A tale of the Mighty Avengers
"ARMAGEDDON"
Words: Harras | Pencils: Epting | Inks: Palmer
Letters: Oakley | Colors: Kalisz | Edits: Macchio | Chief: DeFalco
"ARMAGEDDON"
Words: Harras | Pencils: Epting | Inks: Palmer
Letters: Oakley | Colors: Kalisz | Edits: Macchio | Chief: DeFalco
Black Knight finds Sersi atop the Brooklyn Bridge, where he tries to reason with her -- but their gann josin mindmeld becomes stronger instead. Meanwhile, Jarvis and Marilla return from the market to find Quicksilver standing outside the ruined mansion. Jarvis reveals Sersi's recent troubled visions to Quicksilver. Elsewhere, Proctor speaks with a Gathered version of Jocasta, then consults with his imprisoned Watcher. Back in New York, the Avengers find Sersi and the Black Knight, but discover that they are now fully melded. The pair fights back against their teammates, picking them all off until only Crystal remains. When Crystal tries to appeal to the Black Knight, Sersi flies into a rage and prepares to kill her. This snaps the Knight out of the gann josin bond and he redirects Sersi's blast away from Crystal.
Sersi releases all her power and knocks down part of the bridge. Then, in the aftermath of her tantrum, Proctor appears to comfort her.
Continuity Notes: Several footnotes in this one: Sersi recalls the Eternals beliving she had succumbed to madness in issue 361. Black Knight recalls Sersi's killing Anskar on Polemachus in issue 359. Jarvis mentions consulting with Sersi on her dreams of Proctor in issue 364. And Jocasta talks about the Gatherers' attack on Black Knight and Sersi last issue.
Not continiuity, but a simple observation: Quicksilver and Crystal, walking less than a block from Avengers Mansion, somehow don't notice it's been destroyed until they turn the corner and see for themselves. Even though when they lay eyes on it, smoke is billowing into the sky!
After helping to dig out of the mansion's wreckage, Captain America is seen gasping for breath. This would be a nod towards events in his own series, where at the time the super-soldier serum was failing and beginning to degenerate his body.
The "next issue" blurb promises "the return of Thunderstrike," though he has never appeared in these pages yet! Though I suppose they really just mean "the return of Eric Masterson" and that doesn't have the same ring to it.
Assemble: Not this issue, though I can't help thinking the scene where the team prepares to go find Black Knight and Sersi would've been a good spot for somebody to belt it out. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 9 in 40 issues to date. We're so close to a .250 average!)
My Thoughts: There's a lot of talk about the "prime reality" in this one again, with Proctor saying that he learned his reality was a "copy" of the prime, and then talking about prime Sersi as a "template" for all the others. I can't stress how much I like this. Several years ago, when I was perhaps a bit saltier in my postings, I expressed my intense dislike for "Earth 616" -- I think it sounds dumb, and while I understand that it was created as a bit of a joke on DC's Earth 1 and Earth 2 business, I really dislike the idea that the main Marvel Universe is just one inconsequential realm in an infinite multiverse. It's the universe we're reading about, the universe around which everything else revolves; it should absolutely be Earth 1 or Earth Prime or whatever you want to call it.
Now, of course the idea of it being the "prime" universe was discarded long ago. I don't know that it ever had much traction, to be honest. Beyond these stories, I'm hard pressed to think of any Marvel tales I've read in which it is identified by any nomenclature that would indicaate it's the "main" reality. And meanwhile, especially since the turn of the century for whatever reason, the "616" label has become widely accepted as definitive by fans and creators alike. Indeed, I believe it started with fans. I remember people calling the prime Marvel Universe "the 616" long before Marvel began to officially use it.
(Mind you, there's nothing in these stories suggesting that the prime reality isn't also universe 616 -- but let's be honest; that would be stupid. If it's the prime reality, its number should be 1!)
As for this issue's story -- I think I'll have more to say as we get close to the grand finale of the Gatherers saga, which is right around the corner. Next issue promises (besides the "return" of Thunderstrike) the secret origin of Proctor!
This was a highly enjoyable run of issues, with a great creative team. I'm particularly loving the work of Epting and Palmer here - great to revisit.
ReplyDeleteWhat I didn't notice at the time was that there must've been a dearth of hairdressers in the Avengers HQ area - the number of panels with fringe hair flying over the hero's face is quite something :-)
It was the 90s -- the "grunge" look was in!
Delete
ReplyDelete// the Avengers head for their hanager //
I suspect you mean either their hangar or their hungry, angry manager. (A couple of other typos: fromt, continiuity)
Y’know, I’d never made the connection between Super Friends’ Hall of Justice and the Avengers Compound, maybe due to having read so little in which it appeared, but I can see that. Avengers Mansion is still the one, true headquarters of the team for me, however, surely in part for the same reason you ascribe to a preference for the Compound yet also because, as with the Fantastic Four being headquartered in the Baxter Building, it has a simultaneously realistic and idiosyncratic feel endemic to classic Marvel. I absolutely love the nostalgia/continuity touches George Pérez and Carlos Pacheco brought to the mansion with Kurt Busiek writing.
I think a .250 average is worse in this context than in modern baseball, although framing it as 1 in 4 issues doesn’t seem as bad somehow. O fickle perspective! Every other issue on the regular would surely be so often as to feel hokey, perhaps, so I’m not sure what the sweet spot is. (.616 is right out…)
Here’s another cover I like for both the poses and Tom Palmer’s coloring, whose modeling doesn’t bother me the way many of the day’s computer-assisted jobs do. I’m quite impressed that even the digital version retains a kind of matte look. For reference see the Rocketeer post of yours where I contrasted the original painterly coloring by Joe Chiodo and friends to the distracting remastered version.
I was amused by the lettercol reply that says Exodus and Proctor are not related but had the same plastic surgeon. Meanwhile, Jarvis as depicted in this issue has suddenly lost a lot of weight.
Since I’m waxing loquacious having just gotten over a spell of migraine, I’ll mention that I got to Roger Stern’s run in Avengers not long ago and yesterday, reading the issues where Spider-Man guests, decided to go back and read his run on Spidey from the start along with your reviews. I didn’t realize how many issues during Stern’s first couple of years I bought when they came out, if still relatively few, and given the quality of the writing I have to assume that it didn’t become a regular purchase largely due to those purchases being scattered enough I wasn’t really into the running storylines, perhaps compounded by the art not thrilling me amidst so much cooler-looking stuff at Marvel, DC, and elsewhere.
DeleteI should clarify that the end there I’m referring to Stern’s Avengers.
Thanks, Blam! I fell behind on my proofreading again, and these past couple posts have gone up without a final passthrough. I corrected the typos.
DeleteI agree; Tom Palmer's coloring on recent covers has been stupendous. His interior colors are great too, though fewer and further between.
The Avengers Mansion thing is interesting, because I agree with you on the "character" it displayed during the Busiek/Perez run. There was something warm and comforting about seeing Perez's renditions of the place, and if that era of the Avengers had been operating out of another base instead of the Mansion, it would've felt wrong. Busiek leaned heavy into a Bronze Age throwback feel for the first half of his run while Perez was on the title, and seeing the mansion in that context felt right.
It's funny you mention the Baxter Building, because I have similar thoughts there: to me, the definitive Fantastic Four headquarters is Four Freedoms Plaza, because that's where they lived when I really got into Marvel in the 90s! I like the Baxter Building, but I always thought Four Freedoms looked really cool with the big four-sided "4" at the top. I remember after the "Pier 4" era of the early 00s, when Carlos Pacheco and Jeph Loeb put them back in the Baxter Building, I was disappointed.
Glad to hear you're revisiting Stern's Spider-Man! Did you start with the SPECTACULAR issues, or go straight to AMAZING? I like all of it, but I don't think there's any question that AMAZING is the best part.
DeleteI opted to start from Spectacular #43.
Yeah, I liked the visual of Four Freedoms Plaza too, and I think it falls under the “illusion of change” rubric — while not the Baxter Building, it’s still a giant white skyscraper housing the team and civilian tenants in the heart of Manhattan.