AVENGERS #375

"THE LAST GATHERING"
Writer: Bob Harras | Penciler: Steve Epting | Inker: Tom Palmer
Colorist: John Kalisz | Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: The Avengers head out into Manhattan to face Proctor and the Gatherers, who have appeared in the city with the imprisoned Sersi and Ute, the near-dead Watchter. The Avengers attack, working to protect civilians and take out the Gatherers, while Proctor severs the barriers between dimensions, causing various buildings in the city to be replaced with alternate versions of themselves. While his teammates battle the Gatherers, Black Knight engages Proctor one-on-one. Proctor reveals that he carries the Ebony Blade of his dimenson, and the duel continues.

Thena and Sprite arrive to help the Avengers, while Proctor gains the upper hand on the Black Knight and then begins to "gather" him, which would merge them together. But Quicksilver intervenes, , knocking the pair apart. Thunderstrike and Crystal take Proctor down with a lightning bolt, which also knocks out the Gatherers. Sersi and Ute break free of their imprisonment, and Sersi picks up the Ebony Blade, which she uses to kill Proctor. Then, as Ute dies, he expends the last of his power restoring New York to normal. He also opens a portal to a pocket dimension, where Sersi can go to be free of the madness consuming her. As she prepares to go, the Black Knight declares that he will join her. As the Avengers watch, the pair vanishes together into the portal.

Continuity Notes: Though he is the Dane Whitman of his dimension, Proctor possesses abilities the Black Knight does not -- eyebeams, apparently transmutation powers, and so forth. He explains this is due to the gann josin bond gradually changing him over the years.

Quicksilver joins the battle in costume alongside his teammates despite the fact that he's still suffering from his "Bloodties" injuries, and gets knocked out of the fight immediately after saving the Black Knight from Proctor.

As described above, the Gatherers all go down when Proctor is taken out. Black Widow wonders why, but no answer is given in this issue.

When Ute restores Manhattan, he replaces the destroyed Avengers Mansion with its original counterpart -- though a reader might be forgiven for not realizng this, as the house is drawn rather off-model by Steve Epting and Tom Palmer.

Black Knight and Sersi leave the Avengers, and indeed the entire Marvel Universe, in this issue's final pages. They would next appear in the "Ultraverse", a continuity acquired by Marvel when they purchased Malibu Comics within a year or so of this issue's release. My recollection is that Marvel shunted a handful of random characters off to the Ultraverse for a while. Juggernaut spent some time there, for example. And, I suppose since they were already off the board and said to be residing in a pocket universe at this point, Black Knight and Sersi joined the fun as well (though I don't think Sersi became a regular in the Ultraverse, as did Black Knight). They will return to the Marvel Universe proper in another few years, via the BLACK KNIGHT: EXODUS one-shot in 1996.

Assemble: As anticipated, yes -- Captain America shouts the battlecry as the Avengers join the fray against the Gatherers. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 10 in 42 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: AVENGERS #375 seems to be considered the best end point in Bob Harras's run writing the title. At least, whenever you see anyone discussing this run online, most people tend to agree that the best material is the stuff from issues 343 through 375 -- the stuff penciled by Steve Epting and covering the full "Gatherers" storyline. I don't know that anyone particulary dislikes what is yet to come (aside from the universally reviled "The Crossing" storyline which unfortunately closes out Harras's run) -- it's just never mentioned in the same breath as the saga of the Gatherers.

And a saga it is, make no mistake. This storyline spans more than thirty issues (though there are some fill-ins along the way), and it occupies more page-time than anything else in the Harras/Epting run. Again I think of the comparison I made a while back -- in a strange way, this run feels like a season of "peak/prestige" television. Especially if you excise the fill-ins, you're left with a run of around twenty-five issues, of which the majority are fully dedicated to the Gatherers, while the villains are never far from our heroes' thoughts even when they aren't front and center. It really has the same sort of storytelling feel as a season-long arc in a cable TV show.

I'm kind of happy, by the way, that Proctor turns out just as petty as last issue suggested. All this death, all this destruction -- all brought about because the Sersi of his universe broke up with him one day. Mind you, it's noted here by the Black Knight that the Avengers learned sometime back, during the Coal Tiger story, that the Gatherers go insane if they fail to quickly bond with their counterpart in the prime reality, basically coming right out and telling us that Proctor is stark raving mad -- but still. It's kind of funny to me that all this came about due to his broken heart.

Though I must say, much as I liked this one, it's nonetheless slightly unsatisfying as a finale. I love seeing the Black Knight and Proctor go at it, seeing Quicksilver do the right thing and help his romantic rival, and seeing Sersi finally finish Proctor -- but there are some players missing here, too. You may recall that two issues ago, Vision flew away with Deathcry, Swordsman, and Magdalene to investigate a damaged Avengers relay station in Scotland. We will actually see this mission, though it's still two issues away due to a couple fill-ins coming up -- but wouldn't you expect Swordsman and Magdalene, the two characters who kicked off this Gatherers saga way back in issue 343, to have some role in its resolution? It's extremely odd that they're absent here, and it leaves the story feeling... unfinished somehow.

But perhaps it is! Proctor is dead, but the other Gatherers remain, presumably now prisoners of the Avengers. Perhaps Swordsman and Magdalane will have some role in their fates? I guess time will tell...

Lastly, let's say goodbye to Steve Epting as of this issue. Despite several fill-ins during his tenure -- entirely, I'm sure, the fault of having to draw so many extra-sized issues over the thirtieth anniversary year -- he and Tom Palmer provided artistic consistency and excellence all the way through the Gatherers saga. I'm running long already on this post and there's a bit more to get to, so I'll leave it at that for now. But I'm planning a "afterword" to this entire retrospective, where I will have more to say about Epting's contributions.

Issue 375 also features a ten-page Giant-Man tale:

"A BIGGER MAN THAN I..."
Big Ideas: Benjamin Raab | Big Pictures: Yancey Labat | Big Highlights: Maria Beccari
Big Words: Ken Lopez | Big Colors: Michael Marts
Big Bopper: Ralph Macchio | Big Wig: Tom DeFalco

In this one, Hank Pym tests an "encephalo-helmet" he's created for psychoanalytics. The test finds Pym confronted by a bunch of ants who put him on trial for various things he's done over the years. It's... a backup story. I'm not really into psychobabble and therefore I don't have much to say about it. The story is written by Ben Raab, who would go on to do several writing jobs at Marvel in the later nineties -- both scripting over other writers' plots, as well as writing his own stories in various limited series, one-shots, and an ongoing run on EXALIBUR. He would also write the BLACK KNIGHT/EXODUS one-shot mentioned above. And while I liked a lot of Raab's later Marvel material -- mainly the handful of mini-series -- this story doesn't really do much for me.