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Hello my loves! I’m back!!

And I’ve FINALLY finished 1966!  I really just haven’t had any time to read recently. But I think I’ve worked it out so that I can start getting my reading in more frequently, so hopefully there will be no more long hiatuses from yours truly. My goal is to get us out of the ’60’s by the end of October, but we’ll see how doable that is as we go!!

In order to finish out 1966, I read Avengers #33-35 and The X-Men #25-27. I also skimmed over Thor #134. It’s not on my list, and I’ll explain why I skimmed it when we get there! But first, lets start with Avengers!

Avengers #33 finished up the Sons of the Serpent story line from previous issues. We ended with Cap captured by the SOS, and with Goliath being a huge dick. The Avengers plus Black Widow manage to save Cap and defeat the SOS, exposing their leader as General Chen, the communist leader of an unnamed “hostile Oriental nation”. He’s basically a walking stereotype, the likes of which Avengers readers are accustomed to seeing in the villain role.

Stan Lee also lays on the patriotic rhetoric pretty thick in this one. There’s lots of talk about how democracy means anyone can think and preach anything, and it’s what makes America great. Lots of talk of freedom, and “the American Way” and the like. I mean, it’s not wrong; just laid on a little thick for my liking. And that’s not the only thing laid on thick in this issue. What else is laid on too thick for my liking, you ask? Well, my loves, that would be the over-size helping of Hank Pym’s testosterone!

Seriously, you guys. Hank is a walking, talking ball of male ego and chauvinistic, hyper masculine ideals. I can’t even deal. He’s CONSTANTLY ordering everyone around, treating Janet like she’s a child, threatening violence whenever someone makes him mad or something doesn’t go his way, and just generally trying to prove he’s the toughest and smartest guy in the room. The whole thing seems all that more nuts because he’s literally the biggest, strongest guy in the room. The man is 10 feet tall!! What could he possibly need to compensate for?!?!

On second thought…maybe that’s exactly the problem. Not to work blue, but the man is 10 feet tall. I would imagine his and Janet’s relationship isn’t quite as, um, intimate as it once was for the same reasons he has nothing to compensate for…

But, that’s enough about the Avenger’s and Goliath for now. Lets move on to the X-men!

The X-Men #25 & 26 are a fun little arc about El Tigre, a gem hunter who finds a magic pendant in South America that, when he reunites it with it’s other half in New York, gives him the powers of a Mayan god named Kukulcan. The four guys fight him in New York, and then in South America before finally defeating him (Jean is at college).

During the fight in New York, Scott is hurt. When Jean shows up at the mansion to bring the Prof books on Mayan legends, her worry for his well-being finally shows through and both Scott & Warren realize that she loves Scott. Scott vows to himself to tell Jean of his feelings when the boys return from South America. Warren begins to pout, and then spends the rest of the arc fighting with Scott. It’s soooo annoying. It’s also well done. Just as I was getting annoyed with it, as it reminded me so much of Hawkeye fighting with Cap constantly in Avengers, Roy Thomas actually has Angel say just that! He thinks to himself that he is beginning to sound like “a poor man’s Hawkeye“. It was enough to quell my annoyance and make me laugh! But then, just when I think this Angel being mad a Cyke thing is going to go away, a mishap in their battle with Kukulcan makes sure it doesn’t. Cyclops is aiming at Kuku with a full-blast optic blast, but at the last second, Kuku ducks, causing Cyke to hit Angel instead!! Angel is severely injured, and falls to the ground. In a moment of consciousness at the end of the battle, Angel accuses Cyke of hitting him deliberately, so that he can have Marvel Girl to himself! While the readers, Cyke, and Angel all KNOW that’s not what happened, Cyke begins to doubt himself. He actually starts to think that maybe, subconsciously, he did do it intentionally.  So now there’s that drama…

But seriously, when are we going to get to the point where Jean and Scott are just together, and Warren’s totally over her? Are we almost there? Cause I can’t wait to be at that point. Scott and Jean are one of my favorite comic couples ever, and I’m so over this love triangle crap!

So over it, in fact, that we’re going to move back over to Avengers before I get too worked up! LOL. So…Avengers #34 & 35. Let’s go!!

Here we see the first appearance of the Living Laser. Arthur Parks is a scientist who, after falling instantly in love with Janet upon seeing her, decides to take out the Avengers to win her love. Just some fair warning, dears, but this is going to get messy. I hate this storyline, and I’m not going to pull punches talking about it. It’s icky, and it’s not an uncommon trope, which icks me out even more.

So, Living Laser (LL) attacks Goliath at home, but is defeated, and given to Hawkeye and Cap to take to Avengers HQ. He escapes, captures those two, then captures the Wasp. He topples a South American dictatorship in a single day, and means to rule the country and later the rest of the world, when the Avengers finally beat him. Goliath gets to save the day, and the Wasp, and overall, the action is a lot of fun. My issue is the motive. LL does all of this to impress the Wasp, and make her love him. He spends the entire arc repeating the thought that once he kills the Avengers, she will see that he’s the most powerful, and then she’ll HAVE to love him. Guys, this is really gross thinking. And really problematic thinking. This idea that all women will automatically love the strongest, most powerful man is a gross idea that plays into male-centric fantasies that value hyper masculinity above all else.

Why do men think that women think like this?! And before you get on me about how “it’s just a comic” and “it was the ’60’s“, just stop yourself. I know these things. I also know that this type of thought process, and these types of stories have been around forever, and that they’re problematic at best, and harmful at worst. Especially when, within this type of story, you have your only female character literally saying “I wish I understood machines…like a man” Janet seriously says that while trying to figure out which lever on the machine will save Cap and Hawkeye. She also, after being captured by LL, threatens him by saying that HANK. WILL. SAVE. HER. She went from a card-carrying member of the world’s best super-hero team, to a helpless damsel in distress in one issue! I really can’t even!

Jan, you’re an AVENGER. You don’t need your giant, angry boyfriend to beat up LL for  you. Except that, apparently in this issue, you do. Because that’s exactly what happens. Goliath spends the entire arc making threats about the violence he’s going to inflict on LL for capturing Jan, and it’s almost as gross as LL thinking she’ll love him if he’s the most powerful. And then he comes to Jan’s rescue, and then also saves Cap & Hawkeye, who have been captured again, and blows up LL’s giant laser cannons, thus saving everyone.

He does all this because he’s able to shrink again. While Jan was missing, he disappears for a while, and it’s revealed at the last second that he was trying an experimental treatment to allow him to change size again. It works, and he can now go from Ant-Man tiny size, to normal size, and to Goliath size at will. And, from an Avengers stand-point, that’s pretty cool. Hopefully it will also chill him out, because I’m beginning to hate Hank Pym more then I ever hated Hawkeye.

I’ll also mention that this is where I skimmed through Thor #134. There’s a note in this arc that our missing mutants, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, make a brief appearance in Thor’s solo book, so I skimmed through to see why. I’m glad I did too! In #134, Jane Foster is in Wundagor. It’s under attack, and there’s a bright light in the sky that let’s us know that the High Evolutionary is busy creating “miracles” in his lab. I know that, most likely, none of this makes sense to you. That’s okay. We won’t be meeting the High Evolutionary just yet. What’s important is that, during this scene, we see Wanda and Pietro, and they reveal that a light just like that shone on the night of their birth, and that the name “Wundagore” comes to Pietro for unknown reasons. You see, this will become important to their backstory later! So, let’s try to remember it. And let’s also jump on over to The X-Men, where our twins make another quick appearance!

There’s a lot going on in issue #27, so let’s get to it! To sum it all up easily, Puppet Master is trying to get back at the FF, so he attempts to control Professor Xavier with the hopes of using him to force the X-Men to fight the FF. He can’t control the Prof, so instead he takes control of Mimic. (I also learned in this issue that the X-Men have met the Puppet Master before. A quick Google search told me it was in Fantastic Four #28, when the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker tried to use them to destroy the FF! Someone’s not too great at coming up with new plans, huh?) You see, Mimic has been going to Metro College with Jean, and, thanks to a chemistry accident, has regained his abilities and his memories of the X-Men. Angel is still out of commission from his injury last arc, and Mimic defeats the X-Men and leaves to fight the FF. The X-Men track Puppet Master down and save Mimic from becoming a murderer. Puppet Master escapes, but Mimic is saved. Angel joins the battle at the very end and saves the day, despite the Profs warning that he could do irreparable damage to his wings and never fly again. It’s all kind of fun, but also REALLY similar to the previous Mimic storyline.

In the midst of that story, the Prof is desperately searching for new members for the X-Men. He and Cerebro sense a growing mutant threat coming, and Charles is worried about the X-Men’s ability to face it with Angel injured and Marvel Girl away at school. He first contacts Wanda and Pietro (told you they’d be back!!). They politely turn him down, saying that they’re Avengers now, and wish to remain Avengers. He also contacts Spider-Man through Bobby and Hank, but Spidey also turns them down. Charles then announces to the team, before Puppet Master takes control of Mimic, that Scott has asked to step down as leader of the X-Men, and Mimic will take his place.

So… there will be that to deal with next issue! I’m not sure I’m going to like this too much. There are very few people who I can deal with leading the X-Men in Scott’s place, and none of them have been introduced yet! Obviously, I know this won’t last long, but I’m just letting you guys know ahead of time that I won’t take it well.

But for now, we’ve covered everything there is to cover in these issues. I learned that my list isn’t quite as complete as I would like it to be. I obviously missed FF #28, which I should have read with the other issues for July 1964! Oops!! I’ll probably read it on Marvel Unlimited now, just to be complete. But we won’t recap it more then what I did here. So…that’s all for now, my loves! Until next time, keep searching!!