AVENGERS ANNUAL #23

Exciting news! I had wanted to cover AVENGERS ANNUAL #23 as part of this project -- even though it's not by Harras/Epting/Palmer/Deodato/etc. and really has nothing to do with their run, it was published during the "Gatherers" saga and is written and drawn by the legendary AVENGERS creative team of Roy Thomas and John Buscema -- but at the time I wrote up all the posts we just finished, it was not yet reprinted anywhere. However, just this past August, Marvel relesed the AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: THE GATHERING volume, which includes the Annual, and published the issue to Marvel Unlimited as well. So, as we wrap things up, here's one final little gem from the era:

"STRANGERS ON AN ASTRAL PLANE"
Writer Roy Thomas | Artist: John Buscema
Letterer: Susan Crespi | Colorist: John Kalisz
Flake: Ralph Macchio | Assistant Flake: Matt Idelson | Snowflake: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: Somewhere in an empty dimension, the visages of Loki and Pluto meet and hatch a plot for revenge on Odin and Zeus by killing their respective sons, Thor and Hercules. Pluto agrees to kill the former while Loki deals with the latter. At Avengers Mansion, the Avengers -- Hercules, Giant-Man, Vision, and Crystal -- conduct an impromptu trianing session while Captain America takes a nap. Eventually, Hercules leaves to go on a date with a pair of beautiful women. Meanwhile, Loki heads to the realm of Tartarus, where, at Pluto's suggestion, he liberates the villain called Typhon, along with three of Typhon's fellow prisoners.

The villains ambush Hercules at the restaurant, but his communicard is inadverently activated as he falls unconscious. The Avengers arrive; however Typhon and his cohorts escape with Hercules. Vision suspects that Typhon's hatred of Zeus means he will try to execute Hercules in front of his father, and Thunderstrike uses his enchanted mace to attempt to warp the Avengers to Mount Olympus. But Typhon makes a stop in Hades, where he dunks Hercules in the River Lethe, which renders the Lion of Olympus an amnesiac. Typhon tricks Hercules into believing Zeus is his enemy, and then the group heads to Olympus, where Typhon makes a beeline for the Promethean Flame. He plunges into it and retrieves a magical axe, causing the flame -- and the lives of the Olympians -- to snuff out instantaneously.

The Avengers arrive on Olympus and battle Typhon's cohorts, but Captain America makes it past them and challenges Typhon himself. Hercules comes to Typhon's defense and fights Cap, forcing the super soldier to taunt Hercules into plunging both of them into Olympus's river -- which somehow restores Hercules's memory. He rescues Captain America from the roiling waters and then returns to battle Typhon. Cap grabs Typhon's axe and passes it to the Avengers, who arrive just in time to throw the axe back into the enchanted brazier which reignites the Promethean Flame. Reborn, Zeus banishes Typhon and his friends back to Pluto's realm, and Pluto soon plans to carry out his half of his bargain with Loki by making an attempt on Thor's life. Meanwhile, the Avengers return to Earth.

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.

WOLVERINE & GAMBIT: VICTIMS

"PART ONE: IN HARM'S WAY" | "PART TWO: IN DEEP"
"PART THREE: NO WAY OUT" | "PART FOUR: A WOMAN SCORNED"
Words and Pictures: Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale
Lettering: Richard Starking and Comicraft | Colors: Gregory Wright
Separations: Digital Chameleon (issues 1 & 2) & Malibu's Hues (issues 3 & 4)
Editor: Mark Powers | Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

Come with me now to the nineties, a decade extremely near to my comic book reading heart but one which I've covered very little (if at all?) since beginning this blog. In 1995, the X-Men were in a state of flux. The post-Chris Claremont era's status quo had changed somewhat following the "Age of Apocalypse" crossover, and it was an exciting time to be an X-fan. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters had moved to Massachusetts under the stewardship of Banshee and the reformed Emma Frost. The name "Onslaught" (Who was he? What was he?) was on everyone's lips. And Wolverine was devolving by the day into a feral shadow of his former self.

Which brings us to VICTIMS, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. At the time Loeb was the regular writer of both X-MAN and CABLE. Over at DC, he had teamed with artist Sale on a handful of projects including three well-regarded BATMAN: HAUNTED KNIGHT Halloween one-shots, but, aside from a short annual backup story starring Bishop (more on that below), this was the duo's first work for Marvel.

Loeb and Sale use Wolverine's deteriorating humanity as the springboard for their story, as Gambit learns that an old friend in the London police is the latest victim in a string of modern day "Jack the Ripper" murders. Gambit heads to England to investigate and runs afoul of the law, as well as Wolverine, who is apparently the killer.