AVENGERS #378

"ECHOES OF HISTORY"
Writer: Bob Harras | Penciler: Stewart Johnson | Inker: Tom Palmer
Letterer: Bill Oakley | Colorist: John Kalisz
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: Vision, Deathcry, Swordsman, and Magdalene arrive at the Avengers tracking station on the Isle of Crail off the coast of Scotland. There, Vision finds the station has been sabotaged. As soon he says so, the group is shot at by the station's caretaker, who abruptly dies when Vision tries to question him. Deathcry discovers a Shi'ar spaceship crashed nearby, and a legendary Shi'ar warrior named T'kyll Alabar reveals himself to the group. Meanwhile, in the nearby village of Ailsa, a young man reports to an alien warrior that the Avengers have arrived, with a Shi'ar among them. The mystery alien kills his informant.

Back at the crash site, Deathcry explains the story of Admiral Alabar to the rest of the group -- twelve hundred years earlier, he was a hero of the Shi'ar war against the Mephisitoids. When the Shi'ar captured their leader, a man known to the Shi'ar only as the Butcher, they exiled him into deep space aboard a stasis ship, with Alabar in stasis as well to guard him. At Avengers Mansion, the rest of the team tries to make contact with Vision's group, but is unable to do so. On the Isle of Crail, the Butcher arrives with the entire town in his thrall, and then takes control of Swordsman and Magdalene as well. Vision is defeated, while Alabar takes Deathcry and retreats. He reveals to her that some force brought the stasis ship to Earth, and says that he and Deathcry must learn who wanted the Butcher to live again.

Continuity Notes: We're told that the Avengers lost contact with their tracking station twenty-seven hours ago. We saw the group discussing the situation at the start of issue 372, and Vision and his group took off to investigate at that time. Subsequently, everything from the rest of 372 through to the end of 375 seemed to take place within a matter of hours. And when the group lands in this issue, Swordsman and Magdalene suffer a brief disorientation, which seems to be an effect of Proctor's defeat, though it's not outright stated here. So, since we don't know how long it was between the loss of the tracking signal and the departure of Vision's team, I think the timing all matches up here. I'm impressed!

Of course, there's the matter of the two fill-in issues, but Crystal's was a flashback, while Quicksilver's is nebulous enough that it probably could chronologically occur after this issue. So, good job all around to those who put all this together. I love picking apart stories' internal timelines, but there's nothing here to argue!

Admiral Alabar posesses wings, something the modern-day Shi'ar have evolved past (but which the "evolutionary throwback", Deathbird, has).

"The Butcher" is a Mephisitoid, as noted above -- the same race as Hepzibah of the Starjammers. It's stated here that Mephisitoids have low-level pheremones, which is how the Butcher is able to control the townspeople, Swordsman, and Magdalene -- but I can't recall ever seeing Hepzibah use such an ability. Perhaps, as with the Shi'ar wings, the pheromones were lost to the Mephisitoids over centuries of evolution.

Deathcry and Alabar recite the latter's legend:

Afterward, Alabar reveals that, as he was from a common family, his mission to accompany the exiled Butcher was in large part due to the fact that the Shi'ar ruling class was embarrassed he had risen through the ranks.

Deathcry is referred to several times in this issue as a girl or as being young (and a couple times, by Magdalene, as a "child"). I think that's the first time this has been stated, so far as I can recall -- and it makes her aggressive flirtation with Vision seem a little weirder in retrospect. (Notably, in this issue, Magdalene refers to Vision as Deathcry's "hero" -- so I'm wondering if Harras is ret-conning her infatuation with him from lust to hero worship, assuming he suddenly just now decided to make her a teenager.)

The Black Knight and Sersi may be gone, but Avengers Mansion is still a hotbed of soap opera activity! Black Widow confides in Captain America that she's worried about team morale following the deparure of the supercouple, while Crystal and Quicksilver have an awkward conversation about a memorial service for them -- prompting Quicksilver to subsequently ask Hercules how he can compete with a ghost for his wife's love.

Assemble: No battlecry to report this time. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 10 in 45 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: And now comes our first post-Steve Epting issue written by Bob Harras -- and I'm pleased to report that the series hasn't suffered a nosedive in quality with half the creative team gone! Harras and Epting did amazing work together, and as I noted once or twice before, Harras's writing seemed to be brought down a notch or two by certain guest pencilers -- but this Stewart Johnson fellow, whoever he is*, does a decent job -- aided by Tom Palmer, of course -- of filling the Epting-sized void with some Epting-esque art. And as such, Harras's writing suffers not a bit -- this feels like a natural continuation of the work he was doing with Epting.

I must also note that Harras continues his trend of his run really only running with a couple of overall plot ideas. I've said before that he has, almost exclusively, related all his stories to either the Gatherers of the "Galactic Storm" fallout. Well, the Gathtering finally reached it spectacular conclusion last issue, but that other little kernel is still out there, And we'll find out next issue that the cause of the Shi'ar stasis ship's crash is related to it!

But more on that next time. For now, the series' quality remains high; I really hope it will stay that way for another eleven issues before I bow out.

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*After typing the above, I looked up this issue's penciler on the Marvel Wiki and learned that the enigmatic Stewart Johnson is the real name of Staz Johnson -- a name I'm much more familiar with!