AVENGERS #376 & #377

"THE INHUMAN CONDITION" | "OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME"
Writer: Joey Cavalieri | Artist: Grant Meihm
Letterers: Susan Crespi (#376) & Bill Oakley (#377) | Colorist: Ovi Hondru
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: (Issue 376) On a rainy night, Crystal reflects on the departure of the Black Knight, then recalls an adventure she had wherein an Inhuman named Sporr was captured by an armored fighter called the Janissary. But Sporr used his power to separate into multiple beings, and sent another version of himself to Avengers Mansion for Crystal's help. He led Crystal to his other self in the Andes, where the Janissary turned his captive Sporr over to a woman who sapped Sporr's power for herself. Meanwhile, Crystal entered the woman's facility and defeated the Janissary, then found the woman had transformed herself into a super-powered being called Terrigene. Crystal and Terrigene fought and Crystal won, then Terrigene revealed that she had studied Inhumans her entire life and wanted to create her own Inhuman family, after being disowned by her human parents. Crystal left with Sporr, and the two Sporrs reunited into one. In the present, Crystal wonders if she should return to the Inhumans' Great Refuge as Sporr did.

(Issue 377) Walking through Central Park, Quicksilver finds a teen boy under attack by several gang members. Quicksilver saves the boy and takes out his assailants, then catches a taxi to Manhattan's Transian District. There, Quicksilver finds the same young man attacked by another gang. But this time, the boy saves himself with an electrical power, then leaves. Quicksilver goes searching for him and finds himself accosted by several angry men in a nearby pub. Quicksilver takes these men out and continues searching for the boy. Eventually he finds him, along with his brother and sister, nearby. The teens take Quicksilver to their home, a building resembling the Transian opera house. There, the siblings' father, Pavane, introduces himself to Quicksilver, telling him they grew up in Transia together, where the man was smitten with Quicksilver's sister, Wanda. But Quicksilver wouldn't let her near him, so now Pavane wants revenge. He and his children use their mutant powers to gang up on Quicksilver, but when one of the boys is injured in the fight, Quicksilver rushes him to the hospital. There, Pavane and Quicksilver make peace.

Continuity Notes: Issue 376 seems confused about its story structure, though I think most of the blame for that falls on artist Grant Meihm. The story opens with Crystal reflecting on recent events, then she begins to think about something that happened "a long time ago." This leads into the whole Sporr/Janissary/Terrigene business, before we return to the present for the final page, where Crystal notes that "Sporr eventually returned to the Great Refuge."

But in both the framing sequence and the flashback, Avengers Mansion is illustrated as the original building, not the large "A"-shaped building it was when Crystal joined the team. Further -- and this is purely an artistic choice, but I think it would've been helpful -- to further separate the framing sequence from the flasback and illustrate that this really did happen some time back, it might've been a good idea to show flashback Crystal in her original yellow-and-black costume.

The second story suffers from another weird artistic issue. As noted in my summary above, Quicksilver saves the same teen boy twice from two different mobs -- but I don't think the story intended it to be the same person! The art and coloring are clear that it is, but the script suggests these are supposed to be two totally unrelated incidents involving two different boys. I really feel like Meihm didn't read the plots for these two stories very closely when he drew them.

Speaking of asleep at the wheel, issue 377 features one footnote, to X-FACTOR #92, suggesting that is where Quicksilver was injured by Exodus. However, Quicksilver didn't meet Exodus in X-FACTOR #92, which was part of the X-books' "Fatal Attractions" crossover event. Exodus has a brief cameo in that issue, and fights no one. The actual injury, as readers of this blog will recall, took place during the "Bloodties" crossover, which happened immediately after "Fatal Attractions", with the incident itself occurring in AVENGERS #369.

Also notable for not being exactly a mistake is the fact that in the flashback to Quicksilver's and Scarlet Witch's youth, Wanda is depicted with black hair. Now, she did originally appear with brown hair in her earliest X-MEN apperances, but after she joined the Avengers, her hair was pretty consistently black for a good chunk of the Silver Age. So it looks odd, and is technically incorrect alongside her first apperance, but it is consistent with her appearance for a lot of the sixties.

Assemble: Since these are two solo tales, there's no team to assemble -- so the answer is no to both. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 10 in 44 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: These are what you call fill-in issues to the utmost degree. Two stories, focusing on one character each, with only the barest possible connection to the ongoing story -- which, I assume, is by necessity since it appears next issue will be set simultaneously with the events of issues 373 - 375, following what Vision and his crew were up to while their teammates battled Proctor in New York -- and therefore, the Avengers themselves are in narrative stasis during these two installments.

So for the first one, guest writer Joey Cavalieri goes the tried-and-true route of a flashback to heretofore unseen events, so as not to foul up the current timeline -- while in the second, he shines a spotlight on a guy who is not currently an active Avenger, and who is sidelined anyway due to his injury. So points are due for finding a way to thread two fill-ins between the chapters of an ongoing saga.

Unfortunately, these really just aren't great stories. They're certainly serviceable, but they're kind of boring. I like the idea of the villainess of Crystal's adventure, Terrigene -- getting super powers by siphoning them from an Inhuman, since the Inhumans' Terrigan Mists are said to be toxic to humans, is a creative origin. But then we learn she's just misunderstood and has no desire to conquor the Earth or anything, which sort of robs her of any future potential. Plus there's an offhanded line from Crystal near the story's end that suggests maybe she's dead? But she certainly appears alive when last we see her, so chalk that up to another creative gaffe, I suppose -- this issue has so many, what's one more?

Then there's the Quicksilver story, which initially looks like it's going to be your standard "mutant confronts anti-mutant prejudice" deal, but which eventually turns into your far lesser known "super hero has a self-declared arch-enemy he's never heard of before" tale. And that's a great idea, when it's played for comedy! But done straight, as Cavalieri does here, it just doesn't work. Plus it comes with the unfortunate baggage where it, uhh... kinda looks like Quicksilver doesn't want his sister to date a black guy. I mean, he's notoriously overprotective of her in all situations, and was just as much a jerk about Hawkeye's flirtations with her in the Silver Age -- but without that context here, Quicksilver comes off more than a little racist.

There's also the issue where Cavalieri seems to have drasitcally overestimated the ages of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. It's said that Pietro, Wanda, and Pavane went to school together, so while they may not be the exact same age, they're pretty close. But Pavane then goes on to say that after Pietro and Wanda emigrated to America, Pavane followed. He met a woman, married her, and they had three kids. Kids who are now very adult-ish looking teenagers. Huh? Per Marvel Time, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have been in the U.S. for most likely no more than ten years! Is this another case of Meihm screwing up the art, or is Cavalieri that clueless about the age of these two mainstay Avengers?

So... the less said about these two, the better. Next week, Bob Harras and Tom Palmer return, but without Steve Epting. I've decided I'm going to keep reading up through issue 389, just before the notorious "The Crossing" event. I hope the post-Epting stories will be as good as those he drew, but I'm a little concerned that without the Gatherers as a narrative throughline, the remainder of this run may be somewhat aimless. But we shall soon find out!