AVENGERS #361

"FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY"
A tale of the mighty Avengers brought to you by:
Writer: Bob Harras | Penciler: Steve Epting
Inker/Colorist: Tom Palmer | Letterer: Bill Oakley
Assistant Editor: Pat Garrahy | Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: A nighttime intruder alarm leads the Avengers to their front lawn, where the Eternals Ikaris, Sprite, and Arex appear. Ikaris announces that they have come to take Sersi home with them, but the Avengers refuse. The group heads inside to discuss the situation, and Ikaris explains that Sersi may be suffering from "mahd w'yry," essentially an Eternal version of senility, brought on early by her Uni-Mind experience with the Brethren. A fight nearly breaks out, but Sprite stops it by suggesting that the Black Knight become Sersi's "gann josin" -- a psychic soulmate. Ikaris immediately bonds them, then the Eternals depart.

Meanwhile, Vision attempts to escape from Proctor, but the villain thwarts him. Back at Avengers Mansion, Crystal speaks with Black Knight, who resents what Sersi and Ikaris have done to him. The Knight then confesses his feelings for Crystal, and the two kiss as Proctor's false Vision watches from nearby, while Sersi observes from her quarters.

Continuity Notes: Captain America appears to be the Avengers' field leader, barking orders as they race outside to greet the Eternals -- but we're told a page or three later that the Black Widow is still team chairperson. I'm not up on the Avengers' by-laws, but I'm curious how this works. When Cap left, he was the "chairman and chief excutive" of the Avengers, and Black Widow was his deputy. Then he went on a leave of absense. Now that he's back, would he not become chairman again, assuming the Widow was operating in an "active chair" role? Or did Cap abdicate the chair when he left, meaning the Widow ascended formally to the position? This is the sort of stuff that keeps me awake at night!

Sersi announces that the Black Knight is her intended gann josin, though she apparently never discussed this with him. Later, Proctor tells Vision that he is Sersi's "true" gann josin -- which is why he "knows what she is about to become." And after the formal gann josin bond, Black Knight suddenly has red eyes -- exactly as Proctor has had since he first appeared.

Ikaris provides the Avengers (and we readers) with a brief history of the Eternals:

Vision notes that he has been Proctor's prisoner for thirty-six hours, meaning that long has elapsed since the previous issue, which, like this one, also took place at night.

When Black Knight confesses his love to Crystal, she tells him that Quicksilver rebuffed her when they last met -- clearing the way for a final page liplock between her and the Knight. But fake Vision is also interested in Crystal, as he tells Proctor during a brief status update (along with the fact that he hasn't yet killed the Swordsman).

Assemble: No, and I can't help feeling that the first page, as Cap leads the team outside while shouting, "Let's move it, people!" would have been a very nice spot to use the ol' battlecry. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 4 in 28 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: This is pretty much entirely a soap opera issue -- even when it appears there might be some action on two occasions, it's shut down very quickly so the characters can talk, instead. Which is fine! This run of AVENGERS takes many cues from the X-MEN comics, as we've discussed before, and some of my favorite X-issues from around this period were those that were action-light and soap-heavy.

In fact, I know I've commented on this many times over at Gentlemen of Leisure, but never here (so far as I recall), but -- the UNCANNY X-MEN and X-MEN issues contemporaneous with this AVENGERS run often featured pure soap opera issues, where if there was any action, it was typically in the form of a little skirmish between teammates or something similar. This was a staple of both books, but especially of Fabian Nicieza's X-MEN. I'm thinking of things like Cyclops firing one optic blast at Mister Sinister and then talking with him for the rest of the issue, or Gambit fighting the X-Men's "houseguest" Sabretooth in the danger room, or Archangel and Psylocke being abducted by, but not really actually fightning, Shinobi Shaw. Things where there was some sort of brief physicial altercation in order to meet the title's "action quota", while most of the issue was dedicated to interpersonal melodrama.

Now, AVENGERS hasn't been doing this to the extent of the X-Men titles by any means. AVENGERS remains primarily an action series, with the soap opera threading through lots of fight scenes. But it's interesting to see an issue that does somewhat mimic that sort of X-issue. It was those X-issues that I tended to love the most when I was a teenager, and I find that they're still just as effective on me now, as an adult, starring the Avengers.