fair. It’s one stand-alone movie featuring an all-new cast of characters (with the exception of the obligatory cameo) and that kind of thing is hardly the place to introduce a plotline like the comic book Yellowjacket. A story arc like that hinges on a level of attachment, to the character or the concept of them as a hero or the relationships in the story, and the wider, more casual audience that the MCU reaches isn’t guaranteed to come in with the backstory. (Besides, we all remember exactly how dismissive everybody was of the whole concept of an Ant-Man movie. We know exactly how little emotional attachment there was going into this.)

But.

It still bothers me that the decision was made to make Yellowjacket a completely separate entity from Hank Pym. There was a Yellowjacket in the comics prior to this; it wasn’t Darren Cross. It was a woman named Rita DeMara who stole Hank’s Yellowjacket costume (which, can I just say, parallels between heroes and villains are like the superhero genre’s favourite thing, so I’m a little sad they didn’t go the route of both the hero and the villain stealing their costumes from Hank). Obviously, a Yellowjacket who isn’t Hank is something that’s happened, but Yellowjacket still was his legacy and had the connotations of his mental illness? The thing that doesn’t bother me about Rita DeMara is the fact that Yellowjacket was Hank’s first. When she stole the costume, she stole the whole complicated legacy that came with it, and had her own complicated villain-to-hero story to go with it, and it matters to me that Yellowjacket is a name that means some kind of internal struggle.

I did check to see if Darren Cross was from the comics – apparently he was a villain that Scott Lang fought, but he wasn’t Yellowjacket until 2016 – a year after the movie came out. The decision to give a pre-existing villain an identity that has always been closely linked to a superhero’s mental illness reads to me like the creators of this movie wanted to erase Hank’s illness. (Also, if they want somebody named Yellowjacket that badly, we could have had a woman? That’s also not the subject of this ramble, but I’m just… putting that thought out there.)

[Image description: Four panels of a comic stacked evenly on top of each other. In the first panel, yellow silhouettes show Scott Lang as Ant-Man growing and hitting a muscular pink-skinned man dressed only in black underwear, who shouts “Ah!” as he falls backward. A text box reads “This is what happens.” In the second panel, the large man slams into a wall, cracking it and breaking a light. Narration around him reads “Darren Cross. Darren Cross is alive! This guy is the entire reason I got to be Ant-Man in the first place -” A third panel with muted colours and blurry lines shows Ant-Man and Cross fighting, and reads “Scumbag tech industrialist who killed homeless dudes and took their hearts to keep himself alive. Til we fought and he died of a massive coronary. But, as always, it apparently didn’t stick! Is it hypocritical of me to hate the revolving door of death?” In the last panel, once more with saturated colours, the narration says, “Either way, before I can even ask how this could possibly get worse - I get the answer.” Ant-Man looks over his shoulder at the back of the doctor behind him and says, “Doctor Sondheim!” The doctor is holding out an arm and says “Stay back -”]

Seriously – Darren Cross could have been a compelling villain without being Yellowjacket! The text in these panels makes it pretty clear an Ant-Man can have a nemesis who isn’t called Yellowjacket (and depending on how you define the word, maybe Yellowjacket was never anybody’s nemesis).

The cartoon Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had a fair amount of time dedicated to Hank’s mental illness and identity issues, including an episode titled Yellowjacket. They chose not to use the time he hit Jan, negating any arguments one might have that omitting Hank’s mental illness was for the sake of having him not be abusive; EMH recognised that, although that scene happened because of Hank’s mental illness, they could have a character with mental illness without domestic violence. They’re clear throughout the episode what is happening with Hank, too, though they never diagnose it. Jan and Tony spend a lot of time talking about how to help Hank or if they should. Tony calls him crazy, which is a word that makes me want to fight, but is an explicit acknowledgment of what’s happening.

He isn’t cured at the end of the episode, either, which isn’t something one might expect from a cartoon. Instead, he requests that he continue to be called Yellowjacket and pulls his mask on, a visual signal of his complicated sense of identity. Hank remains a hero, and has returned to the Avengers after time off from the team, but you get the clear sense that his mental illness is still there and very much something he will have to cope with. All that, in one 22-minute episode. Again, they had the better part of two seasons to build up the character while the movie Ant-Man had only itself, but even a nod to the movie’s Hank having a therapy session would have been better than the way they tried to divorce his character completely from his comic arcs.

It’s not as though mental illness isn’t “appropriate” for younger audiences or whatever. Cartoons are certainly aimed at a younger demographic than a live-action movie like Ant-Man, right? Comics are often written off as a little-kid thing, or a thirty-year-old white man in his mom’s basement thing, but let’s face it – if you’re reading this, you’re very likely neither of those. Comics have long been used to tackle issues people don’t want to talk about (though conservative views and pushback have also equally shaped the course of comic history, and we shouldn’t talk about comic books as though they’re somehow the pinnacle of representation because they are still… just so bad). So why don’t the Marvel movies at least meet the bar that’s been set? It wouldn’t be hard to deal with mental illness even a little bit better, considering we supposedly have a better understanding now of mental health than we did in the eighties, when Jan casually and erroneously diagnosed Hank. Even a couple lines!

Instead, the only nod we get to Hank Pym as Yellowjacket is when he tells Darren Cross, “You’re too much like me.”

Which… could mean literally anything, depending on what lens you want to view it from, and people don’t tend to interpret characters as anything different from themselves.

I don’t know about you, but I’m fine with different formats leading stories down different paths. Characters and continuity aren’t consistent in comics alone, so I’m not really a stickler for canon when it comes to adaptations. That doesn’t mean you can just erase what little, and honestly shitty, representation mentally ill and neurodivergent people get. Sure, the MCU had Iron Man 3, which made me cry when I saw it because I’d never seen a fictional character have panic attacks in such a mainstream work. But not every neurodivergent person has something as easy for neurotypical people to pity as anxiety or depression or PTSD. Those stories don’t get told very well, but at least they sometimes get told. Give us a superhero who has a mental illness that’s harder for people without it to relate to. (To clarify, I don’t ever want to pretend like anxiety is just being scared, or depression is just being sad, but there is a level of “poor you” that we get for those that never comes up for other conditions. When a person says they have schizophrenia to a neurotypical person, they’re rarely going to get sympathy; they’re lucky if they don’t get fear because all the other person knows about schizophrenia comes from some horror movie.)

It's incredibly important to actually portray neurodivergent people: this article and the conclusion of this book are just a few of the people agreeing with me on that. The book points out that many of the most notable neurodivergent characters in comics are villains, too, having spent zero time killing or pretending to kill people, raising a new point: movie Hank Pym is arguably the least villainous of the three I’ve discussed in this post. Why is he the one who isn’t mentally ill? Creators have to start examining the choices they make with regards to neurodivergent people, because we can’t keep upholding the same nasty views forever. Even this article agrees with me – it uses the Hulk to explain anger issues and a little of how one might cope. Clearly, if a psychologist finds value in the Hulk, there’s something to be said for fictional characters who deal with mental illness and/or neurodivergence.

I’m not saying all this to condemn the movie (it’s actually better storytelling than some Marvel movies I could mention) or say that the comics are somehow better (they’re really, really not. Comics in general are kind of a hot mess). Ant-Man is just one example of a consistent reluctance to really acknowledge neurodivergent people in media, and for the superhero genre especially this is appalling. Superheroes are all about difference! The good ones give hope to the outsiders in society, but here we are, superheroes finally breaking into the mainstream, and we’re pulling the same old shit we always have.

#ant-man #yellowjacket #really long ramble I apologise

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serwynterwulf · 8 years ago

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Fill in about your muse: Braxis Wynterwulf

➥ What is your character’s full name?: Braxis Wytnerwulf, Ishgardian title extendeds his name with formal title to. Braxis Wynterwulf, Knight Dragoon of Ishgard and Lord of House Wulf, sworn under the Great House Fortemps. Although Braxis never goes by this title as he hates the responsibilities politics + Braxis = Violence. And that he was bit tricked into it by his now deceased uncle and previous head of the family in Coerthas.

➥ Do they have any brothers or sisters?: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH BOY DOES HE! Not going into adopted or brother and sister like figures he has alot of siblings and possibly more. From his mother’s side his siblings are Quill, Roric, Roland, Kaiser, Venoix, Asmaria and two more who I forgot. There are alot of us ok? And he has an Elder brother from his fathers side of the family he’s only really met once or twice.

➥ What kind of eyes do they have?: Braxis eyes are of a really light and vibrant shade of blue. A bit like ice is one of the best ways I can describe it. ➥ What kind of hair do they have?: Braxis has light brown hair that can normally reach up down to his shoulder, but he normally keeps it tied tightly behind his head, and shaves the side of his head. Why? Who knows he doesn’t he just does it.

➥ What body type are they?: Muscles, Scars and tall as hell. Those three things are the first thing and are the best things to say to describe his body. He is a warrior through and through and has a warriors body, that of course comes with the scars of his twenty plus years of fighting now. And as a highlander he stand little above 6′8feet tall/

➥ What do they hate most about themselves?: His bastard blood, all of his life it has been used against him. Over time you think it wouldn’t sting and cut so deep. But yet it still does, and he knows he will be fighting his accursed blood until his last day.

➥ Do they have a favorite quote?: There are several but one that is a bit humorful and true is. “War was easier then daughters.” Or in Brax’s cause Daughter @io-saar

➥ What sort of music do they enjoy?: Braxis enjoys traditional Ishgardian music, at first he hated it but over time it has won him over. That or music with a very deep voice singing or chanting something to the music he can relate too (Such as Ravanna’s phase 2 music) He will listen to endlessly.

➥ Have/would they ever cheat(ed) on a partner?: In his youth, yes he would have, one of the reasons he was didn’t get into any very serious relationships. But as he has aged he would very much like a partner to stand by his side and to deal with his ‘semi” violently crazy shenanigans. And would show them undying loyalty, less they wronged him.

➥ Have they been cheated on by a partner?: Yes actually, and twice the first time was roughly two years back and didn’t hurt him all to much. The relationship was a bit odd and it ended after that. Was more of a blessing in a horridly made diguise scenario. But one did occur last year that has inflicted a great deal amount of rage into the man and trust issues. All that lead to his divorce just a handful of months ago now.

➥ Have they ever lost someone close to them?: Yes, many of his fathers side of the family the Wulf Family have dropped like flies over the years. The NPC/Founder of the house and his wife was lost forever when the calamity’s wrath struck Coerthas. And in the last year and a half he has lost two family members to the Dragonsong War or to other battles. And another four who went missing and he has never seen again. Top that with the death of his mother while he was away in Ishgard he’s lost alot in the last handful of years.

➥ What is their favorite sound?: The crackling sounds of a fire burning, the sizzling sound of a good meal being cooked, or the happy yelping and barking of his wolves. All these sounds Brax’s ears love to hear.

➥ Are they judgmental of others?: Brax is not judgmental of anyone form the get go unless they give him reason too. He is of bastard birth and has not made the best decisions in life, he would be a hypocrite if he judged people for anything similar right off the bat. But if you get on his bad-side or are one of his students he will judge every moment, every action and every breath you would take. For better or worse pending on the scenario.

➥ What are they like when they stay up all night?: Eerie, unnaturally quiet and a bit distant. This can be spotted from him regularly when he either works through a night without rest of if some nightmare prevents him from sleeping less he wishes to torment himself.

➥ Have they ever been arrested?: Recently, no but in his youth with his many siblings he was arrested left and right by Maelstrom and Yellowjacket officials. Stealing, Public Fights, Vandalism and more would be on his records from Limsa. And still to this day he blames the hooligan of the family.

➥ What evokes strong memories for them?: Bloodshed, battle and the sounds and locations linked to those memories. If Braxis returns to a battlefield to where he suffered a great defeat. He will go silent, watching the memory of his failure or ill luck play over again and again until someone snaps him out of it.

➥ What do they do on rainy days?: Mainly sleep, rainy days to him feel relaxing in such an odd way he can not describe. But he will normally just take the day to relax and not indoors all the time he enjoys the rain quiet much. Not so much listening to it but just rain in general.

➥ What religion are they?: Braxis is a firm beleiver of the Twelve gods of Eorzea. The two he favors though come from his families. From his youth under the teaching of his uncle Hugo Boulderfist a Monk who left his ways to protect his family taught Braxis and the other bastard children much about Rhalgr. And in his time in Ishgard his uncle Alexander Greywulf taught him much about Halone. The highlander having an odd sense of zealous nature towards the two patrons specifically.

➥ What word do they overuse the most?: “Shite. Fuck. Bloody. Bugger. Hooligan.” Are all words this highlander says alot. And I mean ALOT.

➥ What do they wear to bed?: In Coerthas he will wear light sleeping attire when sleeping there. A light shirt and pants of some kind. In any warmer climates normally just in his undergarments and nothing else.

➥ Do they have any tattoos or piercings?: Braxis has an old Limsan Tattoo on the back of his left shoulder. He doesn’t really show or make note of it anymore. But it was part of the crew he served on when he was young in his teen years. Him and and old friend, crew member and always drunk friend Ibar is one of the very few of that group he still talks too.

➥ What type of clothing are they most comfortable in?: Scalemail, furs and lightly plated armor that make it easy for him to both fight and move across the battlefield. He is most comfortable in armor he is a warrior after all.

➥ What is their most disliked food?: Licorice, black licorice, or anything with a licorice like taste. He just doesn’t like it.

➥ Do they have any enemies?: He has no specific foes at this time, at least that he knows of. He has rivals aplenty but they are mostly friendly ones. Though anyone hailing from the Empire who is not an obvious deserter, or one who uses craven tricks to slay their foes may or may not find themselves to be quick foes of this man.

➥ What does their writing look like?: Braxis has some pretty decent looking handwriting. Before Ishgard it was horrible barely able to be read. But through various tutors, teachers and bickering matches with his previous house head and uncle. He practiced and his handwriting has improved to something of a “Proper Knights.” Able to add a fancy and elegant touch if he needs too. He probably never will as he deems it a bloody waste of time, but he could.

➥ What disgusts them?: Cheaters, Cowards, Liars and more people who fit this craven role. As well as those disrespect the dead or the warriors and protectors of their people. And lastly black licorice.

Tagged by: @little-purple-thundercloud

Tagging: @panda-ffxiv @ffxiv-roleplayer @io-saar @the-mage-and-the-monk @neekaxiv @theash-hatrukoth And anyone else that wishes to do this, this one has alot of questions so do it or not is up to you!

#Tagged #RPMemes #ThanksForTheTag #NeverAgainOneThisLong

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razluna-k · 6 years ago

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Sorry but Black Panther is still a bad movie

Re-watching it, I can’t say my opinion on it has changed much about it, I still don’t like it. I think I like the overall plot maybe a bit better after re-watching it but that doesn’t say much. Warning, spoilers bellow! Before I start sounding like a Negative Nancy and say everything that was bad about it, well what was good about it? There were a number of things I liked about the movie and want to point this out first. The humor in the movie was nearly spot on, I don’t really have any complaints about it aside from the cringe-worthy “WHAT ARE THOSE?!” joke, I had to suffer through that a second time and I think it’s worse the second time around, typed words cannot express how my face shrunk as if I ate a whole lemon. What else was good about it? The visuals were amazing. I see a lot of people complaining about the CGI but honestly I have no complaints for the CGI, at least not many, any CGI related complaints I have is more related to what it’s representing rather than the effect itself. CGI is spot on to me. The city was beautiful and the technology was some of the best I’d seen in any movie, I loved the design and futuristic style of everything. My favorite thing in the movie has to be those dragonfly ships, loved those!

My favorite character in the whole movie is M’Baku from the Jabari tribe, with T’Chala being my second favorite, not a close second mind you, but still a second, and on a related note I also love how the origins of Wakanda at the beginning of the movie seem to be hinting that the Jabari tribe are the trouble making tribe and may be one of the antagonists of the movie, further hinted at by the nature of them showing up to the ritual to challenge T’Chala, and later to turn it around and have them aid the main protagonists of their own will. That turnaround was a very nice twist in the movie and I loved it a lot.

I also liked the action scenes in the movie but my favorite was the first one where T’Chala goes after that convoy, the first time I watched it I felt it was too dark and hard to see what was going on, but seeing it a second time I have a more positive look at the scene and the moment he froze gave me a laugh too.

In all honesty, that’s all I have for what I like about the movie, a couple characters I like, good action scenes, beautiful visuals, technology, and comedy (almost) spot-on. There is however more complaints I have for the movie. What is there that I can possibly have to complain about?

Okay I’ll get this out of my way, I really don’t like Killmonger as he’s portrayed in the movie. Now I haven’t watched many marvel cartoons, if any, don’t read comics, so this is really a fresh look at the marvel villain and honestly, they could have done better. First of all, right off the bat I’m not a fan of “evil version of the hero” villains, but usually the villain will have some sort of unique twist to them or upgrade to set them apart from the hero, make them a bigger challenge. In Iron Man, Iron Monger was a bigger, bulkier, more weaponized version of iron man based off the mark I suit. In Antman, Yellowjacket was Antman with lasers. In the amazing hulk Abomination was a bigger, uglier Hulk, maybe a bit stronger but I haven’t seen the movie in years so I can’t back that up. However, in Black Panther Killmonger is basically just “evil black panther”, no special twist, just the same thing with a different design. The MCU seems to have some fetish for pinning heroes up against basically evil versions of themselves, usually with some sort of twist, and it often leads to the final battle between the main hero and villain being kind of bland. Now there are certainly acceptions to this that varry from movie to movie, and boy, Black Panther is FAR from an acception. You have two people with equally impenetrable armor going fist-to-cuffs, on a rail that periodically deactivates their armor for a who-will-land-the-finishing-blow-first moment. The events leading up to this were no better, lets backtrack and go into T’Chala’s ritual battle with N'Jadaka. This battle was far more interesting in the beginning phases, I’d like to attribute it to the fact that the two of them had different weapons and, even without the weapons, it was on a ground meant to be equal footing, a ritual. It started off well, but went stupid after a bit.

Why don’t I like it? Well T’Chala basically gave up halfway through, and don’t tell me otherwise. In the first ritual where he becomes king, he fights like a badass and even takes a spear to the shoulder and powered through to victory, showing not a single sign of weakness with a massive open wound that probably went down to the bone. But here? Well the fight starts off good but once he gets a stab into the stomach then it goes downhill fast. Now it’s not even directly in his stomach, closer to his side, and he did also suffer carious cuts before, none of which were serious but probably hurt. Of course you’d probably say something along the lines of “If you got stabbed in your stomach-side you probably wouldn’t be able to fight back very much” but remember who we’re talking about here. T’Chala, current black panther, who previously won a match with an open wound in his shoulder. I’ve been in a car accident and let me tell you adrenaline is an amazing thing, and will let you do things beyond your capabilities regardless of injuries depending on the injury. Now we have this guy who fought to victory before with a shoulder wound, you can’t say adrenaline isn’t running in him after that stab in the stomach, he should be flowing with it, and he’s already a more than capable fighter. Yet after getting that stab just crumbles into the weakest thing unable to move and even giving killmonger time to go on his monologue. After that, Killmonger kills Zuri, T’Chala sees a close friend die right before his eyes, he’s definitely surging with adrenaline now, but instead of throwing up a fight and going out like a man, he flops around on the water like a magikarp and ends up getting thrown off the cliff. A very emotional scene but a pathetic way to go out.

Now lets return to Killmonger as the main focus, he’s definitely the deepest and most inspired villain yet, but... there’s no connection. His motives are largely race related, frequently referring to black slavery and blaming Wakanda for not helping “people that look like us” as he puts it, now this isn’t a bad view for the villain to have but where does it come from? There’s no connection between his origin story and his current beliefs. Sure his father held similar views but his father didn’t seem to apply race to it, his views were more on the general state of the world, all the corruption and crime and suffering while wakanda does nothing. They have similar views but I can’t help but not feel a connection between his origins of his father’s death and N’Jadaka’s current motivations as a villain. I suppose the race thing comes into play as he grows up in the united states but that would be an off-screen connection that isn’t addressed in the main movie.

That’s not the end of it however, I feel they could have gone a better direction with the movie than making Killmonger king and becoming “Evil Black Panther”. While I like the Jabari tribe as they’re shown in the movie, I think the movie would have been better if say Killmonger lost the battle for the throne and perhaps went to the Jabari tribe and lead an army to conquer Wakanda. He could have taken over the Jabari tribe by beating or killing M’Baku and perhaps even convinced W’Kabi to betray T’Challa, this could have resulted in a much bigger Wakandan Civil War and I feel that would have played better with his background as a “Joint Special Operations Command” Ghost, as we’d first hand be seeing his training put to use, rather than him just being king and running weapons and Ross saying he’s “using his training”, like no, he’s not using his training, he’s straight up king and doing what he wants. They could have even used this path to give him a unique outfit and weapons that will put him up as a large threat to T’Chala without making him a Black Panther literal copycat. Overall I feel like Black Panther was not a good movie, it was pretty bad, it had good moments but I feel the way they handled Killmonger just made the movie full of lost opportunities, it had potential but they went in the wrong direction with it I feel. On a side note, It’s largely T’Chala’s fault any of this happened, even after the truth of Killmonger’s identity was revealed he was advised not to accept the challenge. The hero makes a stupid decision that enables the villain. He was an outsider and W’Kabi was the only one who wanted to see the challenge gone through. Plenty of missed opportunities, W'Kabi could have been a better antagonist.

Klaue was perfect though, but if you throw any crazy villain that laughs at everything at me I’ll probably love them no matter how useless they may be. The dude was even still smiling as a corpse.

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #227: Testing... 1... 2... 3!

January, 1983

Welcome to 1983! And the year starts off with the greatest gift of all: more Captain Marvel!

Also, She-Hulk strutting, Hank pondering, and Wasp lunching.

Truly, this issue promises much for six dimes.You’re blessed these days to find a comic that promises half as much for ten dimes.

I’ve said before that I like covers that are just ‘hey here’s several things that are going to happen in this issue.’ And I still do. Is rad.

Also rad? We have our next long term Avengers writer starting in this issue. Roger Stern!

So last time (in Spider-Man), boat cop Monica Rambeau punched a science machine and got filled with science. She can turn her body into any kind of energy. She quit the boat cops and became a superhero in New Orleans for a couple weeks but then learned that she was going to explode. So she went to New York to try to get some science to fix the science.

Since Reed Richards wasn’t available, she wound up going to the Avengers for help. Hijinxes ensued as they must, but Iron Man was able to siphon the excess energy out of her by causing a lot of property damage to his own property.

Imagine the AU where Reed wasn’t on vacation and Monica ended up more tied to the Fantastic Four.

The issue starts with the Avengers and the all-new Captain Marvel hanging out in the combination lounge and science room.

For when you need to calibrate something but with an eye towards leisure.

Since Iron Man siphoned off a lot of energy from Captain Marvel, Wasp decided to test her to make sure her powers haven’t been affected.

The test has Captain Monica take off from Avengers Mansion and then hit a series of satellites as different forms of energy. One as light, one as microwaves, another as radio waves before returning to the mansion as x-rays.

And since she’s traveling at the speed of light, she gets back before the Avengers even take a breath. Although using the telemetry machines he assembled for the test, Iron Man clocks her in at under two seconds.

Cap notes that she’s so fast that she makes Quicksilver look like shit. Because running is fine, if you can’t turn into light.

And Wasp is so impressed that she instantly invites Captain Marvel to join the Avengers as an Avenger-in-training.

Cap frets about the Avengers’ government clearances but Wasp is ahead of him with the power of NETWORKING.

She already got a limited-security training program approved by the government. Because she and the First Lady have the same masseur.

It really is about who you know.

Cap examines the paperwork, sees that everything seems to be in order, and agrees that Jan’s plan is best plan. She-Hulk is all for it too. As is Thor. Only Hawkeye doesn’t voice support, but keeps his thoughts to himself.

So, Monica is in the Avengers! As an in-training!

With that established, Wasp leaves for a brunch appointment.

That Wasp and her brunching.

Cap and Iron Man start breaking down the Monica-Measuring-Machine while Hawkeye starts grousing.

Because Hawkeye.

Hawkeye: “Hey, am I the only one who’s noticed how bossy our boss-lady’s gotten lately? We didn’t used to get called in on the run just to screen new members.”

She-Hulk: “What’s the matter, Robin Hood? Can’t stand being around a few strong women?”

Captain America: “The calling of special meetings is the group-leader’s privilege, Hawk -- you know that! I think Jan is just growing into her post as Avengers chairwoman... and doing a great job of it, I might add!”

Hawkeye has not drunk much respect respect women juice around this point in his life. Putting aside his repeated kissing unreceptive women, he also went ‘haha i hope you learned feminism is pointless’ during the Evils of Feminism Halloween issue.

She-Hulk agrees with Cap’s take and then picks up the entire five ton machine and walks off with it, I think mostly to show off. Or strut her stuff, as the cover said.

This just sets off Hawkeye some more.

Hawkeye: “That’s another thing! I never used to have big, green broads challenging me to arm-wrestle everytime I walked through the door! Do you know what it’s like to... to... Aw, the heck with it! I have to get back to work!”

Cap: “Welcome to the future, Hawkeye.”

Hahaha amazing.

Razz the heck out of him, Cap.

Its possible that he’s exaggerating but I do believe that She-Hulk would do that, just to flex on Hawkeye. What with her muscles.

But I wonder if the reason for this bad Hawkeye mood is that in a rarely precedented turn of events, the Avengers have three women on the team.

That’s still four guys to three girls but since its usually one girl to every three guys, Hawkeye might feel suddenly outnumbered.

Because he is a fool.

After Hawkeye stomps off, Cap remarks that Hawkeye needs to learn a few new things about women.

But Iron Man is lost in his own women troubles. He beats himself up verbally for getting involved with Wasp without being honest with her about his identity.

He even wonders if it would be for the best, aka less awkward for everyone, if he resigned from the team.

Cap tells him that wouldn’t solve anything.

Captain America: “You made a mistake. We all make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them... to bounce back. You can do it, mister! You’re an Avenger!”

Iron Man: (So was Hank, Cap... So was Hank.)

Interesting to see how the fall of Yellowjacket is still rippling in the pond.

But here’s what I’d tell Morose Iron Man: Hank didn’t learn from his mistake. He doubled and tripled down on it. If you learn a thing, you’re already off to a good start.

Thor has apparently been sitting across the room the whole time, listening to all of this. But he is also lost in his own thoughts.

He is also thinking whether he should resign from the team but so that he can focus more on re-establishing Donald Blake’s life. And even though some of his proudest moments have been as an Avenger, it is taking away Donald time.

Several floors below, She-Hulk casually carries that five ton machine on her shoulder. So casual that she reads the Daily Bugle while she walks.

She-Hulk, a Californian: “‘The Daily Bugle’ -- HAH! They call this a newspaper? New Yorkers wouldn’t know a real paper if it bit ‘em on their behinds! Sometimes I think I’ll go stir crazy in this town!”

There is apparently nothing for her to do in New York between Avengers missions. Nothing to do. In New York.

???????

But she does find a help wanted ad for a part-time instructor for a health spa that interests her.

You have a LAW DEGREE.

First off, how are you not in ridiculous law school debt?

Second, LAW DEGREE.

She’s so engrossed in the ad that she does Jarvis a fright, forcing him and Monica to squeeze up against the wall to avoid being smacked by the machine She-Hulk is carrying.

Jarvis bemoans that new Avengers are always a trial before hurriedly excluding Monica.

She diplomatically takes no offense.

Jarvis continues his tour of the mansion, taking Monica to the records room which has not only all of the Avengers case files but also cross-referenced files from the Fantastic Four, the UN, SHIELD, Interpol, and a bunch of federal agencies.

If the Avengers love anything its drama but if they love two things its reading up on stuff. Like how Hawkeye was like ‘ah ha the Taskmaster, I read your file’ in the issue where he shot Ant-Man on an arrow.

Monica Marvel asked to see the records room because she’s following up on the Thing telling her that someone else went by Captain Marvel before she did.

So Jarvis punches up the Avengers’ file on Mar-Vell.

That’s a bit of a neat touch. If she’s going to go around as Captain Marvel (and she has to, its a trademark squat) she’s going to be respectful and learn about the man that her name is going to evoke.

Meanwhile, in Central Park, Reed and Sue Richards?

Well, they’re on the cover so its not much of a surprise. They’re Wasp’s brunch appointment. A brunchment.

Sue decided that they should jog to Tavern-On-The-Green. Reed has decided that he hates jogging.

Sue: “Oh, no! It’s 11:59! I knew we should have started sooner!”

Reed: “I wish we hadn’t started at all.”

So when Sue complains about them arriving late, Reed goes heck yeah i can get out of jogging, scoops Sue up and does FANTASTIC LEG STRETCHING which is very different from jogging.

Good thing he made those jogging suits out of unstable molecules.

In mere seconds, Reed covers the half mile to the tavern to meet the nonplussed Janet van Wasp and the oppositely nonplussed waiter.

So, Sue and Jan are fast friends forever now because of that one time they had brunch.

That’s how it works in their circle.

And Sue called and invited Jan out to brunch. But not just to get her back, but because she’s worried about Jan.

Well she says “we’ve been worried” but Reed probably had to be reminded that Sue has friends.

Jan: “Sue, you’re a dear! But you’re worried about nothing! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Sure, it’s taken awhile to get used to being single again -- but I’m fine! Really!”

And like someone who is totally fine, she insists that she’s fine and then immediately excuses herself to the bathroom to powder her nose.

Noses sure needed a lot of powdering back in the day.

And anyone that insists that they’re perfectly fine and then runs off to the bathroom is either going to cry or going to powder their nose in a more narcotics fashion.

After Jan heads off to the bathroom to powder her nose in whichever way, Reed and Sue talk about her behind her back.

Reed: “Well, she’s certainly putting up a good front -- !”

Sue: “Yes, but it’s just a front! She’s keeping everything bottled up inside her! And she’s been through so much lately... Hank’s expulsion from the Avengers, the divorce... and now that she’s become chairwoman of the Avengers -- ! I’m afraid for her, Reed!”

Reed: “We can’t help her if she won’t let us, Sue. Jan’s a strong-willed woman -- I just pray that she’s strong enough to bend with the pressure... and not break!”

So its not one thing Sue is worried about. Its all the things. And there are a lot of things.

I don’t know what Sue means by “now” when she says Jan became chairwoman of the Avengers.

That happened the instant she came back from her divorce vacation from the team. I mean, it is plausibly a thing to worry about that she’s taken on too much in too little a time and just putting a smile on.

But she’s been leadering the Avengers. Its gone okay.

Anyway, Jan did go into the bathroom to not cry in front of her new best friend, Sue.

Jan: “I won’t cry... I won’t! Maybe I don’t have Hank around to lean on anymore -- but I can tough it out! I’ll show ‘em... I don’t need him... Don’t need anybody! After all, I’m an Avenger! I’m the leader of the Avengers!”

And she walks out of the bathroom with feelings entirely managed and a smile back on.

I think the Avengers needing anybody is why the Avengers are Avengers, though. Bunch of usual loners teamed up once and realized ‘wait this is great.’

So like in the Jan and Tony are disgustingly cute together story, we get another glimpse that things haven’t been as easy on Jan as she lets on.

I don’t mind. This is what being a well-rounded character is, probably. I’ll see how things go.

It’s like... There’s this period of the Teen Titans book where Donna Troy became the team leader because Dick Grayson was having a lot of identity problems. And Donna suddenly started being like ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ and making a lot of mistakes. And one could suspect that she was being set up as a less competent leader to make Dick look better. Kind of like how Shuri (initially) and Maria Hill exist to make T’Challa and Nick Fury look better in comparison.

As long as they don’t do that to Jan or something else like that, I’m fine for Jan to have a more complicated situation.

And it doesn’t seem like it’ll go that direction because I've heard she’s going to be the team leader for a while and mostly everyone (except Hawkeye) thinks she’s doing a good job.

But we leave brunch to the opposite of brunch, dusk. And at Ryker’s Island Penitentiary.

Recently, the government has been scattering all of the prisoners with superpowers to prisons across the country. Probably to avoid creating a powder keg situation.

*coughs in Raft*

The only superpowered prisoner left is “probably the worst of the lot.”

Because it’s Hank Pym.

Good dunk at his expense, prison guard.

But actually because “What could be lower than an Avenger who’s gone bad?”

And there’s a Dr. Paul Edmonds here to see Hank.

Hank is sorta blase to it, since he’s seen about thirty by this point. Presumably many of which have been paid for by Tony Stark’s guilty conscience.

Edmonds doesn’t say whether he’s from the prosecution or the defense (and Hank admits it doesn’t really matter to him) but he’s here to determine whether Hank is fit to stand trial.

What with his weird history.

Hank Pym: “Doctor, when I think back over my history, as you call it, I sometimes wonder if I was ever fit for anything!”

Wow, nice self-own, Hank.

Anyway, almost the entire rest of the issue is the Grand Fairly Exhaustive Hank Pym Backstory Exposition Dump.

Of course, with the fillering of the previous run, Hank has been in jail for a bit. And a lot of the relevant backstory stuff is decades past. And Iron Man’s recap of it is over a year ago.

The long-awaited trial is coming up soon so Stern has to get the readers refamiliarized with this stuff.

Lets try to breeze through?

Hank’s life? Sucks. A lot.

He received his doctorate while his friends were undergraduates because he was a workaholic and because “it was easier to deal with chemicals than with people.”

He probably wouldn’t have ever left his lab if his coworkers hadn’t managed to drag him to parties occasionally.

Hank met his first wife Maria Trovaya at one of those reluctant social occasions.

Hank: “She was beautiful, intelligent, witty... I couldn’t believe she was attracted to me! It was like some kind of miracle!”

Wow, another amazing self-own.

They fell so in love with each other that they were married in months.

And then tragedy.

Maria decided that the perfect place to go on honeymoon was to her homeland of communist Hungary where her father had been an enemy of the state.

Sooo. The secret police beat the shit out of Hank and took Maria off to be killed.

Dang.

Hank had his first breakdown when he heard. And the State Department had a hell of a time getting Hank released from Hungarian captivity.

When Hank got back to the US, he buried himself in his work. And the mad lad decided to invent a shrinking potion.

Hank: “It shouldn’t have worked, but I made it work!”

I like when people stop and realize how bonkers the Marvel universe is.

And that Hank put all this effort into inventing this thing and then in a moment of clarity went ‘holy shit I can’t believe that actually worked!’

This recap doesn’t mention that Hank poured his invention down the drain after having a bad experience in an anthill but either way, the invention led to him becoming Ant-Man!

Sort of accidentally! He didn’t really plan to become a “costumed crusader” he just sort of happened to do it.

Hank: “In a way, it almost felt good to be battling the kind of vermin who had killed my Maria!”

But he admits that he wasn’t ever truly comfortable in the role of superhero.

Vicarious catharsis for his murdered wife is possibly the reason why he can’t stay away from it though.

Although it mixes with Hank throwing himself into science so he doesn’t have to people. And Hank feeling insecurity compared to his peers in both superheroics and science so he keeps jumping unhappily between the two.

He’s got a lot going on.

Then his life changed forever again when he met a Dr. Vernon van Dyne and his daughter Janet.

Hank: “Though she was barely twenty, her physical resemblance to Maria was striking. And I soon discovered that Janet van Dyne was more than just a frivolous young debutante. Her father was killed... murdered, and when she tearfully vowed to see justice done, I saw a strength of will... so much like Maria’s!”

Hank revealed that he was the Ant-Man and offered to make her his partner.

So, yeah, maybe the relationship was kind of not on the healthiest footing from the beginning. There’s an age gap (Hank says she’s barely half his age although I don’t know that he’s supposed to be in his forties?). Hank is using her as a replacement goldfish. She’s probably clinging to him in a similarly unhealthy manner, having just lost her father and this guy goes ‘hey want some superpowers?’

(Interesting but obvious bit here is that Hank says that with his further research, he could give Jan better powers than his own. What with the wings and the Wasp sting and all, yeah its kind of obvious that her powerset was better. Its interesting though considering how insecure Hank would get later.)

It would have taken a lot of emotional maturity from the both of them to keep it from becoming the unbalanced relationship that it did and neither of them were that emotionally mature, I think. Hank doesn’t even like to people.

He also doesn’t like to Ant-Man. Even with a partner, the role makes him ill at ease.

Hank: “No one can truly know the fragility, the vulnerability of life, as I have. It takes a very strong man to shrink to the size of an ant and still feel sure of himself. And I was never that strong.”

And here there’s a nice bit of arc welding.

Back in Avengers #1, Ant-Man is the one that suggests that Ant-Man, Wasp, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor become a team.

I don’t know what Stan Lee’s original reason for having Ant-Man be the one to say it. It might have just been a flow thing. Ant-Man had just spoken to explain how his ants have trapped Loki in a tank so rather than pivot to a new character, Stan may have had Ant-Man bring it up.

But in this grand recap of all things Hank Pym, Hank explains his motive.

Feeling ill at ease as Ant-Man, feeling unsure of himself from seeing the world at the size of an ant, he had found some strong allies that he didn’t dare to lose.

Interesting dots to connect.

But then Hank went ‘oh no i fucked up.’

Hank: “I soon realized that Ant-Man would constantly be overshadowed by the more powerful teammates -- at least one of whom the Wasp found most attractive!”

It’s Thor. Of course, it’s Thor.

Even though it may have been a ploy to make him jealous, Hank locked himself in the lab to improve his powers.

Of course, we know Hank Pym’s usual string of luck with locking himself into his lab.

So what happens next is incredibly obvious but no less funny. But its so funny that I had to look up whether it was how it was originally portrayed or invented for this extended flashback.

When testing his new growth formula, Hank smashes his own house like a sillier Alice in Wonderland.

And this actually happened in Tales to Astonish #49.

Amazing.

Hank really does have consistent luck with science.

And what makes it funnier is that according to this extended flashback, making himself super-strong and giant didn’t actually make Hank feel like a more valuable member of the team.

He felt clumsy and inept. Not to mention that testing an experimental formula on himself WAS REALLY BAD FOR HIS HEALTH.

And it was Jan realizing what was going on with Hank rather than concern for herself having been shot that made Jan suggest that the two retire from Avengersing (leading to the Kooky Quartet).

But Jan actually really enjoyed being the Wasp and Hank must have felt shitty pulling her away from it because as we know, he eventually ends up back on the team with more limited growth powers and a name change to Goliath.

He actually felt like he was pulling his weight around this time, though, because he was the most experience member of the team.

Of course, its also around this time that he accidentally created Ultron, which is a big whoopsie.

But he made what he considers a worse whoopsie.

Hank: “But even the responsibility for unwittingly unleashing Ultron on the world often paled in comparison to my trouble relationship with Jan. Having come into her full inheritance, she wanted to underwrite my research. I wanted to pay my own way, but I couldn’t find the words to tell her.”

Probably because he was more comfortable with chemicals than people. Open and healthy communication is essential in a relationship but its also difficult.

He also wanted to marry Jan but at the same time felt too unsure of himself to propose.

So Hank did what Hank do and retreated into his lab.

Where he accidentally spilled some chemicals and had another breakdown after getting high on fumes, becoming convinced that he was actually another person entirely.

I don’t know why but the panel of Hank declaring “So, Goliath won’t marry Janet van Dyne, eh? Then, there shall be no more Goliath!” cracks me up.

Anyway, Jan saw right through Yellowjacket and decided to play along and when Hank was shocked back to reality, he discovered he was married.

Which. Uh. Has gotten more scrutiny in the years after it was published. Including this year of 1983.

Hank: “I guess even some psychotic episodes can be beneficial.”

Dr. Edmonds: “Do you think that was the case?”

Hank: “I did then. Now... I’m not so sure. I know I wanted to believe it then. Jan and I were married. The circumstances didn’t seem important.”

After the honeymoon, things begin to sour. Hank tried to stick to small sizes as being better for his health. And he tried to stay away from the Avengers too but Jan wanted them to be Avengers together.

Hank: “I had to keep trying for her, even though my heart wasn’t in it! The pressure got to be too much, my work began to slide. More and more projects were ending in failure.”

He smashed up his lab to lash out at something, out of frustration that he had swallowed his pride to accept Jan’s money and was now wasting it on fruitless projects.

Jan started trying harder and harder to prop up Hank’s ego.

But he was still a walking emotional wreck so when Ultron returned, it didn’t take much to tip him over the edge into another breakdown.

This one came with AMNESIA! Hank though he was Ant-Man ant-again and attacked the Avengers because he didn’t recognize Vision, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Beast, or even Captain America as being Avengers.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again and again. Ants is best power.

Hank: “It��s almost funny in a way. I took on the Avengers single-handed and nearly beat them! My finest hour as a ‘hero’... and I wasn’t even in my right mind!”

That does sour what is an otherwise pretty impressive stomp. When Spider-Man stomps entire X-Men team, its held up as one of his greatest moments. When Hank does it to the Avengers its like ‘welp there goes another Hank Pym breakdown.’

Iron Man was able to devise a variant of electro-shock therapy which undid the damage Ultron did to Hank’s mind which sure sounds like a thing electro-shock therapy could do.

Hank was getting back into the swing of things as Yellowjacket when Henry Peter Gyrich pulled the rug out from him.

As Henry Peter Gyrich is known to do.

With him as the government liaison, the Avengers were ordered to slim down the roster. And Hank got the boot while Jan was kept on the team.

At first Hank was glad for it because it gave him an excuse to leave the team and go back to his lab work.

Buuuuut as happens when Hank does do that, his lab work became fruitless and frustrating.

And with Jan on the Avengers, he could go days without seeing her. And he felt alone and lost without her.

Its the irony of his life.

Jan convincing Hank to stay on the Avengers isn’t good for him. Him not being on the Avengers while she is, isn’t good for him. And being kept from being on the Avengers isn’t good for her.

A possible compromise might have been to have him working at Avengers Mansion as an on-staff but uncostumed science advisor. But Hank may not have accepted that, what with the pride.

I wonder about it though because Hank will later join the West Coast Avengers in a strictly support capacity for a while.

Anyway, Hank having a bad time in the lab coincided with Captain America reorganizing the roster.

Hank: “I began to think that maybe ‘Avenging’ was all I could do. As Yellowjacket, I pinch-hit for other members whenever possible. And when Captain America invoked executive privilege to further pare the team down to a more workable six members, I jumped back on board. I had such high hopes. The ‘new’ Avengers were practically the original group. This time, I thought I could finally be the kind of man Jan wanted me to be. But I was only fooling myself. By then, I was in no state of mind to be an Avenger!”

Because, yeah. This is the part of the Hank Pym Lore Dump that we hit the Elf-Queen incident.

And then the court-martial.

Hank: “I had to redeem myself somehow! I became desperate! In the hours that followed, I must have cracked completely!”

Enough that building an indestructible kill-bot to kill his friends to make them realize how useful he is seemed like a good idea.

It wasn’t.

The robot kicked the crap out of Hank before he could hit the secret shut-down switch and Jan saved the day by hitting the switch instead.

Hank: “Jan divorced me, threw me out... Not that I blame her! Did you know that I actually struck her on the day of the court-martial?! Lord, I must have been out of my mind! I had compounded one mistake with another, and my whole life collapsed like a house of cards.”

Dr. Edmonds asks if being estranged from his friends and broke was why he tried to steal the federal reserve of adamantium but Hank denies this last bit.

He was played a fool by EGGHEAD!

Hank: “But I’ll tell you this, Edmonds, I won’t play the fool any longer! I’ve learned so much about myself -- the hard way -- in the last few weeks. I’ll have my day in court, and I’ll beat those charges!”

Dr. Edmonds: “I see. And in that way, you think you’ll win back your wife?”

Hank: “No. I thought that was possible once. I don’t any more. I’ve lost her. It hurts, but I’ll just have to accept it. Now, all I want back is my dignity.”

Oof.

I’ve been kind of low-key snarking at Hank for acting like he’d be able to easily win Jan back given what went down but it hurts a little to see him give up on that hope, even if he seems resigned to it.

LATER, Dr. Edmonds returns to his office and calls his SECRET EMPLOYER

Its Tony Stark. Of course its Tony Stark.

We already knew that Tony has been throwing a lot of money at the problem of Hank to assuage his guilty conscience. And that it included making shrinks available.

Dr. Edmonds: “Dr. Pym has been through more than any two men should! He’s suffered at least four nervous breakdowns in the last decade! He has a massive inferiority complex -- but the man is fit to stand trial. Moreover, I don’t think we can swing an insanity plea. Despite his insistence that this Egghead person set him up!”

I wonder if Iron Man was trying to swing an insanity plea. Get the case dismissed. Wouldn’t put it past him!

And honestly. What would you think if you friend had a nervous breakdown, built a kill-bot to kill you, wandered off and disappeared for a while, and re-emerged after heisting a whole bunch of adamantium and claiming that Egghead made him do it?

Dr. Edmonds asks whether it is possible that Egghead was involved since he is a serious psychiatrist man and doesn’t keep up with the superhero biz. But Tony tells him that Egghead died in an explosion in Defenders #42.

Edmonds ponders that may indicate an even deeper delusion, while not suspecting that his pencil has been bugged.

BY EGGHEAD!

Its not a great bug in the sense that it seems to have a bright flashing light. But in the sense of ‘how the hell did you get a bug in a pencil, Egghead?’ its a very great bug.

Egghead, presumably taking a break from his plan to invent eternal youth to get infinite money and then buy the world to save from having to do the Effort of taking it over, hears Dr. Edmonds say “Still, Pym seems convinced he’ll be exonerated, Mr. Stark.”

Egghead: “Ha-ha-ha! Henry always did have faith in the legal system! I suppose I shall have to shatter that faith for him! I knew it was a wise move to let the world think that Egghead is dead! No one searches for a ‘late’ fugitive! Just as no one will suspect who is truly behind Pym’s ultimate disgrace -- when my plans ruin his day in court!”

WOW! You are super petty, Egghead!

Follow @essential-avengers because I’ve finally caught up with my backlog. And because I’ll never bug a pencil nor even annoy one. Like and reblog too or I’ll bother a pen.

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thebibliomancer · 5 years ago

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #211: ... By Force of MIND!

September, 1981

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH!

Oh hey, Dazzler, Hercules, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Angel from X-Men, Yellowjacket, Black Panther, Tigra, and Hawkeye?

Are you joining Captain America, Wasp, Beast, Thor, and Iron Man as the new Avengers?

Is this going to be the next biggest roster since the Korvac Saga?

Possibly! Jim Shooter is back and he was the guy behind that story.

Jim Shooter is very back, something the creative credits make sure you don’t miss.

“Joyfully welcome back long-time star Avengers scribe, me, Jim Shooter -- ‘cause I’m writing these credits, and, also I’m the boss!”

Charming. Non-facetiously.

It has similar energy to the ol’ Stan Lee introductions. And is probably just as much a pretense. Eh.

So the story “... By Force of MIND!” starts in the Avengers conference room.

And penciler Gene Colan sure has interesting ideas what that should look like.

We’ve seen the Avengers’ conference room a couple times in various books. They tend to have a grand conference table with assigned chairs?

Look at this one from Avengers Annual #10.

Or the one just as recently as last issue #210.

Pretty big overall. Suitably grand.

But the conference room has apparently been redecorated because it looks different. The personalized chairs are still there.

But the table is puny. It looks like the Young Avengers table at Thanksgiving. Set up off to the side for all the kids. Its dinky. It doesn’t look like all the Avengers can fit around it.

Which possibly supports Captain America’s point when he decides that the Avengers roster needs to be trimmed down to only six.

All those people on the cover are going to be really disappointed to hear this.

Captain America: “The Avengers have a habit of playing for high stakes! I believe that a lean, close-knit group is better... stronger!”

Beast goofs that they’ll need explosives to dislodge him from the team.

Also, there’s a trapeze on the roof of the conference room. Why. I mean, I know why. Your acrobatic characters need to be casually acrobatic at random times or they’ll be bummed out. But also why.

Wonder Man isn’t as bothered. Even after all this time on the team, he doesn’t feel like he’s ever really belonged here doing this hero stuff.

Vision and Scarlet Witch are selling themselves as a package deal. You get both or you get neither.

Captain America gives the Avengers some time to rest and think but they’ll reconvene at 1600 for the new roster announcement.

So there’s 9 people in or adjacent to the Avengers. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Beast, Jocasta, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, and Wasp. Three are gonna have to go.

All of this possibly getting fired, gives a pretty dour attitude (except for Wasp who doesn’t seem very concerned and probably doesn’t have a reason to be. Would you want to tell Wasp that she’s fired? I wouldn’t). Beast decides to lighten things up.

By causing problems on purpose.

So Beast bounces through the crowd of Avengers, jostling them all, and stealing Wonder Man’s glasses. Who hates having his glowing eyes show.

Scarlet Witch: “What on-- !? Beast! You crazy -- !”

Beast: “Moi? Crazee? Begging your pardon, mademoiselle witch. I am merely, how you say... playful! So, like gimme some space to be a jerk in, you know? Okay?”

At least he knows he’s being a jerk??

And then he runs off with Wonder Man’s glasses, goofing all the way.

Wonder Man: “Come on, you lame-brained blue-furred buffoon!”

Beast: “Hmmf! I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a highly intelligent blue-furred buffoon. I hole a dozen PhDs! I speak fifty-three languages... but I tell you, I don’t get no respect! Wanna hear me say ‘eat my dust, jocko,’ in Latverian?”

In the face of all this buffoonery, Wasp still doesn’t really care.

She decides the done thing is to go get her hair done for the big meeting. And sure this is short notice but she’s Janet Van Dyne. She’s going to have a movie starlet’s appointment bumped for her.

Scarlet Witch reflects that maybe the reason Jan isn’t worried about the possibility of being cut is that the Avengers aren’t her whole life. She has other stuff going on. A husband. A fashion line. The fabulous existence of being Janet Van Dyne.

Jocasta comes and tries to ask Vision for advice. Even after her big focus story, she still feels like an outsider. And she doesn’t have a life outside the Avengers. So unlike her brain donor Wasp, she is very worried about getting kicked out.

Jocasta: “You’ve learned to fit in, even though you’re a robot, as I am. Please... help me to...”

Vision: “I beg your pardon, Jocasta. I am a synthezoid, not a robot! As such, I am a perfect meld of computer microcircuitry and living, synthetic flesh! In all ways I am a fully functional man! I have a wife -- who needs me now! I cannot help you with your dilemma.”

And then Vision peaces out of this conversation by flying through the ceiling. Even though he’s going to join Wanda who is in an adjacent room. Ya weird, Vision.

You’re also massively unhelpful whenever anyone asks you for advice.

This is fully the second time Jocasta has asked him for advice. At least he didn’t trash the room in an angst ‘I DON’T HAVE FEELINGS AHHHH I MISS WANDA’ tantrum this time.

Jocasta is left alone. Which basically sums up her time in this book. Poor, poor robot. She’s so lonely she goes off on an existential soliloquy right outside Vision and Wanda’s room. Which is a bit passive aggressive. But hey. Superheroes.

Jocasta: “Are you truly so much different, Vision? So much better than I? I know that my voice rings metallic... but yours is cold hollow and emotionless!”

“I have built-in sensors! I can see! I can hear! I can feel! I function well enough? Don’t I? Don’t I? What does it take to be alive?”

“Does it take warm flesh? Am I merely animated because I am made of metal? I did not choose to be what I am!”

“I am what Ultron made me! Ultron -- the evil robot nemesis of the Avengers! He made you too, Vision -- reconstructed you from a long-dead android body! Both of us rebelled against his evil! Both of us sided with the Avengers!”

“Why, then, am I less than you? Is it because you are loved... and I am alone? Ultron... loved me...”

;__;

Poor robot lady.

I do wonder why the Avengers have been so indifferent to her presence. She did come to them during a chaotic moment in the team history. Vision was based on Wonder Man who wasn’t on the team while Jocasta had to coexist with Wasp from day 1.

There’s also that while both she and Vision are angsty robots that turned against Ultron, Vision (despite his famous “even an android can cry” moment) tends to be more performative with his angsts. He sulks. He broods. He smashes furniture.

Jocasta sits quietly and sadly in the background. Makes tentative stabs at companionship but backs off without ever causing a fuss. Different socialization rules for the robot genders possibly?

The good news is that modern Jocasta has learned to assert herself a lot more. She’s been a delight in the Dan Slott Iron Man book.

Anyway. Hopefully that line about Ultron doesn’t foreshadow anything. Its going to be really dumb if Jocasta brings back Ultron because the Avengers treat her with all the attentiveness of the fridge (although she may still legally qualify as one depending on how much of the Henry Peter Gyrich’s nonsense has stuck around).

Time for a sudden, drastic tone shift!

Beast exits stage Avengers Mansion, pursued by Wonder Man.

He hides up a tree like a rocket belt isn’t something Simon has or the ability to jump hella high.

But Wonder Man takes neither of those options. Instead he karate chops the tree down in one stroke. Which is impressive but I imagine Tony Stark is going to be annoyed. That tree was part of the landscaping!

Not expecting this, Beast falls out of the tree complaining that cutting down trees is illegal in New York. Wonder Man catches him and takes his sunglasses back.

Beast: “You grabbed me! But nobody’s fast enough to do that!”

Wonder Man: “People think I’m just strong! Everybody forgets that I have instantaneous reflexes and blinding speed! To me, the world looks like its moving in slow motion!”

I feel like if Wonder Man was Actually Fast all along, he’s not been getting much use out of it, considering how often he takes dumb hits in fights.

And then Wonder Man hurls Beast into the sky.

Like. Really high into the sky.

Beast: “omigosh! omigosh! omigosh! He’s nuts! He’s crazy! He’s -- who cares about him?! I’m dead! He killed me over a crummy prank! For stealing his glasses I get to end up as a blue blotch on the street. My girlfriends won’t recognize me! I can’t look! Wait a minute! This is serious! This is for real! I’m falling at hundreds of miles per hour! Nothing can save me! I’m really going to die! Like this?! I’m going to die like this?! NO!”

Wonder Man: “Relax, Beast. You’re in good hands with Wonder Man!”

Beast: *Whuff*! You -- you caught me! But that’s like catching a bullet.”

Wonder Man: “Told you I moved quick!”

Beast: “thanks. You’re a decent guy for a common ruffian, Wondy!”

I mean, he also threw you straight up, Beast. Is it so impressive that he caught you?

But with the disproportionate response to a prank by making Beast think he’s going to horribly die, Wonder Man sort of apologizes and says he’s going to miss hanging out with Beast.

See, Wonder Man isn’t going to hang around hoping he gets to stay on the team. He’s actually decided to quit. As has been Wonder Man’s thing for a while, he just doesn’t enjoy the superhero life.

He’s always struggling with insecurity and dislike of throwing himself into deadly danger a dozen times a week.

In fact, he wasn’t too broken up when Henry Peter Gyrich kicked him off the team. Back when he got super into the idea of becoming an actor. He even said at time “If I can get used to playing roles on a stage - maybe I’ll feel more comfortable in my role as superhero!”

Except, as we saw in the Shadow Lord/Berserker two-parter, Wonder Man hasn’t gotten used to playing roles on a stage.

And we’ve seen that his Avengers responsibilities are getting in the way of his acting opportunities. So. Not a surprise he’s going to leave the team as long as the roster is being rearranged anyway.

Wonder Man asks if Beast likes that superhero life of facing death all the time.

Beast: “Frankly, I never really actually considered the possibility of dying... until a minute ago. But think of the fun, glamour and girls, Simon! This is the life!”

Wonder Man: “Is that stuff really enough for a guy as smart as you, Hank? The way I see it being a hero doesn’t make you a person any more than having power makes you a hero.”

Beast: “Yeah. But pigs make good pork chops so I’m staying!”

I’m not really sure what Simon is getting at here. I think its something about finding yourself?

As the time for the meeting draws minutes away, Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake arrives at the mansion by cab. The cabdriver wondering what a guy like Blake is doing at Avengers Mansion. This Completely Normal Cab Driver is tempted to snoop but goes naw!

If he had snooped, he may have seen Completely Normal Doctor Donald Blake turn into the Mighty Thor and head into the mansion.

Here’s a funny thing, Thor claims that the reason why he talks to himself so much is out of protest that there’s just not enough heralds in Midgard to tell people how cool he is.

Thor: “Thus, the mortal facade is stripped away -- and thus, once again Thor treads the Earth! Thor, god of Thunder, Prince of Asgard! Thor, son of Odin! Bah! That the son of Odin must so proclaim himself -- ! Are there no heralds about? Nay... never when thou needest one! Unannounced, I enter this Earthly ‘mansion,’ poorer than the least dwelling in Asgard!”

Thor also wonders to himself that if he is chosen to take part in the new Avengers roster, will he choose to remain with them? One presumes he has a lot of Thor business going on. That’s why he left the team back when Moondragon was temping with them. She convinced him he was slumming by hanging with the Avengers.

OH. MEANWHILE. That Completely Normal Cab Driver?

He is seized by a strange compulsion. He parks his cab in an alley, takes off his clothes and -- MOON KNIGHT?

Inside, the Avengers are assembling for their meeting to find who is fired or not. Except they’ve decided to give the rinky conference room table a pass and are instead sitting around in a room with even fewer chairs and a table less conducive to holding a meeting.

Lateral move.

I’m wondering whether there was some miscommunication between writer and artist or what.

Cap tells the Avengers to find a place to sit (when there is only one visible chair) when Jarvis interrupts.

Moon Knight has shown up and demands to see the Avengers. And the automatic defenses that should have stopped him seem to have been switched off.

Moon Knight insists that the Avengers summoned him. That he was forced to come to the mansion. Which comes as news to the Avengers.

And then a whole bunch of other superheroes show up claiming that they were also forced to come here.

Hi Hercules, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Angel, Yellowjacket, Dazzler, Tigra, Black Panther, and Iceman!

So that explains the cover.

Wow, a cover that didn’t even lie!

There’s a hustle and bustle of the various superheroes complaining about being here because they had better things to be doing. Black Panther is late for a meeting to speak with the UN Security Council!

And Dazzler complains because its too cold to sit next to Iceman. And Iceman is just like ‘it be like that.’

Oh and Tigra seems to decide to get in some impromptu yoga. Don’t know what the deal with that is. But cats be like that sometimes.

Moon Knight sees all these heroes here and comes to the conclusion that this is some weird Avengers membership drive. But he is very not interested in this!

Yeah, I don’t know that a mysterious vigilante who mostly operates in the shadows would be a good match for a public superhero team.

Cough.

Iceman too is like sorry but I’m not into the hero stuff. I was on the Champions. I did my time!

So he and Moon Knight turn to leave. Iceman saying he’s going to need to find a cab and Moon Knight clearing knowing that he’s going to be picking up that fare.

But when they get near the door, the two freeze.

I realize that Iceman is involved so I mean that they suddenly stopped moving.

And they get super belligerent at each other and start fighting. With Iceman expositing about his skills. Which is normal for a comic. But seems a bit weird in the context of whats going on.

Iceman: “I feel compelled to explain how my X-Men training helped me to get the most out of my mutant ability to freeze the moisture in the air!”

And he freezes the ground under Moon Knight’s feet so he slips like a doofus.

But when he goes to finish the fight, Iceman’s head suddenly starts to hurt. Which he says is like someone else is in his head with him. He can’t think clearly enough.

While Iceman is distracted, Moon Knight throws some of his moonerangs at Iceman who blocks them. But neither can continue as the pain in their heads incapacitates them both.

Yellowjacket: “Wait a minute! I know who must be behind this! That arrogant self-styled g-- *uhh*”

And Yellowjacket freezes in place, as if in a trance.

The Avengers are concerned but Angel suddenly starts flying around the room, saying he can’t resist, he just has to flyyyyyy

Which apparently offends Tigra for some reason. Some mysterious reason. How mysterious.

Angel: “The Angel’s in the air! Watch me do my stuff!”

Tigra: “So, you think you’re pretty special, huh, Wings? Well, you’re just another bird to Tigra, the She-Cat -- and cats eat birds!”

Angel: “Sounds wild -- ! But you’ve got to catch me first!”

Tigra: “I will Bird-Man! I will -- with my nice, sharp claws! And, once I do, I’m plenty strong enough -- to tear your precious little wings right off!”

Eeeeeeeeesh. Well that’s retroactively a sore subject. Angel has his wings badly injured during the Mutant Massacre storyline and they end up amputated, sending him into a depression. And then stuff happens stuff happens, its his college roommate Cameron Hodges’ fault, Apocalypse gives Angel metal murder wings.

But in the here and now before that series of events, we must assume something similar to the sudden antagonism between Moon Knight and Iceman.

Something weird is going on and stating out loud that you’ve figured out what just gets you put in a trance.

Of course, I know what’s going on because I peeked ahead so I’ll just go ahead and tell you its M- *uhh*

Hahah, just kidding! Can you imagine, though? Anyway, its Moondragon.

She’s lurking behind the Avengers watching them watch this nonsense. They don’t notice her because she’s decided she doesn’t want them to. Until she does.

But before that, hey, time to call out Beast.

Beast: “Hey-- ! That’s not a costume! Tigra’s for real! She’s like a cat ... covered with fur -- like me! I should be thrilled, I guess... But instead, I find it vaguely unsettling!”

Look, furries can’t judge furries for being furry. Its the law.

Anyway, Moondragon lets the Avengers notice her and they turn around and go ‘oh ffs its Moondragon’ more or less.

Moondragon: “I sensed your need for order... for organization! So I returned!”

Iron Man: “What?! What right do you have to interfere?”

Moondragon: “Why, divine right, naturally!”

You may not like her but you have to admire her confidence.

She recaps her backstory a bit, including her belief that she’s Actually A Goddess of Mind. Because she was raised by the demigods of Titan and she’s super psychic.

I’m not sure how super psychic. I don’t think she and Jean Grey, for example, have ever locked horns. And Jean Grey is kind of the byword for super psychic.

She’s at least psychic enough that she gave Daredevil his vision back. I think that’s psychic?

I do wonder how Moondragon stacks up on the Grey scale. But not enough that I want that kind of dick waving contest between the Avengers and X-Men. There’s enough of that already.

So after explaining how great she is the Avengers basically react with ‘oh ffs, we did not miss this’ and ask what this has to do with this circus.

Moondragon: “Come now, Iron Man! Who better than I to bring order to the tangled affairs of this company? When last I left this august assemblage, my status was still Avenger-on-call -- meaning that I would aid you in times of dire need! I am needed now! -- And so I am here!”

Iron Man: “Swell.”

I think I’ve actually missed her advanced state of arrogance. Or maybe I’m just charitably inclined to her because she and Phyla-Vell got back together and alive in the current Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Anyway, Hawkeye has not missed her advanced state of arrogance and decides to peace out. He’s got an actual paying job to do and he’s late for work because Moondragon dragged him out here.

Moondragon tells him he can go. FOR HIS FATE LEADS HIM AWAY FROM THE AVENGERS FOR NOW!

Hawkeye: “Baldy, if you’re so hot why couldn’t you figure that out without dragging me across town?”

Good point, Hawkeye.

Honestly? I think she did it to troll you.

Black Widow and Black Panther also take off. Black Panther to his UN thing and Black Widow back to her job with SHIELD.

Moondragon doesn’t stop them. So I’m guessing their fates also lead them away from the Avengers for now. But. Why bring them? They didn’t do anything?

Moondragon, were you just padding out the numbers for a more exciting cover? Dammit, Moondragon!

Hawkeye is Hawkeye and thus extra extra so he shoots a suction cup arrow at a helicopter to hitch a ride instead of taking a taxi. And as he dangles from it, he muses melancholic about what Black Widow and he once had. And ironically, Black Widow is also thinking about him and sure that he doesn’t care for her anymore.

Womp womp.

Inside the mansion, Moondragon decides to continue, to the protests of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

So she yells SILENCE! and paralyzes them, just like with Yellowjacket.

The assorted crowd of everyoen else fusses and wonders what to do but Moondragon takes charge and demands that Dazzler show her stuff.

Or rather:

Moondragon: “You use your gift frivolously... as part of a musical act! Please demonstrate!”

That’s... a way to request that, yes.

Dazzler doesn’t like her tone but decides to demonstrate anyway. Cranking her pocket radio and converting the sound waves into a dazzling light show.

Dazzler: “I.... uh. Also skate! Not much of a power, huh?”

Moondragon: “Hmm! Greater than you suspect... but i sense that your desire to be a minstrel is deep and sincere!”

Minstrel? Really? Psychics have no excuse for not knowing the right word.

I’m getting a real mixed vibe from Moondragon talking to Dazzler. Its like she’s being condescending and complimentary at the same time.

But since she senses that Dazzler just wants to do disco stuff, she tells her that she can go.

Dazzler isn’t sure whether to leave the Avengers to deal with this or as she thinks “Baldy’s rap sounds real cool but this scene is definitely tense!” but Scarlet Witch tells her it will be alright.

So Dazzler goes. “When the Scarlet Witch says go -- I go!”

Dazzler knows the score.

With Dazzler gone, Moondragon is like ‘welp lets get back on with it’ but Scarlet Witch has had it.

Scarlet Witch: “Enough! We demand that you cease this outrage! We can make our own decisions.”

Moondragon: “Can you? Some of you would choose to stay out of force of habit... or loneliness... or fear of failure in the world beyond these walls! You are children! It is far better that I choose!”

And now Iron Man has had enough. And has also had an idea.

While his body may have been paralyzed by Moondragon, a lot of his armor functions are thought activated because, hey, I don’t see a lot of buttons on him, do you?

So all he has to do is think WHOOOSHy thoughts and WHOOOSH he goes, flying through the ceiling of Avengers Mansion. For once, it is Tony Stark who destroys Tony Stark’s home.

And once he’s outside Avengers Mansion, he is apparently far enough outside her range that he can now move. And since “brainwaves are electromagnetic in nature” he turns on his built-in transceiver to emit a microwave psionic jamming signal.

Which is something that he just can do!

The effect of which is that it’ll make Moondragon “feel like she’s got static on every channel!”

Sure!

Kind of reminds me of the First Foundation’s anti-psychic defenses they made against the Second Foundation. Ah, classic sci-fi. Sometimes it teaches us things like how to fight specifically Moondragon.

Moondragon is sure that she can overcome the jamming if she can just regain her concentration but...

With psychic frequencies jammed, the paralyzed Avengers start to spring into action.

So she just puts up a force field. Projected from her spaceship in Earth orbit and activated with a remote control in her glove.

Aside from the other things I’ve given Moondragon, I’ll also give her this: she came prepared.

Moondragon: “Why must you resist me so? Why can you not simply acknowledge that you need my godly guidance? We are wasting valuable time! I have yet another group of candidates to summon... but I cannot dally here much longer!”

I really want to know who her B Squad would have been.

But with the Avengers trying to break down her force field and Iron Man swooping back in to help, Moondragon decides ‘hey fuck this actually’ and teleports away.

Moondragon: “By the braided ring! How naive... how foolish you are! Perhaps I am wasting my time on your petty affairs! All right then -- enough! Have it your way! I am needed elsewhere in the galaxy! Farewell!”

And she doesn’t die on the way back to her home planet.

I do like that she recontextualizes the scenario as being actually this is a waste of her time and she’s just throwing pearls before swine. She’s going to go somewhere that appreciates the work she’s doing out of the goodness of her heart.

She is horrible. And like with Emma Frost, I just kinda appreciate that in a character.

With Moondragon not here to force people to stay, Thor tells all the non-Avengers to fuck off. Not very gracious, Thor. They were forced to come.

Iceman leaves and reminds everyone and me that his life goal is actually to be an accountant. Something I’m surprised by every time I hear it.

He even offers to help the Avengers with their budgets or tax forms. Heck of a guy.

Angel also leaves but muses that he kind of hates to.

Angel: “I... sort of hate to leave! I haven’t really done much with my life since the Champions broke up! -- Besides hang around with the X-Men a little! I never thought about becoming an Avenger --! Maybe I ought to!”

This is the thought process that will probably lead him to form X-Factor and that road leads to Cameron Hodge and Angel becoming Archangel. Dammit, Moondragon!

Although, the X-Man I really want on an Avengers team is Cyclops. He’s so defined by being an X-Man and by being a leader of X-Men, I want to see what he does on a team that already has plenty of leaders. I want to see if he goes through a weird character transformation like Beast and becomes relentlessly chill.

Alas.

Anyway, Tigra speaks up and says “I gather that you guys weren’t really looking for new members, but now that I’m here... uh, any chance?”

Cap is dubious because he doesn’t know a thing about Tigra (except that he gave her clothes to Patsy Walker) but Hercules is like hey we all saw how she tried to beat up Moondragon, that shows she has mettle.

Plus, there are Avengers that Hercules knows nothing about, which is totally the same thing.

Hercules: “You, for instance! You are called Wonder Man, though in sooth, I know not why!”

Wonder Man: “Really? Well, I... I’m as strong as Thor... almost...”

Hercules: “Eh? What?! HAVE AT THEE, THEN!”

And then he punches Wonder Man through a wall.

God, I love Hercules.

And then he tries to wrassle him, just pleased as all get out that Wonder Man is still conscious after Hercules gave him a big punch. “What fun!”

Wonder Man is less pleased.

Wonder Man: “Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking me for no reason?”

Hercules: “Men must brawl to know one another! How better to learn the measure of a man -- ? And what greater gift can a man give another than the thrill, the glory, the joy of battle? I am a friendly fellow who would often give this gift -- but, alas, most mortals are too frail to receive it. You are not, though! You and I may batter freely!”

Hercules just wants to punch people to be friendly but poor guy is just too swole for most men. He needs a real sturdy friend to beat the shit out of.

Wonder Man squirms out of the wrassle and clocks Hercules through a different wall. As the Avengers just watch like ‘yup this is the kind of day this has been.’

Hercules is in good spirit about being clocked through a wall and decides that now he and Wonder Man are friends and that Wonder Man is truly worthy to be an Avenger.

Wonder Man sheepishly mentions that actually he was quitting to pursue a career in acting and WHY HERCULES LIKES THAT JUST AS WELL!

Hercules: “Acting? Why of late, Hercules has kept company with those mortals known as the ‘jet set.’ I know many producers and directors! Come, I’ll introduce you to them! And the women, friend Wonder Man!”

Captain America, bemused: “you meet some strange folks in this business.”

There’s an non-existent Wonder Man and Hercules Take Hollywood Buddy Comedy Book and its a crime that its non-existent.

Geez, Marvel. GEEZ.

Anyway, that’s Wonder Man gone. Out of one buddy comedy into another.

Tigra reminds the Avengers that she’s still here and still wants to be in the Avengers.

Tigra: “Yeah... uh, back to my little problem... I’ve been at loose ends for a while... and I really want to belong somewhere! I know I could cut it as an Avenger! Please?”

This time, the objection is that the Avengers just don’t have room for a new person. They were trying to pare back! Not recruit!

But Beast interjects and reveals he is also leaving.

Beast: “Wondy and I had a talk this morning that started me thinking -- and I hate to admit it, but a couple of things Moondragon said hit home! You know, I used to be a scientist! I used to have a future besides my next gag and tomorrow night’s date! I want to see if there’s anything left of Hank McCoy besides a ‘blue-furred buffoon!’“

Hank’s early character beats on the Avengers were him struggling to find what his place on the team would be. He couldn’t be the strongest with Iron Man or Thor on the team. He couldn’t be the smartest with Iron Man again, Black Panther, or Yellowjacket. Wonder Man joining the team. Wonder Man joining the team gave Beast someone to be there for and with. But mostly Beast’s tenure has been kind of... party time for him. He’s been the fun member of the team. Going out to parties and juggling multiple dates and telling jokes.

Its been a fun time for Beast but he’s not really been living up to his potential And there were times he could have become the scientist on the team again. Or helped as one. Yellowjacket hasn’t been on the team as a core member for a bit. But he stuck in his role as the team clown.

Like with Thor, Moondragon has convinced Beast that he’s been sort of slumming it with the Avengers and now he’s gotta go rethink his character.

Where does this lead him? Why, he’s going to join the Defenders! And going to try to get that non-team team more organized like a team team. Is this a good thing? I don’t know, I haven’t read a lot of Defenders! Hopefully the Defenders podcast I listen to gets to that point soon!

But Beast isn’t the only one Moondragon has swayed.

Vision and Scarlet Witch likewise announce that they’re quitting the Avengers.

Vision: “Perhaps we will not succeed in finding a place among ordinary people -- but we must try!”

So perhaps influenced as well by the conversation Wanda had with Jan where Wasp wasn’t worried about losing her spot on the team. Which Wanda attributed to Jan having a life outside the Avengers. And apparently Wanda and Vision have been afraid to try for that. Until Moondragon dunked on her for it.

Geez. If there’s anything Moondragon is good at, its getting Avengers to quit the team. She got Thor and Hellcat last time. This time she got Beast, Vision, and Scarlet Witch.

So there’s room for Tigra now but also too much room. They were aiming for six and even with Tigra, they’d only have FIVE THERES ONLY FIVE CLEARLY.

Jocasta, in the background: -saddest robot in the world-

Yellowjacket shrugs and decides to rejoin as a full-time member to get the number up to six. His research hasn’t been going great lately anyway so he has time in his schedule.

Feeling overlooked, just like last issue, which was a filler which was supposed to address the Avengers overlooking her, Jocasta decides to slink away. Just leaps out the window and runs away from home.

Jocasta: “They didn’t even notice me... didn’t count me! Was it an oversight? Or had everyone already made up their minds that I would be one of those eliminated? What difference does it make? I am nothing to them! They do not want me here! Maybe I’ll find someplace where I am wanted! Maybe I’ll find someone... who loves me!”

And where does Jocasta go from here?

She wanders the country looking for love, presumably in all the wrong places, and is seized by a per-programmed compulsion to rebuild Ultron. This leads to a big team up between the Thing, Machine Man, and her and Jocasta sacrifices herself to help stop Ultron. The Avengers hold a memorial and Machine Man attends, realizing that he had loved Jocasta.

So plus side: she does find someone to love her. Minus side: she dies and also its Machine Man.

Double plus side: she’s eventually rebuilt. Dies a couple more times. But she’s currently alive.

It’s going to turn out that this was a failure of communication.

(On the team less than a day after basically begging to join and she’s already made herself at home and is hogging the entire couch. How very cat of you, Tigra.)

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor had decided privately to ask her to stay on as a Special Substitute Avenger, keep living in the mansion, and help out when its needed.

In the hubbub of Moondragon’s recruitment drive I guess they forgot to bring it up. I feel like its something you should have approached her with before the meeting, just to make sure she was okay with it.

Hindsight and all.

The snubbing from Vision definitely didn’t help.

Iron Man: “I hope she comes back! -- And I sure hope Moondragon doesn’t!”

Hah.

I do wonder what the initial plan going into the meeting would have been, before Moondragon took it over. What roster had Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America decided on before Moondragon talked three Avengers into quitting and introduced Tigra to the team?

I guess we’ll never knoooow.

Captain America muses that although it seems like they drove Moondragon away, she may have gotten what she actually wanted. “What if she used her mental powers subtly to influence the decisions that were made?”

And its possible because of how her speech influenced the three people who quit.

The thought just about makes Iron Man furious.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the news shows up to get coverage of the last panel new roster AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! moment.

I do love a good last panel new roster Avengers Assemble moment.

And that was Jim Shooter’s first issue back. And a pretty great first issue too.

Not that the previous issues have been bad necessarily but he definitely brought a sense of fun to this issue. Even though there’s some forced fighting for those ACTION SCENES most of it is just character interactions. Even some of the pointless fights.

And like writers like to do when they take over a book, Jim Shooter draws a line in the history with a shake-up to the team roster. Reintroduces Moondragon into the book because he has unfinished business with her.

I’ve actually been reading the original Star Brand book by Shooter and the writing is night and day. Its all text text text words words words but its much punchier here. Though there are some strange spelling and punctuation choices.

Still, I’m excited to have a consistent writer back on and I’m even excited about it being Jim Shooter. I hated his first run on the book on first read and then appreciated it more the second time through. And I’ve heard interesting stuff about this upcoming run.

Psst, follow @essential-avengers. You are being mentally influenced by Moondragon to do so. Wait, this is a counterproductive self-promote. Er, like and reblog because you choose to?

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thebibliomancer · 7 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #152: NIGHTMARE in New Orleans!

October, 1976

It’s a shame sometimes when timing just doesn’t work out. I was lucky enough with a bit of double time that I got the first Mantis appearance out in time for her screen debut. But here we have what would have been a perfect Halloween issue (it was even published in October!) and I got to it a week too early!

I could just put the blog on hiatus and post it in a timely fashion but what Avengers-related content will people read in the meantime? I couldn’t deprive them of that.

So lets get to this book that features Wonder Man being pretty blase about being an unliving slave.

And never wonder how far down that inverted cross goes.

So.

Last time: After many trials and tribulations and some drama and bad decision making, the Avengers selected a new roster. Its a pretty typical Avengers roster. Really only missing Thor. We have Iron Man, Captain America, the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Yellowjacket, Wasp, and Beast.

Oh and when they announced the new roster, a giant crate that was shipped to them burst open to reveal the not-quite-dead Wonder Man who accused Vision of being a mind-taker. WeeeeeeEEEEEEoooooooooo mind taker.

And forty-two seconds has passed between issues and undead Wonder Man is still repeating the same accusation.

Cap is worried that for some reason, this will drive the crowd to become a hysterical mob but before that can happen, Wonder Man collapses.

The Avengers act fast, picking up the collapsed dead superherovillain and frenemy.

Sam Reuther tries to get in their way to interview them but Iron Man and Cap tell him to fuck off.

How dare he try to do his job right now? Although in fairness, he really shouldn’t be getting in the way.

Iron Man muses that the Avengers have been under a lot of stress going through one crisis after another since... hell probably since the Celestial Madonna Saga.

Anyway, Wonder Man is brought inside to the Laboratory of Hanks. Where Hank and Hank examine him. And here’s the weird thing Hank (Pym) discovers. He’s not actually undead. He’s alive. Dun dun dun?

Meanwhile, outside, Sam Reuther casts suspicions on the Avengers for their secrecy, alluding to Watergate-era White House.

So Jarvis kicks him off the property. Cast your suspicions from outside the gate, newsman.

Meanwhile, inside, the Hanks brief the others on what they discovered. Wonder Man has all the biometrics of a living person who is alive and not dead. Except one weird thing. His brain has been wiped clean of all memories except that one sentence he kept repeating.

It’s pretty chilling.

Vision decides to feel the human emotion of guilt over all of this. He has decided that Wonder Man’s accusation is true. What right does he have to the mind that was rightfully Wonder Man’s?

Nobody asks to be born, Vision. They literally can’t. And you’re not to blame for your asshole dad. But, eh, emotions are frequently irrational.

Scarlet Witch calls shenanigans on Vision’s self-loathing. Whoever sent Wonder Man to sort of spook the Avengers is the one responsible for his condition. Not the Avengers and definitely not Vision!

So she heads outside, blows the lookie-loos away with a localized hurricane, and goes to investigate the crate Wonder Man came in.

Maybe there’s a return address or... clumps of dirt.

What is this, a Batman story?

Instead of a Bat-Computer, Scarlet Wanda has her new witchery and she uses the witchery to psychometrize the dirt. She gets an image of men performing a ritual around a fire and of a place. A big easy place. A New Orleans place!

Oh boy, the Avengers are going to New Orleans! Maybe they’ll team up with Monica Rambeau oh she doesn’t exist yet. Dammit.

Yeah. So she tells the rest of the Avengers what their precious science with all of its chemicals and instruments couldn’t. WONDER MAN HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A ZUVEMBIE!

Which is a made-up word that Marvel uses to not get in trouble with the comics code for saying the zed-word.

I imagine that Marvel Zuvembies would not have sold as well. What a world that would be.

So the Avengers pack up some stuff, including Wonder Man’s not-deceased body, into a Quinjet and blast off.

And the trip is long enough (and the Avengers are outgoing enough, which I guess is the expected default in the superheroing biz) that we get some character moments.

Wasp apologizes for pressuring Yellowjacket into rejoining the Avengers. He was just so grim recently that she thought it might be good for him to get back into the action-adventure life. And forcing him into things for his own dubious good is the only tactic she has for helping him.

He apologizes for being grim but says that he’s grown out of trying to be a swashbuckler. He feels kind of silly in the superhero life.

Wasp insists that he’s just insecure because being insecure is basically Hank Pym in a nutshell.

Meanwhile also, Beast is grappling the absurdity of the situation, I guess? One would think he saw weirder things when he was an X-Man. Like an island that walked like a man? But whatever.

Cap tells him that when you’ve seen the things he’s seen, nothing is really strange anymore. True story: he fought a Nazi vampire (now there’s a mashup: Captain America/Hellsing). So voodoo hoodoo ain’t a big to do.

Iron Man chimes in that he teamed up with a werewolf recently, perhaps being that guy who always has to one-up any stories. And then he very insensitively points out that when you come down to it, Beast himself looks like a monster.

Which isn’t exactly a thing that Beast was thrilled to here. So he spends the next hour and forty-eight minutes exactly brooding.

The Avengers land their very boat looking Quinjet at an abandoned Algiers airport and then get a quick ferry ride across the Mississippi.

Because fording would have been far too dangerous with Iron Man along. He’d sink like a stone.

In New Orleans, Scarlet Witch spots one of the people she saw in her dirt vision and the Avengers immediately start running at him screaming because nonchalantly walking up isn’t an option when you’re dressed in bright colors.

Everyone in the bar goes running because uh yeah a bunch of superheroes just starting running at them and they all have some petty crimes on their conscience but the man in the borsalino hat knows they’re after him.

He must escape to warn the Master! But not that one! I think!

Wasp and Yellowjacket give chase, in tiny size. And Wasp is gratified that Hank is sounding more like his old self, cracking jokes and such. And as much as he won’t admit it, she knows that the superhero life is in his blood.

Anyway. Yeah. Yellowjacket ties the man’s shoelaces together and this superpowered application of a childish prank sends the man down long enough for the Avengers to catch up with him.

But he refuses to tell them anything so Scarlet Witch steps up.

And she casts a spell. And in a voice inaudible to the Avengers but audible to the perp, she says something so terrible that it makes him crumble with fear and spill the beans.

Le Mort Bayou.

So that’s where the Avengers go next.

And the trudge through the swamp is long enough for a character moment! I love when there’s enough transit time for some character moments.

Although its an unhappy character moment. Beast tries to reassure Vision that they’ll know who was behind this zuvembie stuff soon and then Vision can relax.

Vision: “No matter what the outcome today, certain doors have been opened, which before this were closed. There are questions which require answers, questions I must ask myself -- concerning my ‘immortal soul.’”

But Vision realizes time and place and quits bumming everyone out.

Scarlet Witch hears a silent calling which makes Wonder Man stir. A zuvembie master’s summoning!

So they set him down and follow the shambling plot element from 140-some issues ago. They let zuvembie Wonder Man go ahead and watch from the... trees or something.

And watch in apparent mute horror at the voodoo ritual they discovered. It has everything you might expect a hollywood comic voodoo ritual to have. Zombies Zuvembies pulling themselves out of the ground, drums, people dancing with snakes.

Wonder Man joins the other zuvembies in front of the ringleader. The man in the chicken suit. Black Talon. Because, he’s black. If he didn’t have black in his name, someone might think he was not in fact black.

But Black Talon is surprised and alarmed to see Wonder Man. He should be in New York. Zuvembies can’t catch a plane back to New Orleans. What’s going on here??

But rather than really question it, he decides to just destroy Wonder Man.

So the Avengers jump out and start punching.

And apparently punching a voodoo cult is just what everyone needed after all the craziness in their lives recently to get them back in rare form.

Except Vision.

He’s doing the thing where he lets people jump through him but only in a very bitter way. Scarlet Witch is worried about him, not taking any joy out of people bonking heads while trying to double team him.

Wasp and Yellowjacket dismiss Black Talon as inconsequential to go fight some of the cultists. Which turns out to be a mistake.

Black Talon can apparently summon the spirits of the loa and a nasty sounding fellow called the serpent god Damballah.

And something enters the clearing shrouded in shadows and the Avengers all fall. The cultists and zuvembies too.

Its a huge, oppressive force that feels like being stepped on and crushed by a giant.

But there is one person unaffected.

The Scarlet Witch.

She’s getting a real good showing today, huh?

Her role as a sorceress apparently protects her from the being-stepped-on effect. But Black Talon just tries to strike her down with magical bolts of possibly lightning.

And while Scarlet Witch’s power comes from within, Black Talon’s might is the might of the dark god Damballah.

And after getting blasted some more, Scarlet Witch has an epiphany.

Dark god. Lurking shadowed.

So she throws a burning branch at the dark god, exorcising him.

Good job, Wanda.

And then she uses her witchery to pelt Black Talon with wood until he gives up.

It was a good showing for Scarlet Witch. Unfortunately, Black Talon doesn’t know anything.

Wonder Man was brought to Black Talon by his servants already “alive” with a message from someone known only as “the one whose will we serve.”

So the mystery has unpeeled into another mystery. Like an enigmatic onion.

And also, Wanda is quitting the team.

Whaaaaaaaaat?

She beat Black Talon and Damballah but what if she hadn’t? It’s possible that she could have maybe possibly lost the fight due to her incomplete self-knowledge! She needs to go on a journey of discovery!

Vision doesn’t even argue. Just wishes for god to give with her. Even though she’s decided to have her ‘I must go off alone’ journey right in the middle of the nowhere bayou.

Couldn’t it have waited until they got back to New Orleans?

Also: Damballah is apparently an actual loa under vodou and doesn’t seem to be an evil shadow god of evilness. Good job respecting other cultures, Marvel!

Also x2: next time the Living Laser again? But that guy was the worst! He’s probably the one who was whining about Wasp not loving him in the previous issue.

Ugh.

Well at least I’ll get to see him get his ass kicked again.

Hey. Why not follow @essential-avengers? Its the dedicated sideblog just for these posts and also I accept questions. Like. About Avengers stuff.

#Avengers #Black Talon #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #Wonder Man #Beast #Captain America #Iron Man #the Wasp #Yellowjacket #you remind me of the babe #today Wanda broke a man just by talking #and we'll never know what she said #until we get a better explanation i'm assuming that leaving wonder man on their doorstep was just trolling #like the superhero equivalent of a flaming bag of poo #the triumphant return of robo angst #and the stunning debut of fuzzy angst #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging

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thebibliomancer · 7 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #138: Stranger in a Strange Man!

August, 1975

What a weird title.

But the cover is quite good. Or at least quite true to how things go. True-ish. Yes indeed the Stranger is back.

Last time: Fearing an Avengers roster of part-time Thor and Iron Man and also Hawkeye, the Avengers decided on a membership drive. They offered membership to Moondragon for being conveniently nearby and then got Yellowjacket and the Wasp to return. Putting out a PSA and holding tryouts, only Beast showed up. And also the Stranger. The Stranger tried to kill the Avengers with sky sea mines and although all the vintage Avengers blundered into the trap like idiots, newcomers Moondragon and Beast showed sound judgement and skill. When engaged by Moondragon in a PSYCHIC DUEL, the Stranger fled but the Wasp has been badly injured. Because, of course.

We pick up this time with Wasp having been taken to a hospital and Thor (with his Donald Blake diagnostic skills) fearing that she may not last the night.

There’s also a crowd of lookie-loos and reporters around the hospital. Sam Reuther of CBS asks whats the word and Thor only says that the Wasp has been injured by the Stranger and “THE MIGHTY AVENGERS SHALL BRING HIM TO BAY FOR IT!”

Oh. Right. Also. Beast and Moondragon are provisional Avengers. There will be tests and whatnot.

And the lookie-loos being Marvel citizens range from ‘MOM HOLY FUCK THE AVENGERS’ to ‘eew a mutant’ and ‘eew creepy bald woman.’

Marvel’s citizenry are the worst.

Yellowjacket storms out of the hospital and hails a cab (they didn’t bring the Quinjet). Jan is in critical condition and may not last the night. And this time there’s no miracle doctor being held captive by aliens that can save her (which just goes to show that maybe we didn’t need this plot point again). The only reason she’s alive is because tiny physics - she was tiny and got hurled away from the worst of the explosion. Which sure sounds like science.

Anyway. There’s nothing any of them can do here. So Yellowjacket wants to get the Stranger but good.

They return to the mansion to ponder and plan and also wonder where Hawkeye is. He went looking for Black Knight in the past. So no matter how long he spends in the past he should be back already unless something happened.

But worrying about Hawkeye gets interrupted by a sudden psychic attack that knocks the Avengers for a loop and tosses them about in a psychic wind. All except for Thor who has really good balance and really good muscles.

I mention this because its kind of a plot point that Moondragon sees Thor standing up and yelling at the storm and thinks something like ‘hot damn.’ Although later this issue she decides she doesn’t like him because he’s different than Titan’s demi-gods. And because him and Iron Man fight over her like a piece of meat.

Anyway. The psychic attack was the Stranger and for some reason he was trying to pry the location of the Scarlet Witch from the Avengers’ minds.

But he didn’t find anything because the Avengers don’t know anything. Apparently Wanda and Vision just took off on their honeymoon without leaving a contact number or anything.

Yellowjacket realizes that even though they don’t know anything, now they know that the Stranger is looking for Wanda for whatever reason. And they can use that against him. If they set up a decoy and lure him out again...

And if another team stays behind they can use the mansion’s equipment to track his power to the source even if the Stranger doesn’t make a personal appearance! chimes in Thor.

Iron Man volunteers to take point with Moondragon but Thor countermands. Iron Man will stay at the mansion to work the machines. SINCE HIS EXPERTISE IS NEEDED TO OPERATE TONY STARK’S MACHINES CLEARLY. And Thor will go with Moondragon to the decoy.

Oh god. Is Moondragon going to play the role that Mantis was originally supposed to? Causing the Avengers to fight over the pretty lady?

Iron Man protests, asking why Thor gets Moondragon in his group.

Thor: “Because I be Avengers’ chairman... and ‘tis my judgement that she be better suited for this battle than the Beast.”

Anyway. After that bit of pulling rank the groups are Thor and Moondragon on the decoy and Yellowjacket and Beast to stay behind and watch Iron Man run the equipment.

And something that just occurred to me. The Avengers now have Hank Pym and Hank McCoy on the same team. I wonder if they’re ever going to address that might cause confusion.

But speaking of Beast, he reflects that the Avengers play a much grander game than the X-Men did and have been in high gear since he met them, just last issue. He just hopes that there’s room on this team of superstars for a Beast.

Which. Hey. Welcome to one of Hank (McCoy’s) character arcs for the Avengers. He is (or becomes?) one of the bigger geniuses of the Marvel universe but on the Avengers he feels overshadowed by Other Hank or by Tony Stark. He’s strong but he’s not Thor strong. So what’s his role on this team?

Going forward we’ll see what answers he comes up with.

Later, Thor and Moondragon arrive at the Florida Keys in a Quinjet. And the decoy works!

As soon as they set foot on a beach that is a plausible honeymoon destination, the Stranger’s big shouty head shows up to shout at them.

At the mansion, they detect a power beam locked onto that Florida Key and start to triangulate.

On the island, the rest of the Stranger’s body shows up and then another Stranger, challenging Thor to find the real from the replica.

Moondragon finds it curious that the Stranger hasn’t tried another mind-blast. She leaps to attack one Stranger while Thor attacks the other.

A the Stranger grabs Thor, which just brings him in Mjolnir-ing range and it is indeed hammertime. But the hammer passes through the Stranger, confirming him as just a simulacrum. Solid enough to grab a Thor but illusionary enough to fade out when hit by a hammer. As ya do.

So the Stranger Moondragon was fighting is the real thing?

So she smacks his foot to trip him and then kicks him in the mustache (probably the source of his power).

Its a good hit. Even the Stranger compliments her. But she’s still struggling with an enigma. In the stadium, the Stranger’s mind power felt limited. But when he attacked them in the mansion, he was close to omnipotent. But now on the key, he again seems lacking in psychic strength.

What’s the deal, the Stranger?

Thor suggests that she’ll have to force him to tell his secrets and Moondragon agrees, whipping out such psychic strength that it manifests as crackling energy.

Under the onslaught (but not that one), the Stranger vanishes. So both of the Strangers were illusions.

So he was attacking remotely from another location. Yellowjacket was right in his supposition which I didn’t mention. But Yellowjacket is reckless with the Wasp hurt. He shouldn’t go. Something bad will happen.

No, no, says Thor. Clearly he should go.

Thor: “Thou dost not understand, woman! He must go! ‘Tis all the man can do for the one he doth cherish about all else! And he’ll rout that Stranger somehow, mark my words!”

In other words: This Is Something He Has To Do Himself, sigh.

Marvel heroes could gain from learning from Carrot that personal isn’t the same as important.

Just once, when someone is told they’re too close to something or too emotionally involved I want them to take a step back and realize ‘hey you know what, you’re right.’

Thor also asks if the misgivings Moondragon is feeling about Yellowjacket are like the empathic impressions Mantis got. We don’t hear her response because of SCENE CHANGE.

Actually, there was a scene change earlier, right when the Stranger seemingly split into two.

Iron Man triangulated the Stranger signal as coming from the ionosphere, a hundred miles up. And Beast, Yellowjacket and Iron Man ran to take a Quinjet to investigate.

With Iron Man also worrying that Yellowjacket has been running himself ragged since the Wasp got hurt and will burn out if he doesn’t find some release soon.

So then the scene transition.

The Avengers in their Quinjet finds a Stranger craft and tractor beams onto it. One day I’m going to look up when tractor beam was first used as a sci-fi trope.

Hank!Yellowjacket is raring to go and start punching Stranger but Hank!Beast urges caution. Based on his personal experience with the Stranger, they should exercise extreme-- LASERS

GOOD GRIEF

Right when they entered the Stranger’s craft, a laser grid activated about four feet up from the floor, set at a height they’d catch most people right in the heart.

Good thing, Beast was on alert.

The Stranger barges into the room, immune, of course, to his own trap. And since the Avengers are stuck ducking under the LASERS, the Stranger is free to walk up and squish them.

Starting with the Beast.

Beast SPROINGS away. He’s still acrobatic enough to bounce around the room and avoid the lasers. Plus, his mom specifically told him to stay out of bad guys’ clutches. Specifically.

And he bounces around, finally ducking through a door and running like crazy.

Yellowjacket and Iron Man try to crawl toward the door but it shuts behind Beast and the Stranger. Also, how well can Iron Man even crawl in his armor? I bet that, like Metroid, he can’t. But he also can’t turn into a ball. Truly the worst of both worlds.

Anyway, Beast is still fleeing. And still humoring. I like Beast’s humor. Humor is good for a funny books.

But running is all he can do against the Stranger. That and witticisms. Running, witticisms, and his secret weapon. And rounding a corner, he sets up his secret weapon.

When the Stranger follows him around the corner he spots... Edward G. Robinson?!

Of course not, it’s Beast again.

But that does raise a very fascinating question. Beast didn’t have a bag with him. And he’s only wearing his monster modesty briefs. Did he have a full gangster outfit plus rubber mask and hands stuffed into his underwear?

Did he intend to bring the Edward G. Robinson costume or does he simply use it to give himself a conspicuously awesome butt?

And has Beast ever considered theater? Because he pulls that costume out of his underwear and gets dressed up in it in a matter of seconds. That kind of speedy costume change would be the envy of thespians everywhere.

Anyway, the Stranger is so startled to see a dead Golden Age actor on his spacecraft that he suddenly transform into the Toad.

Happens to one in five cosmic beings.

But no. The Stranger was really Toad in disguise the whole time. Or at least in this issue and the previous issue. There is a the Stranger. But he doesn’t care about the Avengers.

Beast reveals that clearly this was his plan and he suspected an outcome like or adjacent to this. Based on similar clues as Moondragon spotted, he thought something was fishy. Clearly the more powerful Stranger that attacked them in the mansion was due to having more direct access to the power source, compared to the ‘in-person’ appearances. Hank didn’t suspect that it was going to specifically be Toad because nobody ever thinks of Toad.

Toad loses his shit at Beast looking down on him. Declaring he’s no longer “just the Toad” or anyone’s minion or dwarfish dolt! He’s his own master! That’s the reason he stole all these machines!

And he runs back to the main hall to find a machine to destroy Hank.

But other Hank spots the Toad, realizes what’s up, and decides to shrink himself so that he can pursue Toad at his own height, under the lasers.

And he chases down Toad and takes out some damn frustration for Wasp’s injury by injuring Toad a lot. He’s a bit short tempered here.

But then an octopus.

No. It’s just another illusion. Beast jumps in and POWs the octopus, knocking down the Toad.

This whole time, Iron Man has been scooting along and finally reaches the off-switch for the LASERS. Good job, Iron Man!

This was really a team effort. High fives all around.

Beast now has Toad in a headlock which of course means its backstory time! Lets tie this all together.

Set off by Beast calling him “Toadie” as in a friendly version of his name and hearing it as “toady” meaning “obsequious sycophant” Toad rants about all the years Magneto mistreated him despite his faith and loyal service.

So he betrayed him. Which we saw in Avengers #53. And then Toad went off with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Because he had loved her afar when they were in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants together.

Then Toad and Scarlet Witch got kidnapped by Arkon. In Avengers #75-76. Instead of just forgetting that Toad was there, apparently Toad asked to be left behind on Polemachus. Because he had plans.

Using the primitive resources of Polemachus, a planet that thinks anybody smart is a dumb nerd, Toad built a spaceship like he saw Magneto do time and time again, and flew it to the planet of the Stranger.

Despite Polemachus being in a different universe than Earth and the Stranger presumably being from Earth’s universe.

There’s more holes in this story than there is in Swiss cheese.

Anyway. The Stranger wasn’t home, as Toad had been relying on. So Toad ransacked the joint, stealing every bit of machinery he could understand and installing it on the spaceship he built. The thought form device he used to imitate the Stranger was the easiest to understand, after all his years with the Mastermind.

And what was Toad’s ultimate masterplan that he asked to be left behind on a brutal, primitive world to enact?

He was going to master all these devices and then ask Wanda for her hand in marriage.

But then he heard on radio-monitors that she had already gotten married to the Vision.

So he decided he was going to take out his romantic woes on the Avengers and Wanda by killing them disguised as someone they would take seriously.

(And this isn’t even the last time he’ll do this. Toad is Toad-ly the worst.)

At this point, Iron Man has apparently lost interest and Toad yells at him to look at him when he’s talking.

But, hey, Toad. This is the last page of the issue and after two issues of fighting the pretend Stranger, the Avengers have better things to do. Like piloting a Quinjet.

Which makes the Toad literally hopping mad. Hah!

Meanwhile, unseen by the others, Yellowjacket clutches himself in pain and admonishes himself to hold on for the Wasp’s sake. Oh, right. He wasn’t supposed to do any size changing. You done goofed, Hank. No, the other Hank.

Also meanwhile, Vision and Wanda are still enjoying a lovely tropical honeymoon none the wiser of any of these shenanigans. Although Vision looks like a sunburned Mr. Clean.

So!

This feels like another story written to build Beast up. This whole two-parter in general feels like that. It had X-Men villain the Stranger (really X-Men villain the Toad) putting together traps that Beast’s acrobatic skills, disguise expertise, and roomy trousers thwart.

At least part two has the more established Avengers acting less like idiots. This time its mostly Yellowjacket acting like a reckless idiot and Iron Man and Thor briefly fighting over who gets to hang out with the new girl.

And despite Beast basically being MVP in these two issues, he doesn’t feel oversold? Moondragon is the one that fights the Stranger in the first issue. And Yellowjacket lends an assist in this one.

Plus, we get that scene where Beast feels overshadowed by the superstar Avengers.

Now my only question is whether Moondragon will get a similar story to establish her. She has her moments in these two issues. She is the only one besides Beast to start putting the puzzling pieces together. And she has a good show fighting the Stranger in the stadium and on the Florida key and also KOing Yellowjacket.

If so, it won’t be next time. Next time: the Wrath of the Whirlwind. So most likely a story focused on Yellowjacket.

#Avengers #the Stranger #Beast #Iron Man #Yellowjacket #Thor #Moondragon #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #on honeymoon #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging #Toad #once again the day is saved thanks to UNHOLY ACTING TALENT #much better job this time guys #much better teamwork this time #nobody respects Toad and nobody should

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thebibliomancer · 7 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #139: Prescription: Violence!

September, 1975

So wait. Is it Prescription: DEATH! or Prescription: Violence! ? It would be bad to mix up your prescriptions. It could even result in death.

The cover seems like it goes either way. There’s sure some violence. And some death threats. And some angry disembodied heads.

At least this time they don’t look angry at their fellow Avenger. They’re clearly glaring at Whirlwind for his rude hospital etiquette.

So, last time: The Avengers went on a membership drive after losing Scarlet Witch, Vision, Mantis, and Swordsman to marriage and predestined death. Moondragon and Beast were signed on as provisional members and Wasp and Yellowjacket agreed to rejoin the team. Then the Stranger (secretly the terrible Toad) attacked the team because girls, specifically Scarlet Witches, don’t go for ‘nice’ guys like him. He was defeated by the Beast’s roomy trousers but not before he horribly injured the Wasp and forced Yellowjacket to change sizes when he really shouldn’t’ve.

Which brings us to Yellowjacket having dragged Toad all the way to the hospital to wave him at the comatose Wasp and demand that he cure her.

I don’t think Hank Pym knows how medicine works.

When Toad points out that there’s nothing he can do, Yellowjacket throws him across the room. The other Avengers hold him back but then the doctor throws them all out of the room.

Imagine. Throwing a short mutant across the room where someone is in a coma. That’s no way to behave.

And as some police cart off Toad while calling him the ‘mutie’ slur, the doctor muses that maybe he shouldn’t have let the Avengers in the room in the first place.

THEN WHY DID YOU, Yellowjacket demands.

Iron Man: “As I recall, old buddy, you insisted on it, as her husband!”

Yellowjacket: “Butt out, Iron Man!”

Yellowjacket: “Jan wouldn’t be lying there if she hadn’t accepted the Avengers’ call to join up again! I don’t want to hear from you!”

And then he hurts himself, punching Iron Man. Because. Suit of armor.

Hank Pym just loses 1000% of his chill whenever anything happens to Jan.

But thankfully, before he can embarrass himself worse, Whirlwind shows up. He says that even if Jan had been safely knitting socks by the hearth, both of the Pyms would still have Whirlwind to contend with.

But today he’s only here for the Wasp. SO BYE.

And he zips past Thor and Beast and Iron Man by spinning really fast.

Yellowjacket catches up to him in Jan’s hospital room but Whirlwind’s reflexes are mighty and he BOM!s Hank right across the chin.

But before he can do anything to the comatose Wasp, Moondragon does her thing. Using a mind-burst to sear Whirlwind’s brain and choke his thoughts.

Whatever that means.

Because whatever it does, he still possesses the Whirlwind wherewithal to flee unhindered.

But at least he’s gone and Wasp is safe.

Yellowjacket complains that life is just one long string of disasters.

Beast: “The super-biz is like that, though.”

Besides, adds Iron Man, Jan missed this crazy kind of life.

Yellowjacket disagrees but he’s hit with a sudden burst of pain. He claims its something he ate and tells Thor to butt out and runs off. Indeed the size-changing last issue has its cost.

And his behavior has its cost too. After Yellowjacket leaves, Iron Man - either disparaging or disbelieving - says “To think he helped found the Avengers!”

But he tries to understand that its just Yellowjacket acting out of worry and despair.

But since there’s nothing further the Avengers can do here, Iron Man suggests that they should investigate what happened with Hawkeye. Oh, hey, random spur of the moment idea! He and Moondragon will go check it out!

Thor: “Iron Man! Must we again engage in argument over which one of us doth chair this team?”

Iron Man: “There’s no argument, Thor --! You got to “observe her for the purpose of determining her suitability for becoming an Avenger” last time -- and now it’s my turn! Adios! Quick, lady -- let’s go! There’s a storm brewing!”

And then he bustles Moondragon out the door while Thor complains about the lack of order in the Avengers.

Beast: “The super-biz is like that, though.”

Hah!

But geez. What’s happening with the team? Wasp gets put in a coma on her first day back. Yellowjacket is losing his shit and lying about being in pain. Iron Man and Thor are in a dickwaving contest over the new superheroine. And Iron Man made the yaranaika face when he was running off with Moondragon.

It’s like there was all this drama that was concentrated into the Vision-Wanda-Mantis-Swordsman love rectangle but when they resolved that through death and marriage, the drama became disembodied and started haunting the team.

Anyway. Yellowjacket heads down to street level where chauffeur Charles (secretly the wondrous Whirldwind, true believers!) asks YJ how Wasp is doing. Yellowjacket reminds ‘Charles’ that he was fired from being Jan’s chauffeur after he tried to defraud her estate and also get lost.

But Charles is secretly the Whirlwind (gasp!) having used his position as Jan’s chauffeur to spy on the superheroic couple. And if they’re back into herowork then he’s back into being their nemesis!

Professional pride, maybe.

So he sneaks back up to Jan’s hospital room to beat up a helplesss coma woman (“And what better time to kick somebody than when they’re down?”). But alas, Beast and Thor are still visiting. ‘Charles’ makes up an excuse and leaves.

The narration even mocks him.

“Has it struck you that perhaps the writhing Whirlwind isn’t the world’s most astute long-range planner? That his high-speed hi-jinks may have made him a spur-of-the-moment man?”

And we cut to Iron Man and Moondragon on a Quinjet on their way to Doom Castle. And Iron Man is looking forward to use this long flight to get to know Moondragon better.

Moondragon responds by mockingly flirting with Iron Man before yelling at him to leave her in peace. Apparently, she has a problem with men grasping for love and companionship with her. Specifically Daredevil, Mar-Vell, and now apparently Iron Man.

ELSEWHERE, a woman is reading a newspaper and sees an article about the New Avengers (not those ones) and announces that Beast won’t escape her again!

Dun dun dunnnn?

Elsewhere, Yellowjacket has returned home and is sadly looking at a picture of Jan as he thinks of all the good times. Like the time they played... some weird game in their living room. Oh, the good times! Jan was the only person that ever got Hank’s nose out of a book and made him play around and have fun!

Oh, but then Whirlwind attacks. Guess with Thor and Beast still occupying the hospital room, he’s decided to go after Yellowjacket instead.

But Yellowjacket once again proves why ants is best power and commands the ants beneath his lawn (because of course Hank Pym would keep ants underneath his lawn) to dig up the ground where Whirlwind is going to whirl, dropping the villain in a pit.

And then he whips out his cellular disruptor pistol but instead of facing it, Whirlwind FLEES.

Almost like he already knew what the cellular disruptor pistol did. But only a few people should...

EUREKA!

He calls the hospital and asks Beast a question that we don’t get to hear that Beast answers in the affirmative. Beast asks if other Hank wants help but of course Yellowjacket says This Is Something I Have To Do Alone.

You’d think that Hank Pym would be better at teamwork considering he almost always works with a partner and helped found a superhero team.

Anyway, Iron Man and Moondragon’s Quinjet arrives at Castle Doom, Latveria.

And Iron Man is apparently feeling snippy about the rebuff Moondragon gave him. Like, really snippy.

He turns on his chest-light so they can see and then says:

Iron Man: “Follow my chest-light, priestess. Unless it’s too suggestive for you!”

Masculinity so fragile...

We thankfully don’t have to put up with much of this passive-aggression because in the very next panel, the two discover that the time machine... IS MISSING!

Hawkeye never returned!

It’s for the best really. With how tense and at odds the team already is, adding Hawkeye would be like throwing sodium into a pool.

Anyway, time to check in on the happy honeymooning couple as we apparently have to do once an issue. Why can’t we leave them alone and give them some privacy?

Apparently, after ? days of honeymoon, Vision is suggesting that they take a honeymoon break and return to the world and find out what their marriage will mean to their lives among other people. Basically, find out how people will react. If they were prepared to try to suicide bomb Vision just for kissing Scarlet Witch in public, how will they react to them being actually married?

They’ll have to face it sooner rather than later and Vision proposes getting it over with.

Which certainly is an argument. Alternatively, send word to one of the Avengers to leak it to the press and then ride out the initial surprise, alarm, and vitriol out of contact on a tropical island.

By the time you get back, the inconstant public will be mad about something else again. Probably either Spider-Man or mutants.

I’m just saying, enjoy the time away from the super-biz while you can! You just know that you’ll get drawn back in if you go back!

Is this because you’re too embarrassed over having to wear a swimsuit, Vision?

Anyway.

We cut back to ‘Charles’ who is singing and dancing towards his chauffeur car. AND THEN YELLOWJACKET BURSTS OUT THE BACKSEAT AND J’ACCUSE!

So the jig is up so Whirlwind changes into his Whirlwind gear in a whirlwind. I have kind of been wondering how he even.... puts it on. The chest portions of what can only loosely be described as a costume looks like the same green metal his helmet is made out of. Doesn’t look flexible at all. So how does he fit his arms through? Maybe its not metal.

Anyway, Hank Pym grows to Giant Man size and starts trying to grab Whirlwind.

Whirlwind makes a chump out of Pym though. Dodging so he goes sprawling or bouncing off his face.

Yellowjacket does at least get a good burn in. Saying the only reason Whirlwind’s ‘Charles’ persona fooled him is because he has other things going on in his life. Unlike a dude fanatical enough to become his enemy’s chauffeur.

Whirlwind whirls so fast that a whirlwind lifts him up to avoid a Yellowjacket punch but Yellowjacket shrinks down to Ant-Man size and slips under Whirlwind’s chestplate, despite the man doing his best to try to throw him off.

And under his chestplate, holding onto his thick chest hair, Yellowjacket starts zapping Whirlwind in the pecs with his Stingers at full force.

And it’s working, it is, but then another burst of pain strikes Yellowjacket and keeps bursting.

He falls out of Whirlwind’s chestplate and lies tiny and helpless on the roof as Whirlwind lifts his leg up to stomp down.

And then he’s saved by the bell.

BONG!

That’s the sound of a blue fist hitting a plausibly green metal helmet. And then Whirlwind falling insensate to the roof.

Yellowjacket gets his pain under control and grows back to Hank Pym size.

Yellowjacket: “Beast! Didn’t I tell you to stay away from here?”

Beast: “You did! But as Samuel Collins said in the 1943 Superman newspaper strip -- never mind me. Attend to that arch fiend!”

AAAAAAAAH SUPERMAN COMICS EXIST IN MARVEL! MUTUALLY FICTIONAL! MUTUALLY FICTIONAL!! YELLOWJACKET MEETS SUPERMAN LATER!!!!

Anyway.

Beast: “Just chalk it up to a hope for friendship, and a worry about your welfare, YJ. But now you’ve got me wondering: why’d you fall out of his chestplate?”

Yellowjacket: Oh, I -- just slipped!”

He lies. He lies to his fellow Hank. Shame on you, Pym.

Its cool that Beast ignored This Is Something I Have To Do Alone and came to help his fellow Hank. Hanks gotta stick together. Although I have to wonder how long he was watching and how he snuck up on Whirlwind who has remarkable spatial awareness.

Then again, he was having his nipples roasted off. That would have been a good time to sneak up on him.

But although Yellowjacket got his pain under control, he wonders how long it will be before it comes back. And he knows that size-changing so much against Whirlwind was a bad move.

And I just bet that next issue, he’ll have to pay for it. Considering the next time box.

#Avengers #Whirlwind #Yellowjacket #Beast #Iron Man #Moondragon #Thor #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #Hawkeye is missing!#Moondragon doesn't appreciate her workplace environment #the team is full of tension and anger #but the Hanks are getting along #hot damn Beast has had a really good showing over these three issues #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging

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