#*screaming at the inevitable part where one of the turtles gets thrown through a window*

[crystallizabethine]

I wish good will and patience upon the people who will be in the theater with me on Mutant Mayhem opening night, because I know I'm going to be so freaking annoying and autistic throughout the whole movie.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #203: Night of the Crawlers

January, 1981

Okay so this is a weird one.

And I’m not just talking about Wonder Man and Beast tussling with Puanepsion from Biscuit Hammer.

So Wonder Man and Beast were absent last issue, probably to better sync up the paperback novel and the comic adaptation.

Jocasta wasn’t able to locate them due to Ultron’s jamming and they never came back to the mansion after Wonder Man got fired from his shitty TV job. So where did they go?

It was kind of inevitable that we fill in that narrative gap but it didn’t necessarily have to be in Avengers. It might have been in another book and the only explanation readers of only Avengers would have gotten is ‘Check out this month’s Tales To Delight And Wow, true believers! ‘Nuff said!’

But obviously, that filling in happens here in Avengers. And its weird that it has all of the feeling of being a fill-in or filler issue when its written by the current Avengers writer David Michelinie.

I’ll get into why it feels like filler but damn this is a weird one.

I’ve covered most of the LAST TIME stuff so we start with the Avengers returning via giant windowed Quinjet to the mansion after their Ultron adventure.

After all that nonsense all they want are hot baths, cool drinks, and then to pass the hell out.

I guess the design for the Quinjet has stabilized because this is what its been looking like for a while.

After landing, the Avengers discuss some of the recent-

DEAR LORD VISION WHATS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?

It looks like one of the yaranaika faces!

And Wanda, your tiara points are pointier than Batman’s ears OR shoulders!

Jocasta, you’ve sprouted some rivets!

Okay so the writer may be the same but we’ve gone from George Perez to Carmine Infantino and Carmine evidently has different ideas on how to draw the characters. I.e. they all kind of look off model.

Which contributes to the weird feeling that this book has so well done?

Anyway, where was I?

Iron Man and Captain America discuss how they just fucking left Ultron in the heavy metal plant. I mean sure he’s stuck under a blobby Ultron shaped shell of solid adamantium and can’t go anywhere but still.

Dig a hole and plant him in the hole!

He has a molecular rearranger that he uses to manipulate his own adamantium so maybe he can do something and escape! I don’t actually know how he gets out of this one but better safe than sorry! You’ll be sorry either way but you’ll be sorrier if it was something easily preventable rather than comic book nonsense like him having hypnotized Tony Stark off-panel!

Cap, pointy Wanda, and yaranaika Vision all head off to sleep until 7 in the afternoon.

No rest for the unintentionally wicked as Iron Man decides to use his downtime repairing the damage he did to Jocasta under Ultron’s influence.

But he discovers that Jocasta is already up and about, having been repaired by Jarvis.

Which sounds implausible but Jocasta wasn’t totally incapacitated by Iron Man’s hypnotized treachery so she was able to walk Jarvis through repairing her.

You go, Jocasta! Get by with a little help with your friends!

She and Jarvis do regret that she wasn’t fixed in time to either helped in battle or tracked down Wonder Man and Beast to bring them in as reinforcements.

Which makes Wasp wonder where those two are?

Now lets imagine the scene gets all wiggly as we go for a SCENE TRANSITION AND FLASHBACK COMBO.

Surprisingly, Beast and Wonder Man were not off getting crazy drunk like last time, right before the Red Ronin stuff.

They just... got lost somehow. On the way back from the studio.

Beast, a lifelong inhabitant of New York apparently and also the streets are numbered, has managed to get so turned around that he doesn’t even recognize a single landmark.

But he spots some street toughs loitering while carrying baseball bats and chains and thinks ‘hey those types always know their way around’ and asks them for directions.

The armed youths are also apparently jumpy, call Beast a ‘Crawler’ and start hitting him with a chain.

Now apparently Crawler is not a new slur for mutants. They’ve just completely mistaken Beast for something that looks nothing like him and does not in fact talk or ask for directions to an uptown bus.

That’s how jumpy they are.

The fight wouldn’t have been much of a fight had either of the heroes fought for real or if Wonder Man had done anything other than just lift up two of the toughs by their collars. But the ‘fight’ ends when Wonder Man calls Beast Beast and the toughs realize that these aren’t Crawlers, obviously. OBVIOUSLY. They’re Avengers!

They apologize for the violence, saying that things have been tense around the neighborhood since the Crawlers showed up.

And since the word has been thrown around a few times, Beast asks what a Crawler even is.

Lenny, the street tough: “A Crawler is scum, mister, that’s what it is. Scum that don’t even walk like a man. Scum that steals things, like food, an’ blankets... an’ children!”

Street tough Deuce asks Lenny whether they should get these Avengers to help them but Lenny dismisses the idea. They already asked for the police’s help and the cops laughed right in their faces.

So clearly they have to take care of their own neighborhood clearly.

And they head off into the night to loiter on other street corners and accidentally assault other people, I presume.

Before Beast and Wonder Man can absorb any of what just happened, a small child approaches them.

She introduces herself as Juanita Lopez, sister of Hugo, the kid taken by the Crawlers.

She explains that she and her brother are very close because their parents didn’t approve of them having friends. But about a week or two ago, Hugo began going off to play by himself. And around that same time there were a lot of break-ins at stores and markets. This was when rumors started of monsters that moved heavily and close to the ground - the Crawlers.

Juanita was worried about Hugo so she followed him, as ya do, and found him hanging out with a Crawler in a derelict building.

She screamed, as ya do, and the Crawler ran down a manhole.

Juanita took Hugo home but that night... he disappeared!

And then Juanita’s mom shows up and slaps her one for talking to strangers.

Juanita’s mom: “Hugo has run away. He will return when he gets hungry. Now come, you’ve work to do!”

And then the mom drags Juanita off into the fog. Which has been an ever present thing and maybe why the street toughs mistook Beast for a Crawler.

Anyway, with how odd everything is, Beast suggests that he and Wonder Man go wading through the sewers looking for trouble.

But first Beast undresses down to only his underwear. Because why ruin a perfectly good outfit? And also because aesthetic.

They soon discover a hole in the sewer wall where someone or something broke through.

Possibly turtles but that's unsubstantiated.

And heading through the hole they discover someone has placed torches along the walls lighting the way.

Curious and also more curious.

AND THEN THEY ARE SUDDENLY JUMPED BY CRAWLERS

but only for a panel so its all cool.

Hugo tells the Crawlers to “leave the anglos alone!” and then recognizes them as Avengers. Which is super cool to a kid who lives in a sewer. Real superheroes! Wow!

Hugo takes the two Avengers back to his sweet sewer pad and offers them sodas but Wonder Man just wants a tall refreshing drink of ‘will someone explain whats going on here?’

Prompted no doubt by a Crawler manspreading right in his peripheral vision.

So Hugo explains it all.

So some scientists were working on creating anaerobic life that could colonize space without needing air. But science is hard (and Hugo speculates that maybe they weren’t too bright) so they just dumped all of their chemicals down the drain because this was a super illegal operation. And then the anaerobic chemicals mixed with other illegally dumped chemicals and somehow this chemical mix created the Crawlers.

SCIENCE!

Or something that resembles it if you squint and are maybe also high.

Is mixing together random chemicals really the best way to create a brand new life form to colonize space for you?

It is with SCIENCE!

Anyway. Per Hugo at least, the Crawlers were smart and realized that they couldn’t live where the people are so made a home down in the sewers.

Not specified is whether they hung out with the Morlocks, Ninja Turtles, or any of the MANY inhabitants of New York’s sewers.

At night they would sneak up topside to steal things they needed like food and candles. Because they may not need to breath but apparently they needed food. Despite the lack of mouths.

One night while stealing they ran into Hugo and they instantly felt some kind of connection. Loneliness, probably.

So then Hugo and the Crawlers became best friends! Oh how they frolicked in the sewer water!

Hugo: “Anyway, the Crawlers, hey treated me real good, an’ we had a lot o’ fun together. We was simpatico, y’know? So I decided to come live with ‘em, an’ what’s wrong wit’ that?”

Live your own truth, man.

Wonder Man asks the very pertinent question of how Hugo knows all this about the Crawlers when they don’t even have mouths. But apparently “Crawlers don’t need mouths -- they talk wit’ their minds!”

Yeah.

Suddenly the street toughs burst in to ‘save’ Hugo and ‘violence’ the Crawlers.

Or the ‘street dudes’ as Beast dubs them.

The street dudes aren’t actually that effective a vigilante gang because the Crawlers just start kicking their collective asses.

They were bred to cope with all kinds of gravity, Beast speculates based on no evidence.

They weren’t bred for anything. They were random chemicals dumped into a sewer that mixed with other random chemicals. Its a wonder that any part of their original design manifested.

But kicking the asses of the street dudes has the Crawlers in such a frenzy that Beast grabs Hugo and runs off. Wonder Man skedaddles too. As do the street dudes.

Hugo protests that the Crawlers would never hurt him but when a blue gorilla man tells you to git you git.

The two Avengers bring Hugo back home and we instantly see why Hugo thought living in the sewer was preferable.

Hugo’s mom: “I will tell you what is happening, jovencito! You are going to do the chores you have not done for the three days you have been hiding! And then you will go to bed without your supper!”

Hugo: “But, mamacita! I wasn’t -- !”

Hugo’s mom: “Mocoso! Don’t you dispute my word!”

And then she slaps him.

And then she calls Beast and Wonder Man freaks and tells them to gtfo.

Beast: “Sheesh. It’s a wonder Hugo didn’t take off before he did!”

Wonder Man: “I know, Beast. This isn’t exactly what you’d call a happy ending.”

Meanwhile and confusingly, we see the street dudes marching down the streets carrying dynamite and fire bombs that they stole from the construction company Lenny works at. And now that they know where the Crawlers live, they can “skrag those slimy grubs for good!”

Meanwhile, Wonder Man complains about how unreal this whole evening has been as the fog renders things in weird colors.

Beast: “I know what you mean. I almost expect Rod Serling to step out of the fog any minute and say --”

Juanita:  “Help! P-please!”

Apparently right after the two Avengers left, Hugo climbed out a window and ran away again because why wouldn’t he?

Juanita is worried that the Crawlers will think Hugo an enemy and hurt him.

So time to go sloshing around in the sewer again, I guess.

Geez. If Beast had dried-in sewer stink in his fur no wonder Hugo and Juanita’s mom told him to gtfo. Smelling like that.

Meanwhile, the street dudes go swimming in the gross scum-crusted river.

As you know, street dudes have an impeccable sense of direction so they locate the drainage tunnel that’s adjacent to the Crawler’s lair and plan a bundle of TNT on it with a long enough fuse that they can go into the sewers and herd the Crawlers near the explosion.

Meanwhile, inside the sewers Juanita tries to convince Hugo to return home instead of, y’know, living in a sewer with monsters.

But Hugo flips the script.

Hugo: “Ah, my sister, still you do not understand. This place is a sewer, si -- but is it any filthier, or any less kind, than the world above? Why don’t you stay here with me? The Crawlers do not yell, they do not hurt. This could be our new home, Juanita. Please, say you’ll stay?”

And she looks like she’s seriously considering it when the street dudes burst in and start throwing explosives and yelling about how they’ll rescue the kids.

Holy shit I think they killed that Crawler. I can see Crawler chunks flying...

Beast tries to punch some sense into the dudes but they are beyond logic punches and continue throwing molotov cocktails which ignites the chemical in the water.

Hugo has to watch as his Crawler friends burn alive.

Traumatizing.

But not for long. Because the explosives set outside blow a hole in the sewer drawing all of the sewer water into the equally gross river.

The Crawlers get swept out but so does Hugo.

Juanita begs him to hold onto her but he lets go and is swept out.

Hugo: “Juanita, I... I cannot! These are my friends... and I belong with them. I’m going home, Juanita. Good-byyyyye...”

Okay. So that child is super dead.

The dudes and the Avengers and Juanita climb out of the sewer where they are confronted by Mrs Lopez who yells at Juanita for sneaking off without telling her.

Juanita tries to tell her that Hugo is not coming back but Mrs Lopez just says “Good riddance.”

Well.

Beast threatens to punch her in the face but Juanita asks him not to.

Juanita: “No, senor, please! There are some things that you cannot change! So do not mourn for me -- rejoice for Hugo. For he, senors... is the fortunate one.”

Bleak.

With the thick mists casting everything in weird psychedelic shades, Beast contemplates what just happened.

Beast: “What kind of world is it when a little kid is better off floating out to sea with those monsters instead of going home with his own family!”

Wonder Man: “I don’t know what kind of world it is, Beast. I don’t even know what place this is. Maybe we can find out after we get these punks to the local precinct house and --”

But the street dudes have vanished and Beast suggests that they two likewise.

As the sun rises, the fog and/or mist finally dissipates and Beast and Wonder Man find their way out of labyrinthine backstreets to a familiar intersection.

They even spot a cop and run towards him, which you can do when you are 1) in a comic book, 2) a superhero, and 3) not overly bothered by bullets.

They tell him that they can explain the explosion and fire by the river a little while ago but the cop hasn’t heard of any explosion or fire. And Beast... isn’t explaining it very lucidly.

Beast: “Y’see, there were these anaerobic mutations called “Crawlers” who lived in the sewer, and they were attacked by this mob of street punks who disappeared into thin air and--”

Out of respect for Beast being an Avenger and a large furry blue man, the cop does call to check with dispatch but they say that there have been no disturbances called in from that area.

You’d think that just on the strength of the Avengers’ words, the cop would go check out the story.

If an Avenger tells you an explosion happened they probably know what they’re talking about. Avenger life is like 70% explosions.

Beast wonders loudly right in front of a cop that a kid died tonight and they’re the only ones that know about it. Wonder Man just muses that maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to be and bids the cop adieu.

The cop doesn’t at all react to Beast talking about dead kids. I figure he’s coming off the graveyard shift and in that state of exhaustion where if something doesn’t happen right in front of him it doesn’t exist.

A half hour later, Wasp and Hawkeye enjoy coffee and donuts when Jarvis comes into the kitchen to let them know that Beast and Wonder Man have returned and are currently resting in the ground-level lounge. Y’know, to differentiate from the other lounges this literal mansion has.

Wasp and Hawkeye go to rub in the fact that they got to fight Ultron but they find that Beast and Wonder Man are sound asleep on the couch. They’re even sort of sleeping on each other. Kind of cute.

Wasp: “Well, how do you like that? We save the world, and they act like it was them who’d had the great adventure!”

Hawkeye: “Yeah, I guess some people just don’t know when they’ve got it easy...!”

Hahahahahahahahahaha, well then!

Beast, why are your solo-ish filler-ish stories such bonkers ridiculousness? Between this and the Martyr Perplex, I’m thinking maybe we need to forbid you from ever having adventures away from a team.

What even happened here? All the events of this issue were just kind of debunked on the penultimate page so we don’t even know if any of it happened.

And with the weird mist painting everything in psychedelic colors and things just happening, there's this feeling of unreality over all of it.

It doesn’t feel like a dream because it lacks a dream logic. And we see stuff from the perspective of not Beast and Wonder Man.

It does feel like maybe something that happened once. Events seem to proceed as they would with little input from Beast and Wonder Man who are pulled along for the ride, like a young boy dragged out of a sewer.

There’s this feeling I get that events would have gone as they did even if the Avengers never got involved.

My best guess is that they experienced something like a ghost story, a tragedy that did occur once upon a time.

But there’s not really support for that. There’s not really support for anything except that a weird sequence of events happened and nobody but Beast and Wonder Man experienced it.

Or hey maybe there were just psychotropic drugs in that weird omnipresent fog mist. That’s equally likely!

I don’t know why this story was told. Michelinie evidently wanted to fill in where Beast and Wonder Man were during the Ultron story and I guess credit where its due for writing something truly unique instead of just... some other stock superhero adventure like foiling a bank robbery or something.

Its just so goddamn weird and its such an inconsequential issue that I couldn’t find anyone else really talking about it.

Next time, things are uncomfortable in a different way as we get a two-parter of the Avengers fighting a yellow peril villain from the ‘50s, the Yellow Claw.

Why?

Follow @essential-avengers. Because you think I’m a nice, interesting person or maybe because you like reading about someone reading about Avengers.