#ffs hearing simon says “why would i do that” rips my heart out

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #153: “Home is the Hero!”

November, 1976

Since I’m typing this while sick, I can’t really figure out if that title makes no sense or what. I know all the words but in that order its like whaaaaat.

There’s actually a number of things going on here that don’t really mesh well with ill loopiness.

But first, the cover.

The Avengers sure are getting their asses kicked by an elderly man with heart troubles.

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!

Actually its kind of weird how easy it is to solo the Avengers if the plot says so. Grim Reaper managed it. The Whizzer is managing it. Orka, the man dressed as the whale that isn’t a whale managed it. Ant-Man will manage it soon. They’re kind of a paper tiger sometimes. Just crumbling before the right single individual.

But its hard to come out with a fresh new story every month, probably.

Also, Jack Kirby cover! And tiny judgemental Vision has changed his pose! It truly is a brand new day!

Anyway.

We start off with Scarlet Witch flying towards the ruins of the Brand Corporation.

Right off the bat, something is amiss.

Scarlet Witch cannot usually fly.

Apparently, this was later retconned as Wanda using an experimental “flying belt” which I guess she was wearing under her leotard. Not a strong early showing for the new creative team, I’ll tell you that.

I think the bare minimum for writing on a comic should be knowing the characters you’re going to be writing.

Although, y’know, its weird that the Avengers didn’t invest in experimental flying belts or flight rings or whatever for their non-flying members. It would save a heap of trouble and they have Tony Stark, right there.

Wonder Man gets a flight belt of sorts later but since its rocket powered and he can only use it because he has an invincible hiney, its not really suitable for the rest of the team.

So okay, Scarlet Witch has returned to the remains of the Brand Corporation which isn’t a crime scene or cordoned off or anything. Ffs, Marvel law enforcement.

When suddenly, a laser ZAMM!s her, causing her to plummet to the ground, her flight belt that she totally has shorted out or something.

Thinking quick, she turns the ground to water to soften her fall but she still gets the wind knocked out of her.

She also happens to land right next to the Serpent Crown, which she is apparently here for. Maybe she’s still subconsciously manipulating probabilities because that’s dang lucky.

Or perhaps darn unlucky. She landed next to the thing but someone shot her out of the sky and after that fall, she’s in no shape to fight whoever is the laser wielding person.

Unsurprise, its the Living Laser.

He’s the worst.

Anyway, he takes his time to gloat about how cool he is. Y’know, just villain things.

But he’s here to take the Serpent Crown. A gaudy hat like that will go wonders with his garish outfit.

How the hell did the Avengers just forget the artifact of doom that they stole from another world?!

Anyway, Living Laser is not like those other villains. Instead of leaving while the hero is helpless, he’s just going to kill her now on the off chance she might become a problem.

So something has to get in the way if his own stupidity won’t.

The Brand private army charges forward to attack Scarlet Witch, recognizing her as one of the Avengers that busted up the place.

Living Laser blasts some of them and then decides to completely forget about Scarlet Witch and laser teleport away. Thanks, laser inattentiveness!

Meanwhile, the rest of the Avengers return from New Orleans in the Quinjet, raising so many questions. Did Scarlet Witch fly all the way to New York with the experimental flying belt that she somehow got between issues? Why not just catch a ride most of the way with the Avengers since they were headed the same way?

This Is Something I Have To Do Myself is a cursed trope, constantly vexing me.

Anyway. The Avengers return. And have to go into their mansion through the back door because there’s still a big mob of lookie-loos and newspeeps at the front door. Even though Jarvis kicked them off the property last issue.

You need to work on your follow-through, Jarvis.

But here’s a thing: over the past several hours, Wonder Man’s heartbeat has been getting stronger. He’s coming back to life, maybe!

Oh and Jarvis shows up and implies why he didn’t finish tossing out the nosy mob. The Avengers had a guest show up while they were out and Jarvis deposited him in the sitting room to await their return.

Its Bob Frank, the Whizzer (But not the Squadron Sinisterpreme one. The All-Winners Squad and Liberty Legion one). And he specifically wants to see Vision.

Apparently the Whizzer disappeared after Quicksilver and Crystal’s wedding and Wanda and Vision worried after him. They even thought him dead. Not enough to ever bring it up or go searching for him on panel. But they were worried, on the inside.

But Whizzer didn’t come to wallow in self-pity or explain what he’s been up to. He’s come to check on Wanda, because of that broadcast that implied she might leave the Avengers. Remember? From #151?

Vision confides that Wanda temporarily left him and the Avengers the previous night on a journey of self-understanding and wishes to be alone.

And then someone shines a laser in Bob Frank’s eye and instead of going blind, all hell breaks loose.

The Whizzer goes wild and BOM!s Vision. He also forgot who Vision was and what they were talking about.

Wouldn’t it be terrifying for someone with superpowers to get dementia?

That’s not going on here and frankly I’ll express my doubts at the ability of the Avengers book to handle the subject with the tact and respect required. But the thought occurred to me.

Thank god for sliding time scales, I guess.

Anyway, Vision was BOM!’d unconscious and Whizzer whizzes off as if searching for something.

But finds Captain America, Beast, and Iron Man, who came to investigate that BOM!.

Cap throws his mighty shield but Whizzer, he does not yield. I’m calling into question his patriotism.

Whizzer calls Cap Isbisa, accuses him of wanting to take over the world and then WHAM!s Iron Man hard while Beast cannonballs out of the way, spouting witticisms.

Cap tries to talk Whizzer down but Whizzer spins him right round until he corkscrews up and into the ceiling. Like. INTO the ceiling. As in, its a surprise Cap has any skull left.

And then we reach a short impasse of sorts. Whizzer is moving too fast for Beast to do much to. The guy is freaked out and apparently hypnotized to boot. But Beast is acrobatic enough that Whizzer is maybe too fast to catch him? If that makes sense?

So instead he uses brains. He runs at and bounces off the wall so hard that part of the ceiling collapses, burying Beast.

Quicksilver could learn a lot from this guy, as far as purposefully running into walls goes.

And with no one left to fight, Whizzer’s head clears a little. Its not the forties at all. And then he hears a buzzing and suddenly his head feels like its splitting apart from pain.

And then he passes out.

Because apparently Yellowjacket and the Wasp had flown inside his ear and shot his ear drums.

Clever of them to not just join the fight and instead wait until everyone else got punched.

Eighteen minutes of off-screen action and the two size-changing heroes manage to scrape together the other three. Beast is conscripted to carry Whizzer to the lab.

Beast: “Since when was I elected donkey for this troop?”

Vision: “In many ways, you are our strongest member, Hank McCoy -- and thus, you may sometimes be unduly burdened.”

I call shenanigans on that. You’re just hazing the new guy, aren’t you?

But while everyone was either getting beaten up by the Whizzer or flying inside his ears, Wonder Man vanished. And not only that, someone wrecked up the lab where they left him.

It almost feels as if the whole thing with the Whizzer was some kind of distraction?

Anyway, Wonder Man stumbles out the side exit of the mansion because its a mansion and can have more than two exists. And some of the lookie-loos spot him and recognize him as Wonder Man.

They immediately get right up in his personal space, grabbing at him and begging for souvenirs.

And Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, is not really up to speed yet. He’s running in safe mode, as it were. Because he acts on instinct to being mobbed and smacks away the crowd and then absconds.

And the narration notes that at this point he’s almost moving like a normal living person, with none of the stiffness of a zuvembie. Also, gone is the blank expressionless stare ALTHOUGH HOW YOU COULD TELL THAT THROUGH THE VISOR IS BEYOND ME, CREATIVE TEAM.

So, yeah. Remember how we left Scarlet Witch at Brand?

Yeah, she’s still there. And still being accosted by the Brand private army that doesn’t know that their bosses have all been arrested and they are probably unemployed.

She doesn’t even bother telling them either. Just dismisses them as frozen in blind obedience and immediately starts scarlet witching at them.

And then becomes frightened of the violence that her powers can cause, which seems like a step back for her, possibly. Not the sort of way her character was going under Englehart, is the feeling I get. Where she ripped a meteor from heaven and exulted in it. And now she gets frightened because she made the ground shake a little.

Oh, and then she gets shot.

One of the Brand punks she knocked down was playing possum, grabbed a gun and managed to get her in the shoulder.

Scarlet Witch decides to leave this pointless fight and warn the Avengers about the Living Laser and the Serpent Crown.

Now back to Wonder Man, already in progress.

The resurrected or whatever Wonder Man has been wandering the streets of Yorktown but finds himself drawn to a bright light down a particular street.

And a figure appears in that bright light.

AHHHHHH WONDER MAN IS BEING ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!

Oh. Oh. No, its Living Laser.

Anyway, he says he mentally commanded Wonder Man to come here to become his slave. And he also shot the Whizzer to hallucinate that the Avengers were enemies by shooting him in the eye with a laser. Which presumably was a distraction so that he could mentally command Wonder Man to wreck the lab and leave the mansion.

It’s all coming together.

Living Laser now has improved laser powers (possibly even laser willpower), the Serpent Crown, and Wonder Man as muscle.

Oh and Living Laser wasn’t the one who resurrected Wonder Man either. He considers it an unimportant mystery that might amuse him to solve one day.

We getting a lot of red herrings on our way through this mystery.

So while Living Laser proceeds with another brilliant part of his master plan of awesomeness, he commands Wonder Man to seek out and destroy the Avengers!

If they’re fighting and being killed by Wonder Man, they can’t interfere. Its genius.

And Wonder Man agrees.

“THE AVENGERS MUST BE DESTROYED!”

Geez. Think for yourself you holly jolly idiot.

We have a letters column again this time. Do people care about the letters column from decades ago? I kind of find it interesting in a pinhole snapshot kind of way.

Someone complains about the amount of reprinted material in #150, which I’m right there for. Another person complains about taking Thor out of the Avengers saying they wouldn’t be the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes without him (the Kooky Quartet weeps), instead suggesting that a character who hasn’t been in the line-up so long be removed. Which would be... probably only Beast? Everyone else has been around a long time, even during times when Thor was off the team.

Whoever answers these letters invites readers to send in their opinions for a Thor vs No Thor poll. Might be interesting, if its included in the Marvel Unlimited version.

Next time: this story concludes in a Giant-Size Avengers. Give all your money to Marvel. Consume. Obey. Obey the Serpent Crown.

Follow @essential-avengers. It exists.