AVENGERS #383

"SHATTERED VOWS!"
Writers: Tom Brevoort & Mike Kanterovich | Artist: Mike Gustovich
Letterer: Bill Oakley | Colorists: Kevin Somers & Marie Javins
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: At the former site of the Inhuman city, Attilan, in the Himalayas, a being of energy appears, startling the local Alpha Primitives. Seeing that Attilan is gone, he leaves and next appears at Avengers Mansion, where he attacks and kidnaps Crystal, who recognizes him as an old enemy of the Inhumans; a Kree warrior named Shatterstar. Shatterstar next travels with the unconscious Crystal to the headquarters of the Fantastic Force in SoHo. Shatterstar kidnaps a member of the Force, an Inhuman named Devlor. The Avengers -- Giant-Man, Vision, Thunderstrike, and Deathcry -- arrive a moment later and team up with Fantastic Force leader, Psi-Lord, to search for Shatterstar.

Elsewhere, at an abandoned Kree facility in Florida, Shatterstar attempts to contact the Kree Empire but receives no response. The Avengers and Psi-Lord arrive and attack, but Shatterstar seem sto have the upper hand until Deathcry informs him that the Kree Empire was conquered and annexed by the Shi'ar. Vision furthers Shatterstar's distraction by informing the warrior that he is permanently trapped in his energy form. When Shatterstar tries to prove Vision wrong, he finds that he cannot revert to normal. Enraged, he flies off into space toward the Kree homeworld.

Continuity Notes: Narration informs us that the Inhumans emancipated the Alpha Primitives "years ago," though I have no idea when it actually happened.

Per Crystal, the Inhumans last battled Shatterstar in issues 4 - 6 of their 1970s comic. Shatterstar tells her that he's not worthy to use that name at the moment, which is quite prescient of him, since while he was out of circulation, a much more popular character named Shatterstar joined X-Force.

THE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON

Living in the Bay Area, San Diego is only about an eight-hour drive south. And in between my sophomore and junior years of college, I made that pilgrimage for the first time with a couple friends -- Chris, with whom I had attended both middle and high school, and Brian, a friend of Chris's from his college. It was 1999, and it was a simpler time. We bought our con tickets online, but we needn't have bothered -- badges were still on sale at the door when we arrived. The whole affair only took up part of the convention center, which seemed enormous at the time.

That year was my first SDCC, and though it remained relatively small for a few more years, that was the last time it really felt like a comic book convention, in the traditional sense, to me. I bought a ton of back issues while I was there; I was going through a Mark Gruenwald CAPTAIN AMERICA phase and plugged some big holes in that run. I got head sketches from several artists during signings at the Marvel booth, including two of my favorites, Alan Davis (at the time the regular artist and plotter of X-MEN) and Terry Dodson (then the artist on GENERATION X). I also paid for a full-figure commission of Moon Knight from Ron Lim, who has, for as long as I can remember, had the most consistently reasonable convention commission prices of any artist I'm regularly interested in.