AVENGERS #382

"OFFERINGS"
Writer: Bob Harras | Breakdowns: Mike Deodato | Finishes & Colors: Tom Palmer
Letterer: Bill Oakley | Editor: Ralph Macchio | Chiefs: Tom DeFalco/Mark Gruenwald

Note: AVENGERS #379 - 382 were published as "Double Features" with a GIANT-MAN limited series included as a "flipbook" within those issues. I will cover the GIANT-MAN serial in one post after issue 382.

The Plot: Crystal, Quicksilver, Bova, and the High Evolutionary emerge from the wreckage of Bova's cabin as some of the Evolutionary's New Men approach. But the mutated Fydor, now calling himself Rakkus, kills the New Men. The Avengers and the Evolutionary battle Rakkus, who continues to evolve. Bova tries to reason with the beast, but it grabs her -- so the Evolutionary blasts its chest, killing it. Rakkus, who was actually a mutant inhabiting and changing Fydor's body, retreats, and Fydor reverts to normal, dying in Bova's arms.

Continuity Notes: At Avengers Mansion, Black Widow finds Captain America asleep in an easy chair and notes how unusual that is for him. She recalls meeting him during World War II in Madripoor (and note the little jab Ralph Macchio takes at the UNCANNY X-MEN issue which featured that meeting in his editorial note, indirectly calling out the fact that Widow was presented as a child in that story, which circa 1994 -- or even 1990, when the UNCANNY issue was published, would've been pretty hard to reconcile.

The Widow also suddenly finds herself attracted to Cap and reaches out to touch him as he sleeps, but is interrupted when Jarvis wanders into the room. In the aftermath of this moment, the Widow thinks to herself that she's entertaining some "very dangerous thoughts" about Cap. (Notably, in the backup story, covered below, when Cap radios the Widow at one point, she replies by calling him "Handsome.")

Hercules has dinner with Taylor Madison, commenting that her illness kept them apart, though I don't recall her actually mentioning the illness to him at any point. When Taylor leaves the table, she is confronted by Ares, who calls her out as Hera in disguise. Hera reminds Ares of their bet way back in issue 349, to torment Hercules, and declares that before long everything he holds dear will be destroyed.

Assemble: Nothing this issue. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 10 in 49 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: The story is fine, but what I really like about it is its (sort of) unfulfilled promise, which is hinted at on both a page 1 recap of the past two issues, and on the final page. First, the recap refers to Quicksilver as Exodus's "rival" -- I assume in a nod to the fact that Acolytes once tried to recruit him, as Magneto's heir, to lead them during the X-Men's "Fatal Attracitons" event. The implication here is that Exodus still views Quicksilver as a threat to his otherwise mostly undisputed leadership of the Acolytes.

Further, both the recap and the final page suggest that Exodus doesn't really want the High Evolutionary off Wundagore because he considers it a sacred site, but because there is something there that he's after. While there's no hint as to what that could be, it ultimately doesn't matter -- it's the intrigue of it all, and the idea that, per the final page's narration, this was only the first battle in a protracted war between Exodus and the High Evolutionary, that I like.

I assume that if Harras had remained on AVENGERS, more would've come of this. The X-Men are on the eve of the "Age of Apocalypse" just now, and as soon as that event ends, Magneto's space station, Avalon, will be destroyed. The Acolytes will be removed from the board for some time, and Exodus (again, for the most part) will vanish with them. Yet it's hard not to imagine that, had things gone differently with regards to both Harras and the X-books, we might've seen another big AVENGERS storyline, in the vein of the Gatherers saga, about Exodus and the High Evolutionary battling over Wundagore's secret, with Quicksilver and his family trapped between them.

For years, I've felt that wiping out the Acolytes immediately after "AoA" was a bad move on Marvel's part. There was a status quo there -- Exodus leading the group, Colossus working to subvert him, and so forth -- which had a lot of promise but which was eliminate simply to A) pump up a new villain, Holocaust, and B) give Colossus a reason to return to the X-Men. And given a choice between those two things versus Exodus remaining a major player for a few more years, I would happily choose the road not taken.

Now, all that said -- I do have a vague recollection that circa 1998 or so, there was a crossover between the short-lived QUICKSILVER ongoing series and the (also short lived, but slightly longer) HEROES FOR HIRE which featured both Exodus and the High Evolutionary. I don't know if that was a direct continuation of the seeds planted here, but I hope it was. Someday I should give it a re-read!

As with last issue, this is a shorter-than-normal story. But instead of pinups to fill the balance of the issue, this time we have a backup tale:

"THE DOOR: SYNCHRONOCITY, I"
Writer: Ben Raab | Penciler: Jeff Matsuda | Inker: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos | Colorist: Kevin Tinsley
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Doorman: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: Black Widow explores the sub-basements of the new Avengers Mansion, which was transported to the prime reality from another universe by Uta the Watcher before he died. When the Widow's sensors pick up strange readings from an underground brig, she calls Giant-Man and Vision to help investigate what -- or who -- is trapped inside. The group smashes open a brick wall to find a large metal door inside, behind which Giant-Man monitors a massive displacement of the space/time continuum.

Continuity Notes: This is, I believe the first acknowledgment on the part of the Avengers that they are living in a mansion which previously belonged to other-dimensional versions of themselves. I believe this temporal door will remain a sub-plot for the next several months, eventually resolving during "The Crossing", an event partially co-written by this story's writer, Ben Raab.

My Thoughts: Really, none. Knowing this will tie into "The Crossing", which I explicitly plan not to read, this story is less interesting to me than I can possibly describe. That said, had I read this originally in 1994, when I was a fifteen-year-old eagerly devouring Spider-Man's "Cone Saga" and the various cryptic plot threads in the X-books, I'm sure I would've loved it!

(More interesting to me is the fact that when we started reading this run, the "Mutant Genesis" era hadn't quite started, and Jim Lee was still drawing the X-Men -- and now we've reached the point where, as noted up above, the X-Men are on the cusp of the "Age of Apocalypse" and Joe Madureira is on the title! In reality it was only a few years, but those creative eras felt a lifetime apart to me as a kid.)