#normalize furry at 60

[victorinoxghoul]

i have this drawing i made of my friend's character and i think he's funny because at what point is he not just a fursona. he has a snout.

[do-u-like-worms]

the beach cats in paris, 1964 🥖🇫🇷

(or rather 3/5 of them)

[commanderpiss]

the beach cats in paris, 1964 🥖🇫🇷 (or rather 3/5 of them)

[raisans-art]

!!RAISANS COMMISSIONS!!

All prices are in USD

Please read below for text transcriptions of the sheet and further elaboration!

I sincerely hope you consider me to draw some art of your little guys!

Sketch:

Bust — $20

1/2 Body — $25

Full Body — $30

Coloured:

Bust — $40

1/2 Body — $45

Full Body — $50

Rendered:

Bust — $50

1/2 Body — $55

Full Body — $60

Backgrounds:

Plain (transparent; 1 or 2 colours with a simple pattern) — $0

Mild (multiple colours in a relatively basic hand-made scene or pattern) — $10

Spicy (minimally shaded scene or setting) — $20

Extra (I painted this for you with my BARE HANDS) — $40

Extras:

Animals/Pokemon:

Sketch — $10

Coloured — $15

Rendered — $25

Additional Characters/Animals: 50% of the base cost per character

Extra Effort:

Prices may increase if the commission requires more time and effort than normal.

Any additional charges will be explicitly stated and elaborated

Extra Effort includes but is not limited to: hand lettering/text, complex composition/scenes, extra polish, full painted style, etc.

Will/Won’t Do’s

Will Do (will draw this and am proficient at doing so) (will do list is not limited to these points)

OCs

Pokemon

Furries

Gore/Blood

Aus/Fanart

Horror

NSFW (under scrutiny. Please dm for elaboration)

Won’t Do (not touching these fuckers)

Mecha

Hateful or defamatory content

I have the right to refuse any commission for any reason.

Payment methods:

I accept Ko-fi, Venmo, and PayPal.

Note: PayPal transactions will have a 3% fee added to the charge to compensate for lost money during transactions.

I will clearly outline the total cost of the commission to you and ask for agreement on the cost. That cost will be split into 2 seperate charges, half of the money up front and half upon the commission’s completion.

What to expect from commissioning me:

Commissions will be worked on as I get them, so there may be a queue time for you to wait before work begins on your commission.

Once work has started, it may take upwards of a month to get completed depending on personal life circumstances and commission difficulty.

You will receive an update on the commission at every milestone of the drawing process (rough sketch, clean sketch, lineart, etc) and will be asked if there are any changes you wish to make at each stage. Big compositional changes can only be made at the sketch stages, beyond which only small tweaks can be requested (colour or effects changes, minor pose or character design changes).

[janesociety]

the interviews

marvel cast x teen!reader

summary: you and the cast have a day full of interviews for Infinity War and you spend the day worried about one in particular

notes: like the other one, kinda cringy and a few years old. also this is based off how i expirience dyslexia and may be different than your experience!

marvel masterlist

✩ ✩ ✩

The whole cast knew you were dyslexic. It was hard to not notice sometimes. It had first been brought up in one of your first Marvel movies a few years ago. It was when you were quite a bit younger and not as good at reading allowed and connecting words to objects.

It was your first read through and you kept mispronouncing “Fury” as “Furry” and were confused as to why the Avengers were fighting a furry. Eventually, Scarlett had leaned over and corrected you. You were embarrassed, but the cast found it endearing, if anything.

It was now time for the Infinity War press tour and you were nervous. You and the cast had just finished up the small LA portion of the tour and were now off to New York for the first full week. The New York portion was always the hardest for you- mostly because of the chaos of it all.

The New York portion was where all the late night show or morning news appearances happened and the “major” interviews such as Buzzfeed and Wired. And there lied your problem.

Your day started bright and early at 6:00 in the morning so that you and the cast could be ready to go on Good Morning America.

“Hey, kid,” Robert said, walking up behind where you were sitting and placing both of his hands on your shoulders. “You ready?”

“For this? Yeah,” you laughed. “Everything else? Not so sure." He shook your shoulders.

"You'll do great, kiddo, I promise," he said, giving each shoulder a squeeze before walking off again into the chaos.

It was only a few more minutes before you and the rest of the cast were sitting down in two rows in facing an interviewer. The crowd of people watching the show clapped as you all walked out and took your seats.

"And we're back in..." a producer held up three fingers, then two, then one, signalling the end of the commercial break.

"Alright, we're back now with our special guests: the cast of Avengers Infinity War!" the interviewer said. "Hello, guys, it's great to see all of you!" There was a chorus of greetings from you all. "Okay, so let's get started...."

The interview went without a hiccup and you and the cast were off to your next set of interviews- which happened to include the ones you were worried about.

Your agent handed you your time table for the interviews you were going to be doing and your heart started to pound. The Buzzfeed interview you had been warned about was on there, first, however, you had to sit through nearly three hours of other interviews. Interviews normally put you on edge, but knowing what was coming after just made it worse.

You found the room that your morning block of interviews was in and sat to wait for the other two people you'd be with. When Sebastian and Anthony walked in, your face lit up, knowing the interview would be 10x less stressful with them there to entertain/distract the interviewers.

And so your long morning started, the three of you bounced off each others energy and jokes. Most of the interviews went well, although there were ones here and there very obviously spoiler fishing.

"I take about what 60% of what he says is true," Sebastian told the interviewer, making you laugh.

"60% of the time, I am right 5% of the time," Anthony said, confusing the interviewer and making you laugh harder.

"What he's saying is that he is only right 5% of the time, over half the time, which is generous, in my opinion," you said upon seeing the confusion on the interviewers face that did not clear up after your comment.

"So, Y/N, we know this movie is a big game changer for Marvel, and people have been wondering what your, as the youngest cast member, future looks like in the MCU?" they asked, trying to move on from the previous conversation.

"I don't even know what my present in the MCU looks like," you answered. "Am I even in this movie? I don't even know- I just show up where they tell me to."

"Same, I don't get scripts until the week after we film the scenes," Sebastian said.

"A week? Damn, I still haven't gotten mine," Anthony laughed.

"I think that's all I have for you guys today," the interviewer said, obviously somewhat disappointed that they couldn't drag any spoilers out of you. "Thank you!" he said, his voice sincere but his expression sarcastic.

Anthony clapped as they left the room, jumping up out of his chair excitedly. "Alright, lunch time," he said, turning to smile at both of you. While you were grateful for the break, it only meant you were closer to the interviews where you had to read on camera.

"Gotta eat something, kid, gotta long day still," Anthony said, watching you stare at your sandwich. You looked up, nodding and then taking a bite. Just focus, you'll be fine.

"You okay?" Sebastian asked from next to Anthony. You forced a weak smile as you finished chewing.

"Just nervous," you answered, wiping your hands on a napkin near you.

"Why? You're great at interviews," Anthony said.

"I have to read in the next few and I'm worried I'll mess it up," you said, playing with the sleeve of your shirt. "I know it's dumb- I just get nervous about it."

"You got nothing to worry about, kid," Sebastian said. "If you mess up, just play it off as a joke- people will love it it'll end up in one of those 'Y/N being the best MCU cast member' compilations."

"Thanks," you said with your mouth full.

"Chew your food," Anthony said, throwing a napkin at you.

~~~

"I'm Tom Holland," Tom said from beside you.

"And I'm Y/N L/N, and we're going to be taking a quiz to see how easily we can identify Marvel movies-" you cut off, waiting for Tom to finish.

"That had been terribly described," he said.

"Alright, first one," you said, pushing your nerves out of your mind. "A boy destroys his planet because he doesn't want to share it with his sister who broke his favorite toy." You read slowly as to not mess up, and it worked.

"Is that the one Guardians of the Galaxy movie?" Tom asked, thinking out loud. You hummed in thought, trying to figure out what it was.

"None of them have sisters though- except for Gamora but it says him," you said.

"It's Thor!" Tom shouted. "Thor: Ragnarok." You smiled, looking back at your computer, realizing you had to type your answer. Great.

"How do you spell Ragnarok?" you asked, raising your eyebrows.

"It's exactly how it sounds," Tom said, already moving on to the next question. You raised an eyebrow at him.

"Tom, I'm dyslexic, I don't know how to sound things out," you said, him going red remembering it.

"R-a-g-n-a-r-o-k," he spelled out for you and you laughed as you typed it.

"'A boy solved daddy issues with the power of friendship'," Tom read. You both looked stumped.

"Tony had daddy issues," you thought out loud. "So does Loki- maybe it's one of the other Thor ones."

"Would they put two Thor ones in a row?" Tom asked.

"Maybe it's to trick us?" you offered. You both shrugged and started typing.

"Ah! This one is Guardians of the Galaxy," Tom groaned.

"'A dude made a wormhole to seek attention'," he read, moving on to the next one.

"I have no clue," you laughed, leaning back in your seat.

"I don't either," he laughed. "Give up?" he asked, cursor hovering over the button. You nodded doing the same.

"Avengers?" you read out, confused. "Did Loki make a wormhole in that or something?"

"Maybe? God, we're such bad Marvel fans," Tom laughed.

"'Small guy who likes committing international war crimes becomes a him- a himbo who still likes committing international war crimes'," you read aloud.

"Ant-Man," you and Tom say at the same time, laughing as you type the answer in.

"What?" you yelled as it the screen reads Wrong!

"Captain America?" Tom asked, confused.

"We were so confident!" you said, smacking the table.

"'Someone just got out of prison commits more crimes, but now with inces- insects'," you read.

"Did you almost say incest?" Tom laughed/yelled. You burst out laughing too, covering your face.

"Oh my god," you wheezed with laughter. "Can we both agree it's Ant-Man?" you asked, both of you still recovering from laughing, the question only sending you into more fits of laughter.

"'A surgeon gets operated on by his ex-girlfriend'," Tom read. "See, I think this one is Dr. Strange, but that's not actually the plot, so I don't know."

"Want to guess it?" you asked. He nodded, both of you typing it in and getting it right.

"'Man had to face his consequences after ignoring a- a weird guy 2- years before, while adopting a kid who owned the garage he broke in?'" you read, not so sure of the ending. "Was that it?"

"Yeah, that's it," Tom nodded, his brows furrowed. "'Garage he broke in,'" he repeated.

"Oh, Iron Man... 2? Maybe 3?" you said.

"I think 2?" Tom said. "Let's go with that.

"Goddammit, 3!" you groaned.

"Okay, last one," Tom said. "'An orphan fought his teammate (who tired to run away because he hated the American government) with his best friend who murdered the orphan's parents when he was younger.'"

"Okay, I'm almost positive this is Civil War, but we've gotten a lot wrong that I've been sure of, so I don't know," you laughed.

"I think it's Civil War- orphan Tony, teammate Steve, killer Bucky," Tom said, explaining his thought process.

"Alright..." you said typing it in.

"Yep!" Tom yelled but you looked up at him confused.

"I got it wrong?" you said, showing him your laptop. He read what you typed and tried to hide his laughter.

"Y/N.... it's c-i-v-i-l, not c-i-v-a-l," he said chuckling. You turned a bit red and glared at him.

"I hate you," you mumbled, closing your laptop and rolling your eyes.

"We're terrible Marvel Fans," Tom said, looking at his 38% and your 25%.

"Wanna go binge watch every single movie now and redeem ourselves?" you joked. He smiled.

"Sure why not," he chuckled.

[gay-little-izzet]

I do commissions!

It’s been a busy few months for me, but I’m finally feeling in a good place to start doing these again! Note that I only accept payment through PayPal at the moment, and my prices are in USD.

Full information below ⬇️

I offer characters illustrations in four styles and three sizes. The images above are not the only possibilities of how a commission could be inked or rendered, as I’m open to using different brushes or techniques on request. If there’s a particular piece of mine you like the style of, let me know and I can refer you to the pricing that applies.

OPTIONS AND RATES

Sketch: a rough sketch with a textured or untextured brush. Sketch commissions will include an under-sketch to determine pose and composition. Some of these prices are intended mostly for inclusion as part of a character sheet. I will add base colors to a sketch for double the original price.

Head/Bust: $5 ($10 with color)

Half Body: $10 ($20 with color)

Full Body: $15 ($30 with color)

Style A: Thick or medium lines with basic colors underneath. Includes simple details and gradients, but not full shading.

Head/Bust: $15

Half Body: $30

Full Body: $40

Style B: Thick or medium lines with soft shading or cell shading.

Head/Bust: $20

Half Body: $40

Full Body: $60

Style C: Medium or thin lines with full shading/render. +$10 for colored line art.

Head/Bust: $30

Half Body: $60

Full Body: $90

Chibis: I've finally found a style I like for drawing chibi characters, so I'll be including this as a new commission option! Chibis will all be done in the same style, with thick lines and basic coloring.

Head: $10

Full Body: $30

Character Sheet: A series of drawings of a single character, provided they are commissioned at the same time, will cost 10% less than the sum of all components. This includes characters dressed in different outfits, but normal rates apply to a commission of multiple distinct characters.

Complex Design: Since the level of the detail of a design will impact the time it takes me to draw, I am now including an additional charge of 5-10% of the original cost for especially complex designs (very detailed clothing, elaborate anatomy, complicated color/shading situations). As complexity may vary, the additional cost will vary as well (although it literally can't exceed $10 for a single drawing based on my current prices). I appreciate it if clients are understanding when I decide a drawing will cost extra, because this charge helps ensure I am earning a decent rate for my time.

PAYMENT PROCESS

As I mentioned above, I accept payment through PayPal in USD. You can send money directly to my account, @viciousmocked, or if it’s more convenient for you/you would like a more specific record of the transaction, I can also send an invoice directly to your PayPal account.

For commissions of $30 or more, I require at least 50% of the cost to be paid upfront (although clients are welcome to pay more than that, or pay in full upfront). The remaining cost can be paid upon completion, and may be paid in installments if necessary. Bear in mind that if you fail to fully pay for a commission, you cannot purchase another until you have done so, and I may be hesitant to accept a commission if you are unreliable with payment.

I always welcome tips! If you're able and willing to toss me a little extra on a comm, I greatly appreciate it (but no stress if you can't--I don't expect to be paid any more than the agreed upon price, anything extra is up to you).

DISCLAIMERS

I Can/Will Draw:

ocs/rpg characters

fanart

ship art (including fanart or ocs)

party/group drawings

furry/anthro/monsters

robots/cyborgs/phyrexians, ect.

prosthetics and other tech

armor and weapons

blood/gore/body horror

non-sexual nudity

specific art styles

I Can't/Won't Draw:

mechs (not for lack of trying)

explicitly sexual content (again, not for lack of trying. If there's some interest in this, I'll consider changing my policy or making a sideblog for spicier content and commissions)

harmful or offensive content of any kind

any material I have personal or ethical issues with drawing. Given the commissions I have had before, I don't see this being a problem, but if this or the above clause applies, I will make it clear with the client that I am unwilling to draw it immediately.

Understand that art commissioned from me is still my art, and I expect to be credited for it. Please don’t repost my art without credit to me (rude), use it for training ai (why), or use it for commercial purposes (again, why). Again, I don't see this being an issue, as you all have been lovely clients thus far!

If you have questions about my rates or policies, please don't hesitate to ask--my inbox and dms are always open, and I will try to respond promptly. Thank you all for the love and support!

[tiannasfanfic]

Chronically Yours

Steddie x Reader (Fluff)

| Eddie & Steddie Masterlist | AO3 Link |

Summary: The world of dating isn't easy to navigate at the best of times, much less when you have a chronic illness. No one ever seems to understand rescheduling a date due to a pain flare doesn't mean you're not interested. Now you have two suitors, that means you have two opportunities to get your heart broken.

Rating: General Audiences

Author Note: Gender neutral Reader, they/them pronouns used (if any). Steddie x ChronicIllness!Reader. Fluff with some Hurt/Comfort. No specific illness is mentioned in the story apart from chronic pain. Will be a series of oneshots. “Princess” and “mom voice” used in gender neutral ways.

CW: Chronic illness and chronic pain (broad descriptions, no specific details); prescription medication taken appropriately as directed; mentions of depression, self doubt and expectations of being abandoned; some sexually suggestive dialogue.

Word Count: 4,128

Eddie Munson Taglist: @eddie-swhore

It was just dinner.

At least, that was what you told yourself as you laid in bed, curled up with your dogs stretched out on either side of you like furry, snoring sentinels.

It was the same thing you always told yourself whenever you had to cancel plans at the last minute thanks to a random flair up of pain.

It was just a party. Just the mall. Just swimming at the lake. Just game night at a friend’s house.

But, in all honesty, that was just the excuse you told yourself to soften the blow. It never worked, but that never stopped you from trying.

Granted, some plans weren’t as major as others if you had to cancel them. Some were easy to shrug off, like going out to the movies with friends. Even if it was something you had looked forward to seeing, it wasn’t that big of a deal overall if you had to spend the evening in bed with Sadie and Alice instead.

But that really wasn’t the case tonight.

Tonight, you were supposed to have dinner with Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson.

And it wasn’t just dinner. It was actually a date.

While you had only been on three dates with them so far, things had been going really. Those dates were actually the best dates you had ever been on. Steve had tried so hard to keep them orderly, but he could only keep things orderly for so long with Eddie around. For one reason or another, all three dates ended up with the three of you sitting at an all-night diner all the way over on the other side of town until well into the morning, talking and laughing together until you were all red in the face.

But, as of right now, it had been a few weeks since your last date with them.

Tonight marked the fourth time you’ve had to reschedule your next date with them. While Steve and Eddie had been understanding about your reasons so far, you knew that wasn’t going to last for much longer. That was just how things usually went with people you were interested in. Even though you were always open about what the weather changes were going to do to you well in advance, it never seemed to do any good. A handful of rescheduled dates later and people took it as you simply not being interested and moved on.

Ever since the end of spring when that earthquake tore apart Hawkins, the weather had been incredibly odd. Summer wasn’t as hot as normal, with highs only reaching in the mid 60’s at its peak. Then the colder weather started even earlier, feeling like the beginning of winter already in September when the seasons were only just transitioning into autumn. As a result, your normal everyday pain levels had been all over the place for most of the year and was now flaring well beyond tolerable levels. It was all you could do to get through your typical day at work, much less have the energy to do anything else.

After you got off the phone with Steve, you thought back over the disappointment you could hear in his voice. He sounded the same way your suitors always did when they were reaching their limit. You had one more canceled date left, if that, before they gave up on you, too.

While you couldn’t really blame them for not wanting to be with someone already so broken, that didn’t stop it from hurting any less. If anything, this one hurt more since there wasn’t just one suitor involved but two. And you really liked both of them.

The three of you met a few weeks after the big earthquake, right around the time when Eddie’s name was cleared. The spark between you had been undeniable. You all clicked together as if you’d known each other your whole lives. But since Steve and Eddie had just recently began dating, you passed it off as a meeting of kindred spirits.

As time went on, and you spent more time together, their interactions with you became more playful and affectionate than just friendly. You began to notice that they had both started flirting with you. Figuring it was just in good fun and not anything that was going to go anywhere, you returned their affections. It was exciting, not to mention an ego boost, having two incredibly attractive men showering you with their attention and praise. It made you feel special, even if the flattery was only temporarily.

Imagine your surprise, not to mention delight, when they both asked you out.

And now your body was fucking it all up for you, like usual.

With a sigh, you turned over in bed, attempting to make yourself more comfortable. Sadly, it didn’t work. This was one of those flair ups where no matter what position you laid in, every single one hurt just as much as the last. All your movement did in this instance was rouse the dogs, then they had to get up and turn around a few times in order to get themselves comfortable again.

Luckily, it didn’t take too much longer for your medication to start working and begin easing your discomfort. Your thoughts started to feel fuzzy and watery, then your pain finally lifted some as your limbs grew heavy and relaxed. It never took long for the sedative like side effects to knock you out, but you still had enough time to lay there and wonder how the boys would end up breaking things off.

Would they call you and tell you the truth, that you were too broken for their tastes? Give you some excuse about no chemistry and then a half assed apology? Or would they simply fall off the face of the earth, resulting in you being ghosted again?

Only time would tell. The only thing you really knew for sure when it came to other people was, always expect the unexpected. When you think someone will do something, that’s when they’ll do the exact opposite.

Eventually, you drifted off into a dreamless, medication induced sleep.

Sometime later on, you were jarred awake by Sadie and Alice clamoring to get off the bed. Considering they were large breeds of dogs, both over fifty pounds each, there was no way to sleep through that. Nor was there any way to sleep through the excited clamor that began in the living room just a moment later.

While you loved your two girls dearly and spoiled them rotten, they were very easily excitable dogs. They could hear a plastic bag blowing down the street at 2am and would have this exact same reaction.

You knew this from experience.

“Girls! Shush!” you called out from your bed.

While you tried to use your sternest sounding mom voice, you just ended up sounding more like a tired mom rather than a stern one.

After they carried on for a bit longer, they finally quieted down.

Turning from your side onto your back, you carefully stretched then rubbed your eyes. While the pain wasn’t as bad now as it had been prior to your nap, you were feeling quite groggy. You glanced over at your alarm clock and saw it was just a little past 7pm. That explained the groggy feeling. You’d only been asleep for a couple of hours, not long enough to sleep off the more unpleasant effects of your medications. While they worked amazingly well, they tended to knock you out cold, and you always had to give yourself enough time to sleep off all the effects.

Sighing, you rolled over onto your other side, deciding to go back to sleep. You knew you would probably be out for the rest of the night, but that was fine. Sleeping was better than laying there miserable.

But, as you laid there with your eyes closed, trying to go back to sleep, you discovered your brain was awake enough to drift back around to the topic that made you sad before your nap. Your missed date.

Steve and Eddie were originally supposed to pick you up around 7. They had planned to take you out bowling, where they were finally going to settle their argument over who was the better bowler. While you couldn’t bowl yourself anymore due to some of your more recent limitations, you still enjoyed keeping score and watching others. That made this the perfect three-way date activity since you would be an impartial judge to their contest.

After bowling, it had been unanimously decided to skip any attempt at doing something fancy since it never seemed to work out. The diner had become your spot, so that’s where the three of you planned to head for dinner.

While that was the extent of what Steve and Eddie had planned for the evening, once they brought you home, you had planned on inviting them in to continue the evening. And then, with any luck, they would get to see the new lingerie set you would have been wearing underneath your clothes. While they had completely different tastes style wise, you were pretty sure you had picked something out that would easily appease them both.

As you were starting to imagine what their reactions to it would have been, you were jarred out of your thoughts by a heavy weight flumping down on the bed behind you and cuddling up against your back. You assumed this was Sadie coming back to bed since she preferred sleeping on that side in that particular spot.

However, you got very confused all of a sudden when something that felt like an arm wrapped itself around your waist.

Curiously, you turned your head a little to look over your shoulder and found yourself gazing into a pair of chocolate brown eyes that did not belong to either of your dogs.

“Hey there, Princess,” Eddie said, his eyes sparkling at you as he spoke in a soft tone.

You blinked a few times, staring at him in surprise.

“Eddie?” you asked, a dumbfounded tone in your voice. “How in the heck did you get in?”

It was the first thing that popped into your head to say. Things hadn’t progressed far enough with Eddie and Steve yet for either of them to have a key to your house, and you were far too paranoid of a person to keep a spare somewhere outside for just anyone to find. They only keys to your place were held by you and your dad, who had your emergency spare.

Eddie grinned at you.

“Let’s just say hot wiring isn’t the only illicit activity I know how to do,” he said with a wink, then burrowed in closer to you.

You blinked a few more times.

“You can hot wire a car?” you asked, surprise in your voice.

Eddie laughed.

“Yeah, I can, but that’s a story for another day,” he said with a smile, placing a soft kiss to your temple.

The fog in your brain was heavy enough it still took a few moments for it to fully sink in that Eddie really was here, but once it did, a big smile came to your lips, and you turned over in his arms so you could face him.

“Did Steve forget to tell you?” you asked, slipping an arm around him as he pulled you closer to his chest. “I had to reschedule our date again.”

“No, Stevie told me,” Eddie said, trailing his fingertips up and down your back. “We had a chat about it after you two got off the phone. We figure if we’re really going to be serious about this, serious about being with you, I mean, then we better start getting used to having date nights in.”

Now that was the last thing you ever expected to hear.

“What?” you said after a moment, blinking at him in shock.

Eddie chuckled.

“Well, this happens whenever it’s cold, right?” he asked, waiting until you nodded before continuing. “We don’t mind staying in with you. We really want to, actually. So, we thought tonight was a good night to get started.”

Once again, it took a few moments to fully process his words, but you still didn’t have an intelligent reply once you did.

“Steve’s here, too?” you asked dumbly as you lifted your head to look towards the door. “Where is he?”

“Letting the girls out to go potty,” Eddie said, starting to stroke your cheek. “We weren’t sure if you’d been up recently or not and thought they might need to go.”

Now you really didn’t know what to say. On the rare occasion that people came by to check on you during your more painful flair ups like this one, you’d have to ask them to let the dogs out or do it yourself. No one ever thought about them to take the initiative and do it themselves.

It was just one more reason why you found yourself falling for this pair. Not only did they think of you, but also thought of your babies in one fell swoop.

Before this heartwarming moment could turn any more romantic though, it was interrupted by the sound of eight paws running excitedly up the hall towards the bedroom. The girls came flying in soon afterwards, jumping onto the bed and into the cuddle pile with their human and their Best Friend Eddie.

There were lots of grunts and giggles as the both of you were trampled. Eddie did his best to shield your body from the chaos with his own, but there was only so much he could do. After a bit of excitement, Alice finally settled down next to you, while Sadie, easily the heaviest of the two, decided she needed to lay ON Eddie rather than net to him.

The sound of laughter floated over to the bed from the direction of the door.

“Of all the things I could’ve walked in on,” you heard Steve say, and looked over to see him leaning against the door frame, watching the chaotic scene on the bed with a soft smile. “A cuddle pile definitely makes me the most jealous.”

Eddie lifted his head and looked around at your queen-sized bed. Between the two humans and two large dogs, there wasn’t much empty space left.

“I hate to say this, sweetheart,” he said, looking over at Steve. “But I don’t think there’s any room for you.”

“I know,” Steve said, chuckling as he started to come around to your side of the bed. “And that’s why I’m jealous.”

Alice started to get wiggly as Steve stopped next to the bed. Resting one hand on the headboard, he leaned halfway down towards you, gazing into your eyes.

“Have you eaten today?” he asked.

You raised one hand in a so-so gesture.

“I had a peanut butter sandwich earlier when I took my pills,” you said. “But nothing since then.”

Steve nodded, a knowing look on his face.

“Good thing we brought dinner then,” he said. “We’ll give you a few minutes to finish waking up and get everything set up in the living room, okay?”

You nodded, unable to stop a large smile from coming to your face at how sweet they were being. Steve returned the smile, then started to lean down further towards you, moving in to kiss you.

Instead of you getting the kiss, Alice decided it was actually for her instead. She jumped up to intercept Steve’s kiss with one of her own.

Steve immediately stood upright, sputtering as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Bah, that was a tongue in my mouth,” he said, as he wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the disgruntled look on his face. He scowled down playfully at Alice then ruffled her ears affectionately. She happily wagged her tail up at Steve, completely unaware of her faux pas.

Eddie hadn’t seen exactly what happened as Sadie had kicked him in the ribs. So, when he heard Steve’s words, he lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend.

“Now now, Stevie, that ain’t nice,” he said, then brought one hand up to your chin and gently turned your head so you were looking at him again. “But, on the other hand, if he doesn’t want your tongue in his mouth, that just means more for me.”

As Steve protested Eddie’s choice of words, Eddie ignored him in favor of lowering his lips to yours in a slow, deep kiss.

This was the type of kiss that people write poems about. It was the kind of kiss that made the back of your head tingle and your toes clench. It was the type of kiss that made you forget how to breathe judging from the way you gasped for air when your lips finally parted.

Steve finally had to physically drag Eddie from your bed in order for you to get up, despite Eddie’s protests of being comfy in there with you. You giggled, watching the preppy boy wrestle the pouting metalhead out of the room, your dog’s excitedly accompanying them.

It took a bit to get out of bed, your limbs still sore and achy. They loosened up a bit as you moved around to get to the bathroom, but not by much. While a shower definitely would help, and you would have preferred to take one, with your low energy levels and slightly woozy head, that wasn’t the best idea. It was easy to fall while in a state like this and falling in the shower was not an experience you were keen on repeating.

Though, thinking about that did make an interesting idea pop into your head.

You could always ask the boys for their help with a shower.

At this point, you were pretty sure neither of them would mind, judging by how affectionate they had been getting towards you. While Eddie would start undressing before you even finished the question, Steve wasn’t quite as forward with you yet as his boyfriend was. He would definitely be the more shocked of the two. You might even get a blush out of him, but you certainly didn’t see him objecting either.

But, as thrilling as that idea was, tonight really wasn’t a suitable time for that. You wanted to feel much better first before getting naked with them for the first time. You settled for freshening up by brushing your teeth, putting on deodorant and changing out of the pajamas you’d been in for two days. Not feeling up to regular clothes, you just swapped them for a clean pair, but you did at least make sure these didn’t have stains or holes in them.

By the time you emerged from the bedroom, you felt a little more awake and a little more human. The smell of pizza hit you as you made your way through your small house, causing your stomach to remember you’d only eaten once today.

In the living room, Eddie and Steve had cleared off your coffee table, swapping the items on top with boxes of pizza and breadsticks. While Eddie was already relaxing at one end of the couch, Steve was bent over in front of your TV sorting through a few Family Video rental boxes. Your dogs were sitting next to the coffee table on the side directly opposite of the couch, staring intently at the pizza boxes as if they might try to escape.

The entire scene made your heart flutter. You paused in the doorway, a soft smile on your face.

It had been quite a while since someone went to this much effort for you. Years, even. Way back in the early days of your illness when the pain was just starting to reach levels that impacted your daily life. But when it didn’t get better, gradually worsening instead, it felt like everyone began seeing you as more of an inconvenience than anything else. Very quickly, your large circle of friends dwindled to just a mere handful of people you could count on.

Your smile then faltered for a moment, as your eyes flickered between Eddie and Steve. It seemed almost inevitable that they would start to think of you as an inconvenience too.

Fortunately, you didn’t have the chance to get stuck in that negative thought pattern. Steve stood up just then and turned towards the couch, holding a movie in each hand.

“Which one do you thi-“ Steve started to ask Eddie, then he looked up and saw you standing in the doorway. “Good timing, Y/N! We didn’t know what you would be in the mood to watch, so we rented an assortment.”

Steve started reading the titles off of the selections they brought as you made your way over to the couch. Eddie sat up quickly, moving his legs together so he wasn’t man spreading quite so much, and patted the cushion next to him with a bright smile on his face.

You sat down in the offered spot, thinking over the choices.

“Let’s go with Evil Dead 2,” you said, then chuckled. “Horror always cheers me up when I’m in pain, and I love that one.”

At that, Eddie threw a smug look at Steve, and Steve wrinkled nose at Eddie in response.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at them. They made a cute couple.

Once the movie started, the three of you settled in on the couch and started in on the pizza, with Steve clearing away the leftovers once everyone was done. The dogs supervised all of these activities very closely.

After Steve and the girls disappeared into the kitchen to put everything away, Eddie draped his arm around your shoulders and gently pulled you closer, so you were leaning into his side. You pulled your legs up under you, cuddling up close to him, and then reached up to pull a blanket down over you from the back of the couch. Eddie helped you spread it out the way you wanted it, then you settled in with your head on his chest and an arm around his waist. Both of Eddie’s arms were around you in a loose embrace, and he kissed the top of your head before resting his cheek against it.

Even though you always kept your house at a comfortable temperature, if the conditions outside were cold and wet, then that’s what your body responded to. But right now, laying against Eddie’s, you began to warm up even more. With the blanket trapping both his body heat and yours underneath it, and Eddie being a heat generator, you were soon comfortable and more at ease than you had been.

It didn’t take long for Steve to get everything put away. The girls came back to the living room first, each one carrying one of the large dog biscuits you usually gave them every night around dinner time.

The fact he even remembered you mentioning their dinner treats once in a conversation made your heart swell.

When Steve returned, he sat next to you on the couch, leaving only a little bit of space between him and you. Not wanting him to feel left out of the cuddles, you scooted your body down just a bit, closing the small gap between you, then stretched your legs out over his lap. He looked over at you and smiled, resting one hand on your knee and the other on your calf.

There was a small intermission between movies for bathroom and smoke breaks, then Steve and Eddie swapped places on the couch.

“You know,” Steve said, slipping his arms around you as you cuddled up to him now. “I could get used to date nights in if they all end up like this.”

“Really?” you asked, looking up at him nervously. “Won’t you guys get sick of just sitting around, doing nothing at my house?”

“I don’t think I could ever get sick of you,” Steve said, then looked over at his boyfriend. “What about you, Eddie?”

“Hell no,” Eddie said, standing up and coming back to the couch once he had finished putting in the next movie. “There’s no place I’d would rather be. If you’re stuck at home, Princess, well, then we want to be stuck at home with you.”

You couldn’t help but melt into Steve’s arms at their words, your heart fluttering once again.

Burrowing closer to Steve’s, you stretched your legs out across Eddie’s lap, enjoying this unexpected moment of intimacy.

And, for the first time in a long time, you felt truly hopeful about a new relationship.

[kinsey3furry300]

I have no ideas what animorph is but I already seen it mentioned on at least 5 different blog which have nothing to do with each other (you being the 5th) what the hell is it???

90s/early 00s young adult sci-fi book series of around 60 short books, published once a month, by K A Applegate.

The books were distributed cheeply by the Scholastic book fair, and could be found in most school libraries thought the Mid 00s.

The plot was 5 normal kids have to stop a secret alien invasion by turning into various animals, and the books were known for starting off with quirky humour and very rapidly decending into utter existential horror with body horror, possession horror, and the ptsd you'd get if you were actually a teen super hero and had to fight an actual war with real stakes aged 13-16, and the fear of never knowing who your real enemy might be. The series ended about a month before 9/11 with a disastrous final battle and a grim warning about how war never really fixes any of the underlying problems between rival nations or peoples, and just destroys good people, so... yeah, ooof.

Due to the content, beloved by horror fans, super hero fans, Sci fi fans, furries (the kids have the power to turn into animals for combat and it gets real weird real fast), and the queer and the trans community, so it turns up on a lot of unrelated blogs.

The audio books are still readily available and are pretty well done, and the cover art of the books was gloriously 90s.

Behold!

There was also a tv show we dont talk about.

The main cast were:

Jake: the leader. There is an evil alien slug living in his brother's head, and this causes issues for him.

Cassie: Jake's crush. The moral center of the books. Also her parents are veterinarians at a zoo, with is very fucking convenient if you need a ready sourse of animals to turn into.

Marco: Jake's best friend, the smart one. Also uses inappropriate humour to cope with trauma (relatable).

Rachel: Jake's cousin. Uses turning into a grizzly bear and committing extreme violence to cope with her trauma (relatable).

Tobias: perminantly turns into a bird to escape his trauma (most relatable) but then has to deal with extreme body and mental dismorphia as a result. Has a star-crossed lovers plot with Rachel. He is my favorite.

Ax: an alien teenager they just adopted and hide in the woods. Is also my favourite. He's a bright blue centar with stalk-eyes and a sythe tail, and he loves Cinabon and warcrimes. Due to his extreme alien mindset, he's been taken as a metaphor for Neurodivergance, but it's unclear if that was the author's original intent.

The books are awesome, and still available as e-books, comics and audio books I'd you want to check them out.

Here is a video essay that does a far better job of explaining:

[thankssteveditko]

A brief introduction

Hi. My name's Bobby. (She/her.) You may know me for running my inexplicably widely known Archie Sonic blog Thanks Ken Penders, or for making the game Super Lesbian Animal RPG. Maybe you just know me as a furry artist. I wear a lot of hats!

While it's not one of the main interests I'm known for, I've been a fan of Spider-Man for most of my life, ever since the fateful weekend in 2002 when my dad decided to rent a certain Sam Raimi movie. He passed on his love of the character to me. Spider-Man remains my favorite superhero to this day, even in an age when MCU fatigue is really setting in. My tastes in fiction (and, by extension, my own writing) were surely influenced by the mix of fantastical and relatable elements found in Peter Parker's stories. The way he can go on these adventures swinging all around New York and then be like "shit, I forgot to pay my rent for my hellhole apartment." As my dad put it, unlike a lot of other superheroes, under the mask Spider-Man's just a normal guy from Queens.

I'm not the most hardcore fan, sure, but I've enjoyed plenty of takes on the character across different storytelling mediums. Movies, cartoons, video games, etc. That is, with one notable exception. The original comics. The Earth-616 Spider-Man comics that have been going for 60 years now. Even though I was the rare 21st century elementary schooler with a comic shop pull list, the mainline Marvel universe seemed completely impenetrable to me. I didn't know where to start, and every year I put it off, the backlog only grew larger and larger. I did read the first few volumes of Ultimate Spider-Man in middle school because my local library had them, but that was about it.

Recently, though, being in a Spidey mood thanks to the Insomniac games and Spider-Verse movies, I had a crazy idea. What if I just... read the main universe Spider-Man comics from the start?

I've read plenty of other long comics. Manga series that span hundreds of chapters. All sorts of Sonic and Transformers comics. I read all of Homestuck. I'm a One Piece fan, for Christ's sake. It can't be that hard, right?

Right?

...Okay, yeah, this is gonna take forever. Which is why I've made a whole blog for my little Spider-Man posts as I casually read these comics. Enjoy!

[adrianasunderworld]

Another of these OC fashion posts, because I miss them. This time featuring Isabelle when she's an adult post game events. Here's the og post of her when she's young.

Isabelle when she finally managed to go home, take a witch craft apprenticeship and is constantly going back and forth in the Devildom. I think her style generally darkened as she got older and her taste changed. Like instead of more pastel blues and yellows, she tends to wear deeper blues and warmer Autumn-yellows. She's not full goth, but there's a bit of that in there. I also think Isabelle is big into thrifting, something she picked up when she lived in Twisted Wonderland and didn't have a ton of money, and I feel like thrifting on the Devildom would be insane. All these demons getting rid of clothes they've had for centuries. You'll find her in an Edwardian blouse layered under a 90s mini dress and boots from the 60s. It's all very eclectic. I also think the Crewels by the time she left had a good deal of influence on her fashion sense. So Isabelle still likes very form fitting dresses that flatter her and layer them with a coat that has some sort of furry trim. And if she doesn't have a fuzzy coat, she still some longer layer that is very flowy and long. There's always a lot of texture in her outfits. You'll a lot of lace, velvet, fur, leather all over an outfit. Nothing ever blends together.

Eventually when she returns to Twisted Wonderland and eventually marries Malleus, she obviously has to dress the part of Briar Queen. At least for formal occasions. Again, Isabelle isn't full goth, though there is some Gothic influence in her clothes, and that mostly comes out for formal Briar Valley settings, where she has to be the queen of the dark fae next to Malleus. Even though some the dresses I found are all black, I think there would be more deep reds, emerald greens, dark blues and gold also in her gowns. Even if they're just accents. Again as her casual wear, lots of lace and different fabrics. Plenty of flowy skirts and fitted tops with cool sleeves. Lots of off the shoulder looks, just because I think thats one of the bigger details of Belles ball gown. I also see Isabelle having a lot of rose motifs in her looks. You'll find it on accessories or the pattern of her clothes. Malleus is the briars and she is the roses, that is their Thing.

Another aspect of Adult Isabelle, once she returns to Twisted Wonderland, is that she reunites with Divus and Lilith and also occasionally writes for Divine Magazine and publish her own novels. (Though maybe under a pen name or her Maiden name maybe.) So Isabelle is often going with Lilith to major fashion and publishing events or just going around shopping with her. It's more or less a more designer version of what she would have normally worn. Still with the furry coats and the form fitting dresses. And much more red, black, and white. She has to put on the appearance of the Crewels heiress now returned, after all. I can even see people online doing side by side comparisons of Isabelles outfit next to Young Lilith, the Crewels influenced her clothing THAT much, especially in settings like that where she's with them.

Honorable mentions:

@mangacupcake @marrondrawsalot @writing-heiress @the-weirdos-mind

[thecreaturecodex]

Gun Elemental

Image by Nate Marcel, © Shield of Faith Studios

[Commissioned by Soluman Blevins. Twisted Menagerie Manual is one of the better monster books for post apocalyptic RPGs that I’ve read. It understands the assignment set forth by Gamma World: the post-apocalypse as a wacky anything goes romp. There are hybrid animals, gun toting furries, demon automobiles, clown priests of fast food hamburgers, etc. It’s a lot of fun, so I thank Soluman for pointing me in its direction in the first place. By the standards of the book as a whole, the elementals (data, debris and gun) are almost sedate.]

Gun Elemental CR 10 N Outsider (elemental) This creature is a three legged, asymmetrical mound made out of smooth metal. Covering it in layers are dozens of guns, all facing outward, of many shapes and sizes.

There is not an Elemental Plane of Guns. The gun elemental, therefore, is highly debated by those sages that know of its existence. Some claim that it is an interloper from another reality where firearms are an integral component of existence. Other sages instead maintain that gun elementals form in the dark corners of the Outer Planes, in the realms of gods of technology, warfare and death. Still others believe that gun elementals are an offshoot of fire or earth elementals (perhaps as a further modification of a presumed metal elemental).

Gun elementals live for combat, no matter the cause. When not fighting, they are usually engaged in target shooting, but this is still hazardous—gun elementals get so excited that they shoot wildly in all directions, catching nearby creatures with random, aimless bullets. If they face another gunslinger, they are especially dangerous. Not only is the gun elemental immune to bullets, it can steal the gun with a touch and absorb it in order to heal.

When a gun elemental is slain, its body collapses into a heap of scrap metal. Useable guns and ammunition can be salvaged from it, of a value equal to the standard treasure value of the encounter. This is a good opportunity for a GM to introduce more advanced firearms than normal to their campaign if they choose to, but could also be in the form of multiple early firearms.

Gun Elemental  CR 10 XP 9,600 N Large outsider (elemental, extraplanar) Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +15 Aura stray fire (100 ft., Reflex DC 21) Defense AC 23, touch 14, flat-footed 18 (-1 size, +5 Dex, +9 natural) hp 126 (12d10+60) Fort +9, Ref +13, Will +8 DR 10/adamantine; Immune elemental traits Defensive Abilities absorb gun, immune to projectiles Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee 3 slams +14 (1d8+3) Ranged 3 integrated machine guns +16 touch (2d8/19-20x4) Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Special Attacks automatic fire, combined arms Statistics Str 16, Dex 20, Con 20, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 11 Base Atk +12; CMB +17; CMD 32 Feats Deadly Aim, Improved Critical (machine gun), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot Skills Appraise +14, Knowledge (engineering) +14, Perception +15, Sense Motive +15, Stealth +16 Languages Terran Ecology Environment any land and underground Organization solitary, pair or battalion (3-6) Treasure standard (see above) Special Abilities Absorb Gun (Su) By touching a firearm as a standard action, a gun elemental can absorb it into its body, destroying the gun but healing damage. It heals a number of hit points equal to the base damage dealt by the gun. Magical or attended guns can resist this with a DC 16 Fortitude save. The save DC is Charisma based. Automatic Fire (Ex) As a full round action, a gun elemental can fire its guns automatically, attacking every foe in a 150 foot line. It rolls each attack roll separately, and each attack roll suffers a -2 penalty. It cannot add precision damage or extra damage from Vital Strike or similar feats to this, but does ignore concealment and mirror image effects. Roll to confirm each critical hit separately. Combined Arms (Ex) When making a full attack action, a gun elemental can attack with its melee and ranged natural weapons. Immune to Projectiles (Su) A gun elemental takes no damage from bullets, arrows, crossbow bolts and other physical projectiles. Explosives, such as an alchemist’s bomb, or magical or technological rays, effect a gun elemental normally. Integrated Machine Guns (Ex) A gun elemental’s machine guns are integrated weapons, meaning that they are treated as natural weapons and cannot make iterative attacks. The machine gun is an advanced firearm with a range increment of 150 feet. A gun elemental’s attacks with its integrated machine guns do not provoke attacks of opportunity. The gun elemental does not have a misfire chance with these guns, and is treated as having infinite ammunition. Stray Fire Aura (Ex) As a swift action, a gun elemental can fire off bullets in every direction. All creatures in a 100 foot radius must succeed a DC 21 Reflex save or take 1d8 points of damage. The save DC is Dexterity based.

[transhuman-priestess]

Protogens are fluffy cyborgs with a screen/visor over their face. Normally they have a chestplate and thigh armor. They have interchangeable limbs and tails that can be replaced depending what they are needed for. They are 40% machine 60% biological. Primagens are 60% machine 40% organic. They were created as basically drones to carry out missions for the Primagens such as space exploration or soldiers, basically anything the Primagens wanted but didn't want to do themselves. Eventually some Protogens did escape.

There is a lot more to the lore and a lot of variations on it but that is about all. Seems like something you'd be interested in with them being brainwashed drones.

So it’s like, kinda furry adjacent?

I must admit that while I occasionally reblog furry art and h

Be many friends who are furries I’ve never been into myself. My personal feelings re: nonhumanism is that I don’t feel biological at all. Animal-like robots are just kinda like, why do that when I could be a tank?

No shade meant at all. Just not my thing.

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

A furry friend allowed me to share this idea so.

Basically, a world where all animals turn anthropomorphic at the time they'd normally be dead in real life, afterwards living a solid life for around 60 years after that.

Say, a wolf.

They live for 16 years in the wild. They are born, they grow, they have their "teenage" years around the 16th year and after that in the span of around 2 years gain anthropomorphic shape + maturity.

Setting is medieval so the "awakened" animals live in their own controlled territories and civilizations.

[rsenak]

Commissions open!! Please read my Terms of Service first! (link may not work on mobile :( ) View my page for more examples.

Please reblog this if you can!

details under the cut

I can only accept payment through PayPal at the moment.

Will draw;

original characters

fanart

most animals (please ask if unsure!)

gore

Willing to draw, but please ask first;

some/light mecha

anything with suggestive themes

furry

As references PLEASE send me,

detailed references of the character(s) and outfit(s) I’m drawing as best as you can

pictures of the pose(s) (and background) you have in mind too

If for whatever reason you can’t send me exact references/pictures that are close to it, I’d ask you for a very detailed description. In this case, I’ll send you more questions and WIPs than I normally would. I ask that you respond to these in a timely manner.

Style 1 - simple

Portrait/bust - $45

Half body - $55

Full body - $70

additional character + $35

Highlights and line color: optional (no change in price)

No background/simple color background (solid or gradient)

Style 2 - fully rendered (+ background option)

Portrait/bust - $55

Half body - $65

Fullbody - $80

Background + $60

Additional character + $45

After discussion (as I have no examples on hand right now); Character sheet - style 1

Full body x2 (front and back) in 1 outfit or underwear, 1 headshot, details/accessories/weapons/chibi headshot (up to 3)

Basic price - $130

Additional outfit(s) + $40 (/ outfit)

Additional accessories + $10 (/ piece)

Additional headshots + $20 (/ headshot)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to message me!

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Evolutionary War

1988

Oh, shit. Evolutionary War.

So at some point. Uh, at this point. Marvel decided to try a new thing to make their annuals more exciting.

The idea was that all the annuals would tell one story, one big story. Basically a company wide crossover without crossing over. A story so big that it would touch every hero or team that had an annual, even if they didn’t interact with the other heroes/teams.

So we get Evolutionary War.

The High Evolutionary has been around since the 60s. Mostly he just wants to make furries in peace. And you know what? Power to him. He’d have loved the internet.

Then he wanted to make a copy of Earth except no superheroes and also Adam Warlock was around as a Jesus allegory.

Uh, power to him?

I dunno. I liked the Evolutionary’s earlier stuff better. His later stuff gets weird. And he keeps being involved with Wanda and Pietro Maximoff but changing his mind on how involved he is.

At some point, the Beyonders steal his pet project Counter-Earth and put it in a museum and that just depressed the High Evolutionary so much that he turned into goo.

We’ve all been there.

But now he’s back with a new project. And since its called Evolutionary War, I imagine its not consumer friendly.

Consider instead making an Evolutionary Thermos.

Anyway. There are eleven annuals in this event. For books I don’t cover and have no desire to deep dive into for the sake of this post.

If I were to cover every annual in full, this event would take more of my time than Secret Wars did. But also, if I just cover the Avengers related stuff, that’s most of the story I’m leaving out.

So I’ll cover the West Coast and East Coast Avengers Annuals as I would normally. And I’ll cover in brief the relevant parts of the other annuals.

And I used the cover for Avengers Annual #17 because I’ve seen it used as the iconic image of Evolutionary War. And for a reason. Its the best cover of the bunch. Fight me.

We start our war with

X-Factor Annual #3: UNNATURAL SELECTION

In brief, X-Factor was a reunion book of the original five X-Men. It required bringing Jean Grey back to life which made Chris Claremont a bit sore. Also, since there was already X-Men and New Mutants, X-Factor distinguished itself by having a stupid premise.

The original five X-Men pretended to be a group called the X-Terminators who were mutant hunters. But really, they were a team called X-Factor and saved the mutants they were pretending to hunt. What does the factor stand for? Fuck you is what. X team names don’t have to make sense. Go to your room.

The premise of the comic was so stupid, X-Factor eventually realized that mutant hating business manager Cameron Hodge had made it up to worsen human-mutant relations.

X-Terminators itself later spun out into a new book because spinning out into new books is what X-books are best at. Did the new X-Terminators x-terminate people? I dunno. They were mostly kids and young adults so one hopes not.

Anyway, enough delay.

We’re past the fake mutant hunters thing and into the public mutant heroes. X-Factor thwarted an attack by Apocalypse and jacked his ride so now the fickle public loves them.

While rebuilding the Empire State Building from the attack, Jean Grey Marvel Girl (why not Marvel Woman, Jean?) senses a psychic scream FROM DEEP IN THE EARTH.

(In addition to Jean hearing it, several other psychically sensitive characters do. Mostly X-characters and also Franklin Richards but Dr Druid is also in the lineup. Which meas this is in the period before he falls into a time hole. So once again Dr Druid is here for some reason.)

The scream came from the Moloid caverns.

A group of armored men called the Purifiers are attacking the Moloids and Tryannoids. They’ve been ordered by their master (the High Evolutionary, ‘natch) not to use more violence than is necessary. But he’s still ordering a genocide because the Purifiers are using sterilizing rays and sterilizing baths to try to prevent the Moloids from reproducing any further.

Eugenics!

Dammit, the High Evolutionary! Go back to making furries!

X-Factor makes their way down to the caverns and winds up first fighting the Moloids as they don’t trust any strangers right now but then making peace with their leader, a mutant Moloid later called Val-Or. He can psychically direct the otherwise pretty passive Moloids. X-Factor helps him fight against the Purifiers when they swing back around.

Apocalypse also detected the scream but figures out that the High Evolutionary is behind everything and goes up to his space station to pay him a visit/beating/philosophical debate.

While both Apocalypse and the High Evolutionary claim to be working towards encouraging the evolution of humanity into something greater, they differ heavily on methods and timescale.

Apocalypse has been “guiding” humanity for thousands of years. Causing war and strife to encourage humanity grows strong.

Apocalypse: “You, superbly intelligent as you are, immortal as you are, powerful as you are... have existed for a mere instant of humanity’s past. I am as old as man... and time has taught me patience. You have that to learn.”

He considers the High Evolutionary’s plans to sterilize those he deems genetically unfit to be unnatural selection. HEY, TITLE DROP.

The High Evolutionary argues: “In less than a single lifetime, I have devolved to less than animal... and evolved to become like unto a god. I have seen where humanity is going... and on its own... it will advance... and then it will stop, as I have stopped. In controlling humanity’s destiny, I offer it a chance to become more than it can be.. by giving it a... boost.”

Apocalypse deduces that for some reason, the High Evolutionary is rushing towards his goals. He chalks it up to the impatience of youth. Because Apocalypse is super old. He would say that.

But he teleports the High Evolutionary to the Moloid caverns and shows him the Moloids and X-Factor vs the Purifiers.

For all that the Evolutionary judged the Moloids an evolutionary dead end, incapable of changing, too passive and pliant, Val-Or is something he would have overlooked in his haste.

The High Evolutionary tries to dismiss Val-Or as an animal lashing out instinctively but he has to concede the point when Apocalypse claims that the strife the Purifiers brought hastened Val-Or’s growth.

With his Purifiers being overwhelmed by the Moloids and X-Factor, the High Evolutionary teleports them to safety to continue his plans elsewhere.

The High Evolutionary: “The plan isn’t over. In fact... it has barely begun! And soon... soon... the entire Earth will feel the shaping hand of the High Evolutionary.”

So at the end of the first part of this Evolutionary War, we know that the High Evolutionary is in some kind of hurry. That he’s using Purifier troops to sterilize groups he doesn’t feel have evolutionary potential. And that he’s making some bad judgements.

Next,

Punisher Annual #1: EVOLUTIONARY JIHAD

Wait, Punisher in involved?

Geez, I think that shows one of the flaws of the tell one story with all the annuals approach. Evolutionary War does not seem like something that would impact Punisher a lot.

I guess I’ll see as I dig in.

The Punisher’s status quo is that he’s the Punisher. He shoots criminals to death with guns.

You don’t need to know a lot to know the Punisher.

Anyway, in this annual, he’s tracking down El Caiman, a drug kingpin in Bogota.

He absolutely did not expect to be attacked by a heavily armored man. His machine gun fire just bounces off the armor but Punisher is able to knock the armored goon over with a grenade and interrogate him.

The man claims that Punisher is on a list.

Eliminator: “We’re headed for the ultimate goal of human aspiration! And to get there, we have to weed out the junkies and the crazies, and you’re both!”

Huh, okay. So the Purifiers to sterilize populations the High Evolutionary deems dead ends. And the Eliminators to get rid of individuals within viable populations who would hamper the Evolutionary’s goals.

Sure.

More of the Eliminators show up and Punisher decides he’s not armed enough for this. He happened to save a girl in the firefight and she takes him to her dad... El Caiman.

They’re both being targeted so decide to make an alliance until the Eliminators are taken care of.

Punisher and El Caiman retreat to his drug farm where he has better weapons.

There’s a lot of Punisher shooting things and blowing up things and shooting other things but he gets to the last Eliminator.

The Last Eliminator: “The High Evolutionary! He will lead the human race to the next great plateau of achievement! But first we must eliminate all drugs and other genetic pollutants -- as well as anyone who stands in our way!”

Anyway, Punisher kills that guy too.

And El Caiman too when the drug lord decides to try to kill Frank before Frank can kill him. Then Punisher takes the drug lord’s daughter and begins looking for a way out of the jungle.

A very Punisher story. With a bit of tying into the big event.

Hm. You know, the High Evolutionary doesn’t seem short on finding people to hire that are big into eugenics. With a lot of supervillain mooks, you have to figure that the pay or benefits are worth getting punched by Captain America or whatever. But all the High Evolutionary’s men seemingly follow his ideals or just love having an excuse to kill people.

Next,

Silver Surfer Annual #1: ADAM

Silver Surfer context! He was finally released from his long imprisonment on Earth after doing Galactus a solid. Since then, he’s been having a lot of space adventures involving the Elders of the Universe trying to kill Galactus out of jealousy of him being older and also the Skrull/Kree War heating up again.

How could Evolutionary War have anything to do with him when he’s in space?

Well, Mantis was traveling around with him but she died. She didn’t really because she was telecommuting from Earth by making a body out of plants. But Silver Surfer thinks she died so he’s coming to Earth to find her son, the supposed Celestial Messiah.

Okay but what does Silver Surfer have to do with the Super-Skrull? Or the Eternals?

Well.

The High Evolutionary pops into the Eternal city of Olympia and claims that he’s a lot like the Celestials because they all like fucking with evolution and anyway, now that he’s buddies with the Eternals, do you mind doing him a favor and mapping the Silver Surfer’s DNA for the good of all mankind?

I assume because the Eternals had committed to trying to improve humanity in the Eternals book, they agree.

When the Silver Surfer arrived on Earth, the Super-Skrull popped into existence due to stuff that had earlier happened in Surfer’s book. The Super-Skrull is a fighty bastard so he starts fighting Silver Surfer but then both get caught by the Eternals.

They ask the Silver Surfer if he’ll voluntarily let his DNA be mapped but he has a big

to say to that.

So they just decide to force him. And fuck it. The High Evolutionary didn’t ask them to DNA scan the Super-Skrull but might as well do him too.

Super-Skrull learns that all Skrulls have lost their shape-shifting and that the Skrull empire has broken up into squabbling factions AND that the Skrull/Kree War is heating up again and feels despair. But Silver Surfer convinces him that they can work together to escape the DNA scan so that Super-Skrull can go back to his people because he still has his shapeshifting and maybe that can be used to fix everyone else’s.

They break free, there’s a fight scene, and Silver Surfer helps Super-Skrull escape by holding back the Eternals.

Then he convinces the Eternals to leave him the fuck alone and flies off to investigate what the hell the High Evolutionary is up to.

We don’t learn much more about that ourselves. The High Evolutionary claims that he’s studied all the peoples on Earth (humans, Eternal, deviants) but that he wants to study humanoids too. But makes it specifically about the Silver Surfer.

Does he want the Evolutionary War to make it so all humans possess the Power Cosmic? Who can say at this point.

Moving along.

New Mutants Annual #4: MIND GAMES

The New Mutants!

They are Mutants who are newer than the old mutants but not to be confused with the New X-Men who were newer than the original X-Men.

While the New Mutants studied and trained at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, their teacher was Magneto. Sort of the grand result of Claremont’s redemption arc of Magneto, where he took over for Xavier when Xavier had to go to space and be with his space girlfriend. At least until editorial pressure had Magneto turn supervillian again. But we’re not there yet! Although we’re nearly there because it happens after Inferno!

(Well it was editorial pressure and also the fact that the New Mutants were lemmings who were mad Magneto wouldn’t let them endanger themselves so snuck out under his nose and endangered themselves, and got mad at Magneto when they died of it. The New Mutants drove him back to supervillainy. Its quite sad.)

BUT WE’RE BEFORE THAT!

In this issue, the New Mutants sneak out under his nose and endanger themselves after he directly tells them not to, that he’ll handle the situation.

Anyway, we’re introduced to a new part of the High Evolutionary’s weird, evolution-based plan.

A group of his Purifiers are focused not on sterilizing Moloids but on the removal of dangerous mutant powers.

The High Evolutionary: “Those powers that will endanger the survival of the human race must be removed... if my great plan for humanity’s advancement is to succeed.”

The Purifiers track down and capture a pair of mutants named Glow Worm and Bulk because they’re highly radioactive and that just won’t do.

The High Evolutionary hopes that they survive the depowering process but he’s not going to not have it done. And indeed, removing their powers doesn’t remove the radiation they already have. So now they’re dying of radiation.

One of the Purifiers points out that this is a much worse death than just shooting them would have been. WHICH HE’S FINE WITH. He just wanted to point it out. But the High Evolutionary avoids killing wantonly. Supposedly.

Depowering dangerous mutants becomes the New Mutant’s problems when the Purifiers capture their ex-teammate Amara Aquilla aka Magma from Nova Roma (a secret roman colony in the Amazon unless its not. It goes back and forth.)

Magma’s powers to cause earthquakes and volcanoes and inability to control it perfectly bring her to the Purifiers attention.

The Hellfire Club and Magneto plan to go handle it but the New Mutants decide pssh those adults aren’t shit. Lets go endanger ourselves.

The New Mutants do save Magma from the depowering machine but then Moonstar gets thrown into the machine instead and almost dies but Glow Worm and Bulk turn the switch the other way and make Moonstar’s powers even more powerful instead.

The depowering machine gets smashed and Illyana winds up teleporting the entire group of Purifiers to very demon infested Limbo so the Purifiers won’t narc on them when Magneto and co show up late to the party.

The ones that the kids didn’t send to hell get teleported to safety by the High Evolutionary as he did in the X-Factor Annual.

And now,

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22: DRUG WAR RAGES

Holy shit, Speedball was introduced in Evolutionary War?

Spider-Man annuals are always introducing new characters to try to give them a little boost out the door so its good to see that not even being roped into a big event will stop that.

Spider-Man is Spider-Man. If it helps, Peter and MJ are married. The Webs book of Peter’s Spider-Man photography comes out. Venom was only recently introduced. Spider-Man!

We actually have some influence from another annual in this event. The big linked story is actually acting like a linked story! Wild, I know.

Specifically, though, follow-up on the Punisher Annual. Between the Punisher and the High Evolutionary’s Eliminators, the supply of drugs from Bogota has been cut off, causing a drug war in New York.

Spider-Man beats up a warehouse full of drug dealers but when he leaves them webbed up, they’re sitting ducks for a rival gang and it looks like Spider-Man was involved in the murders.

But it wouldn’t be Evolutionary War if Spider-Man was just being impacted secondhand. The High Evolutionary’s Purifiers have also come to New York and are going around shooting drug dealers because the High Evolutionary’s goals still require saying no to drugs.

But that’s not all they’re up to. Under the High Evolutionary’s orders, the Purifiers in New York are planning Operation: Big Sleep. Where they’ll send out a sleepy signal from the Empire State Building and then sterilize anyone with “unacceptable DNA patterns” by morning.

Eugenics!

Speedball learns about this and is forced into action when the police assume his anonymous tip is malarky.

And Kingpin captures and interrogates a Purifier and has the information leaked to Spider-Man and Daredevil who are trying to clear Spider-Man’s name.

The Purifiers have nothing to do with the one drug gang wiping out the other one and inadvertently implicating Spider-Man. Kingpin just directed their attentions because he was annoyed that the Purifiers had killed some of his goons. But he does at least help clear Spider-Man’s name by forcing the actual killer to confess to the cops.

Mighty kind of Kingpin.

But that’s it! The Purifiers come to New York and Spider-Man and Daredevil beat them up for unrelated reasons!

One has to wonder if the High Evolutionary is pulling an Operation: Big Sleep on every city. Eugenics.

Fantastic Four Annual #21: Crystal Blue Persuasion!

Its Fantastic Four! Also, Inhumans! Also, Evolutionary War is squeezed in there somewhere.

So, the Fantastic Four isn’t quite in its usual status quo. Sue and Reed quit the team to pay more attention to Franklin. This won’t last long but it is the thought that counts.

Sharon Ventura, Ms Marvel, got exposed to cosmic rays and turned into a She-Thing and the Thing-Thing got exposed to more cosmic rays and turned into a pinecone. They’re dating and Ben is leading the team with Reed gone.

Johnny Storm Human Torch is married to Alicia Masters, who is unbeknownst to him actually a Skrull. There’s tension because Crystal Inhumans is the four in Fantastic Four and Johnny still has feelings for her.

Crystal is separated from her douchebag husband Quicksilver on account of him going all murdery but hasn’t been allowed to get a divorce because Inhuman society is pretty socially conservative.

So there’s a lot going on with the FF and the Evolutionary War is just another thing on the table that they don’t really notice because of everything else going on.

What happens is that Quicksilver has gone back to the Moon, depowered because of what happened in West Coast Avengers. He’s claimed he’s all sane now and that he was only evil because Maximus.

I have no idea if this is true or not but Quicksilver has a habit of claiming that whenever he pulls a dick move its because he’s being mind-controlled or identity thefted by a Skrull.

Since Quicksilver is a Good Boy again, the Inhuman Royal family come and try to kidnap Crystal and force her to get back together with her estranged husband. It becomes a big ol’ fight against the Fantastic Four.

But the Inhumans and Fantastic Four team up when Evolutionary War actually happens in this Evolutionary War tie-in.

The High Evolutionary brings a group of his Gatherers and Eliminators to the Moon and tasks them with obtaining a sample of the Terrigen Mist.

Instead of telling them to pull off a stealthy heist, he sends them to attack Attilan head-on and terrorize the populace.

I have no idea why when the High Evolutionary has had his people acting less blatantly before but that’s what is necessary to make this plot work.

Quicksilver leads the Inhuman militia in resistance and when the royal family and Fantastic Four show up, the tides turn and the armored men flee to the High Evolutionary who teleports them all away.

In the end, Crystal decides to stay on the Moon because Black Bolt writes the word family and because she has belatedly realized she’s making things difficult for Johnny.

There’s something involving some Watchers who know the High Evolutionary’s plans but being forbidden to comment on them when he asks for feedback or tell the Inhumans or Fantastic Four what is even going on.

Not much on the Evolutionary War side of things but Fantastic Four fans were probably relieved it didn’t much interrupt all the soap opera-y plot threads going on.

Moving right along.

X-Men Annual #12: Resurrection!

So, X-Men!

X-Men is complicated. We’re in the Australia-era. We’ve got a weird team and a weird situation. The X-Men died and then undied but let everyone think they were dead, especially their loved ones. They moved to Australia and took over a Reaver base (angry murder cyborgs that hate Wolverine specifically and mutants generally) and the old, Aborigine man that teleports them places but isn’t much for conversation.

The team is Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Longshot, Dazzler, Colossus, Psylocke, Havok, and also Cyclops’ abandoned wife Madelyne Pryor who hangs around to be mission control.

Storm suddenly takes off to the Savage Land and the X-Men get Gateway to teleport them after her.

The X-Men discover that the vibrant, weird Savage Land and all the weird inhabitants are gone, scorched off the face of Antarctica. This happened in Avengers #257 and I thought it was a dumb plot decision.

The X-Men also find Terminus (despite the Avengers having killed him) fighting the High Evolutionary who had come to Antarctica to restore the Savage Land.

The X-Men bury Terminus in a landslide and then split up to investigate. Havok goes with the High Evolutionary, Psylocke and Rogue stay to psychically scan Terminus, and Longshot and then the rest trip into a hidden pocket dimension to discover that the Fall People are actually still alive.

Neat!

While Havok is given a tour of the High Evolutionary’s Savage Land HQ. When Havok is impressed by a flying vehicle, the Evolutionary explains a bit of what makes him tick.

High Evolutionary: “So was I, once. In those days, I tinkered with machines, tuning cars and bikes to their utmost peak of performance... and then putting them to the ultimate test. But no matter how good the vehicle... I was always limited by the body’s ability to control it. So it seemed a perfectly logical, natural step from the technological machine... to the biological one. To improve theo ne, I had to improve the other. How simple that equation seemed. How little I understood the consequences of such ambition. You see, with my mechanical experiments, mine was the only life at risk. Playing with life affects innocent lives. And too often, destroys them. Easy to tell yourself, the end justifies the means. Impossible to believe, though, when you look into the eyes of those who suffer as a result. Better to think, instead, of those who will benefit.”

The High Evolutionary also has the Savage Land mutates working for him so they also survived.

He explains to Havok that he has everything he needs to restore the Savage Land except “a living being -- preferably a mutant -- whose primal nature is in sync with the land’s.”

Terminus climbs out from under the rocks eventually and the X-Men and the Fall People attack. Rogue eventually borrows Longshot’s powers and blows a hole in Terminus to reveal Garokk, the Petrified Man.

They pry Garokk out and the Terminus armor crumbles.

The High Evolutionary reveals that the armor was controlling Garokk somehow and that the previous Terminus that destroyed the Savage Land was also a fake, suggesting that the real one will come back someday.

He does. I have no idea why people keep bringing Terminus back. He’s budget store Galactus. But he does come back. And Captain Universe!Spider-Man and Quasar yeeted him into space. Worth bringing him back for that??

Anyway, the High Evolutionary also announces that Garokk is the guy he can use to bring back the Savage Land and Garokk agrees to the sacrifice.

Hooray, Savage Land and its dinosaurs are back! At least one good thing came of Evolutionary War!

(Ka-Zar, Shanna the She-Devil, and their son immediately show up to claim to be in charge again. Damn, dudes.)

Wolverine also mutters that he senses that the High Evolutionary is up to no good but since he’s not doing anything dickish in this annual, Wolverine doesn’t start any beef.

Zaladane and the mutants seem to think that the Evolutionary War will end with them ruling the world. But the High Evolutionary is just using them and doesn’t like them very much.

Also, the X-Men mindwipe all the Fall People because they’re doing the thing where nobody can know they’re alive, not even people who live in the middle of Antarctica and especially not their own loved ones.

So, a more meaty entry in the Evolutionary War because the High Evolutionary actually shows up and accomplishes a thing he wants to accomplish. And we get some worldview.

Web of Spider-Man Annual #4: Sweet Poison!

Okay, I’m starting to see a problem with annual-based events. Sure, you can have different bits of the story for X-Men, X-Factor, and the New Mutants. Or East Coast and West Coast Avengers. They’re different teams so they can interact with different parts of the event.

But there’s three Spider-Man books so he’s really going to have three different parts in Evolutionary War?

Something similar happened with DC’s Armageddon 2001. Waverider kept returning to visit Superman and seeing a different alternate future every time. Which kind of undermined the whole point of the event but not more so than when DC changed the entire ending.

The Web of Spider-Man status quo? God, I don’t know. Why does Spider-Man need three books? That’s ridiculous. My guess is that he’s been Spider-Manning. Just Spider-Manning his little heart out!

There’s actually a lot going on here. Let me try to be brief about it.

WE’RE STILL IN THE DRUG SUBPLOT.

There may be more of this plot than any other part of Evolutionary War.

Peter Parker, Spider-Man is in Miami on a book tour to promote his WEBS photo book. But he can’t help but poke his nose in when he sees a drug dealer get beaten up by  people from the Slug’s gang because drug dealer Santo has drugs to sell despite the supply line being cut from Bogota.

Spider-Man saves him and then gets the location of his drug stockpile and evidence of a Latverian arms deal for some damn reason.

The High Evolutionary’s Purifiers are also in Miami and still on their usual shit and one of them sterilizes Santo because the High Evolutionary doesn’t want people who sell drugs to pass on their genes.

Eugenics.

These are nicer Purifiers than the ones in New York who were just murdering drug related criminals.

The High Evolutionary also sends some of the Purifiers to the Everglades to seal up the Nexus of All Realities. He’s worried about genetic pollutants leaking into the world from other realities.

Maybe he’s right to fret about that because a local woman, Cecilia Cardinale, is possessed by an alien named Ylandris who gives her the power to kill people by glaring at them. And she attacks the Purifiers in Miami and then flies out into the swamp to keep killing them.

The Slug’s men also go out into the swamp and try to get the drug stockpile and the Purifiers go out there to destroy the drugs and the gangsters and Spider-Man since he happened to be there.

The seal on the Nexus fails and Ylandris is able to flee home and Spider-Man webs up any of the gangsters or Purifiers that hadn’t killed each other or gotten killed by normal-sized Man-Thing.

So the Purifiers up to their old tricks still and the High Evolutionary trying to prevent cross-dimensional genetic contamination of whatever his end goal is.

Next, and finally some Essential Avengers in this Evolutionary War.

West Coast Avengers Annual #3: "Heads You Lose -- ! Tails You Win!”

Are you guys really bringing your divorce into this event? Geez, let it drop for like ten minutes.

Also, hi, Bill Foster. Hi, T’Challa.

Hi, Evolution the Living Planet?

Anyway, this is Avengers. We like the Avengers here. We usually like the Avengers here. It hasn’t been great lately. But Avengers is what we’re about. So this story actually gets covered in-depth.

Last time in West Coast Avengers: due to cowboy manslaughter and lying about cowboy manslaughter, Hawkeye and Mockingbird have split up. And caused the team to split up.

Mockingbird took Tigra and Moon Knight who both agreed that maybe murder is okay sometimes. They decided to go check out the South Pole due to a Master Pandemonium sighting. Wonder Man stayed with Hawkeye. Hank Pym quit for first wife reasons. And Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Mantis joined.

Last time in Evolutionary War: scroll up. C’mon.

So another wrinkle to the High Evolutionary’s big vague plan.

All the Gatherers and Purifiers and Eliminators? Are not people he hired who are really into eugenics. They’re New Men that he made. Probably in a lab.

But he couldn’t make people for everything so he has a bunch of technicians working for him that had to be recruited for their obscure specializations.

To build a bomb.

Dammit, Bill Foster!

But the bomb is missing one vital component. The High Evolutionary needs Wakandan vibranium so sends his Gatherers.

Despite my dammit, Bill doesn’t like what’s going on and secrets a tiny capsule into the armor of one of the Gatherers he’s apparently on name basis with.

The High Beyonder, meanwhile, goes on a walk and a bit of a motive rant.

We finally get to learn why he’s in such a big hurry when he’s been casually doing his own thing for decades now.

So, the Fantastic Four discovered that the Beyonders signed their name to the Savage Land. And that’s made the High Evolutionary all paranoid and anxious because the Beyonders stole Counter-Earth and put it in a museum. He’s worried because the Fantastic Four are actively seeking out the Beyonders and that might prompt them to do Something.

Reasonable worry. The Beyonders suuuuuck.

Anyway. The Gatherers arrive in Wakanda. And are immediately detected and confronted by Black Panther and his army.

When one scoffs at “savages with spears”, T’Challa kicks him in the face.

There’s a fight, fight, fight. The Wakandans activate the Black Panther’s THROB.

Which. Is. Apparently. A Trans-Human RObot.

And it absorbs attacks and punches back harder.

Anyway, the Gatherers get their asses kicked. They expect to be teleported to safety, as we’ve seen in previous installments of Evolutionary War. But Black Panther detected them when they teleported in and has set up preventative measures that stop them from escaping the same way.

Black Panther has the Gatherers searched for clues and finds the capsule Bill Foster hid. Which contains a note saying: “SOS! The world is in danger, from a base 72S, 65W! Contact Dr. Henry Pym in Los Angeles! - Dr William Foster”

So T’Challa is like, hey, sure! And contacts the (West Coast) Avengers.

Except when Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, and Mantis show up, they have to inform T’Challa that Hank.... isn’t quite or at all with the team right now.

T’Challa then asks hey why isn’t your wife with the team right now?

Hawkeye: “... Ssst...! I didn’t think I could slide it past you, T’Challa! Mock an’ I have split up! She’s out of my life an’ out of my team! Tigra an’ the Moon Knight, too!”

Black Panther: “Out -- ? But -- where -- ?”

Hawkeye: “I dunno! I don’t wanna know! We all made our decisions, and it’s done with now!”

T’Challa last saw Hawkeye for that David Letterman thing and he was newly married there so that adds some context for how surprised he is.

Also, I dunno what’s going on here. I’m like 90% sure that some dialogue Mantis is supposed to be having was erased.

Englehart will complain about editorial interference in his book and this is probably some of it.

It’s so blatant though! She gets a close-up where she’s clearly talking and nothing is coming out!

Anyway. T’Challa shares the note from Bill Foster and since its been like six years since he was an active superhero, that means its time for exposition.

Bill Foster was Hank Pym’s lab assistant. Unaddressed here so I’m going to bring it up: he was introduced and immediately got hate crimed by the not-KKK Sons of the Serpent. This made Hank Pym decide to destroy the not-KKK which involved pretending to support them, which made Bill Foster quit but he came back when Hank did, in fact, destroy them. Also, the not-KKK was a foreign psyop to cause strife in America because fuck comics are like that sometimes (derogatory).

Anyway, Bill Foster eventually managed to duplicate Hank’s growth serum and dubbed himself Black Goliath because black characters had to remind you they’re black or else you might not realize they’re black. He also had a belly window in his costume because. I don’t know why but belly windows or plunging necklines were just common for black characters.

T’Challa got away with a full coverage costume but that’s so it wasn’t obvious he was black, so as not to offend Southern states. In fact, T’Challa’s mask originally was supposed to show his mouth but it was inked over.

Comics!

So Bill Foster was a size changing hero. He immediately got cancer in his first ever adventure after running into a guy called Atom Smasher.

Bill Foster has no kind of luck. Did you know that he died in Civil War and is still dead? How fucked up is that.

Bill’s cancer was eventually treated with a blood transfusion from Spider-Woman who is apparently immune to poisons and I guess cancer counts? Whatever. Point being, he wasn’t dying but he couldn’t size-shift anymore because of the strain on his body.

Taking after Hank there, a little.

Hawkeye decides to use Black Panther inviting them to Wakanda to try to get him to sign up with the West Coast Avengers but Black Panther says now is not the time because he’s worried about the attempted vibranium theft.

And the panther totem alarm raises in alarm of yet more intruders, this time in the technological jungle.

So the High Evolutionary has the Gatherers, the Purifiers, the Eliminators, and also this quirky miniboss squad, the Sensors.

Who are, reasonably enough, themed after human senses. Sight, Touch, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Intuition.

What? No Proprioception? Git gud, the High Evolutionary.

Anyway, this group is so dumb I kind of love it. And tragically, this seems to be their only appearance. I’d love if they got out into the wild and just showed up as a goofy theme group of jobbers.

I want Spider-Man to fight them. He’d have a field day fighting someone called Smell or Taste.

Anyway.

Black Panther gets pinned down by Sound. Because sonics are just a weakness of his. That’s why Klaw is his nemesis. That and the whole dad killing thing. But mostly because T’Challa is sensitive to loud noises.

Scarlet Witch goes to fight Smell but finds herself having trouble.

Scarlet Witch: “I’m throwing hexes, but I can’t pinpoint her inside that cloud of stench!”

This is so god damn stupid =D

Sight is basically Budget Cyclops. Every photon that hits his eyes gets channeled into laser beams that blast out of his helmet antlers. Helmet prongs. Whatever you call those things.

Vision decides to get into a laser staring contest with Sight.

Which is fucking stupid. Vision fires Solar Beam. Which just powers up Sight who shoots lasers. Which Vision absorbs through his head gem to power his Solar Beam. They’re stalemated.

Wonder Man fights Touch. And I guess Touch is interpreted as meaning punches. Because she punches him.

Hawkeye fights Taste and... aw c’mon, you’re not even trying with the theme! His power is that his fingers shoot acid. That has nothing to do with tasting! He should be Touch and have a deadly touch! Do I have to do all the work for you?

Annyway, Hawkeye has one of those fights where he keeps shooting arrows and the opponent just keeps blasting the arrows before they can strike. And it takes him forever to think of doing something different.

Finally, Mantis is fighting Intuition. Who has mind reading abilities to anticipate what she’s going to do before she does it. Mantis is surprised that Intuition manages to dodge a blow because “only three have ever accomplished that!”

If I go back and read all the comics with you in them and find that more than three people have dodged an attack by you, I’m going to be very disappointed.

But also I’m not going to do that. I’m way too busy with Evolutionary War.

Okay, so we have a bunch of Avengers stymied against a bunch of opponents who counter their powers.

It’s time for a TRADE PLACES! Sorta.

Scarlet Witch has been trying to hex Smell through the stink cloud the whole time and finally goes fuck that. She instead magic(k)s the stink cloud and moves it to cover Sight, blocking him from absorbing any light.

So without lasers, Vision just punches him in the fucking head. Then he uses his eye lasers (which I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to have, didn’t mention that earlier) to knock out Smell.

And forget about trade places, the other three West Coast Avengers just. Try harder. Than they were.

C’mon. Either trade places or don’t. Don’t tease me with it.

Wonder Man actually tries fighting back against Touch. He’d been letting her beat the shit out of him because Girl. As soon as he tries, he knocks her the fuck out.

Hawkeye finally thinks to do something other than fire arrows directly at this guy to be melted. Good ol’ boomerang arrow. Fire it wide so the guy dismisses it as no threat and then let it circle back and bonk him in the back of the head.

And Mantis goes into a meditative trance in which she empties her mind. Then, acting subconsciously, she chops Intuition in the throat.

... I’m fairly certain she’s dead now. That looked like a pretty solid hit.

As for Black Panther and Sound... Black Panther lures Sound onto the vibranium mound. And because of vibranium’s property of absorbing vibrations, it dampens the sonics Sound has been blasting at Black Panther.

But it turns out the whole thing was a double bluff.

Smell claimed that the Sensors were the ones who were really meant to obtain the vibranium. The Gatherers were only a distraction. But, welp, turns out that the Sensors were also distraction.

While T’Challa is distracted being smug about his victory over Sound and how the guy didn’t understand that you could set off an explosion on the vibranium mound and not hear or feel it... an agent of the High Evolutionary called Foks (clever like a) teleports in, blasts a big chunk of vibranium loose, and then teleports off with it.

With the threat seemingly ended?? the West Coast Avengers decide to go investigate the base that Bill Foster’s note mentioned. Black Panther decides not to go with them because he’s feeling a sense of trepidation. Like the whole world is under threat or something...

(Wouldn’t that be a good reason to go?)

But when the West Coast Avengers arrive they find two surprises.

One, the Savage Land is green and thriving the way it used to be, despite the report from the East Coast Avengers that Terminus had fucked it.

The West Coast Avengers haven’t read the X-Men Annual yet.

But two, there’s a big fucking hole in the ground at the coordinates Bill provided.

Wonder Man: “What could have happened, Hawk?”

Hawkeye: “Beats me, Simon! But whatever it was -- did we get here too late to save the world -- ?”

And to answer that, lets get into the second half of the Annual.

Because Mockingbird’s group have their own part to play. Remember how they were on the cover?

Also remember how they were going to go investigate a Master Pandemonium sighting at the South Pole?

Well, they also show up in Antarctica to get surprised that the Savage Land is back. But they arrive earlier because they didn’t get called to Wakanda.

(Also, they apparently stole a Quinjet. Mockingbird is just taking more and more in this divorce.)

When they land, they’re met by Ka-Zar. You might remember that Mockingbird has a lot of history with Ka-Zar. If you don’t, I’m reminding you that Mockingbird has a lot of personal history with Ka-Zar.

He summarizes the X-Men Annual for Mockingbird’s Notvengers. Except the part where the X-Men were involved because the X-Men mind-wiped everyone. Like dicks.

Point being, he tells them that the High Evolutionary is a cool guy that restored the Savage Land.

And also, Ka-Zar moved back to the Savage Land with his wife and baby son now that the place doesn’t suck anymore.

Bobbi gets to be catty about Ka-Zar and Shanna’s marriage going well. Its a pleasant visit until Bobbi drops the ‘by the way, my marriage has fallen apart but congrats on the happy family’ right before walking out.

And then she bemoans to her teammates “I don’t believe it! Kazar and Shanna are having babies while I’m on my way to divorce court?”

But anyway. Plot.

The Notvengers decide to investigate the High Evolutionary’s citadel. Even though he was cool enough to restore the Savage Land and Ka-Zar says he hasn’t done anything wrong that he knows about. The team decides to at least pay a courtesy call to find out what the guy’s about.

And because they have no cause to just kick the door down and get confrontational, they knock and ask to see the High Evolutionary please.

Foks, the guy that’s probably a fox (Tigra even says he smells like a fox) lets them in because the High Evolutionary has been expecting someone to eventually show up.

Bill Foster sees Mockingbird, Tigra, and Moon Knight from the lab floor. He figures that they got his message so he excuses himself to get a drink of water so he can make his own preparations.

When the Notvengers speak with him, the High Evolutionary doesn’t even try to play innocent.

Mockingbird: “We came to find out what you’re doing here!”

The High Evolutionary: “Certainly, Mockingbird! I’m building a bomb which, when detonated, will mutate everyone on Earth!”

Okay! So that answers WHAT he’s up to!

This annuals centric event isn’t paced very well. West Coast Avengers Annual #3 is the third from last part of the event. Out of eleven.

I guess it could have been revealed in the Fantastic Four Annual instead of Evolutionary War being an afterthought to everything else the FF were dealing with. But then... if its revealed to them, they’d want to address it. And that’s not how this thing is structured.

It’s just hard to tell a single story this way.

Anyway.

The Notvengers vow to stop him and the High Evolutionary is like, well, no. And just gases them.

Moon Knight is able to keep fighting after Tigra and Mockingbird almost immediately pass out because Khonshu is in the driver’s seat and can push the meat body to its breaking point.

He hurls some random bullshit at the High Evolutionary. It bounces harmlessly off his shields but still startles him.

So he calls in some guards that tangle with Moon Knight until he can’t hold his breath any longer, sucks in some gas, and passes out.

The High Evolutionary is intrigued that Moon Knight was able to go so long without air but he doesn’t have time for that right now.

His Wakanda operation, seen in the first half of this book, is in progress and requires him to be ready to take action. Coordinating Foks’ teleport to the vibranium mound, perhaps.

So he has the Notvengers thrown into... THE MAZE.

Outside the High Evolutionary’s throne room? Audience chamber? Whatever? Bill Foster was eavesdropping on the confrontation.

So he knows that the Notvengers weren’t here to rescue him but they’re his best bet so he’s got to rescue them.

Mockingbird wakes up in... THE MAZE. Which is a maze. Filled with robots. And traps.

Despite needing his full attention on the Wakanda operation, the High Evolutionary is also watching the Notvengers in the maze.

Maybe he finished with Wakanda while everyone was passed out?

Anyway. He’s impressed with how Mockingbird is acquitting herself.

The High Evolutionary: “Quite resourceful -- and dangerous -- I wonder if she’ll be the one of the three to escape my maze first  -- and earn the right to become the guinea pig for my evolutionary formula -- !”

Okay, so. He’s building a bomb that will force mutate humanity into a ‘more evolved form.’

But I’m guess he also planned on superhero interference and planned to select one of the superheroes to base the mutagenic compound in the bomb on?

And he has such shitty luck that he wound up with the Notvengers?

No offense but if you’re going to mutate humanity you can do better than Mockingbird, Moon Knight, and Tigra.

Although, turning everyone into catpeople. That’d get back to his furry making roots.

And to answer my own question, no, the Wakanda operation isn’t done.

Foks runs in and informs the High Evolutionary that the Sensors have run into trouble because the West Coast Avengers are helping Black Panther in Wakanda.

The High Evolutionary confirms that the Sensors were a double bluff to let him get information on Wakanda’s defenses around the vibranium mound and that he’ll teleport Foks in to get the actual task done when the time comes.

Meanwhile, in... THE MAZE, Tigra also is doing well fighting the robots and such. But she smells Moon Knight, OH YEAHs through a wall with her claws, finds him after he also broke a robot, and starts making out with him a lot. Through his mask.

Elsewhere meanwhile, Bill Foster tries to sneak into... THE MAZE area but runs into some guards that point out that he’s not supposed to be here.

He tries to claim he’s just using the little scientist’s room but since they plan to report him for being out of his designated area, he says nuts and punches them a lot.

Back with Mockingbird, she almost falls into a spiky pit trap but manages to pole vault herself to safety.

Relative safety.

She runs into the High Evolutionary.

He tries to congratulate her on getting to the finish line first because Tigra and Moon Knight were too busy making out but she smoothly transitions right into violence.

The High Evolutionary is super-duper cosmically powerful of course so he’s capable of some tricks. Like psychokinesis. Shooting MIND LASERS. And getting kicked in the face.

But after she’s knocked him down and is going to... kill him? Knock him out? One or the other.

He just decides no. We’re not doing that.

And he grows into a Giant-Sized High Evolutionary.

While Giant-Sized High Evolutionary berates Mockingbird for getting ahead of herself, Bill Foster has found them.

And seeing a Giant-Sized High Evolutionary reminds Bill of the serum he’s prepared. A Giant Man serum.

AND IT WORKS!

He can now tell the High Evolutionary to fight someone his own size!

And as the new Giant Man slams the High Evolutionary around the scenery, he explains.

Because of the cancer, he’d kinda sorta but not really lost his powers. Its complicated. I thought that the transfusion from Spider-Woman had cured the cancer but whatever.

Bill Foster was scouted for the High Evolutionary’s project. He didn’t realize he was a captive until he got here. But he signed up in the first place because A) he didn’t know that the High Evolutionary was going to build a bomb to mutate the world and B) he realized that with the technology available for a genetic project that the High Evolutionary was running, he (Bill Foster) could develop a serum to strengthen his body so he could stay giant-sized Giant-Man.

Since Pym size shifting takes mass from the mass dimension, if Bill stays big long enough, the pure mass from the mass dimension will cleanse the tainted cancer mass.

Sure! That sounds plausibly, maybe!

The High Evolutionary isn’t feeling this fight. Like, he doesn’t like fighting. And Bill’s big giant-sized brain is giving him resistance to the High Evolutionary’s psychic powers.

Plus, he likes the cut of Bill’s jib. He’s evolving and improving himself, just like the High Evolutionary wants to do to everyone!

(I think maybe the High Evolutionary doesn’t actually know what evolution is.)

But Foks reports that he’s retrieved the vibranium and the High Evolutionary goes ‘oh shit right my masterplan.’ Rather than deal with the headache of trying to deal with all the superheroes now running loose around his headquarters, he just decides to fuck off and complete the bomb elsewhere.

The High Evolutionary: “Good luck with your evolution, Giant-Man! It will stand you in good stead in the world to come! We shall NOT meet again!”

What a polite guy.

He flies through the ceiling. Bill realizes that the cliche in this situation is that the High Evolutionary will blow up his old base to conceal any clues to where he’s going.

So he rips open... THE MAZE to free Moon Knight and Tigra and then hustles everyone out of the building.

And yup. As soon as the High Evolutionary’s ship takes off, his Savage Land base explodes.

Giant-Bill wonders whether the Notvengers really showed up without his note and Mockingbird says yes. But they don’t have time for that right now, they need to warn everyone about the High Evolutionary’s Evolution Bomb full of Evolution Formula!

So they all pile into the Quinjet Mockingbird stole and take off. Shortly before the West Coast Avengers arrived from Wakanda, find the giant hole in the ground that was the High Evolutionary’s base, and wonder what the fuck happened.

Good times.

Now we move to the penultimate part of Evolutionary War YET ANOTHER SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL FOR FUCKS SAKE.

What more do you have to contribute, Peter??

Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8: RETURN TO SENDER

"Oh, no! Not again! GWEN STACY is back!”

Yeah, we’re all sick of it too, Pete.

Again, I don’t know what distinguishes Spectacular Spider-Man from Amazing or Web of. But I bet Spider-Man spider-mans the hell out of this book.

Anyway. Evolutionary War.

Spider-Man is interrupted from musing about adopting a stray cat by a pair of the High Evolutionary’s Purifiers flying around in a UFO shooting at a random woman. But as you can guess from the cover, it’s not a random woman, it’s Gwen Stacy. Clone Gwen. Stacy.

Peter freaks out when he sees her but she freaks out worse, running away.

She later swings by his apartment but freaks out again when she sees Peter’s spider-costume (she knows he’s Spider-Man but Spider-Man still freaks her out). She runs off and with MJ’s sorta blessing, Spider-Man swings out after her.

She gets captured by the Purifiers and teleported to the High Evolutionary’s base, with Spider-Man in tow.

So now I have to backtrack a bit. While the Purifiers were making their second attempt to track down Clone Gwen, the High Evolutionary was making a quick visit to the Young Gods.

I don’t really want to explain them in depth because they’re both complicated and irrelevant.

But when the Eternals book was cancelled, its plot threads were picked up and tied off by the Thor book. The Celestials’ judgement of Earth was resolved by Gaia giving the Celestials the twelve best people on Earth to get the Celestials to go away.

Out in space, the so-called Young Gods train to become new gods but we can’t capitalize that because of trademark reasons.

The High Evolutionary goes to check up on them because as the genetic bomb nears completion, he wants to know if the Young Gods are humanity’s genetic future.

After watching them train, the High Evolutionary concludes (verbally, right in front of them) that they’re intriguing but not the genetic destiny he’s looking for.

But the Young Gods got a really rank vibe by psychically scanning the High Evolutionary and half of them follow him back to Earth to try to stop his plans of evolutionary genocide.

So after Clone Gwen is captured and transported to the High Evolutionary’s base, she’s put in some scanning device.

Spider-Man tries to fight through all the Purifiers and half of the Young Gods show up to help. But the other half of the Young Gods show up to hinder. And someone from group 1 accidentally mind crushes someone from group 2 and the Young Gods conclude that they’re too inexperienced to be fucking around without knowing what they’re doing.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man manages to rip Clone Gwen out of the device and saving her has given him a kind of emotional closure and he finally accepts she’s not Gwen and that he loves someone else.

HE COULD NOT BE MORE RIGHT!

The High Evolutionary finally interjects saying hey I don’t come to your place and break your nice stuff. But also: that Gwen is not Gwen.

The High Evolutionary: “I asked myself, how could a mere university biology professor accomplish a technical miracle such as nearly instantaneous cloning? My study of this woman’s genetic structure, compared to that of Gwen Stacy, shows that he did not.”

This will later be retconned but at the time, this new reveal was because of the advancement of knowledge about cloning and desire to finally tie off the loose thread of the Gwen clone.

So AT THIS MOMENT, Miles Warren didn’t create any real clones. Not with his budget and access to technology.

Instead, he created a genetic virus that transformed a random woman Joyce Delaney into a copy of Gwen. Presumably false memories were also implanted.

THIS IS CLEARLY MUCH MORE FEASIBLE FOR MILES WARREN, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, TO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED.

Oh the trouble we run into when we strive to make old stories more plausible.

Anyway, the High Evolutionary is tired of their faces so he teleports them back to New York.

One of the Young Gods shows up and transforms Gwen back into the woman she was. Because she can do that. And Joyce just wanders off somewhere. Until she magically transforms back into a Gwen clone because another Clone Saga is ongoing.

But the important thing is that Peter got emotional closure and that the High Evolutionary... uh, I don’t know why he cared. He says its because she’s a genetic impossibility so I guess he just has strong feelings about cloning.

And the retcon of this retcon will reveal that he was so mad jelly over Miles Warren’s cool cloning skills that he made up that business about the genetic virus. A retcon retcon that will itself cause more problems because an entire new character had been created since this annual using that genetic virus thing as its basis.

BUT ANYWAY.

WE’RE FINALLY.

AT THE LAST PART.

Avengers Annual #17: PROMETHEUS MUTANS!

Hello, you beautiful cover. Nice to see you again.

This is the last part so bring us home, Walt Simonson.

We start strong because the start has Jocasta.

Hi, Jocasta!

People who I have to assume are the High Evolutionary men pug Jocasta back together with captions quoting Frankenstein for some fucking reason.

Jocasta activates and attacks the technicians repairing her. Then she runs to grab a phone but gets blasted by some guards.

Dangit. If this book brought Jocasta back just to kill her, I’mma be peeved.

Meanwhile elsewhere, the abandoned Hydrobase.

I canNOT get over the Avengers extensively rebuiding Hydrobase to be a headquarters and then disbanding like five minutes later. Fuckin’ Thor.

Inside the abandoned base, a computer kicks into action in response to Jocasta’s phone call because, yes, she was trying to contact the Avengers.

But there are no Avengers to contact. Thor disbanded the team after everyone quit, got injured, fell into a time hole, or became super-cursed.

So the computer automatically reaches out to reservists.

You may be able to guess who is going to respond, based on the cover.

It’s actually kind of interesting that this annual coming at a point where there’s no Avengers team meant that Simonson could go with anyone. Fucking Yellowjacket II is in there and she’s not even an Avenger!

The Captain America is the first to respond to the call.

Between Avengers #298 (also written by Simonson), the Captain has completely forgotten what Jarvis told him about the team disbanding. So he reacts like what the heck why isn’t anyone here?

He checks the computer to find out why it contacted him and it reports an unknown caller that was maybe possibly Jocasta called the Avengers and said “the genetic bomb” and “evolutionary.”

The Captain says it couldn’t be Jocasta because she blew up. She blew up a lot. But the computer isn’t designed to argue. Just to relay data.

Cap(tain) decides to wait for other reservists to respond so he can tell people that the whole thing is just a hoax.

And he doesn’t have long to wait before Sam Wilson, the Falcon, shows up.

The Falcon jokes that he thought Cap had quit the Avengers and asked if he’s backsliding.

Then Hercules shows up, in shiny new armor with a belly window showing off his abs.

Remember how Zeus forbade any Olympian from going to Earth to make his hair trigger temper everyone’s problem? Yeah, Hercules don’t give a shit what dad said. He stole one of his thunderbolts and used it to go to Earth to respond to the emergency call.

WHICH HE RECEIVED IN OLYMPUS SOMEHOW.

The Captain explains to Falcon and Hercules that the call was probably a hoax. Hercules is a bit put out that he risked his dad’s wrath for nothing but then a whole lot of Hulk (and Beast) walk through the door.

So Hulk faked his death and has been operating as a gray Hulk called Joe Fixit. Beast convinced him to respond to the emergency Avengers call and in exchange, the Avengers won’t tell anyone about Hulk being alive.

Also, Beast is blue again. Instead of human looking and getting dumber every time he super strengths. I have no idea what happened between the X-Factor Annual and the Avengers Annual.

(Checking the wiki, apparently some lady called Infectia kissed him and that made him blue and smart again.)

And there’s another person responding to the emergency call as Hercules suddenly yoinks Yellowjacket II out of the closet.

Hercules has a reason to be suspicious of her. The one and only time they met, she was a member of the Masters of Evil, the group that beat him into a coma.

But Yellowjacket II, Rita DeMara, explains that the Yellowjacket helmet she stole started buzzing and directing her to report to the Avengers. It basically annoyed her into showing up to a team-up because she couldn’t turn it off.

(Beast finds the off button and stops the alert in like two seconds. But now she’s stuck with the group because Hercules doesn’t trust her to be out of his sight. Because of the Masters of Evil thing. WHICH, Y’KNOW, FAIR.)

Presumably Cap still thinks this emergency alert isn’t worth responding to. But Beast does a bit of electronic razzle-dazzle to trace the call to an abandoned laboratory site on Long Island that once belonged to Stark Industries.

This ad-hoc Avengers group busts out a moth-balled Quinjet and heads to the site.

Hulk OH YEAHs through the wall of the lab to the surprise and very alarm of the High Evolutionary’s guys. One of them goes hoh shit lets shoot first ask questions NEVER this guy scary even though their orders are to scan everyone’s DNA structure before killing them. Because eugenics.

Joe Hulk tags this guy the one smart guy in a bunch of dummies.

After he MURDERS EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM (to the alarm of the ad-hoc Avengers team) he presents the smart guy to the rest to interrogate.

(Supposedly. The guy’s design changes from one page to the next but Hulk says its the same guy.

And the guy is eager to talk. Probably because he just saw a big gray hulk murder everyone else in the room.

He explains that he’s one of the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers with the job to “collect information about the genetic structure of humanity.”

The High Evolutionary is worried that humanity’s evolutionary progress has been stymied by modern society so he’s going to put his finger on the scale.

After the Eliminators and Purifiers are done getting rid or sterilizing the ones the High Evolutionary doesn’t want in his new version of humanity, he’ll set off the genetic bomb and forcibly jump humanity ahead a million years.

Even though that’s not how evolution works.

And also, it looks like he’s going to turn humanity into furries. The man loves his furries.

The Captain criticizes this eugenics plan for being so eugenics when the Captain hates eugenics and also Nazis.

But then the man explodes.

See, he’s a zealot. A true believer. He only partially spilled the beans to buy time until his... suit? recharged enough to blow him up. The Pacific is a big place and time is short so they’ll definitely never find the High Evolutionary!

Joe Hulk mocks the rest of the ad-hoc Avengers as “airheads” after just standing by and letting the guy blow himself up after Joe had gone to the trouble of saving one dude to interrogate.

That’s fair.

Upside though? They rescued Jocasta.

So now a bunch of Jocasta loose ends can be resolved. The Captain tells her that when she ran away from the Avengers, it was before they could tell her they were going to ask her to stay on as a special status. And Jocasta is able to clear up how she’s not blown up. Kinda.

She guesses that the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers found her parts and put her back together using recovered plans. So that they could use her memories to gain first-hand information about the Avengers.

Her cybernetic senses would be more in-depth than public records.

Of course, the Avengers team that recently existed and the Avengers team Jocasta knew were significantly different. But also the Avengers disbanded so basically she was brought back online for no reason.

Womp womp.

I’m just glad she’s alive again.

Rather than searching the entire Pacific, which is very big, the Captain decides he’ll just go talk to the Deviants of Lemuria, figuring that if anyone has a secret science base in the Pacific, they’ll know about it.

I assume that the Captain doesn’t bother with Atlantis because he’s heard that Attuma is in charge and figures they won’t be helpful.

And he’s right about Atlantis not being helpful.

When the apparently submarine capable Quinjet reaches Lemuria, the Ad-Hoc Avengers find an Atlantean fleet attacking the Deviant city.

The Avengers split up. Joe Hulk and Hercules break into the Atlantean flagship and beat the shit out of everyone. Everyone else stays in the Submarine Quinjet and contact the Lemurians.

Kro, the Deviant who has cool sunglasses sometimes, tells the Avengers that the Atlanteans accused the Deviants of sending a sea monster to destroy Atlantis. Kro has no fucking idea what that’s about, but we do. Remember? Marrina? So this is all Dr Druid’s fault.

Fuckin’ Dr Druid.

Then a giant ship belonging to neither Atlantis or Lemuria shows up and blasts both fleets with too much pink energy.

Hulk and Hercules break the giant pink shooting cannon but afterwards, the Avengers realize the damage was done.

The Captain tells both groups that, duh, Lemuria didn’t send a sea monster at Atlantis. And that the people that leaked the misinformation to Atlantis probably did it to draw out both the Atlanteans and Lemurians in one spot.

Because... according to Beast’s analysis... that giant pink energy blast was a sterilizing beam. A big chunk of the mature populations of both Pacific civilizations have been sterilized.

HIGH EVOLUTIONARYYYYYYYYYY!

Attuma and Kro are pissed to learn that their balls just got blasted or however the sterilizing beam worked. They agree to not only team up with each other but to team up with the Ah-Hoc Avengers to track down and stop the High Evolutionary.

And holy ship, uh, I mean holy shit.

That’s a really big ship.

Where does the High Evolutionary get such a mighty vessel?

The backup backstory stories that have been in each part of Evolutionary War reveals that his Wundagore lab/spaceship took years to finish and needed a slave force of Moloids to construct.

The Avengers are quite impressed. And worried. Its just their small group and two armadas against that monster? Do they even have enough guys?

But there’s a bit of a ticking clock.

Falcon is able to determine that the High Evolutionary’s big ship is heading toward the Sunda Strait. And based on that, Beast and the Captain realize that the High Evolutionary is going to re-explode Mount Krakatoa to spread the Genetic Bomb all around the world.

And they don’t have time to launch a full attack. So they ask the Deviants and Atlanteans to launch a diversionary assault that has no chance of succeeding while the Avengers sneak aboard the vessel to disarm the Genetic Bomb.

Inside the behemoth, the High Evolutionary is putting the finishing touches on his Genetic Bomb. Even at this late stage, he and his technicians are still doing genome manipulation. Readying recombinant DNA.

The Evolutionary is less than pleased when he hears of the Deviant/Atlantean attack.

He tells his men to secure the sacred genetic chamber, put the bomb in stasis, gather the priests in the temple, and for everyone to report to battle stations.

Wait.

He has priests? He has a temple?

Why?

Anyway, the Ad-Hoc Avengers happened to infiltrate into the airlock closest to the temple that the High Evolutionary has for some reason. So they get to witness the evolution cult’s services.

Priest: “The Lord High Evolutionary has decreed that there is no danger from the attacking fleets. Our holy vessel has more than enough firepower to destroy our enemies. But our lord has said that the possibility exists that the real threat to our sacred mission may lie elsewhere. As we revere nature and the High Evolutionary, those who would hinder his great plan must be forestalled! All security patrols are to be doubled at once! And any intruders must be captured alive and brought to the sacred genetic chamber! Now go!”

The Captain and Beast muse about the specifics of the High Evolutionary having his own cult with animal-masked priests before an overheard comment reminds Beast that the High Evolutionary loves making furries.

Falcon has an idea, based on a leap in logic. Clearly, based on no evidence so far, the High Evolutionary’s human men (?) have no idea that their priests are animal people. If they reveal this thing that Falcon is just assuming is a secret, it could cause a civil war within the High Evolutionary’s own forces!

AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE AVENGERS HAVE SOMEONE WHO CAN PASS FOR AN ANIMAL PRIEST.

So the Avengers mug some priests for their robes. Then set up a situation where a group of the High Evolutionary’s men overhear Beast talking to himself.

Priest Beast: “Ah, the jest is almost too rich! Little do the Purifiers and the others suspect the truth behind their priests. How wise of the High Evolutionary to place animals in charge of humans. I wish I could see the look on the faces of our human stooges when they finally learn that we do not wear animal masks in honor of nature... but show our visages openly! The New-Men will rule the new world once the Genetic Bomb has done its real work... and the animals shall have dominion over the Earth!”

Okay, so this works.

Captain America is going to trick a priest while dressed in the white uniform of the Gatherers by claiming that some of the other dudes are plotting treason against the High Evolutionary.

This goat priest will run out and get shot by a group of Gatherers. Said group will then start spreading out to shoot as many priests as they can.

So in terms of a distraction, the Avengers succeeded.

I feel like they’d be less enthused about it if it weren’t animal people getting shot but that’s comic morality.

But it leaves me wondering why the High Evolutionary set it up this way. And how all of this works anyway.

I wondered before how the High Evolutionary found armies of dudes who were super psyched to do some eugenics. One of the dudes in his employ even blew himself up rather than betray his boss.

The West Coast Avengers annual suggested that all of the High Evolutionary’s dudes were made by him. And, y’know, that made sense. The logistics of it were wack but it made sense that they’d all be loyal to him and super into his eugenics plans.

But the Avengers Annual, this book, has gone back to suggesting that the High Evolutionary just hired armies of men who are super into eugenics. One of the dudes that shot the goat priest mentioned having to do a physical examination when he was hired.

So the High Evolutionary found literal armies of men religiously devoted to eugenics. Its religious devotion because the middle managers between the High Evolutionary and the rank-and-file are literal priests.

Various Purifiers or Gatherers or Eliminators or whatevers have spoken in glowing terms about the beautiful future that the High Evolutionary is planning.

Where did he find these goons?

And why the fuck did he make furry priests in vats to middle manage them?

Why the fuck haven’t they shown up in any other part of the story? He’s just been ordering his forces around himself. There’s been no hint of a religious element to his organization.

Beast dressing as a furry priest to sow distrust in the ranks is funny but it raises so many questions!

Moving on.

While Beast, the Captain, and Jocasta go to investigate what secrets lie at the heart of the temple, the other Ad-Hoc Avengers search elsewhere.

Rita DeMara Yellowjacket immediately runs into trouble. Where trouble is all the guards. With guns that can sometimes detect her even tiny sized. And she doesn’t even want to be here. She only agreed to search to get away from Hercules who is still incredibly pissed off at her.

I’d feel sorry for her except I don’t. Haha, get dunked on, Rita DeMara.

Falcon is nicer than I am and saves her from the guards because “winged folks should stick together!”

Meanwhile, some of the rebelling Gatherer dinguses try to kill the High Evolutionary. It’s not really a big threat to him but psychically probing their minds clues him in on Beast impersonating a priest. And since the High Evolutionary knows he doesn’t have any blue-furred dudes, he realizes that the external attack was a ruse to hide an infiltration.

He orders the decks to be sealed to slow down the spread of the rebellion. And orders full fast ahead because the bomb is almost ready and he’s tired of these shenanigans.

The High Evolutionary’s great behemoth of a submarine base just NYOOMS past the attacking fleets, tossing them out of the way with turbulence or just smashing them against the bigger ship.

Also, capsizing some surface ships because of the huge wave created.

Man, Simonson’s Avengers has so much ship sinking.

The Captain, Beast, and Jocasta find the High Evolutionary’s furry lab at the center of the temple. You know, the lab where he makes his furries. His New Men.

Falcon and Yellowjacket show up and announce they found the bomb. Off-panel.

The Captain verbally plans for the Ad-Hoc Avengers to go regroup with Hercules and Hulk and destroy the bomb.

That way he’ll look stupid when the High Evolutionary immediately after teleports into the Genesis Chamber and calls Cap’s plan “insipid.”

Ouch.

Also, he says he’s going to kill them because he’s sick of their shit.

Jocasta tries to rush him but the High Evolutionary zaps her FTSZAPT! blowing off her limbs.

The Captain is like oh shit, the High Evolutionary is a heavy hitter. We need our heavy hitters.

And the High Evolutionary very kindly teleports Hulk and Hercules to the Genesis Chamber because hey, why not gather everyone in one easily to destroy group. BECAUSE HE IS SICK OF THEIR SHIT.

The Captain tells Falcon to fly away and destroy the bomb while everyone else holds off the High Evolutionary.

(A plan that Yellowjacket II hates. She just hates it. She so doesn’t want to be here and is regretting ever stealing the costume in the first place. Ha ha.)

The High Evolutionary tries to zap Falcon as he flies away but misses. SO NOW HE HAS TO GO CHASE DOWN A BIRDESQUE MAN WHO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO BE A BIRD MAN!

The Captain’s plan to hold off the High Evolutionary... well, that doesn’t last long.

Instead of fighting them, the High Evolutionary just summons a cage of omnium steel to hold them and then teleports off to find Falcon.

Joe Hulk isn’t as strong as your standard Hulk. So he can’t bust outta the cage by himself. Even when Hercules joins in, the bars don’t bend.

But Beast got a strength boost from all that not-hairy dumb-but-strong thing. And when he joins in, the three dudes are able to bend an exit.

So despite his first plan being not good, the Captain has another plan.

Its a good plan, a daring plan. He’s going to forever alter one of his friends by using mad science on him.

Yup.

Cap decides the only way to beat the High Evolutionary is to use the genetic accelerator to buff Hercules up to the High Evolutionary’s power level.

Sure.

I mean. The High Evolutionary evolved to become one with the universe when he used the process on himself. He had to choose a specific exposure amount to get cosmic strong but not energy being beyond material matters.

And Cap just wants Beast to blast Hercules with a random amount of evolution?

I’m not super thrilled on the genetic accelerator just being used as a power-up.

But Cap argues that if they just destroy the bomb, the High Evolutionary could build another one! He has no idea how long it took the High Evolutionary to build one or what rare materials he needed for it but he’s super sure that the High Evolutionary can just crank them out!

I don’t like this plan.

But Hercules seems game. So. Whatever.

But but Joe Hulk objects. If anyone is getting a power-up, its him. And he tosses Beast across the room for emphasis.

The Captain is worried Joe Hulk will blow the whole plan so decides to aggro the High Evolutionary back to take care of Hulk.

Uh. Kinda like the Old Lady who swallowed a fly with that one. The cure might be worse than the disease. Especially since Hercules should be stronger than Joe Hulk and he hasn’t even tried to stop him yet.

Anyway. The way Cap aggros the High Evolutionary is by broadcasting a message that the High Evolutionary has abandoned ship and that the Avengers are in control of the vessel.

The High Evolutionary immediately teleports back to the Genesis Chamber (with a knocked out Falcon in his arms), sees Hulk messing with his machinery, and declares “This farce has gone far enough!”

He blasts Joe Hulk but Joelk no sells it.

Remember that thing about the High Evolutionary not liking to fight? Well, rather than try escalating levels of violence until he beats Hulk, he just teleports Hulk the fuck out of his ship.

How the fuck out? All the way to Las Vegas.

Supposedly the High Evolutionary had to use a lot of his energy to do this. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t still be going with the put Hercules in the evolution machine gambit. And we are.

So the High Evolutionary is still next to invincible.

While the Captain holds the guy back, Beast hustles Hercules into the genetic accelerator.

The High Evolutionary blasts the Captain to the side and rants about how he thought the Avengers could have been useful to advance humanity’s genetic destiny but now he sees they’re just obsolete throwbacks.

Yellowjacket II still doesn’t even want to be here today but she decides to Try.

She flies into his ear and blasts the energy that makes up his material form. Apparently it works to distract him but the High Evolutionary boils his insides until Yellowjacket II flees and then he BLAKKPT! blasts her.

But Hercules in his fancy new armor is out of the evolutionary microwave and ready to throw down.

And ready to get thrown down.

The High Evolutionary just blasts him, saying he’s made himself superior to nature and gods.

The High Evolutionary: “You, my would-be god, cannot be permitted to live an instant longer! I have no interest in taking the full measure of your strength. Whatever powers my instruments have given, you die now before you can comprehend or control them!”

Then Beast kicks his ass.

Well, its more of a punch. But he distracts the guy so the Evolutionary summons up some improved restraints that Beast has no chance of OH YEAHing out of.

Then Hercules blasts the High Evolutionary with pink energy.

Super Hercules: “You claim to hold the destiny of mankind in your hand! Yet you would oppose those who oppose you and change those who do not! ‘Tis not mankind you would aid but your own overweening vanity!”

Don’t really follow that one but sure.

The High Evolutionary blasts Hercules right back, saying he’s going to kill him so hard and then wipe him from humanity’s memory. Brutal.

But instead of dying, Hercules does not die. In fact, he gets a power up.

The High Evolutionary blasts off Hercules’ armor, revealing that Beast strapped the master unit of the evolutionary chamber inside the armor so Hercules has been further evolving this whole time.

APPARENTLY.

How the fuck did Beast know what the master unit was when this is the first time he’s seen this machinery and only for like five minutes? How did the chamber keep working with the master unit removed? Because Beast was ‘upgrading’ Hercules’ armor while Hercules was still in the chamber. How is the master unit working when it doesn’t have a power source or y’know I’d assume that the rest of the genetic accelerator are actually important or the High Evolutionary would just streamline it down to the fucking master unit!

Whatever.

This nonsense plot is happening so lets roll with it.

Now Hercules is kicking the High Evolutionary’s ass.

The High Evolutionary: “It can’t happen now! Not when I’m so close to achieving my goal! I would have given mankind the future! I would have made gods of everyone! I would no longer have been alone!”

Hercules: “Thou should have aspired to less godhood! ... And more humanity! But you have shown me the way and the fate you would have bestowed upon Hercules is thine!”

Cool, the High Evolutionary. That has nothing to do with anything else you’ve stated your motivations to be but cool.

Then the High Evolutionary turns into a pink cloud.

But as he does, he zaps Hercules with eye beams (pink ones) that speed up Hercules’ evolution and he also turns into a pink cloud.

Very underwhelming.

Falcon, the Captain, and the Beast have a moment of silence for their Olympian bud before going ‘hey we should probably find Yellowjacket II and then beat up some goons.’

They do find Yellowjacket II. She’s with Jocasta. Neat, Jocasta is still alive.

And while everyone else has been doing the big stupid superhero punch-up, she’s been hacking the ship.

She can’t stop the ship from going full fast ahead and they’re almost at Krakatoa but she can make the matter/anti-matter engine blow the fuck up.

Which will destroy the ship, the genetic bomb, and also the army of mooks on board.

Yeah, the Avengers don’t even slightly try to tell these guys to abandon ship.

Superheroes preserving all life is just kind of a suggestion, y’know?

And for some reason, Jocasta has to stay behind plugged into the computer to make the engine blow up. She can’t just set a countdown or something.

>=[

So this annual brings back Hercules and Jocasta from character limbo and promptly kills them off again.

Okay cool fuck off.

Jocasta manages to blow up the ship before it reaches Krakatoa, if only just.

And to make sure the genetic bomb’s mutagenic compound was obliterated in the explosion, the Avengers fly into the explosion plume and open the vents?

THERE’S NOT A BETTER WAY TO TEST THAT, HANK MCCOY, GENIUS SCIENTIST??

Anyway, it’s all just a set-up for a fake-out where Beast sneezes to bookend him sneezing at the beginning of the story.

Alls well that ends well except for the two dead Avengers and this story being garbage.

Now to be fair, comics. Jocasta will be back. Hercules will be back. The High Evolutionary will be back. In fact, the High Evolutionary and Hercules wind up in the same place. For some reason, the Celestials grab their discorporated essence and imprison them in the Black Galaxy.

Celestials, amirite? Can’t figure them.

So this last part of the story, Avengers Annual #17, had the difficult task of bringing the Evolutionary War event home. Which was both easy and difficult because most of the parts had interacted with it subtly at best.

The X-Factor part had a philosophical brawl between the Evolutionary and Apocalypse that revealed that the Evolutionary’s behavior in this event is because he’s feeling urgency. The West Coast Avengers Annual revealed that urgency is likely to be because of the Beyonders, who screwed him over once.

So we get to the last part and the Beyonders don’t get mentioned and the High Evolutionary’s new motive is that he feels lonely and wants humanity to be as cool as him.

I don’t think its easy to organize a story spanning this many different creative teams. Marvel still has problems getting events to stay on the same page in the year of our lord this year and that’s with all kinds of new advances in communication.

But shouldn’t the person that had to land this unwieldy plane actually been able to land the plane?

God. I feel bad saying it but Simonson is not doing a good job on Avengers. The first bunch of issues I’ve covered there’s the mitigating factor that he’s dealing with picking up someone else’s abandoned plot threads, editorial pressure breathing down his neck, a roster he clearly has no interest in writing.

But in this Avengers Annual, he got to pick a bunch of Avengers. He got to make up his own dream team. Even including dead characters like Jocasta. Even including characters that aren’t technically Avengers like Yellowjacket II. This is a roster he got to handpick. And the story is boring.

Despite how much the Genetic Bomb got built up, it is never seen on panel in this issue. You’d think that the thrilling conclusion to the story would be fought around it or over it. The bomb-ass cover even features a bomb motif.

But the final fight is instead in a generic lab with Hercules having a pink-off against the High Evolutionary after having a free power-up machine taped to his back.

It feels wrong to have the High Evolutionary beaten in Dragonball “my power is maximum” style because he’s not a fighty character. He’s powerful. But he’s not fighty. Given his performance here, he could have mopped the floor with Giant-Sized Bill Foster but decided to fuck off instead.

This is a Kang Ending or a Doom Ending but it doesn’t feel like a High Evolutionary Ending.

He’s also a lot more dickish in this last part of the story. Not to say that doing a lot of eugenics isn’t dickish by itself. But he’s been avoiding killing people if he doesn’t have to. He realized he was wrong to write off the Moloids. He let Clone Gwen go when he got the information he needed. But in the last issue, he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Just feels inconsistent. Which... is kinda the problem with the whole event.

I expected more than that for a story that took 11 annuals to cover. And that’s my fault. For expecting much out of this.

Most of the tie-ins were “High Evolutionary’s goons try to gather something or kill someone or sterilize someone, most likely something involving the drug trade.”

It was very clear as I dug into this that most of the writers were going off a paragraph or so of overarching plot, leaving very few issues actually trying to go deeper than that.

If you imagine Evolutionary War instead as a couple issues of event comic, most of the books I read here are tie-ins with EVOLUTIONARY WAR proudly displayed across the top of the cover and then some armor dudes show up to interrupt whatever the hero is up to.

Although, limiting it to the Annuals does mean it was less obtrusive so I can say that.

Okay. To teal deer, the Annuals Event concept is more likely to be bad than not because of the difficulty in organizing so many creative teams onto the same page. Add on a number of creators who can barely be bothered to engage with the material and you’re not likely to get something very much worth reading.

There’s another EVEN BIGGER Annuals Event next year but after that, the Marvel books break off into little groups for smaller Annuals Events.

That’s the only thing that makes me commit to covering them. If there were many more Evolutionary War sized events to cover, I think I would ignore them. Or just cover the Avengers bits.

Honestly, would I have missed out on much had I skipped the three Spider-Man parts of the story? I don’t think so.

Follow @essential-avengers​. Like and reblog and comment and oh god please read this. This took so long. It was not worth it!

[tfnonsense]

So… Randomized writing prompts.

It’s intentionally very vague with person, transformation, and location.

“Authority” could be police, royalty, a mayor, etc. “Partner” could be a business partner, romantic partner, sidekick, etc.

“Sports” some kind of stadium. Travel could be a hotel, hitchhiking on the road, whatever.

Transformations are most open with only four options: Gender, Figure, Animal, Size. Each of those could mean any number of things. Animal could be cat ears, or furry, or an actual house cat or something. Size could be talker, 10% normal size, etc.

Let’s take Bystander, Student, Figure, Books as an example. That could become “a student reading a book out loud in the library accidentally casts a spell that makes the 80-year-old Librarian 60 years younger just as she’s about to tell him to be quiet.”

Mentor, Celebrity, Figure, Gender, Gender, Pool. “A celebrity’s agent says they can revitalize his career if he swims in a special pool. The muscular, masculine celebrity grunts, and plays along. When done swimming, she gets out the pool as a very curvy woman with very feminine mannerisms.”

Some results are just nonsense, but that happens with randomization.

Here’s another sample of random prompts:

There are 20 locations and 20 People, but I swear it has favorites :P