AVENGERS #384

Stan Lee presents a tale of losses and lies
"DREAM LOVER"
Story: Bob Harras & Terry Kavanagh | Dialogue: Bob Harras
Pencils: Mike Deodato | Inks: Tom Palmer | Colors: John Kalisz
Letters: Bill Oakley | Editor: Ralph Macchio | Boss: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: In Manhattan, two mysterious men visit the apartment of Taylor Madison and Augustine Jones, but find the women aren't there. Meanwhile, Augustine leads Taylor to Avengers Mansion. At the same time, Hercules and Quicksilver visit the Schuyler Hill Memorial Daycare Center, where Taylor works -- but Hercules is told that she resigned weeks ago. Back at Avengers Mansion, Augustine ensnares the Avengers with magic. When Hercules and Quicksilver return home, Augustine reveals herself as Hera. She knocks out Quicksilver, then Hercules attacks. But their battle is interrupted by the arrival of the two men: Zeus and Ares.

Ares reveals that, in order to get back into his father's favor, he told Zeus about his wager with Hera way back when they first made it. Zeus then explains that in order to draw Hera out, he created Taylor Madison -- a construct with all the qualities to become Hercules' soulmate. Zeus tells Hercules that with Hera's defeat, Taylor will now vanish. She and Hercules share a kiss as she fades away. Enraged, Hercules attacks his father, and Zeus punishes his impertinence by stripping him of his immortality and banishing him from Olympus forever. Zeus then vanishes with Hera and Ares, while Hercules weeps for Madison.

Continuity Notes: Black Widow has a phone conversation with an unknown party, promising him (or her, but my money's on him as I'm pretty sure I know who it is) that she will meet him tomorrow.

In the same scene, Widow asks Giant-Man about the mystery chamber in the mansion's sub-basement, which the group discovered in issue 382.

Assemble: No. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 11 in 51 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: I'm having trouble believing this is what Bob Harras intended for Taylor Madison when she first appeared way the heck back in issue 349. But plans can change over the course of thirty-five issues, especially when a sub-plot takes a frequent and distant backseat to everything else going on! Though Hercules met Taylor a long time ago, in truth we've barely seen her over the past near-three dozen issues. She made somewhat regular recurring appearances early on, popping up in issues 349, 355, 357, and 359. But after that, as the Gatherers saga picked up steam and received the bulk of Harras's energies, her appearances became few and far between. She was in an annual not written by Harras, and then appeared in only three more installments between issue 359 and this one!

Nonetheless, the saga of Taylor Madison comes to a fairly satisfactory, if perfunctory, conclusion here. It's not what I was expecting, but that doesn't make it bad. I just think that given all the buildup (uneven though it was), the finale to the plotline could've been better conceived -- which is something of a theme in Harras's writing. He's excellent at laying seeds and growing storylines (this particular one excluded on that count), but, as with the Gatherers saga, when it comes time to tie it all up, he does it very quickly and the results can be uneven. But as I've often said, if the ride is fun, I can excuse a somewhat disappointing conclusion. Unfortunately, in the case of Taylor Madison, there wasn't much of a ride to speak of in the first place!

One final note: you'll notice above that Terry Kavanagh is credited as co-plotter. He actually received that credit a few issues back, for #381, but beginning here it's a regular thing. Kavanagh will remain Bob Harras's co-plotter for the remainder of his run, and will eventually succeed Harras as AVENGERS' sole writer during the "Crossing" event (which I'm not going to look at for now). We've entered the period where Marvel was broken up into multiple editorial offices, each with its own editor-in-chief -- and Harras filled that role for the X-Men office, so I assume his increased responsibilities meant he had less time to devote to AVENGERS.

But regardless of the reason, we've got Terry Kavanagh on board now, and I'll admit to a little trepadition. Kavanagh is the number one name, in terms of writers, that I associate with the dregs of Marvel's nineties output. I can only hope that longtime writer Harras will rein in Kavanagh's more loathsome tendencies (though the fact that they would ultimately conceive "The Crossing" together suggests that perhaps he won't).