AVENGERS #364

"CALL HER--DEATHCRY!"
A Harras-Epting-Palmer production ~ with
Letterer: Bill Oakley | Assistant Editor: Pat Garrahy
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: A Shi'ar ship comes to Earth, passes over New York, and then travels to the Andes to find the Avengers. There, the team -- Captain America, Hercules, Black Widow, Vision, Black Knight, and Crystal, accompanied by Magdalene -- make their way through the snow. outside the wreckage of the Gatherers' citadel. The Shi'ar ship lands and Lilandra's envoy, Deathcry, emerges to announce that she has been sent to aid the Avengers against the Kree. Just then, three Kree Sentries arrive and attack. Meanwhile, in upstate New York, two hunters step onto an abandoned farm and are killed by three Kree warriors. Back in the Andes, the Avengres defeat the three Sentries, but several more move toward the area. Working together with Deathcry, the Avengers defeat the Sentries -- but in the aftermath of their victory, a hologram of Kree Admiral Galen-Kor appears. He warns the Avengers that within two days, Earth will be destroyed.

"UNBIDDEN MEMORIES"
Wtier: Bob Harras | Penciler: J.B. Jones | Inker Andrew Paquette
Letterer: Bill Oakley | Colorist: Chris Matthys | Editor: Ralph Macchio

Jarvis runs across Sersi outside Avengers Mansion, meditating. She uses her powers to show him some of her recent memories which have recurred in a dream. In it, she sees the man with whom she shared a dalliance some time ago -- but after she leaves him, a mystery figure appears and harms the man. Together, Sersi and Jarvis piece together the mystery figure's appearance, revealing him to be Proctor.

Continuity Notes: It's unclear what happened to Cassandra, Sloth, and Tabula following the prior issue. When Proctor's citadel was self-destructing, it looked like the Gatherers and Avengers were exiting together, but here, Magdalene is the only Gatherer present. Presumably the group was separated in the chaos.

The location of Proctor's citadel was left ambigous last issue, but this story explicitly states it as being in the Andes.

After appearing in shadow last issue, Deathcry makes her full debut here. I believe she will be a regular going forward.

Admiral Galen-Kor is the same character who recruited Raza and Hepzibah to assassinate the Black Knight back in issue 350. It seems he's now ready to start doing his own dirty work.

In the backup, we seemingly learn that Sersi did not kill her lover back in issue 357. Rather, she left to go to Black Widow's party and Proctor appeared soon after. How she knows what happened after she left is a mystery, but given Proctor's claim to be her first gann josin, and the fact that she only sees this bit in a dream, suggests some kind of mental link. Regardless, though Sersi and Jarvis see Proctor here, neither of them knows who he is since they were not present when the Avengers met him last issue.

Assemble: Nnnnno. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 5 in 31 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: I think I've mentioned it before in the context of other comics I looked at here in years past, but it always bears repeating: I love when serialized characters jump straight from one adventure to the next, with scarcely any time to breathe. Here, we've gone from the false Vision revealing himself to the Avengers storming Proctor's citadel to a totally unrelated attack by the Kree mere moments after their escape from that structure. It's really hard to articulate why, but I just can't get enough of this stuff. I just love the idea that these characters' lives are constantly in motion, ever moving from one crisis to the next, forever and ever.

And don't get me wrong; I love a good "downtime" issue. But when things kick into gear, several straight issues of nonstop, unbroken adventures, "out of the frying pan and into the fire" style, are just what I love to see.

I will pick one nit here, however -- somehow Deathcry and the Kree are able to find the Avengers in the Andes. The opening page has Deathcry do a flyover of the mansion, and her sensors don't detect the Avengers there, so she recalibrates and locates them at the ruins of the citadel. I get this is advanced alien technology, but it still seems a bit odd that she can detect the Avengers' exact lifesigns somehow. (And if she can, why doesn't she stop at the mansion first since Sersi is there?)

But other than that, this makes for a nice wrap-up of the most recent Gatherers story, while also launching into the Avengers' next multi-part saga! (Though that momentum will stutter a bit next week, as we look at AVENGERS ANNUAL #22. I'm not sure why the official Marvel chronologists place it here, but I assume there must be some continity reason.)