AVENGERS #388 & CAPTAIN AMERICA #441

"INTO THE BREACH"
Story: Bob Harras & Terry Kavanagh | Writer: Bob Harras
Breakdowns: Mike Deodato | Finisher: Tom Palmer
Colorist: Mike Thomas | Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: CAPTAIN AMERICA #441: "Through the Perilous Fight" by Mark Gruenwald, Dave Hoover, and Danny Bulandi, Don Hudson, Rick Hoover, & Keith Williams: Captain America and Bucky battle MODOK, until the villain escapes. Falcon finds Cap, but Bucky is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Adaptoids take Free Spirit and Jack Flag to the A.I.M. command center, where they are ordered to dispose of the trespassers. Elsewhere, Superia and Snapdragon explore the island, while MODOK flies down into the huge crater in an attempt to stop the chain reactions across the island. Elsewhere still, Black Widow and Hercules explore the island, encountering Cosmic Cube-created simulations of the Widow's ex-husband, Red Guardian, as well as Taylor Madison.

Inside the A.I.M. base, the Red Skull confronts A.I.M.'s leader, Alessandrio Brannex, who reveals himself as the Super-Adaptoid. Meanwhile, outside, the temporary antidote Superia gave Captain America wears off, and Cap's atrophy returns. Falcon picks him up to carry him. Back inside, Jack Flag and Free Spirit escape the Adaptoid agents carrying them, just as the base begins to fall apart thanks to energy beams lancing up from beneath the island's surface. Outside, one such beam kills the Red Guardian simulation. Captain America and Falcon are attacked by Adaptoids, and Falcon drops Cap. Jack Flag and Free Spirit exit the base and spot the battle. While Spirit checks on Cap, Jack runs off to help Falcon. Superia and Snapdragon find Free Spirit and Cap, and Snapdragon battles Free Spirit, beating her. Superia grabs Cap, but more energy beams separate them. Cap is hit by a beam, but suddenly his armor appears and he flies into the main energy source, where he finds MODOK begging for help.

AVENGERS #388: The boy who previously found Captain America watches as Cap is sucked into the vortex. Within, Cap finds MODOK, babbling about the power of the Cosmic Cube being too much for humanity to contain. Elsewhere, Black Widow, Hercules, and Giant-Man watch as the island of Boca Caliente changes, revealed as a metal construct created by A.I.M. Quicksilver and Crystal rejoin their teammates, while inside the energy vortex, MODOK allows himself to be sucked into the dimension that birthed the Cosmic Cube. Meanwhile, in the ruins of the A.I.M. complex, the Red Skull is found by a female agent under his command, who flees over the power of the Cube. Captain America, now emerged from the vortex, finds the boy, revealed as an Adaptoid and the island's guardian.

The Avengers work to evacuate Boca Caliente's civilian population. Falcon arrives to join Black Widow and Giant-Man in searching for Captain America. Meanwhile, Superia finds Cap and offers him more of her antidote in exchange for his services. While the Avengers continue their evacuation, they are joined by Snapdragon. Cap refuses Superia's bargain, but the Red Skull arrives and takes her serum instead, then blasts her. The Skull leaves, while Cap and the boy/Adaptoid move toward the heart of the demolished complex. Black Widow, Falcon, and Giant-Man find the Skull's agent, who directs them after Cap. At that moment, Cap and the Adaptoid reach the source of the Cosmic Cube energy. The Adaptoid sacrifices itself to contain the energy and stop the island's destruction. Falcon, Giant-Man, and Black Widow find Captain America as the sun rises over the metal island of Boca Caliente.

AVENGERS #387 & CAPTAIN AMERICA #440

"ISLAND OF SPIRITS"
Story: Bob Harras & Terry Kavanagh | Writer: Bob Harras
Breakdowns: Mike Deodato | Finishes: Tom Palmer
Colorist: John Kalisz | Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: CAPTAIN AMERICA #440: "Dawn's Early Light" by Mark Gruenwald, Dave Hoover, and Marie Severin, Dan Bulandi, & Don Hudson: Captain America tries to recruit his old friend, Demolition Man, for a mission to the island of Boca Caliente, but D-Man is unable to attend. Later, Cap meets up with his team -- his trainees, Jack Flag and Free Spirit, his former partner, the Falcon, his pilot, Zack Moonhunter, and his tech expert, Fabian Stankowicz. The group receives a briefing from Nick Fury on an energy surge from Boca Caliente which read to SHIELD as similar to the Cosmic Cube. Then Fury departs, and Cap's team heads out. On Boca Caliente, A.I.M. operative MODAM enters a chamber bathed with energy. Meanwhile, Cap's enemy Superia and her right hand, Snapdragon, observe Boca Caliente from a boat offshore.

Captain America, Falcon, Jack Flag, and Free Spirit swim to Boca Caliente and split up. At Avengers Mansion, Black Widow says that the readings Captain America recently went to investigate on Boca Caliente are identical to those she recently tracked in Canada, and the heroes depart to catch up with Cap. On the island, Jack Flag and Free Spirit witness the arrival of the Red Skull, who takes out two guards and enters A.I.M.'s complex. A moment later, the guards rise and metamorph, revealing themselves to be A.I.M. Adaptoids, and attack Jack and Free Spirit. On the island's beach, Fabian activates a small army of robots and sends them out to create a diversion. Meanwhile, Cap and Falcon find a deep crater, and Cap jumps toward it just as an energy flare emerges, separating him from Falcon. As Falcon searches for Cap, he is attacked by another Adaptoid. Meanwhile, Cap lays paralyzed until Superia finds him and injects something into his cheek.

AVENGERS #440: A young boy on Boca Caliente finds Captain America, out of his armor, laying on the ground. Cap gets up, and Bucky appears to greet him. Meanwhile, the Avengers have arrived on the island and engaged with A.I.M. troops. They rout the villains, and Black Widow reveals the readings she's been tracking recently are those of a Cosmic Cube. A moment later, Quicksilver's thoughts come to life thanks to the Cube energy, and the Avengers find themselves in the camp where he grew up, with his foster father, Django Maximoff, welcoming them. Meanwhile, Bucky helps Captain America fight off some A.I.M. agents. Inside the A.I.M. complex, the Red Skull stalks the agent in command, Brannex. Outside, two Adaptoids battle and defeat Jack Flag and Free Spirit. Elswehwere, the Avengers sit around a campfire with Django. Meanwhile, Cap, Bucky, and the boy find Falcon and his Adaptoid foe both unconscious. Cap suddenly weakens, and then a moment later A.I.M. operative MODOK arrives.

THE UNBOXING - APRIL 2020

I may be under state-mandated quarantine due to COVID-19, but The Unboxing recognizes no authority! Here's what we have this month:

From DC, it's TALES OF THE BATMAN: MARV WOLFMAN (inexplicably labeled as "Volume 1" even though I'm pretty sure this contains every Batman story Wolfman ever wrote). As we saw when I looked a ton of Batman in the Seventies comics last year, Wolfman's run on BATMAN continued directly from Len Wein's, wrapping up several loose ends, so the main reason I grabbed this volume was to site beside TALES OF THE BATMAN: LEN WEIN on my shelf for just that reason. It also contains a number of other Wolfman-penned Batman stories, though, which I'm sure I'll check out someday.

And from Marvel, we have the CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: BLOOD AND GLORY, another installment in Marvel's collection of Mark Gruenwald's dedace-long run on Cap. When I started buying a lot of digital collections a couple years ago, I gradually tapered off my purchases of most trade paperbacks, figuring that Marvel seems to publish everything in hardcover sooner or later, and the digital versions would be my reading copies of most paperbacks (and of things I never really needed to own physically in the first place) until the inevitable Omnibus, oversized hardcover, etc. came around. But these Gruenwald Cap collections are pretty much the only paperbacks I "grandfathered in", since I had several already.

For those keeping count, this book follows from the previously released Epic Collections SOCIETY OF SERPENTS, JUSTICE IS SERVED, THE BLOODSTONE HUNT, STREETS OF POISON, and THE SUPERIA STRATAGEM -- plus the out-of-print Epic-in-all-but-name THE CAPTAIN -- and all of them together collect CAPTAIN AMERICA # 307 - 410. Gruenwald's CAP run ended with issue 443, so that's only thirty-three issues to go, which will comprise a total of three more Epic Collections (which we know since BLOOD AND GLORY is volume 18, while MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, the book beginning the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run that immediately followed Gruenwald, is vol. 22.

I grabbed a few digital items this month as well. Amazon/Comixology had a BOGO sale when the Coronvirus situation really started heating up, so I picked up the following:

• AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES
  (The only Silver Age Avengers Epic I was unable to get in Marvel's big year-end sale because it wasn't discounted at the time.)
• AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: THE AVENGERS/DEFENDERS WAR
• AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN
  (You'll be seeing more about this book, plus the subsequent pair listed below, very, very soon right here!)
• AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES vol. 1
• AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES vol. 2
• X-MEN MILESTONES ONSLAUGHT
  (I'm weirdly excited for this one because it contains only the core, "essential" parts of the "Onslaught" saga, without all the extraneous crossover junk. Looking forward to cracking it open when Gentlemen of Leisure's "X-aminations" reaches this point in the not-too-distant future!)
• X-MEN MILESTONES: PHALANX COVENANT
  (Since for some reason, the old PHALANX COVENANT hardcover has never seen a digital release, this will be my digital copy -- even though it's missing a few issues from the hardcover edition.)

Not too shabby, considering I haven't been allowed to leave the house for nearly a month! But now, with distribution on hold from some publishers due to the ongoing quarantine situation, we can only wonder what May will bring...!

THE UNBOXING - APRIL 2019

What's this? The Unboxing on Friday?! It's true, and the reason why will be explained in this very space... next Friday! But for now, after skipping the past two months, The Unboxing returns at last with three offerings from Marvel, and I think the wait was worth it!

First we have two trade paperbacks, starting with CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: THE SUPERIA STRATAGEM. Over the past few years, Marvel has been steadily plugging away at completing Mark Gruenwald's ten-year run on CAPTAIN AMERICA in a number of trade paperbacks. Currently, thanks to this new volume and the previously released Epic Collections SOCIETY OF SERPENTS, JUSTICE IS SERVED, THE BLOODSTONE HUNT, and STREETS OF POISON, plus the out-of-print Epic-in-all-but-name THE CAPTAIN, we've got issues 307 - 397 collected. That's ninety-one issues plus associated annuals and such, covering nearly the first seven years of Gruenwald's run. Gruenwald's final CAP issue was 443, so we've still got quite a ways to go, but at the very least it's safe to say that the "prime" material is pretty much all available at this point. (Though I love all of it and will happily snap up the rest of the run as it's released!)

Next is X-MEN: ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH, and I cannot overstate how absolutely thrilled I am to own this book. Those who follow my X-Men Collected Editions chart know that this was the final piece needed to close the X-Men's 1990s gap. As of now, thanks to ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH, EVERY. SINGLE. ISSUE. of UNCANNY X-MEN and X-MEN from the full decade of the nineties has been collected. I seriously want to do a little jig over this. It's been my goal for about the past five years to have that entire run of issues on my bookshelf, and now I can finally say that the mission is accomplished.

(Of course this isn't to say I won't re-buy some of this material as it finds its way into better collections -- upgrading from paperbacks to hardcovers, for example -- but the point is that for now, the goal is complete.)

And speaking of rebuying, our last book is one that I couldn't resist even though I've purchased all of it in various formats over the years -- comics when I was a teen, trade paperbacks and hardcovers as an adult... but now we have it here, all collected in one comprehensive and definitive oversized hardcover, just in time for a certain major motion picture it inspired: the THANOS WARS: INFINITY ORIGIN OMNIBUS. The name is an inelegant mouthful, but the contents are what's important here. This book collects all of Jim Starlin's early Thanos material, from his first appearance in IRON MAN #55, through his war against Captain Mar-Vell and the Avengers, and up to his dealings with Adam Warlock -- plus everything in between, whether Thanos-related or not. I've probably mentioned it here before, but for the record, Starlin's cosmic stuff at 1970s Marvel is among my all-time favorite comic book runs, and it's wonderful to see it get the high-end treatment it deserves at long last.

THE UNBOXING - APRIL 2017

One lone item this month, courtesy of Marvel: The CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: JUSTICE IS SERVED. This volume marks another nice chunk of Mark Gruenwald's long CAP run in Epic format, and, even better, it plugs a gap between 2014's SOCIETY OF SERPENTS Epic and 2011's "prototype" Epic, THE CAPTAIN. Between all three books, that's CAPTAIN AMERICA issues 302 - 350, plus associated annuals and tie-ins -- roughly one-third of Gruenwald's run -- collected consecutively!

(And by the way, if you want to extend that streak backwards, 2012's DEATH OF THE RED SKULL collects issues 290 - 301, by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck, too!)

Furthermore, with this volume now released, there's only one unknown Epic Collection remaining to fill in the gap between THE CAPTAIN and 2015's STREETS OF POISON book. Hopefully that volume, which would include the fan favorite "Bloodstone Hunt" serial (and which I'd be willing to bet will be named for that very storyline since the 2010 collection is long out of print), will be the next Gruenwald-era Epic to see release, because, being the anal-retentive fan I am, I much prefer unbroken runs on my bookcase rather than those that skip around. But in any case, the clear takeaway from all of this is that it's a very nice time to be a fan of Mark Gruenwald's CAPTAIN AMERICA.

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #18

"SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW!"
Plot: John Byrne | Script: Mark Gruenwald | Pencils: Mark Bright
Inks: Mike Gustovich |Letters: Phil Felix | Colors: Petra Scotese
Editor: Michael Carlin | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Ten lunar orbits ago on the Moon, while the X-Men fought for the life of Phoenix, observers from the Kree and Skrull empires began their own private war in the Moon’s Blue Area. Eventually the Watcher pulled them to his home to receive communications from their respective leaders, the Kree Supreme Intelligence and the Kree Empress R’Klll. The leaders ordered Bel-Dann the Kree and Raksor the Skrull to continue their war as proxies of their entire empires. The winner would determine the victor of the eons-long conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls.

In the present, the Fantastic Four arrive on the Moon for the wedding of Black Bolt and Medusa of the Inhumans. But the ceremony is interrupted as the battles between Bel-Dann and Raksor begin to damage the foundations of the Inhuman city, Attilan. The FF and Inhuman royal family investigate and battle the warring aliens, who escape.

Later, Mister Fantastic hatches a plan to overcome the aliens, whose fighting has gotten dangerously close to Attilan’s nuclear power plant. He and Black Bolt enlist the Watcher’s aid and then confront the aliens again. Bel-Dann and Raksor defeat the Fantastic Four and Inhumans together, and the Watcher decrees that both empires have won, for only by unifying their forces can they ever bring an end to their wars. The Watcher teleports the two aliens back to their empires, then the Inhumans and FF resume celebrating.

X-MEN: INFERNO

Hardcover, 2009. Collects 1988-89's X-FACTOR #33 - 40, X-TERMINATORS #1 - 4, UNCANNY X-MEN #239 - 243, NEW MUTANTS #71 - 73, and material from X-FACTOR ANNUAL #4.

"Inferno" has the distinction of being the final X-MEN yearly event of the eighties, running throughout the mutant titles in late 1988. It was also the first Marvel event to feature its core "spine" in one family of titles while nearly every other regular monthly title in the Marvel line participated in some capacity at the fringe of the story (several annuals had, however, just spent the summer of '88 embroiled in "The Evolutionary War"). The formula proved so successful it was revisited again a year later for the AVENGERS-centric "Acts of Vengeance" storyline.

X-MEN: INFERNO returns to the layout of MUTANT MASSACRE, telling its story in the best chronological reading order rather than breaking up into per-series segments as was the case with FALL OF THE MUTANTS -- which makes sense, since X-MEN and X-FACTOR spend the bulk of the event in biweekly crossover status. The X-Men's portion of the story focuses on the corruption of Madelyne Pryor, and as such this volume opens with a recap page explaining what the X-teams were up to just before "Inferno", then continues with a handful of excerpted sub-plot pages from recent issues of X-MEN, focusing on Madelyne. These pages are rendered somewhat moot now, thanks to the publication of X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE in 2014, but for those who simply want to read "Inferno" on its own, they're a nifty little lead-in.

THE HIGH EVOLUTIONARY

"THE GIFT" | "PET PROJECT" | "THE MEN, THE MINE, THE MOUNTAIN!"
"BLOOD DRAWN, BLOOD SPILT!" | "SILVER AND CRIMSON" | "KINDRED SPIRITS"
"DEMON NIGHT" | "ALL MY CHILDREN" | "THE FINAL FRONTIER"
"THE SON OF EARTH" | "BEYOND LIFE"

Story: Mark Gruenwald
Pencils: Paris Cullens & Ron Lim | Inks: Tony Dezuniga w/Jim Sinclair
Letters: Ken Lopez w/Joe Abelo | Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: Beginning in England in 1928, the origin and history of Doctor Herbert Wyndham's path to becoming the High Evolutionary are told, from his days as a biology student at Oxford up to the point he declared the "Evolutionary War".

Continuity Notes: Well... where to begin? This story is one huge continuity note, as writer Mark Gruenwald codifies all previously known tidbits about the High Evolutionary and his acquaintances into one serialized story. I'll do my best to list everything I came across, but while my Marvel knowledge is pretty good, I'm no Gruenwald, so it's probable I missed a few things.

THE UNBOXING - SEPTEMBER 2014

Wow! Talk about a light month -- I received one single item this time, the CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: SOCIETY OF SERPENTS. This volume includes CAPTAIN AMERICA issues 302 - 317, marking the beginning of the late Mark Gruenwald's long run on the title.

I have a huge affinity for Gruenwald's Cap, as I think I've mentioned before. As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive Captain America: no secret identity to get in the way, no civilian supporting cast members to bog him down. Steve Rogers is Captain America 24/7, and he only associates with SHIELD agents and other superheroes. Some characters need large supporting casts and melodramatic soap operatics. Captain America is not one of these.

Anyway -- a decent chunk of Gruenwald's Cap is collected, but there's still a large amount waiting for a nice home. This run isn't the stuff of which Omnibuses are made, so hopefully, given time, the Epic Collection format will see Gruenwald's entire tenure on the character (issues 307 - 443) on my bookcase. And then, someday, I'll review the whole run issue by issue here.