#Nebula Kang

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #296: HEARTS of OAK... and HEADS to MATCH!

October, 1988

The Beginning of the END!

Yes, good, let this end.

This run is a bummer.

But hey, the Hearts of Oak... and Heads to Match title is a Pogo reference. That’s fun!

What’s with all the quote titles lately?

Anyway, back to Dr Druid putting Black Knight out of his misery. And mine.

It is a sad state when the Avengers have been reduced down to four and half is trying to kill the other half because Druid is an asshole.

Last times in Avengers: Hoo boy, where to start.

Dr Druid has been having ominous sex dreams about a lady who is secretly Nebula Kang and will later be revealed to be even more secretly Ravonna but its not written like she is now but honestly she’s not written like she’s Nebula either.

Under the influence of sex dreams, Dr Druid undermined Avengers chairwoman Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau, made her stupid herself almost to death, and then used psychic voter fraud to get himself made the new chairman.

Nebula Kang Ravonna needs the Avengers to find some super-duper-secret-weapon that the Council of Kangs is looking for. Playing on Dr Druid’s arrogance and power fantasies, she has him pretty thoroughly under her thumb and he can keep Black Knight and She-Hulk under his own thumb. But Thor resists the psychic whammy so Nebula Kang tries to get Thor killed by robot T. Rex from the future that’s more than meets the eye.

She-Hulk and Black Knight shake the psychic control when Druid tells them to ignore Thor’s calls for assistance. Black Knight manages to escape and help Thor beat the robot T. Rex notTransformer but She-Hulk is left in Dr Druid and Nebula Kang’s clutches.

Also, Black Knight fell out of an airplane and into a lake and is under the effects of a turbo curse so he had to go to the hospital.

And Thor isn’t the type to patiently sit in the waiting room reading old New Yorkers.

After Thor finishes walking his way through hospital staff trying to get him to chill, he finds Black Knight’s hospital bed empty.

A doctor shows up, lightly chides Thor for not chilling, and tells Thor that since Black Knight’s life wasn’t in danger but he was too dangerous to keep in a hospital bed, they let him go.

He’s out back, in the parking lot. Being accosted by reporters who have somehow already heard about the thing where Black Knight’s body is as sharp as a sword.

Apparently, between issues, Black Knight sliced right through a hospital bed and several floors to land in the basement.

That sure would have been fun to ACTUALLY SEE.

Bah.

Thor has not much patience for the first amendment.

Thor: “Better a company of Frost Giants than a gagle of reporters!”

He swings Mjolnir around to kick up a strong wind and obscure himself and Dane, Black Knight, from view.

Thor asks Dane how he’s doing. And Dane recap/confirms that his curse is still cursing him.

He’s fused into his armor and his hand slices through stuff like a sword. He can control it if he’s awake though. In case you wanted to be a clever dick, flipping through the pages and going hey why isn’t he cutting through stuff there, why isn’t Dr Druid filleted like a fish?

Oh. Speaking of which.

Black Knight tells Thor that Dr Druid is a dick, he’s using mind control on the Avengers, he tried to stop Dane from coming to Thor’s aid, and that he has She-Hulk bound to a chair.

Thor and Black Knight hammer-throw-fly off to Hydrobase and the reporter who is a winking reference to Superman shows up again, although his hair is the wrong color.

Hi, Clark, random journalist.

In Simonson’s Thor run, which is actually good, Thor in his new secret identity of guy in glasses and ponytail bumped into a journalist named Clark. They both almost sorta seemed to recognize each other.

So a journalist named Clark saying that he imagines Thor puts his hair in a ponytail when he’s off-duty is an extension of that joke.

And now I’ve explained it and its surely just as funny as if you’d gotten the reference without help.

Back at Hydrobase, Dr Druid, Nebula Kang, She-Hulk, and Jarvis hi Jarvis! see the CNN report showing Thor and Black Knight leaving the hospital.

Nebula Kang is basically in-charge now, as she starts making plans on how to deal with Thor not being as dead as she'd prefer.

She asks She-Hulk if she can handle Thor.

She-Hulk: "No problem. Those blond brains are strictly Stone Age vintage. It would never occur to him to watch out for a woman!"

??? What

And Dr Druid will handle Black Knight. Er, I mean, he'll handle correcting Black Knight's misunderstanding of the situation! Haha we're all friends here!

Meanwhile, god dammit we're still doing the Council- my mistake, the Cross-Time Kang Korps plot.

Beard Kang is announcing to the Kollected Kangs that this entire organization is a waste of time and that instead of doing anything productive, they've all been canoodling with Nebula Kang. Yes, that's right. All of them.

The best and maybe only good thing that comes out of this entire subplot is that when Beard Kang brings this up, all of the Kangs try to look nonchalant and then blame every other Kang for being a horny idiot while claiming to be above reproach themselves.

Beard Kang: "I can't stand it. The cream of the time travelers. Without an ounce of brain among them."

Beard Kang takes Fred Kang and another Kang who the fuck can tell what his cute nickname is and heads off to handle the Nebula Kang problem himself. Because, again, this entire large Kang Kollective are a bunch of horny idiots who think with their dicks.

Are you enjoying getting to do a Kang story, Simonson? Is this everything you imagined it would be?

I'm sour because nothing done so far has justified bring Kang back so soon after the last big Kang story that also used a big Kang organization.

Back at the A-Plot, Thor and Black Knight arrive at Hydrobase.

The Heavy Metal story made it look like it had way more buildings and none of those quite look like Avengers Mansion, which was airlifted to the island.

Black Knight warns that Dr Druid will be expecting them but Thor says its no big because they've got a Thor. It's him. He's the Thor.

Plus, the Avengers STILL haven't fully rebuilt from the attack of Heavy Metal so most of the defense systems aren't online for Druid to use against them.

Then they see She-Hulk standing over a knocked out Dr Druid.

This would work a lot better on the audience if we hadn't seen She-Hulk planning how to beat up Thor with Nebula Kang.

She-Hulk claims she busted free of that bondage chair and whalloped Druid but good.

She-Hulk: "He wasn't much of a gentleman while you boys were gone. So I didn't feel like being much of a lady."

BUT TWAS RUSE!

Dr Druid jumps up and FZAPTs the back of Black Knight's neck, claiming it will make him much more reasonable.

While Thor is shocked by the sudden attack on his pal, his friend, his rotten soldier, She-Hulk puts a device on Thor's neck as well.

Black Knight tries to fight back against Dr Druid but the doctor just turns up the power on the device and Black Knight falls with a FZZAPT!

Thor tries to fight She-Hulk but the device make him uncoordinated and she's able to knock him around.

She-Hulk: "I've been waiting a long time to knock the arrogance out of you, Thor!"

??? Have you?

She-Hulk holds Thor down long enough for Dr Druid to put additional devices on the thunder god. A total of three "mindbenders."

Dr Druid: "When they awaken, they will be real Avengers at last! Completely obedient!"

Eat a stump, Druid.

She-Hulk is skeptical that the mindbenders will work on someone as stubborn as Thor but blue Nebula Kang assures She-Hulk that the mindbenders work great. Why, they're working so well on She-Hulk (that explains that), the Avenger wouldn't hesitate to jump off a cliff if Nebula asked.

Meanwhile? Beard Kang and co are watching what just happened on a monitor. He's very concerned that Nebula Kang has already taken over the Avengers.

Because, dammit, the Cross-Time Kang Korps was supposed to be doing that!

The Korp really does suck ass at its one mission.

Fred Kang asks for more information since he did bring Nebula's treachery to Beard Kang's notice. He could be more helpful if he knew more.

Beard Kang agrees that Fred has earned the right to know.

Beard Kang: "We have discovered something so big, so dangerous, that even we Kangs could not rival it for power. A Celestial. A renegade Celestial who fell from grace but not from power... and who has, through means we cannot begin to guess at, constructed a weapon mighty enough to threaten the entire space-time structure of the Omniverse! It must be a wonderful thing... and WE want it!

I hate omniverse as a term. Prefer multi-verse. I think omniverse might be the multi-verse of multi-verses but that’s really way too big to be stakes.

Anyway.

This supposed paragon of weapons is located 20 years in the future of where the Avengers comics are in this issue. And in that period of 20 years in the future, there is a massive time bubble "some fifteen years long"!

Cool. That's. Entirely unhelpful as a descriptor.

Huh. Just struck me how history and/or comic book plots repeat themselves.

In the current Avengers comics, the big plot is Kang wanting to get some secret prize hidden in a time bubble and needing the Avengers' help to do it.

Someone must specifically be a Simonson's Avengers fan... but why?

Anyway, there's so much text. The exposition dump is unbelievable.

The Cross-Time Kang Korp Council Whatever got images of the time bubble at the cost of three Kangs. Apparently by the three Kangs driving a ship right into the bubble and exploding.

There's weird probability flux around the bubble so that trying to enter it causes the violent destruction of the craft or for it to just cease to exist.

What the Kang Council Korp Afterschool Club knows is that the only people known to succeed in entering the bubble are the Avengers.

Which Avengers? The current Avengers? Who knows. Probability flux. But definitely a team of Avengers yup definitely won't be only very technically true!

The only thing Beard Kang knows for sure about the group of definitely Avengers is that Thor is with them.

And if Nebula Kang kills Thor for being too hard to control... well, the Kangs will never get the super-duper-pooper weapon thats at the heart of the time bubble.

So here's a weird twist. The Kangs have to protect the Avengers!

Huh! Weird!

(If you'd led with that and had A Kang hanging around the team, I might be more enthused about this plotline, gonna be honest. Kang has to protect the Avengers is a great premise.)

Back at Hydrobase, Nebula Kang is telling the Avengers the score.

Nebula Kang: "You, my salves, you are the key! The Kangs were prepared to wait until the Avengers gathered themselves together to unravel the enigma of the mysterious time-bubble. The Kangs think because they can travel through time, there is no need to move quickly, to strike when the iron is hot! They think they can simply wait until the fire is ready! But I have seized the moment and by the time the Kangs realize what is happening... it will be too late, even for them!"

Mindbent Thor urges that they delay no longer and go get Nebula that weapon!

Of course, he also doesn't really know how they'd even go about that. Mjolnir can't time travel anymore right now.

But Nebula Kang boasts that she's a Mistress of Time because of all the Kangs she slept with and stole technology from.

Nebula Kang: "The corridors of all ages are mine to walk as I will. And it was all so easy. You'd think that none of the Kangs had ever seen a woman before."

This is the plot Simonson decided to bring Nebula back for.

Nebula Kang further exposits (because villains love exposition) that she didn't know about the Council of Cross-Time Kangs (I thought it was the Cross-Time Kang Korp, make up your fucking mind) until she met her first Kang and knew that she could exploit the goober and his technology. And since the Kang was one of the council, she found out about more Kangs that she could seduce.

So she killed her first Kang and took his place.

Real quick though.

I guess this is where Nebula ended up after the Beyonder teleported her.

But she doesn't mention the Beyonder or having been fighting the Avengers previously or that she was teleported to a random space-time and just happened to run into Kang.

If this is picking up Nebula after the previous story, it doesn't feel like it! It doesn't even feel like specifically Nebula, who was mostly a space pirate trading on Thanos' name and his war crime of a spaceship to exploit the Skrull civil war.

Now she's sex infiltrating a secret Kang council that shouldn't exist based on the last Kang story and seeking a weapon that can threaten the OMNIVERSE.

I'm not saying that a character can't shift like that but there's a disconnect. We don't even know for sure that it was being teleported by the Beyonder that threw Nebula in Kang's path.

Which is a shame because getting thrown across space by an unfathomable cosmic entity in a silly outfit after getting embarrassed by the Avengers could be great motivation for Nebula to want to up her game. Get a weapon so powerful that no one could ever mess with her again. And if she can mess with the Avengers on her way, so much the better.

But we get an unexplained Nebula shift into sexmurdering her way to cosmic power and a time prophecy that the Avengers can get into a time bubble for some reason.

I guess it is a good thing that this will be retconned. Because its not a great use of your Nebulas.

Anyway.

On top of all the time technology that she stole with seduction, she seduced information about the Great Weapon and what was needed to get it from the Council and/or Korp.

Maybe there's something to the idea that Nebula Kang is motivated to prevent further Beyonder-esque humiliations because she goes on a rant.

Nebula Kang: "Throughout the ages, power has rested in the hands of the many! The greatest armies, the strongest armadas, the most powerful airships... And though they are terrible to reckon with, such forces are ultimately vulnerable to destruction from within. In time, the struggle of individuals to control such great power ruptures the use of the power! And the entity collapses under its own weight. But what if the power, the living power itself, were in the hands of a single individual and her mindbent slaves? Instead of a chain of command, there is only the word... the word of a living and vengeful god! And the word would be 'death'! In my hands, no being in all the Omniverse would be safe! Neither great fleets of starships nor impregnable fortresses of adamantium would be proof against me!"

How do you know what adamantium is?

Anyway.

I think that's a Cobra man, perhaps a commander obscured by falling debris. After the notTransformers reference the previous issue, I'm not discounting it.

Thor asks for more information about this mysterious weapon but Nebula isn't trusting that information to anyone, not even to mindbent slaves.

She does say that she may have to destroy a universe, to prove that she'd do it.

Does that work as a threat? People can't usually see the destruction of other universes. You can see a nearby city get razed or hear about a calamity befalling another country but its very hard to hear about another universe.

It took a bit of digging for the people in Marvel's march to Secret Wars 2015 to realize that's what they were dealing with.

Nebula Kang: "That weapon is the birthright of the granddaughter of Thanos... and I shall have it!"

Then, Nebula Kang puts Black Knight in charge of refitting a Quinjet with her stolen technology.

Thor is helping carry a variable locus generator over to the Quinjet but Dr Druid yoinks it out of his hands with PSYCHIC POWERS so he can be smug.

Dr Druid: "You see, Avengers, the measure of a man is the development of his psychic facilities... And those of Doctor Druid have been developed to the peak of perfection. Which is why I am the leader of this group. Mind over matter, my dear thunder god. As simple as that."

Which leads Thor to think bitterly about how Dr Druid is showing him up in front of the Nebula, who they all serve.

Even though they're all being controlled by Nebula, Thor is still tired of Dr Druid's shit.

BACK AT THE KANG KLUBHOUSE, the Kangs have decided to send some Kangs to stop Nebula Kang.

They gotta send some Kangs because the Time Bubble is making it hard to spy on the time period she’s messing around in.

The council chooses Beard Kang to represent the Wisdom of the Kangs (lol), Fred Kang to represent the knowledge of the era, and Kang from Earth Mesozoic-24 because he’s one of their finest warriors.

IS HE A DINOSAUR?

Under his mask, I mean. He looks like a generic Kang. Its Beard Kang and two generic Kangs. I know that one of them is Specialist Boy Fred but I can’t pick him out of a crowd.

Beard Kang says they need to avoid alerting the Avengers to Kangs interfering in the time stream because they don’t know how the Avengers will eventually get into the Time Bubble or even which ones will. They don’t want to risk injuring or killing any of the Avengers.

One imagines that interference might also change how time plays out in other ways.

(I wonder if this explains what eventually happens)

Beard Kang also says that since Nebula Kang betrayed the Cross-Time Kang Corps Klubhouse Corporation so she gets the worst of punishments. They’re gonna remove all traces of her from history.

Take that.

Meanwhile, on Earth-616 Time: When this comic was published.

The Avengers and Nebula Kang are all in the Quinjet getting ready to leave.

As security/a dick move, she orders Jarvis to stay where he is until they come back. And to not reveal anything to anyone. “You will die of a heart attack if necessary first.”

Fiend. Evil.

Jarvis is a delightful guy and you are a rude.

The Quinjet skreacckt! BOOM!s away with its super special FTL drive.

And immediately after, the three Kangs show up.

Mesozoic Kang is fascinated that this is a Jarvis because the Jarvis he knows is so different.

Beard Kang calls Mesozoic Kang a lizard SO I GUESS HE IS A DINOSAUR?

Would it have killed to give him a cooler design than generic then?

One of the two generic Kangs demands Jarvis tell them where the Avengers are but Jarvis refuses. The other generic Kang suggests breaking the mindbender that is mind bending Jarvis’ mind but Beard Kang says that if they didn’t properly decrypt it, the removal would kill him and they still wouldn’t know anything.

And Beard Kang’s time probe can’t find the Avengers because they’re hidden by multiple probabilities. Probably because of the infinite improbability drive variable locus generator.

Beard Kang declares well dangit they’ll just have to go after the Avengers no matter the danger!

Not sure how they’re going to do that if they don’t know where the Avengers are but hey. But hey. Kangs work in dumb ways.

Meanwhile in the future, yes meanwhile in the future, the time turbulence buffets the Quinjet.

It even looks like the Quinjet will be shaken apart.

Why, there’s even a red light on the left existential turbine! The Quinjet drops to 94% existence! Good thing they can increase power to the redundancy generator!

I’m sure this all makes sense.

But with Nebula Kang’s insistence that they either make it through or die, they do make it through.

Not through the Time Bubble, no. Not yet. But through the time turbulence around the Time Bubble.

That’s sure. A bubble.

I guess.

In fairness, I don’t know how you’d visualize a bubble, in time, and also in space so it may as well look like stained glass. More interesting to look at.

The new issue ends this specific arc but you know how it is. We’re alternating over to West Coast Avengers.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because what if this story suddenly gets really, REALLY good? Its hypothetically possible! Like and reblog and comment, maybe. I love the feedback.

[firelance2361]

All Of History Is My Weapon

With the news that Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is no more, here’s a follow-up piece I did for what was hoping to have seen if they continued the Kang Storyline.

{Basically I was hoping for a Secret-Invasion-esque storyline with The Council of Kangs replacing the Sacred Timeline’s heroes with their own more dangerous versions, sowing distrust among the Avengers before invading and conquering the universe}

I know it’s a long shot, but it probably would have been cool. And before I forget, here’s the lineup for the Kang Collective seen here.

Peter Parker/Timespinner

Sue Storm/Kang the Conqueror

Tony Stark/Iron Prince

Kamala Khan/Kamala Kang

Nathaniel Richards/Kang the Conqueror

Peter Quill/Star-Kang

Nebula/Kang-Nebula

Nathaniel Richards/Kid Immortus

Janet Van Dyne/Worldkiller Wasp

Let me know what you guys think and I hope you like it!

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

Nebula has been drawn differently in literally every one of the appearances of this arc so far... now she is suddenly a blonde in body armor? Also, Druid continues to be a complete chump...

[johnvenus]

All I want in the MCU is a room full pf Johnathan Majors'arguing which one of them got catfished by Nebula (yes, *that* Nebula).

[l-just-want-to-see]

You’ll never recover from that kind of devotion.

Jason Grace: on family and the lack thereof, wolves that really are dogs, remembering and healing and the sudden inevitability of being remembered.

I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / War of the Foxes, Richard Siken / You’re on Your Own, Kid, Taylor Swift / Trees II, McCafferty / Mowgli Taken in by the Wolves, 1937 / Space Dog, Alan Shapiro / Moon Song, Phoebe Bridgers / A Hymn to Childhood, Li-Young Lee / Susan Smith, wych elm / The Blood of Olympus, Rick Riordan / Saint Bernard, Lincoln / Lupa Capitolina in Ludus, Romania / The Odyssey, Homer (trans. by Emily Wilson) / quadruple dog art by @mxmorggo on Instagram / Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami / The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan / House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski / Vulnerability, @/kazerad / Euripides, Elektra / Jason seizing the Golden Fleece, Charles Natoire / Thalia (Grace) / I can’t find the source… / My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult / Seam, Tarfia Faizullah / In the Blood, John Mayer / The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, Michael S. Harper, Anthony Walton / Memento Mori, Crywank / And My Father’s Love Was Nothing Next To God’s Will, Amatullah Bourdon / Family Line, Conan Gray / Franz Kafka’s letters to his father / Kronos/Saturn, Peter Paul Rubens / Wolf and pup / American Teenager, Ethel Cain / LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK, Daniel Lavery and Cecilia Corrigan / Scott Street, Phoebe Bridgers / Tumblr, @/inanotherunivrse / Tomatoes, Shane Koyczan / Pinterest / Tumblr, @/heavensghost / Tumblr, @/tagdevilish / through sickness and in health… by Angelina Hajducky on Instagram / Jason (given name), Wikipedia / Human Acts, Han Kang / The gas pillar in the Carina Nebula, NASA / Tumblr, @/roach-works / Not Strong Enough, boygenius / Grit, silas denver melvin / Herakles, Euripides (trans. by Anne Carson) / Pelias sending forth Jason, 1880 / The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself, Brianna Albers / The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan / Wolf in White Van, John Darnielle / The Oresteia, Aeschylus / Tumblr, @/orpheuslament / Anecdote of the Pig, Tory Adkisson / The Burning Maze, Rick Riordan / I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / Icarus, The Crane Wives / The Three Graces, Edouard Bisson / For Your Own Good, Leah Horlick

[sserpente]

A/N: Request from @vampirexsoldier​ and based on an idea I got watching the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Enjoy, everyone!

Words: 3412 Warnings: vampire!Reader, blood, feeding, burns/fire

“That’s a terrible idea! What if she finds out?” Peter Quill bellowed with utter outrage in his voice.

Gamora’s proposal wasn’t entirely bad. The question as to How do you keep a dangerous vampire—you—who could lash out and kill everyone in seconds in check? had hung in the air unanswered until Gamora chuckled and spoke up. “You make her fall in love, how else?”

And because it was rather unlikely anyone was up for the task or even emotionally available for that matter, everyone’s eyes promptly travelled over to Mantis. She shrugged with her eyes widened.

“Okay, even if that works… who do you want to make her fall in love with? I don’t volunteer, I don’t wanna end up as Dracula’s supper!”

“Who’s Dracula?” Drax asked. Quill rolled his eyes.

Surprisingly though, it was Thor who spoke up next, a sly grin playing on his lips. “My brother.”

“Your brother is Dracula?”

“What? No. That’s not what I meant.”

“Loki? You wanna make her fall in love with the guy who almost took over Earth a few years ago? That’s not a recipe for chaos, that’s a recipe for disaster,” Quill said.

“Loki’s changed since then, Quill. And I think… I think having someone infatuated with him will do him good. Besides, I think she is his type for him to help keep up the act. She’s quite… mean.”

Gamora chuckled once more. “He won’t like that if he finds out though.”

“Are you serious? You’re seriously gonna do this?” Quill threw his hands.

“I am Groot!”

Thor’s eyes widened. “He’s what?”

“Right behind you, you oaf.” Loki’s voice slid through the air like one of his daggers and instantly, the room fell silent. Even Nebula who had elected not to partake in the conversation at all looked up to see what would happen next.

“Loki!” Thor called out innocently, turning on his heel to face him. Everyone in the room could tell that Loki’s hand must have been itching to wipe that shit-eating grin from Thor’s face.

“You heard everything we said, didn’t you?” the God of Thunder asked then.

“That I did.” He was calm. Perhaps a little too calm, even.

“So… so what do you think?”

“I think you’ve lost your mind but that’s not new.”

“Loki, please. If… I mean, if she tries anything, we’ll know you’re strong enough to defend yourself.”

“She’s like a ticking time bomb and until we can rule out she doesn’t work with the enemy, we have to… keep her at bay,” Gamora added matter-of-factly.

“I agree with my sister. She’s dangerous.”

Loki let his gaze wander over the others. Then, he sighed. “Fine. But you…” He pointed at Mantis who flinched in response. “…You lift that magic as soon as we’re off this ship.”

Thor patted his brother on the shoulder when she started nodding frantically.

“You’re staring, Trickster.” Your feet were crossed and propped up on the dashboard, careful not to press any buttons and turn off autopilot or something silly like that. You’d been engrossed in a journal Quill and Nebula had picked up from that abandoned spaceship. “Still don’t trust me?”

Technically, they didn’t want you to read it. They didn’t trust you. You couldn’t blame them really. While none of their suspicions about you were true, for you certainly wouldn’t work for someone who called himself Kang, they were right to fear you at least.

People had messed with you too much in the past. It had changed you—you, and your morals. Taking a life here and there and draining someone of their blood to guarantee your own survival might not have been noble but sometimes necessary. Besides, it was hilarious to watch people cower before you.

Looking up from the journal, you met Loki’s blue gaze observing you curiously, and tilted your head.

“Trust is for dogs.”

You’d rather not go into the story of how you ended up on the Guardians of the Galaxy’s spaceship in the first place but they were a means to an end. You needed to get far away from those disgusting demon poachers who had wanted to harvest your fangs as if you were a chicken laying eggs.

In return, you’d offered them your help with whatever it was they were planning on doing against Kang. Loki was by far the one who trusted you the least. It was funny, really. He was outrageously hot and his smile, albeit sarcastic and snarky most of the time, had—metaphorically speaking—pierced your heart with an arrow.

Falling in love sounded so ridiculous you hadn’t properly considered it yet. You were a vampire for heaven’s sake. You didn’t fall in love. If anything, you experienced physical attraction and that all too familiar throbbing right between your legs when you imagined your fangs buried in Loki’s neck all the while his cock was buried in you. You’d simply ignore how your heart jumped every time he entered the room.

Loki was walking on very thin ice today. He had recently, so you’d learned, been affiliated with some sort of time police. In some universes… multiverses (to be quite frank you still couldn’t exactly wrap your head around it all) it was Kang who was in charge of this so-called TVA, in others, they were doing everything they could to stop him.

It was a fight you were not about to get involved in any more than necessary but you had to admit, you more than just liked the formal attire he wore whenever he went back there with the help of these silly little time doors.

You’d been dancing around each other for weeks at this point and while the others steered clear of you as best as they could, Loki seemed to somehow always be around you, watching you—probably expecting that as soon as he turned his back on you, you’d go running to Kang or something like that. That, or you’d jump on his back and rip out his throat with your fangs because food was a rarity in the middle of space.

“I can’t say I’m a huge fan of dogs—being a blood-sucking creature of the night and all.”

You had indeed not fed in a while and it was starting to give you quite vivid and filthy daydreams with Loki. The number of positions you had already imagined while you were feeding on him would have had Aphrodite herself blush.

“Right. We’ll be landing on a planet called Solaris tomorrow. Mobius suspects a Kang Variant has taken precedence there.”

“You almost say that like you think I care.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Your skills are amenable. We’ll need you in this fight.”

“Really? You expect me to focus on a fight when you’ll be wearing that? All I can think about is how much I want to grab you by that tie, pull you down to me and kiss you senseless until you beg me to… well.” You winked at him.

Loki swallowed thickly. Taken aback, perhaps, that you so brazenly flirted with him or simply wary of the fact it was a vampire of all beings who was attempting to seduce him.

He opened his mouth but then closed it again without having said anything, making you chuckle triumphantly. “You’re cute when you don’t know what to say. I bet that doesn’t happen a lot.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I mean it, Loki. You’re one attractive god. If I was religious, I’d worship you over Thor anytime.”

The smile he gave you in response didn’t quite reach his eyes. It wasn’t full of suspicion as usual but it wasn’t sarcastic or mischievous either. In fact… you figured it was actually a little sad. Why you practically admitting to him that you’d fall to your knees for him elicited that kind of emotion from him though, you weren’t quite sure.

Perhaps it was for the best. As long as you couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that your heart demanded more from Loki than just his blood and his body yourself, focusing on lust and physical desire was your best bet.

With one final smirk, you returned to reading the journal. Loki made it a point not to leave the room and to instead watch you like a hawk.

And here you were now, part of a fight you had wanted to stay away from. But a promise was a promise and you had honour—you’d keep your word, if anything because that meant you got to spend more time with Loki.

Solaris was lovely. Lovelier than Earth in many aspects but then again, food was scarce and most beings on his planet were, well… inedible. It left you a little hungrier than you would have liked given the current circumstances. Plus, Loki’s throat began to look more and more delicious with every passing second.

Loki’s mysterious TVA friend had been right though. Kang—or at least, one of his many Variants—was here. He was every last bit as annoying as your involuntary travel companions had made him out to be, obsessed with ruling the multiverse and time and bla bla bla. You had to resist the urge to roll your eyes as he made you all listen to his grand plan, no doubt an entertaining stalling method for him before he’d strike. You understood him in that regard, at least. Playing with your prey before the killing blow was fun. As a vampire, you’d know.

“I knew you’d come,” Kang finally concluded after a while. “Of course, I wasn’t sure which Variants of you I’d encounter but I must admit the selection is quite disappointing.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you know what, you’re disappointing too,” Quill snapped with his gun pointed at Kang.

“I’m sure—because I’m not the Kang you were hoping to put an end to. You see, I’m always a step ahead. All of my Variants are, in fact. I volunteered to take care of you.”

“Can we kill him now?” Drax uttered. His comment earned him an eye roll from both Nebula and Gamora, followed by an angry “I am Groot”—whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

“Let’s get this over with,” Rocket added.

“I agree. It might be best to do it quickly and painlessly.” Then, much to your surprise, Kang’s cold gaze fell on you.

“You’re the vampire. I’ve heard of you. It’s quite hilarious how you end up with the infamous God of Mischief in almost every universe.” What the actual fuck. “Or have you chosen Thor instead here?”

You blinked, too stunned to speak for a second. Thor wasn’t your type at all, you had made that pretty clear to Loki, and only recently too.

“You could truly be so much more though. Why would you want to waste away with these self-proclaimed gods? I can assure you that joining me would give your eternal life a much greater purpose.”

“Yeah, go ahead and provoke her,” Quill interrupted, “She’ll rip your throat out before you can say ‘time’!”

“I’d rather gauge my own eyes out,” you added, for once agreeing with the snarky Star Lord.

“Ah, I see… you like him. Well, it wouldn’t truly be a loss, you see. I can always get a new Loki for you. One that is more… compliant.”

“Go to hell.”

“Shame. I’ll have to kill you too then. Let me start with you, actually. It will make this unpleasant fight so much less messy.”

Time to bare your fangs. You could practically feel your eyes turning red, those pointy teeth forcing their way out of your gums to become a deadly weapon. You could feel Loki’s eyes on you when it happened. Curiosity mixed with fascination and vigilance made for a delicious combination. But there was no time to swoon over him now. Not when you began to realise what Kang—calm and irksomely collected—was doing.

Fiddling with the time manipulation device on his wrist, the noise it caused was deafening. It was like the sky above you was screaming in agony as the stars moved and the moon retreated. He was speeding up time, speeding up the night… and you were out in the open, with nowhere to retreat and escape from the deadly sunrays about to dig their hot claws into your flesh.

You shrieked when the first beam hit your skin. Panic set in quickly the very moment you smelled the smoke coming from your own body, the excruciating pain that felt like falling headfirst into an active volcano.

All hell broke loose around you with both the Guardians and the two Asgardian gods breaking into a fight all the while you frantically, desperately looked around for cover, somewhere to hide. You had approximately thirty more seconds before you’d burst up in flames like a phoenix and turn to ashes—only that unlike a phoenix, you wouldn’t be reborn.

“Loki, get her out of here!” you heard Thor roar.

There. A tent. You doubted the thin ceiling made entirely of fabric would protect you for long but it would have to do. So you ran, faster than any human eye would be able to witness, abandoning the group you had promised to help.

Instead, you assessed the damage done. Grunting in pain, you eyed the burns on every inch of exposed skin. Your body was fighting it, pumping both blood and adrenaline through your system determinedly to heal you—but with the lack of nutrition lately, you soon realised that you were too weak. And then, everything around went black and someone caught you in their arms.

When you came to, you tasted blood.

“Drink. Don’t stop.” Loki. Demanding and stern, pressing his wrist against your lips. Your eyes—undoubtedly red—flattered open, a surprised sound escaping your throat. Loki’s blood tasted heavenly. Warm and sweet and salty all at the same time, it felt like you were feasting on freshly harvested honey.

Your body welcomed the feeding with open arms, demanding more and more as it slowly regained the strength it needed to properly start the healing process of your skin. You could feel it tingle and itch with every drop of blood you swallowed until you were strong enough to wrap your hands around Loki’s lower arm to pull him even closer to your face.

He was behind you, you only realised then. Your head was resting on his lap as he was kneeling on the floor, his thighs supporting your head. Fuck, you didn’t want this moment to end, ever, and for some reason, this felt even more intimate than the idea of simply fucking him while your fangs were buried deep in his flesh.

He’s saving your life, a know-it-all voice in your head whispered. That’s why.

Eventually, Loki pulled his wrist away. You licked your lips, slowly becoming more aware of your surroundings. You were back on the spaceship and the atmosphere was, quite frankly, grim.

“What happened?” you croaked, feeling several pairs of eyes on you. “Did somebody die?”

“Kang’s gone. Dead, we killed him,” Quill explained briefly and to the point.

He didn’t need to elaborate. It was a bittersweet victory—after all, there were hundreds of more dangerous Kang Variants out there and it seemed as if this one had merely served as a distraction from the real deal. What was it he had said? Somehow, you ended up with Loki in every universe? What did that even mean? In what way?

“Great. I’m going to take a shower then,” you announced. With as much grace and pride as you could muster after almost dying before all of their eyes, you climbed to your feet and strutted away, turning around the corner to get to one of the small bathroom units that came with surprisingly modern showers.

“Why did you do it?” you heard Thor ask Loki quietly once you were out of sight. You could have been mistaken but it almost seemed like there was a slight smirk in his voice. You lifted your head and froze, tuning in on the conversation. In any case, you’d like to know the answer to that question as well, after all, Loki had always been the one person on his damn spaceship trusting you the least. You surely were hoping you had now proved to him that you did not, in fact, work with Kang—in any universe for that matter.

“She was dying, Thor, and quite frankly, none of you even considered making a move and offering her blood.”

“That can’t be the only reason. Has it got something to do with what Mantis did to her? Did she… did she grow on you a little?”

“But…” Mantis started at that very moment. She was instantly cut off by Loki’s scoff.

“You keep forgetting the very people we both grew up with consider my true nature a monster too.”

“What, so you did it out of solidarity among monsters?” Quill intervened. You rolled your eyes. But what was that Thor had said? What Mantis had done to you? What did she do to you?

“But I…” Mantis started once more. Again, her words fell on deaf ears.

“You’d do well to watch your tongue, Star Lord.”

“Hey!” Mantis finally screeched. Silence. Now they were listening to her. “I haven’t made her fall in love with Loki yet! I couldn’t do it while she was awake and I’ve never seen her sleep before!”

Made her fall in love with Loki. Her words rang in your ear, floating around and repeating themselves over and over like a poltergeist in your head. Made her fall in love with Loki. They had been planning on doing that? Why? To keep you at bay, to keep you controlled? Love was a powerful instrument and that… that was foul. It was vile and outrageous, it was…

“What… what do you mean by you haven’t done it yet?” you heard Loki ask. So he’d been in on it as well.

You growled, turning on your heel to get rid of your leather trousers which were ruined now due to the sun scourging your skin.

“If you didn’t manipulate her emotions yet, then why is she constantly…”

Unfortunately, you were still a little too dizzy to do so. You took the shower curtain down with you as you slipped on the wet tiles, making them all aware of your presence again and unfortunately ending their conversation in the process.

But you were still able to figure out the rest of Loki’s unfinished sentence. He was wondering. Realising, even, perhaps, that all those things you had told him… that you found him attractive, cute, that you wanted to do such deliciously filthy things with him… you had meant them.

And perhaps—just perhaps—that was a little too much for him to bear. You could only imagine the confused looks on the others’ faces.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you finally heard him say. You didn’t even notice you were still cowering on the bathroom floor, leaning against the wall. When Loki entered the bathroom, he helped you up without a moment of hesitation, ignoring your weak protest as he did.

But then, the very second your eyes met, he knew. “You heard it.”

“Every damn word. You’re all insane if you thought that would work.”

“They thought it did. I thought it did.”

So that was why his expression was always so… so sad whenever you flirted with him. He must have thought you’d done it only because of Mantis and it had left him… disappointed? Realising this, it was hard to feel anger toward him. The others, yes. But not him. So instead, you said, “Thank you, Loki. You saved my life today. I’m in your debt—and trust me when I say that having a vampire in your debt is power on another level.” You just about managed to wink before another wave of dizziness made you stumble. The God of Mischief instantly wrapped his arms around you to steady you.

“Do you believe me now then?”

Loki smirked, returning the wink. “Yes, pet. I believe you now.”

“Then that’s your cue to kiss me, Trickster, ideally before I pass out again.”

You knew the moment his soft lips connected with yours that you would gladly pass out again if only that meant you’d feel that gorgeous mouth on you forever though.

[musclesandhammering]

Unpopular Phase 4 & 5 Opinions

Quantumania is the worst Phase 4/5 movie. And it wasn’t even because “kang got beat by ants.” (I liked kang in this movie). It’s just that the Spy Kids aesthetic & bad acting & overall weird vibes just weren’t for me.

Love and Thunder is no worse than Ragnarok. I would argue that it’s better in a lot of ways, actually. I really liked it.

Taika Waititi ruined thor with bad humour all the way back in Ragnarok tbh, but y’all weren’t complaining about it then 😒.

BuckySarah is better than sambucky every day of the week.

The Marvels was a good ass movie & they’re one of my favorite teams in the mcu. I’ll never forgive cbm sites & online dudebros for killing the hype from the moment the film was announced.

I adore America Chavez & Kamala Kahn and I want to see them in everything. They must be protected at all costs.

Multiverse of Madness had shitty characterisation & basically just copy-pasted the ‘grief made me go off the deep end & hurt people, then I realised and stopped myself’ storyline from Wandavision… but Wanda was extremely selfish & apathetic to other people’s suffering from the time she was introduced in the mcu. MoM didn’t make her like that.

Wanda should’ve been looking for Vision (her actual real life boyfriend whom she spent years with irl) in MoM instead of the kids that weren’t even real that she spent like a week using as characters in her sitcom.

Making everyone forget Peter Parker wasn’t profound or poetic in any way- it was just frustrating and needlessly cruel.

I’m begging marvel to understand that heroes don’t have to be in constant suffering to be heroic & villains don’t have to sacrifice themselves to achieve redemption. Let characters heal and atone, you absolute weirdos.

What If…? is the most boring show ever. I’d rather watch Secret Invasion or She-Hulk.

Season 2 of Loki is, in a cinematic & artistic sense, the best marvel project period.

Loki season 1 was meh- more of a fun au than anything because his characterisation kinda sucked. Season 2 fixed it, though, and made it way easier for me to incorporate this version of Loki back into the larger mcu.

Having Steve stay in the past with Peggy was stupid af.

I don’t hate Peggy (or Captain Carter), though. I actually think she’s pretty cool.

I don’t really love Steve. He’s arrogant & they never really let him have flaws & something about him being a perfect metaphor for the American military industrial complex (and marvel painting that as a good thing) doesn’t sit right with me.

The Illuminati got done dirty and the only reason they went down so fast was because Wanda had all that plot armor.

I thought the retcon of having Wanda be “destined” to become the Scarlet Witch since birth was an annoying cop-out. Her powers originating from being experimented on with an infinity stone was way more interesting.

Loki & Wanda have almost the exact same powers.

Nebula deserved a bigger rule in killing Thanos & everything else moving forward.

I love Kathryn Newton but her acting as Cassie Lang was the worst acting I’ve ever seen in the mcu, like it was outrageously bad.

I’m glad Sam is the new Captain America and not Bucky.

The fact that Bucky probably isn’t gonna be one of Thee lead characters in the upcoming avengers movies feels sick and twisted.

Secret Invasion was actually passable until the G’iah scene at the end. That ruined it. And Nick Fury deserved way better for his solo series.

Kang is so much more interesting than Doctor Doom. I really hope they just recast him.

Carol Danvers does NOT deserve the hate she gets.

I actually disliked Carol until The Marvels. That movie made me a stan.

The way people treat Monica as Wanda’s little inferior pet creation or smth & then brag about it is uhh very sus.

I don’t like sylvie (bc she’s an amalgamation of 3 different comic characters- which killed any hopes of them appearing individually in the mcu, the creators used her existence to butcher Loki’s genderfluid rep, & she was written poorly) & I HATE sylki (bc it’s weird & unnecessary).

Marvel isn’t dead. I actually love where they’re taking things. But that’s just me.

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

Anywhere but Westview: alternate futures for Wanda if someone, ANYONE, had actually looked out for her after Endgame:

Clint takes her in and she lives with him and his family, eventually meeting Kate and Yelena

She throws in with Sam and Bucky and helps out against the Flag Smashers

She ends up bonding with Peter Parker and eventually accompanies him against Mysterio and the Multiverse (also, I only just thought of this, but Wanda meeting Quentin Beck would be pretty interesting, as he could try to sway her with their mutual hatred of Tony).

She accompanies Steve to put back the Stones and convinces him to return to the present instead of going back to the 40s.

T’Challa and Shuri, feeling guilty over not being able to save Vision, invite her to stay in Wakanda, and she eventually helps Shuri against Namor.

Peter Quill invites her to join the Guardians because he wants a buffer between Thor and himself and she ends up becoming close with the crew, especially Rocket and Nebula. (While I would love to imagine her written into Volume 3, I respect Gunn too much to pollute his story.)

Scott asks her if she wants to meet Cassie, and she ends up bonding with the Lang family, eventually going with them to the Quantum Realm and battling Kang

Bruce offers her help to make amends between the two of them, and she goes with him to Sakaar

Strange is fascinated by her powers and invites her to Kamar-Taj

Rhodey, seeking to make amends with her in a way Tony never wanted to, offers her a place to stay.

If anyone wants to try their hand at making one of these a full fanfic story, be my guest.

[frasier-crane-style]

It's hard to overstate how much Marvel fucked the roll-out of Kang. I can forgive casting a domestic abuser--no way to know that ahead of time. But

Introducing him as the villain of an Ant-Man movie.

Can you imagine an Avengers villain whose personal arch-nemesis is Ant-Man?

2. Introducing a wacky nerd variant of him in Loki Season 2.

Before we've even gotten to know this guy really, we're seeing the actor essentially parody himself. Could you imagine if in Age of Ultron, our second look at Thanos was this:

3. They tried to make him the multiverse guy without having him involved in any multiverse stories.

Early movies in the Infinity Saga introduced the Infinity Stones, Nebula, Gamora, the Chitauri, and so forth. But movies like Multiverse of Madness and No Way Home went by without furthering the plot or deepening Kang's character, making him feel curiously uninvolved with his own story. All they really accomplished, as entries in a saga, was to lay down the ground rules for the multiverse... which were constantly contradictory and nonsensical. With Wandavision and Wolverine & Deadpool, this multiverse stuff just started to seem like silly sidestories, but no, it was supposed to be the main event. A random, cameo-centric main event.

We were asking "hey, why should we care about the multiverse?" and the answer was "because boner joke."

4. Kang wasn't mysterious, just confusing.

Why would some dude from the 40th century care or be a threat to a bunch of 21st century characters? In the comics, among other reasons, Kang is simply an egomaniac who wants to 'honorably' take on the best of the best. Like a modern war gamer who wants to see if he could beat Genghis Khan with his own horse cavalry.

In the MCU... gosh. Loki paints him (or He Who Remains) as a well-intentioned extremist who wants to destroy all timelines but one to keep hordes of alternate Kangs from waging destructive war on each other (how this would affect characters in the 21st century is unclear).

In Ant-Man, the threat is a renegade Kang who wants revenge on a Council of Kangs (who CAN get along now) for some unspecified betrayal. He might be THE Kang or he might be dead for real and the whole thing is only good for a Jonathan Majors clip reel.

In Loki season 2, it's now possible for there to be a 19th century Kang (meaning that, if circumstances changed, I guess Tom Cruise could've been born during the Reformation? How the fuck does that work?) and Loki seems to sort out the whole multiverse problem without the need to destroy any more timelines, so unless he's really bad at his job, that would wrap up the Kang saga, right? Right?

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

The big problem with RDJ as Doom besides the laziness element is that, well, we need Doom to feel tied to Reed Richards' issues. We need him feeling like Reed, Susan, Ben and Johnny are the bane of his existence. In the same way that say, Wilson Fisk sees Matt Murdock as this pebble in his shoe who won't go away no matter what Fisk does to try to kill or discredit him.

But this also goes to show how the MCU has developed a problem with their villains being interchangeable with whose Rogues Gallery they are slotted into. We need villains who are locked into a specific Rogues Gallery, and have it fit them specifically.

I couldn't agree more. That's the whole point of villains, isn't it? They need to be well-developed themselves but their existence is basically meant to make the hero even better, more complex. They need to be heavily tied in order to achieve that.

Perhaps they could do that with Doom and the F4 or some other heroes, but the Avengers movies are coming in what, two years? There's not enough time to build up for it. This is nothing like Thanos and Gamora/Nebula/Thor/Guardians. Or like you say, Fisk with Matt.

I can't for the life of me understand why they're so against build-up post-Phase 3. They shoehorned Kang everywhere and shoot themselves in the foot. Now Doom is coming super soon with no previous introduction or anything (haven't seen the Deadpool movie, don't know if he's there). They're going to build his relationship with the others in what, one movie? They won't be getting the audience excited as hell that way.

[danwhobrowses]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 - Quickfire Review

Finally. It's been longer than intended for me to watch this movie, I should've been writing this last week but I had the completely baffling scenario where the cinema people came in and say they 'didn't have the feature'. But finally I went and watched it so here are my quick thoughts on the matter.

Spoilers for the Movie

So I unsurprisingly enjoyed this a lot, I wouldn't say it's the best Guardians film, I think the first still sneaks the top spot, but they are all hits and it's the best MCU film since No Way Home.

I was quite surprised with a lot of things, but Rocket being on death's door for two thirds of the film was the most unexpected, paired with no character dying. I'm not too mad about the latter mind you, it was just surprising.

I read a non-spoiler review though that said that Adam Warlock wasn't in it enough, and while I can see why people may think that, I thought the limited time he had worked in his favour. The infant-like mentality - set up by the Sovereign saying he was awakened early - did add to the comedy and he was never gonna be comic accurate given that Vision stole his whole Infinity Stone shtick. While him joining the new Guardians made sense, I will say that Phyla-Vell felt a little thrown in there though but it was just a mid-credits scene so it won't mean that much.

The High Evolutionary is great though, like pure maniacal god complex, which helps to stand out against other MCU villains who often get painted with a layer of sympathy or manipulation. Chukwudi Iwuji depicted the role brilliantly and if Marvel do get put in a corner with Kang they can easily slot him into the role. For new side characters I also felt that all of Rocket's old buddies did well, Linda Cardellini especially as Lylla.

The plot itself was very emotive, centering mainly around Peter and Rocket being haunted by their past (the former having to also confront Gamora during it all), and Nebula's struggle to express herself. While this did leave Drax, Mantis and Groot to mainly hover around the side, and Cosmo and Kraglin to hover wayyyy far back over the side. Rocket's backstory though is brutal, and Peter's development towards acceptance and seeking out his family on earth was a solid payoff. I do especially like that neither of the daughters of Thanos ended up with Peter at the end, Gamora found her home in the Ravagers yes but she took home some lessons from the Guardians, and Nebula and Peter would've felt a little forced.

While the Guardians splitting at the end makes sense, and Drax getting some respect as a parental figure was nice, I do feel like Mantis going alone was perhaps the most bitter of the group going their separate ways, I enjoyed her character but she wasn't given a lot of substance, and I feel she was a little depowered here compared to when she sedated Ego and Thanos in previous movies. I hope at the least given how Star Lord will at least return that the Guardians will reunite once more, even if it's for another Holiday Special.

Also can't talk about Guardians without the music, and it's quite good, I suppose it's the quality you expect from the film after so many movies. Starting with Creep was a unique call, but I did enjoy them using Dog Days Are Over for the final scenes of the movie. Since You've Been Gone by Rainbow always puts me in a good mood though, mainly because of the Pot Noodle commercial that used the song.

I could probably dig into it more, but this is meant to be 'quickfire' and this is the eighth paragraph so in conclusion, really good movie, it has emotional weight and comedy, its focus on animal cruelty does make you pensive, the new characters were fun, and the conclusion will leave you content but also hopeful, despite Gunn setting sights on rebooting the DC universe, to see the group again.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #294: "If Wishes Were Horses...”

August, 1988

WHO leads the Avengers?!

-vibrates in anger-

You suck, Anthony Druid.

Let’s get into this.

Last times in Avengers: Despite having shown herself to be competent previously, leader of the Avengers Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel actually sucks and you’re a fool if you think otherwise. She spends all of her time thinking to herself about how incompetent she is and she never accomplishes anything without someone telling her to do it.

Grumble.

Also, Namor’s wife and former member of Alpha Flight Marrina turned into a giant sea monster for some reason. How mysterious. Dr Druid wanted them to murder her immediately if not sooner due to the damage giant sea monster Marrina was doing to shipping and coastal settlements. The other Avengers wanted to at least try to cure her, which Dr Druid saw as a foolish sentiment.

So after Druid mind manipulated into attacking Atlantis to get Namor on board, the Avengers tried a cure Hank Pym whipped up.

It worked for a hot minute before Marrina started turning into a monster again.

Thor and Captain Marvel shocked the transforming Marrina with electricity to try to stop her from transforming. But when it didn’t work, Namor took Black Knight’s extremely cursed sword the Ebony Blade and killed Marrina. With disastrous, to be revealed consequences for Black Knight because the extremely cursed sword had a blood curse on it and whoops slicing Marrina’s head open got blood on the blade.

Only after the fact does Dr Druid notice that Monica disappeared after she tried to shock Marrina.

Where could she beeeeee?

And what will happen to Black Knight?

This will happen.

So, at the end of last issue, he passed out on his Atomic Steed flying device. So when they brought him into the Quinjet, why did they put him near the controls? Don’t they have a medical bed or something in the back?

Anyway, Black Knight is freaking out and thrashing so hard that even Thor and She-Hulk - who can probably throw buildings - are having trouble holding him down.

Cough cough bullshit cough.

He calls out for this sword so Thor being Thor decides nothing wrong with giving a man a sharp object when he’s having a fit.

AND THOR IS RIGHT.

How dare you doubt Thor!

Dane immediately calms down once he has the blade in his hand. So he’s able to explain to the Avengers (who at least knew that the Ebony Blade was extremely cursed) that despite not being the one who did the deed, the curse is upon him as the owner of the sword.

And the first part of the curse is that he feels like his blood is on fire if he’s not holding the extremely cursed sword.

So, that’s going to be a little awkward. Carrying it around everywhere. At least he’s shown in the past that he can magically summon the sword to his hand. Buuut I’m pretty sure the pain of not holding it is so severe that he can’t focus to do that. He couldn’t even focus to pull it from its scabbard at his waist.

Yeah, this is going to suck. You should just go ahead and get one of those locking gauntlets or tie your hand to the hilt. Otherwise, you’re just asking for it to get knocked from your hand to incapacitate you during fights.

Now that he’s not writhing in pain, Black Knight remembers that Monica is missing.

She-Hulk proclaims that Monica has got to be alive! And they really have no reason to jump to the assumption that she’s dead.

Dr Druid, proving himself the worst, thinks to himself: “And good riddance, if she’s not [alive], She-Hulk. Captain Marvel was too soft to have been an effective leader of the Avengers. And her departure from the active ranks couldn’t have been more timely for me.”

I hate you, you fuckboy.

Anyway, Druid proclaims he’s laying in a course so She-Hulk interrupts to insist that they not leave until they find Monica.

Dr Druid: “Please, Jennifer. Don’t let your emotions run away with you. I was about to say I’ve already laid in search pattern coordinates... and calibrated our instruments for a total electromagnetic spectrum and radiation scan. If there’s... anything left of her to find, we’ll find it.”

This reminds me when that future Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, was on the Avengers as Ms Marvel. When a writer change brought with it disdain for Carol’s feminist roots. So she started taking things people said the wrong way and blowing up at them when really they hadn’t meant it that way at all.

But since Dr Druid is secretly hoping Monica is dead and because he changes his wording from laying out a course to laying out a search pattern, he’s probably just gaslighting She-Hulk.

The Avengers search the Atlantic for hours for a sign of Monica but can’t find anything. With the Quinjet quinfuel running low, She-Hulk finally agrees they’ve done all they could.

Can’t believe Monica is gone forever. And yet Dr Druid is still here for some reason.

Boo.

Back at Hydrobase, She-Hulk and Thor discuss Monica’s disappearance. She-Hulk argues that energy can’t be destroyed so Monica has to be somewhere, right? And Thor don’t know. She just vanished after the big electricity attack.

Meanwhile, Dr Druid excuses himself because, remember, he doesn’t give a fuck and hopes Monica is dead.

Plus, it’s Sex Dream O’Clock.

Dr Druid sits down in an uncomfortable looking chair and immediately feels like someone is calling out to him.

Nebula Kang appears saying she’s the one calling him “for danger threatens at every hand and you are needed.”

Dr Druid goes hey wait you look different from the other sex dream and Nebula realizes, shit, she forgot to turn on the generic blonde filter.

So she does and Dr Druid doesn’t ask follow up questions.

Possibly because Not-Godzilla is attacking.

I should contextualize.

That’s actually Destructikon. He’s come to destroy this ancient sex dream civilization.

And only Super Druid can stop him.

Because this crisis has brought out his Real True Power and given him a slightly better costume.

Super Doctor Druid: “Mine is almost the power of a god! And why not? Is Dr Druid not a man gifted above other men? Older? Wiser? Stronger of spirit? Is it any wonder that ultimate power must be mine?”

Destructikon doesn’t go down in just one punch. And starts smashing up the city.

Super Dr Druid angrily shouts that Destructikon is threatening his people and smashes the beast in the chin.

Sex dream Nebula Kang tells Dr Druid to wrap this up already.

Pfft.

Like, okay. Jumping ahead a little, this whole thing is playing to Dr Druid’s ego. It’s working like a charm. Just scroll up a little and see his speech about how he’s the best dude of all dudes and deserves to be the best.

Consider how as a newbie to the Avengers, he was already thinking “if I ran the zoo!”

Dr Druid is soooo vulnerable to flattery and Nebula Kang is playing him like a fiddle with this savior of the world scenario.

And no surprise that she feeds him a scenario where its good and right to kill a giant monster menacing a world considering he’s just been through the Leviathan Marrina stuff. It doesn’t just play to his ego in a general sense, it’s affirming how he acted recently.

But even she can only take so much before going ‘lets move this along.’

So Druid punches Destructikon’s teeth in and then uses the eye beams that he totally has to explode the beast like a parade float.

Super Doctor Druid: “It is over! Virtue has triumphed over evil. Let those who would enslave humanity in bondage tremble. For the vigilance of Dr Druid is unrelenting... and he shall crush the serpent beneath his heel!”

And after the victory parade, Blonde Nebula Kang waggles her ass at him for him to finally get to the sex part of these ominous power fantasy sex dreams.

I hate this storyline but I do love this extended sequence of Dr Druid turning into Superman and fighting Godzilla. Its so dumb that its great. And the sucker fully buys into the fantasy.

Blonde Nebula Kang tells Dr Druid that he’s now king of whatever place this is because he’s won the right to rule by trial of combat. And suggests not just this world, you’re going to save Earth too and be the big sexy ruler of that planet too.

Once again, he eagerly buys into this.

Dr Druid: “Finally I understand. This is the realm of precognition and I have been granted foreknowledge denied lesser men. You’re right. It is time for Dr Druid to step forward.”

He’s so dumb.

Later, at Hydrobase, She-Hulk bemoans what has happened to the team.

Marrina is dead. Namor is off somewhere chasing monster babies. Captain Marvel is missing. And Black Knight is super cursed.

With bad fashion.

Also with curses.

Holding the Ebony Blade stops Dane from feeling all the cursed agony but his body is slowly paralyzing.

To work around this, he’s built an exoskeleton he can wear over his armor.

It looks bad.

The light purple of whatever its made of messes up his color palette and hides his tunic or whatever with his crest. It looks baaaaaaaaad.

Why not build an exoskeleton that can fit under his armor so he doesn’t look so bad?

His armor is fused to his body and can’t be taken off.

Truly, this is a lot of curse.

Also, the curse gives him a bad attitude.

When She-Hulk suggests calling reserve members since they’re down to four people, Black Knight explodes in a torrent of insults at everyone who isn’t him.

Black Knight: “The Waspis no brain surgeon, Hercules was an airhead, Mantis became a cosmic valley girl, the Black Widow was always a waste... Starfox a mincing fop, and the rest of them weren’t worth a tinker’s dam! Not a decent warrior among the lot! Would Good King Richard have countenanced such wastrels in his legions? Aargh!”

How dare you speak ill of the Wasp!

Go to your room and think about what you’ve done!

(Oh, and he’s back to thinking he’s from Crusade times. Except now its explicitly something happening because the curse is fucking his brain, and not because Simonson didn’t get the character.)

The curse also apparently gives Black Knight A SIXTH SENSE OOOOooooOoooOOO spooky. Because he senses an intruder in the building when none of the security systems do.

This curse sure does a lot.

But Black Knight is insistent that there’s an intruder so the Avengers decide to form a search party and go room by room.

(Also, Jarvis is here. He delivers the exposition about Black Knight being fused to his armor. He doesn’t do a lot else so I wanted to just say Hi Jarvis! I appreciate you!)

It doesn’t take long before the Avengers find the “intruder” that Black Knight sensed.

A plume of energy erupts from the floor and forms into the shape of... Captain Marvel!

Hi Monica! I appreciate you!

But she’s not looking food. She looks emaciated and is at death’s door from exhaustion.

What could have happened to her??

Bad writing? Web MD says these are the symptoms of bad writing!

The Avengers call the hospital and Thor personally flies her there. Very alarmed that she feels lighter than a feather in his arms.

But have you considered Thor that your arms are massive? You’re really strong. Maybe that’s why she feels so light?

But now we look into the Kang subplot.

Nebula Kang is preparing to ditch.

She changes out of her Kang armor and into a casual outfit. Casual but just loaded with cleverly hidden technology. Perfect for the modern terrible lady on the go.

Nebula Kang: “Farewell, Kangs great and small. You may all be masters of temporality, able to travel at will through and across time without limit... But your collective times are running out! When next we meet... it shall be without compassion, without compromise, without facemasks!”

Her only regret is that she didn’t find the time to give Fred Kang a fuck but doesn’t think he has any information or technology that would be helpful to her.

Then she disguises herself as Blonde Sex Dream Lady again and gets in the warp hatch.

Where she selects the Far Out option.

... That seems way too whimsical to be Kang technology. They all hate whimsy.

But as she warps, Fred Kang (Kang-123488.23497) is spying on her. He didn’t trust the way she flirted with him so he watched her change clothes and go to use the warp hatch.

He’s very confused that she’s going to Earth and specifically the Earth of his own time stream. (Fred Kang is from the current Avengers time stream? Huh. But she specifically goes to the current day and to Hydrobase.

But while Fred Kang has been spying on Nebula Kang, Beard Kang and Yellow Mask Kang have been spying on him.

TOO MANY KANGS!

Beard Kang is apparently called Lord Kang and Yellow Mask Kang is apparently called Kang Cobra but we’ll see if I use those names instead of Beard Kang and Yellow Mask Kang.

Beard Kang has a beard and its coming out of his mask somehow. Why wouldn’t I call him Beard Kang?

Anyway, Beard Kang and Yellow Mask Kang have been spying on Fred Kang, as the newest Kang in their Kangllective. I can’t believe they went with the name Council of Cross-Time Kangs when Kangllective was right there. They could do Kangllective Action.

Anyway again. Fred Kang seemed like any other Kang, except for taking a shorter time to adjust than usual. But when Yellow Mask Kang was spying on him, he became unable to pinpoint Fred Kang’s actual physical location because Fred Kang is “jumping randomly back and forth through nanoseconds of time.”

Y’know, as ya do.

But the result is, Yellow Mask Kang isn’t able to figure out what Fred Kang is up to.

Beard Kang decides that its time to have a talk with their new pal Fred Kang.

Meanwhile, AT THE ACTUAL PLOT,She-Hulk and Grumpy Black Knight have gone to pick up Monica’s parents to take them to the hospital.

Did Monica ever mention that her parents were in on the secret? Because this would be really presumptive if she didn’t.

She-Hulk gives the explanation for what happened with Monica, giving the poor woman one last kick while she’s down.

As I said last East Coast Avengers post, when Captain Monica tried to electrocute Leviathan Marrina the same way Thor did, Monica fucked up because god forbid she do anything right ever. She somehow managed to electrify the entire Atlantic Ocean, vaporized trillions of tons of water which will surely do something to the climate, and dissipating her energy so that when she managed to reform she was all emaciated.

IN FAIRNESS, this is following up on an established downside of Monica’s powers. If she overuses them, she loses some of her own mass. This happened when she overexerted herself to knock down the shields of the Sanctuary II.

In unfairness, she did that to help take out an enemy that was willing to and capable of blowing up planets. This recent happening happens because by editorial mandate, she’s a dipshit who can’t even tie her shoes, one imagines.

Sigh.

Thor greets the Rambeaus before they see Monica and tries to set expectations for what kind of shape she’s in.

Because she looks like she’s terminally ill.

Maria declares Monica should come home with them so they can nurse her back to health. With home cooking.

Monica admits that she’s not capable of Avengersing right now so that’s probably a good idea.

Leading Dr Druid to smoothly butt into this family conversation to insist that a new chairman be selected right now. I mean, they’re all already here, right?

Then he kicks the Rambeaus out of the room so the Avengers can talk shop.

She-Hulk: “For crying out loud, doc.”

For real.

As soon as the concerned parents have been booted from the room, Dr Druid nominates himself.

Why shouldn’t the newest person on the team not lead?

Okay, I’m being very critical. Monica was newish to the team but not the newest. This is not like that.

But as Dr Druid argues:

“The Black Knight is partially incapacitated, Thor has other concerns than just the Avengers... and the SHe-Hulk, with all due respect, fails to project the proper image of leadership while wearing purple leotards.”

... GET HIS ASS JEN.

Fucker in his feetie pajamas thinks he can throw stones about someone’s costume!

I CANNOT believe.

Black Knight chimes in to say that he admires the image She-Hulk projects.

So some people in this room have taste.

Thor privately wonders if any of the people on the team can handle the responsibility of leadership.

And Dr Druid starts panicking when Thor asks Monica her opinion.

Generic Blonde Nebula Kang pops into his thoughts to tell him not to let his dreams be dreams so Dr Druid decides to be like every other Marvel psychic. An invasive asshole.

He uses his powers to force Monica to say that Dr Druid would be a wise choice. When a skeptical She-Hulk asks Thor what he thinks, Dr Druid uses his powers again.

I can’t tell if Druid fails or succeeds in this attempt. Thor somewhat suspects that his thoughts are being manipulated and shouts NO! unprompted. And then says that as the most experienced person still on the team, he’d make the best choice. But: he’ll agree with the majority decision.

Democracy! It’s good! When the votes aren’t manipulated!

Dr Druid makes She-Hulk says that he’s the best man for the job. Black Knight seems about to go into one of his Crusades adjacent rants about Dr Druid but a little bit of the ol’ psychic razzle dazzle and Black Knight is instead saying Dr Druid is the best candidate for chairman and in fact, Richard the Lionheart would think he was really cool.

So that’s four votes for Dr Druid and one for Thor.

Thor is suspicious about the way things played out but doesn’t seem willing to call it out.

(I will say that having Druid’s thought bubble merged with the speech balloons is a good way to show psychic manipulation.)

New Chairman of the Avengers Dr Druid arranges for the Rambeaus to be sent back to Atlanta. By public plane, not by Quinjet. Pssh, sure Monica was the former chairwoman but she doesn’t require the Avengers’ personal attention any more!

Dr Druid: “But the Avengers must prepare themselves for battle! The cosmos reverberates with the approach of unseen foes. Our enemies are gathering and the time is coming when we must face them together as a team. All of us! For the Avengers have a new leader. And the future is going to be much different than anyone expects!”

I wish him a very stub his toe.

Follow @essential-avengers​ and you too can wish bad occurrences on Dr Druid. Like and reblog and maybe comment. I’m lonely down here in the italics.

[isagrimorie]

I'm rewatching Flashback in season 3 of Voyager and in the episode Janeway mind melds into Tuvok's mind and they go back to the time that Tuvok served in the Excelsior with Captain Sulu.

And then Harry Kim and Janeway discover that Sulu didn't include the Excelsior's adventures trying to rescue Kirk and Bones from the Klingon empire in his official logs.

Harry is shocked by this but Janeway is quick to defend the generation of officers that were Kirk and Sulu:

"Space must have seemed a whole lot bigger back then. It's not surprising they had to bend the rules a little. They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive, and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today. But I have to admit, I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that."

Oh, Janeway, there's something I want to tell you about your future self...

'A little quick to pull phasers.' Becomes a thing for you and your crew. This is especially true of a former Borg you steal from the Collective.

KANG [on viewscreen]: Mister Sulu, I see they have finally given you the captaincy you deserve. SULU: Thank you, Kang. KANG [on viewscreen]: Do not let it end prematurely. SULU: Kang, we've been on a survey mission studying this nebula. Our navigation system malfunctioned, and I'm afraid we got lost. As soon as we've completed repairs, we'll be on our way. KANG [on viewscreen]: We'd be happy to escort you back to Federation space. SULU: Very generous of you, but we can manage. KANG [on viewscreen]: I insist. SULU: Actually, an escort would be welcome. We'd hate to lose our way again. KANG [on viewscreen]: Bring your ship about, bearing one eight one, mark two. SULU: Nice to see you again, Kang. (Transmission ends.) VALTANE: Captain Sulu? SULU: Man your station, Lieutenant. We're not giving up just yet.

Janeway wasn't kidding, she's so fascinated with Sulu's captain style of Bullshitting, which now that I know she admired the Captains of Old, I see signs when Janeway does it herself.

And when Seven does it too.

(LOL, If Liam Shaw thought Seven, Picard, and Riker were bad they have nothing on Janeway.)(Affectionate).

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

Ah... so Kang Nebula can just change her appearance at will, that is our reasoning for why everyone keeps drawing her differently... also this clears up the "oh yeah she isn't that other Nebula" thing as well which is good because some writers were not entirely sure about that.

[deafblindshorty]

MCU Characters Still Alive During The Multiverse Saga (Current year: 2026)

I'm including TV series from both Netflix and Disney+ (and ABC) as well. These characters would have been introduced from Phase 2 onwards.

Introduced during Phase One:

-Pepper Potts

-Happy Hogan

-Rhodey Rhodes

-Phil Coulson

-Hulk

-Thor

-Nick Fury

-Clint Barton

-Darcy Lewis

-Eric Selvig

-Bucky Barnes

Phase 2:

-Peter Quill

-Drax

-Rocket

-Groot

-Nebula

-Wanda Maximoff (?)

-Scott Lang

-Hope Van Dyne

-Hank Pym

-Janet Van Dyne

-Cassie Lang

-Jimmy Woo

-Luis

-Sharon Carter

-Sam Wilson

-Valkyrie

-Melinda May

-Jemma Simmons

-Leo Fitz

-Daisy Johnson

-Daniel Sousa

-Matt Murdock

-Foggy Nelson

-Wilson Fisk

-Jessica Jones

-Luke Cage

Phase 3:

-Peter Parker

-Mantis

-Doctor Strange

-Wong

-Ned Neeks

-Michelle Jones

-Shuri

-Nakia

-Ayo

-M'Baku

-Laura Barton

-Lila Barton

-Nate Barton

-Cooper Barton

-Carol Danvers

-Monica Rambeau

-Talos

-Luke Cage

-Danny Rand

-Colleen Wing

-Claire Temple

-Mary Walker

-Frank Castle

-Wade Wilson

-Tandy Bowen

-Tyrone Johnson

Phase 4:

-Yelena Belova

-Shang-Chi

-Sersi

-Thena

-Sprite

-Dane Whitman

-Most of the other Eternals

-America Chavez

-Riri Williams

-Nomura

-T'Challa Jr.

-Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Jake Lockley

-Layla El-Faouly

-Khonshu

-Kate Bishop

-Maya Lopez

-John Walker

-Kamela Khan

-Jennifer Walters

-Nikki Ramos

-Love

Phase 5:

-Veb

-Quaz

-Jentorra

-Kang

-Varra

-Gravik

WHEW! That's a lot of characters (and a lot of people "staying out of Gotham" in Secret Invasion)!

[super-hero-confessions]

The High Evolutionary >>> Kang.

And before any of y'all scream "anti-blackness" (God I hate how that word gets thrown around even when black people are not mentioned) or that I'm "pitting two black villains against each other" (since y'all claim to be anti-racist yet all you guys see is skin color and race, nothing more, screw everything else) I want to say no. T.H.E. >>> Kang for a very simple reason.

T.H.E. is a villain who has no redeemable qualities which is so rare nowadays. I do like complex and sympathetic villains, I think it's cool for the media to explore all the grey areas, but I also like villains you can straight up hate. Those who put the "bad" in bad guy. Besides Puss in Boots The Last Wish, I can't remember the last time a mainstream movie did this. Hell, even Bowser in the Mario film has a redeemable quality in the form of a frickin' awesome song. Anyone who has watched GOTG Volume 3 knows T.H.E. has no redeemable traits. Sure, he seems emotionally invested in what he's doing, and sure, he's charismatic, but he's just so utterly despicable.

He wasn't manipulated or influenced by bigger villains like Loki or Nebula were, he wasn't reacting to inequality like Killmonger or Namor, he wasn't wronged by more powerful people like Hela or Mysterio. He wasn't hurting like Ava Starr. He wasn't corrupted by money like Obadiah Stane or by magic like Agatha Harkness and Wanda Maximoff. He didn't even have emotional attachments to other characters like the two cruelest MCU villains, Thanos and Ego (Gamora and Meredith Quill respectively).

None of that. He was just crazy and had a God complex and you just want to run from him or beat his ass or both. Also he just happens to be in the same MCU phase as Kang. So yeah, T.H.E. > Kang.