the wasp

We’re Losing Heroes Left & Right…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my darlings! It’s time for some more mutant madness. After the excitement of FCBD, and pulling myself away from my new books and my new obsession with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, I’ve read through six more issues getting us about a quarter of the way through 1968. But things are going to be a little different now.

Recently I’ve realized that part of the reason I’ve been finding it so hard to keep consistent with these posts and my reading is that I really just hate the Silver Age. I understand why others love it but to me it is just so boring and so frustrating. So, I’m going to do my best to power through the rest of the Silver age as quickly as possible so we can get to one of my favorite X-Men periods: Claremont!!! So, these posts may be a little less detailed as far as storylines go, and much more about my thoughts and impressions along with quick recaps. (At least, I’m going to try to do that. But lets be honest, brevity is NOT my forte.)

avengers48

So with that, let’s check in on our Maximoff twins over at Avengers Mansion in issues #48-50. Er, at Garrett Castle. As you may remember, when we last left our mutants they had been captured by Magneto (!!!) who returned to Earth and wants to re-form the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wanda and Pietro are refusing to join him. While all this is happening, Dane Whitman has woken up and broken out of the room Mags locked him in. He has apparently been improving the Black Knight (BK) armor and weapons and he plans to take up the mantle as a super-hero to make up for his uncle’s wrong doing. So, he dons the armor and takes off to get the Avengers to come rescue Wanda and Pietro. But of course all superheroes are idiots, and especially Hawkeye now that Cap is gone, so they attack BK before he can tell them why he’s there and they all fight. Eventually they stop fighting after Goliath is forced to grow to his full 25 ft. height (which will be important later) and BK tells them where the twins are, but refuses to help  them since they attacked him. They get to the castle, but Mags and the Maximoffs are gone.

As the Avengers (At this point it’s just Hawkeye, Wasp, and Goliath. Cap has quit and Hercules has gone to Olympus to try and make up with Zeus. He has his own plot thread going on through all of this that I’ll talk about at the end) head back to HQ to regroup, Mags takes the twins to his secret base to try and persuade them to join him. He’s telling them that he’s changed his ways. He no longer wants to use violence, and just wants to protect mutants. He says he’s going to be addressing the UN and brings Wanda and Pietro with him. Basically, he’s insisting mutants be given their own sovereign nation with a seat on the UN Security Council or there will never be peace between mutants and humans. He’s set it up so the council HAS to say no (because it’s an insane idea) but will look like the bad guys doing it. He’s trying to play on Pietro’s bitterness towards humans. When the council says no, Mags tries to attack them but is thwarted by the just-arriving Avengers (They saw his address on TV and rushed over). During the fight, some guards aim their guns at Magneto. He uses his powers to make them fire at the mutants and then directs one of the bullets to hit Wanda’s temple, effectively sending Quicksilver into a rage strong enough to make him side with Mags and attack the Avengers. He then leaves with his unconscious sister and Magneto! This is how Wanda & Pietro’s stories tie up for now, and we spend the rest of this issue and the next one on Herc’s storyline. So lets jump in:

While all of this has been going on, Hercules has returned to Olympus to try and get his father to lift his exile. When he arrives, all the gods are gone and most of Olympus is in ruin. Hercules is attacked by a Titan named Typhon who Zeus had banished long ago. Typhon has destroyed the Temple of Promethean Flame which banished all the gods to the Land of Shadows. He and Hercules fight, and then Typhon calls forth a monster to kill Herc. Obviously, this doesn’t work, so Typhon instead banishes Herc to the same realm as the gods. Once there, Hercules finds Zeus and the others and explains what happened and who banished them. Since Herc is half mortal, Zeus is able to send him back to Earth. Meanwhile, Typhon has also gone to Earth to conquer it. He runs into the Avengers who are out looking for Herc and they fight. It’s looking bad for the Avengers until Hercules shows up and they manage to defeat Typhon. Hercules says he needs to take Typhon to Olympus to be dealt with by Zeus. Once he’s there, it becomes clear to him and to the Avengers that he will be staying in Olympus for now, and so the Avengers are down yet another member. So, our mighty team is now just Hawkeye, Wasp, and Ant-Man. I say Ant-Man because Hank Pym can no longer change into Goliath thanks to him growing to his 25 ft. height a few issues ago.

the big bang theory kaley cuoco frustrated penny facepalm

Overall, these were good stories. It’s interesting to note that Hawkeye’s temper seems to be back now that Cap has left. He’s sulking about Cap quitting and he and Hank are fighting constantly. Also, Hawkeye mentions that Natasha has taken off “on vacation” without telling him, so it seems his temper has also ruined that relationship. Janet’s costume changes twice during this arc. She wears a bright pink costume that essentially makes her look like a Playboy Bunny with wings for a second, but then it changes again to a blue and yellow outfit that’s surprisingly adorable. And, more important to our mutants, I liked this story-line about Magneto basically manipulating Quicksilver into joining him again. It was paced well, and given the seeds of bitterness we’ve seen in Pietro recently, it made sense character-wise. We’ll see how this plays out Avenger’s wise soon. But for now, it seems our twins may be headed back over to the X-men book for a bit. And speaking of X-Men books:

Issue 40 is a silly stand-alone story about Frankenstein’s monster. Basically, some explorers found him in ice in the arctic and brought him back to New York and are thawingxmen40 him out. Apparently Xavier knows the monster is real and has always thought Dr. Frankenstien must be a mutant. He also apparently gets premonions now and can project his thoughts onto the wall like a movie projector. (This is why I hate the Silver Age.)

friends angry fuck you ross middle finger

Anyway, they go to the museum to try and stop them from waking up the monster, but they’re too late. They fight the monster, but the Prof is being so dumb. He keeps holding Iceman back and won’t tell any of them why or what the plan is. The monster runs way and tries to go south on a ship, but again the X-Men stop him. They eventually corner him on the ship and Iceman uses his powers to try and encase him in ice again. Instead, the monster blows up because he’s not actually a monster, but an android sent to Earth all those years ago by an alien race from a tropical planet to test how humans would respond. The android went nuts and the aliens chased it to the arctic, where it jumped into the water and froze. Seriously. This is the stupidest story ever. But wait…it gets worse. After saving the day, Xavier MAKES THE SHIP’S CREW FORGET EVERYTHING. This is because according to Xavier, the X-Men don’t search for personal glory or something. I mean…come on!! There is absolutely no reason for this. In fact, it works against their whole mission. They want to protect the world and show that mutants aren’t all bad. But then every time they save the day, X makes all the witnesses forget. WTF? How is the world ever going to know the X-Men are good guys if they never take credit for the victories? Guys, I’m sooooo done with this. This is moronic. Can we just move onto the next moronic story-line? K, thanks!

Issues 41 & 42 aren’t as bad as the previous story, but they’re close. In these issues, NYC is xmen 41attacked by Grotesk, the Sub-Human. He’s the last remaining member of an ancient race that lived under the earth. Atomic weapons testing caused all of his race to die out from radiation sickness and left him deformed. He’s here to get vengeance by stealing a machine that apparently causes man-made earthquakes and turning in all the way up to make the Earth crumble and killing everyone on it. So, Bobby and Hank learn all this when they encounter him in the subway while on dates with Vera and Zelda. They rush back to the mansion to tell the rest of the gang and find the other’s training with a VERY grouchy Xavier. He’s testing Scott, Warren, and Jean and is being a huge dick. They call him on it, but he just gets more angry and refuses to listen to Bobby and Hank when they arrive. He leaves for his office and takes Jean with him. He’s told her some secret the others don’t know and she’s helping him with secret experiments. After this useless cutaway so that the reader can learn about these secrets, he and Jean go right back out to tell the boys to go stop the Sub-Human. They go,  they find his hide-out, and Angel and Iceman go back to get Jean to help while Cyke and Beast continue on and fight Grotesk.

Jean refuses to come with the boys and also refuses to let them see Xavier who is not there. Angel gets rightfully pissed off and starts yelling at Jean. Xavier shows up and says that NONE of them can go help Cyke and Beast. He orders them to stay but won’t tell them why. Cyke and Beast get totally beat up by Sub-Human and then head back to the school as well. Jean again refuses to let anyone see Xavier or leave the room, so she and Scott get into a fight. Suddenly she says that NOW the Prof wants them to meet up with him. Apparently he’s decided to stop Grotesk alone but he fails and Grotesk turns on the machine. The X-Men show up and try to help. They’re losing big time until Marvel Girl and Xavier slow down the machine. Grotesk tries to make it go faster again and it blows up, killing him! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your feelings of the man) Xavier is also caught up in the blast. The X-Men rush  to his side to save him, but he tells them that he was dying anyway from some total mystery illness that he couldn’t cure. He uses his dying breath to explain Grotesk’s motives (even though the kids already know  them because like every other villain over, Grotesk told them about it at length) and then he dies.

angry frustrated embarrassed embarrassed facepalm

Guys. Seriously. This is why Professor Xavier is just a huge dick. He was dying for some time and only told Jean. First of all, that’s shitty. He should have told them all. And if he wasn’t going to, he shouldn’t have told Jean and made her keep that secret. Also, this feels so rushed. This storyline of him keeping secrets and Jean working on experiments with him just started in this arc. And secondly, him dying is not a legit reason for him trying to stop Grotesk alone. He has NO good reason for this. If he and the X-Men had attacked together from the start, and he had clued them into what Grotesk was doing, they probably could have stopped him before he even turned the stupid machine on. And X probably wouldn’t have been caught up in the explosion. It’s so frustrating and so stupid. It’s also a little on the creepy side that he only tells Jean, the only female on the team, and has her in his office working on experiments with him. Before this reveal, it would be pretty easy to assume they were having some sort of affair, which is totally gross. Scott even thinks to himself that the reason they’re spending so much time together alone is because the Professor is in love with Jean. Guys, Xavier is at LEAST in his 40’s at this point. And Jean is like, 20. And his student. Eww. I seriously hate this arc. And to be totally honest, I’m kinda psyched that X is dead for now (Come on, it’s X-Men. You already know he’s going to come back at some point.)

clueless duh i'm a mouse

But, moving on. In the back of these three issues they have continued the “Secret Origin” storyline about how Xavier met Scott. Last we saw, Scott was running away from some cops and found a cabin with a mutant inside. This is Jack Winters or “Jack O’Diamonds”. Jack has hands made of pure diamond and also can influence other mutants with his mind. (minor telepathy basically) He essentially forces Scott to help him break into the nuclear power plant he used to work at. There was an accident there that gave him his powers and he thinks that if her repeats it, he can make himself diamond all over and thus be invincible. Basically what happens is they break it, Scott refuses to kill anyone so Jack leaves him behind and starts up the machine he’s looking for. The experiment works and he’s now a “Living Diamond”. Xavier shows up and he and Scott manage to stop the Living Diamond, but Jack dies in the process. X recruits Scott to his school as his first student and tells him about the dream and the X-Men. There are more continuity issues with Xavier’s powers (he seems to be telekinetic also since he’s opening locks  and such with his “mental powers”).

So my darlings, that’s all for now. As I’m sure was evident, I didn’t really enjoy these arcs (at least the X-Men ones) that much. Here’s hoping it gets better now that Xavier is dead. Also, I promise I won’t ALWAYS be this negative. Just today since X-Men is being dumb. I just keep telling myself that Silver Age X-Men ends in 25 issues and I can suffer through until then. And with that my loves, I’ll end this not-at-all-shorter-like-I-said-it-would-be post. Until we meet again, keep searching….

 

Finally Done with 1966!

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

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!

avengers33Avengers #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!

xmen25The 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!!

avengers34Here 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, xmen27Puppet 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!!

“Life Is Hard When You’re a Superhero”, Or Why I Love Scott Summers…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello, my loves!

So, I got a TON of reading done yesterday. Seriously. I read my way through like 10 issues (5 months of 1966!!). There’s a LOT going on in these 10 issues, and a couple different arcs, so I’m going to break them up into multiple posts, mostly for the sake of my own sanity. We’ve got some line-up changes in both books, as well as the return of some old friends and foes, so lets just dig in.

Avengers #28! This is sort of a stand-alone issue. By that, I mean that the main story doesn’t continue on into issue 29, but some of the plot points and loose threads do. This issue sees the return of Giant-Man and the Wasp to the Avengers. Hank Pym reveals his secret identity to the Avengers when he asks them to help him find Wasp, who has been missing since she warned the Avengers about Attuma in the last arc. It turns out she’s been captured by The Collector!! This is the first appearance of the Collector, and guys, I’m super excited. He’s such a creepy villain, and really interesting. (Also, I’m totally obsessed with Benicio Del Toro’s portrayal of him in the MCU!!) Anyway, Hank joins the Avengers (with a new costume and a new name! Say hello to…Goliath!) and they rescue Jan from The Collector and the Beetle. Turns out that’s who Hawkeye had tied up in the last arc. He disappeared because the Collector came and “collected him”.

The big take away from this issue is that Goliath and Wasp are back in the main Avenger’s line-up. Also, at the end of the issue, Goliath tries to shrink back down to normal size, but passes out and gets stuck at 10 feet. The issue ends with us not knowing what’s happened to Dr. Pym!

Possibly. But let’s be honest, we know he’s not!

Before we find out Goliath’s fate, lets jump upstate to Xavier’s and check in on our mutants!

  

Issues 20 & 21 give us the return of Lucifer, as well as the story of how he and the Professor originally met, leading to the Professor becoming paralyzed at the hands of Lucifer. We learn that Lucifer is an alien, but not from where he came. He’s trying to help his race take over the Earth and enslave the human race using a super computer and robots.

The X-Men are able to stop his robots, but before they’re able to deal with Lucifer himself, the leaders of his race step in and banish him to eternal exile for failing them. It’s actually kind of messed up. Remember when we talked about the Prof erasing memories and how it’s clearly a terrible thing but everyone acts like it’s totally okay, and preferable to death? This is another one of those things. Lucifer is banished to some realm with no sense of time or space, so he’s basically going to be stuck in a hell for all eternity. How is that better then killing him? It’s not. It’s totally messed up. And the only thing that makes it a little easier to swallow is that it’s the other villains that do this to him, and not our heroes. But just slightly.

Other things of note from this arc: First off, Roy Thomas’s first arc fits in seamlessly to the world Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created. His writing style is similar enough to Lee’s but he gives the characters a tiny bit more depth, which I love! Secondly, at the beginning of the arc, Scott decides to leave the X-Men. He feels like he needs to find a doctor to fix his eyes so that he’s no longer a “danger to everyone”. Here’s the thing…this is a little annoying to me, because I know that Scott will eventually grow into the great leader he’s meant to be, but it makes sense with his character thus far, and I really like it for that reason. Cyke’s biggest flaw is his martyrdom (at least for a few decades). He doesn’t see that he’s a born leader, or that he’s a good guy at heart. He only sees what he thinks is the curse of his eyes. They’re the reason he’s so sad all the time, and the reason he feels he can’t tell Jean how he feels about her. It’s pretty heartbreaking. It’s also what makes Scott one of my favorite characters. I’ve had many discussions with many fans over the years about Cyclops. There are a LOT of people out there that don’t like Scott. They think he’s too much of a boring, vanilla boy scout type.

Ten and I are judging the Cyclops haters

But I will argue for my ruby-eyed boy till I’m hoarse, because I think that analysis of him misses the whole point of Cyclops. Scott is a deeply flawed, severely scarred individual who has had a really hard, messed up life. We’ll be talking about this more as we learn more about his backstory, his family, and his relationships with Jean and especially the Professor! Just know that, if you don’t like Cyke, I will try to change your mind!  And, I’m judging you! LOL. Also, that was a REALLY long paragraph all about one mutant. Whew…I’m tired!

On that note, let’s hop back over the city and check on our mutant siblings and the rest of the Avengers!

Avengers # 29 & 30 bring us some old villains, and some new loves. This is a fun arc! First, we find out that Goliath is okay, but he is stuck being 10 feet tall. If he tries to change size again, the stress it puts on his cells will kill him. This leads to Hank storming off to pout for the first (but far from the last) time. This is also our first real example of Hank’s anger issues. Those will rear their ugly heads in the near future on more then one occasion.

Anyway, the main storyline here is that the Black Widow has returned to the US to try and defeat the Avengers. (She’s showed up in Tales of Suspense before. She was a Russian spy who falls in love with Hawkeye and then is captured by her communist handlers and taken back to “The East”). She’s been brainwashed into being a communist again, and enlists the help of the Swordsman and Power Man to take out the Avengers. The three of them manage to capture all of the Avengers except the Wasp and Goliath. The couple finally show up to save the others, and in the end, our villains escape because Hawkeye can’t bare to shoot his blast arrow at Natasha. He loves her too much.  Issue 29 ends with the Avengers heading back to HQ to regroup.

In issue 30, our Avengers split up a bit to take care of personal business while they wait to find where Black Widow, Swordsman, and Power Man have gone. Wanda and Pietro head off for Eastern Europe suddenly because they feel their powers are dwindling and think the answer to fixing them is at home. It’s very sudden, and not explained well. They’re mutants, so there’s no reason why their powers should be fading, but oh well.

Goliath takes off for South America to find a scientist that’s down there, who he believes can help him find a way to shrink back to normal size. Once he gets there, he learns that Dr. Anton has been kidnapped by a race of people living in a “forbidden land” who believe he’s there to steal their magic cobalt fire. Goliath attempts to rescue him and gets caught up in a war over the flames. It’s a little silly, but it IS fun to watch everyone freak out about the “giant” who has some to steal the magic fire.

And finally, Cap, Wasp, and Hawkeye track down our villains, and then Hawkeye insists on going after them on his own to make up for letting them escape. Hawkeye succeeds in defeating Power Man and Swordsman, with some last minute help from Black Widow. Apparently, her love for Hawkeye is so strong, it broke through the brainwashing! Yay!!

Notable things in this arc: Issue 29 gives us one of my favorite lines so far. Swordsman is carrying an unconscious Scarlet Witch and comments that she seems so frail and helpless. (GAG) The Black Widow immediately responds “So does an Asp…until it strikes”. I love it. On one level, Widow is reminding Swordsman not to be too relaxed about their enemies. On another level, she’s telling him (and thus the readers) that even though she’s a woman, Scarlet Witch is still a very formidable opponent. It makes this feminist happy to read. Especially in an arc where the women don’t get to do too much.

Also, Hawkeye has now decided to stop being such a dick (probably because Hank Pym is back to fill that roll *wink*). He and Cap are now all buddy-buddy, and I have to be honest, I think it might actually be more annoying then their fighting! I guess this is a classic “be careful what you wish for” moment!

Well my darlings, that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon so we can talk about what happens to Goliath in South America, as well as what’s going on at Xavier’s! Until then, my loves, keep searching…

It’s Been A Long Time…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

I shouldn’t have left you, left you, without a dope beat to step to, step to

Ok…so now that that’s out of my system! LOL. Let’s talk comics.

Things have been SUPER hectic in my life recently, so my goal of finishing the ‘60′s by Labor Day…well, it was laughable. But, I have read a bit more, so we can talk about the next arc in both X-Men and Avengers, and I’ll get my butt reading again now that things have calmed down a bit. I promise it won’t be so long between posts again, my loves!

Let’s start with Avengers today. Issues 25-27.

So, Issue 25 gives us our first look at one of my favorite Marvel villains. DR. DOOM!!!

This issue is kind of a stand-alone issue. The basic premise is that Dr. Doom kidnaps the Avengers in order to 1) lure the Fantastic Four into a trap and 2) intimidate the FF because, presumably, they’ll be more afraid of him if he’s already beaten the Avengers. So Doom tricks the Avengers into coming to Latveria by pretending that Pietro and Wanda have a long lost relative that lives there and the Avengers go to meet her. Once there, Doom takes them prisoner and puts a giant dome over the entire country so that they can’t escape. The US government won’t let the FF come to the rescue, so it’s up to our crazy foursome to defeat Doom themselves. And of course, they do. This is a fun little story, but not a lot happens. We do see that leading the Avengers is beginning to wear on Cap. He seems to long to end his hero-ing career and become Steve Rogers again, but also seems to understand that there isn’t much of a life for Steve Rogers to live so far removed from his own time. It’s nice to see SOME depth from at least one of these characters. It’s also nice to see a tiny crack in the shining armor of Captain America, something that makes him seem more human. But also, can we talk about the constant fighting between the Avengers? It’s SOOO annoying at this point. They’re constantly at each other’s throats, and I really can’t take it anymore. It’s really just Hawkeye fighting with everyone, but it makes me want to scream. So, on that note, let’s move on to issues 26 & 27. Lol.

This little arc starts with Steve showing the rest of the Avengers how to operate the new message system Tony Stark built for them. And of course, like always, Hawkeye is being a dick, and not listening, and fighting with Cap. This leads to an awesome little fight between Quicksilver and Hawkeye. Guys, for those of you who maybe don’t know a lot about these two characters, know that NORMALLY, Quicksilver would totally wipe the floor with Hawkeye. There’s just no way Hawks could hit Quicksilver with an arrow. But here, Quicksilver is clearly winning, and then slows down to brag, and Hawkeye catches him with an arrow. That’s when Cap finally steps in and ends the fight. It’s not that important to the story arc, but it’s a great few pages of fun, and I enjoyed every minute of reading it. But in the end, Hawkeye leaves to go out on the town, and isn’t happy at all.

We then cut to see Namor racing towards the shore, and past a ship carrying the Wasp and Giant-Man. Janet decides to fly to shore as the Wasp to warn the Avengers that Namor is coming, since it seems he’s looking for a fight. As she’s taking a break from flying, she’s captured by Attuma and we learn that Attmua is planing on conquering the surface world by raising the tides so high the whole earth is flooded. Janet’s able to shrink down, escape her cage, and radio the Avengers to let them know what’s happening. Cap, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver rush to her aid, leaving a message for Hawkeye on Tony Stark’s new machine to meet them since he’s not answering his signal ring. Who wants to bet Hawkeye won’t know how to work the machine because he wasn’t paying attention at the beginning of the issue? Well, you’d be right!

So, the Avengers end up on Attuma’s underwater ship, and are fighting for their lives. One of my favorite parts about this fight is that that Attuma and his men clearly see Wanda as the biggest threat. They knock her out fairly quickly, but it’s really nice to see her power getting some respect for once! Attuma manages to beat all three Avengers, but then pride gets the better of him. See, the Avengers can’t breathe very well in the super moist air Attuma has in his ship, so his followers are saying that he only won the battle because the Avengers were already weakened. Like all super villains, he can’t let this taunt go. So, he has the Avengers revived, gives them helmets that allow them to breathe normal oxygen, and then fights them again. This time the three Avengers work together and seem to be fairing better against Attuma, until Wanda uses her powers to bring down a pillar and it accidentally floods that whole section of the ship.

Back at HQ, Hawkeye finally returns to try and listen to the message. He can’t remember the code Cap told them, so he uses some other machine of Tony’s to get that memory back. While he’s in the machine, we see that someone is there watching him!! And that’s the end of issue 26!

Issue 27 starts with Hawkeye remembering the code and beginning to listen to the message Cap left for him. Suddenly, he’s attacked by the mysterious figure from last issue. He’s in some weird green suit with metal wings and purple suction cups on his fingers. We aren’t told who this guy is, or why he’s attacking, but Hawkeye eventually beats him and leaves him tied up in HQ so he can go help the others fight Attuma.

The fight on the ship continues, and Pietro gets himself shot out a torpedo tube in to the open water. He’s picked up by Hawkeye and the two of them finally find their way back to Attuma’s ship, fighting guard ships and a giant octopus along the way. Meanwhile, Cap and Wanda are beaten and brought before Attuma. Cap calls him a phony, saying he doesn’t have the power to raise the tides, thus tricking Attuma into showing them his tide machine before their execution. Wanda causes a diversion (by pretending to faint. *ewww*) and Cap breaks them free. They meet up with the other two who have arrived on the ship and are fighting for their lives. They beat Attuma and his men, and escape. During the battle, Cap managed to sabotage the tide machine so that it blows up.

But, before they can really celebrate their victory, they arrive back at HQ to find that the mysterious stranger Hawkeye left tied up there has escaped!! Also, there is NO mention of what the hell Namor was doing when Hank and Janet saw him. It’s weird and slightly annoying. Obviously our mysterious prisoner escaped to set up the next arc, but I’d like to know why we saw Namor at all!

But…let’s move on to X-Men. Issues 17 &18.

This arc picks up in the immediate aftermath of the Sentinel’s arc. The army is cleaning up the aftermath of the X-Men’s battle with the sentinels, and Cyke, Bobby, and Beast are taken to the hospital. Iceman is unconscious. There are some funny moments at the hospital where the doctors are trying to remove Cyke’s visor so they can examine his eyes and they won’t listen when he tells them he can’t take the visor off. And also when the doctors are trying to figure out how to treat the frozen Iceman, or examining Beast’s crazy big feet. It’s some lighthearted humor to undercut the emotional reveal that Iceman could be dying and the doctors don’t know how to treat him if he doesn’t thaw out.

While this is going on, Warren checks the school’s messages and learns that his parents are on their way to visit. He tries to stall them by having the Prof tell them they’re on a field trip and that finals are starting, but the Worthington’s are insistent. Professor X sends Angel back to the school to meet them while he and Jean watch over the others as they’re treated. Once Angel arrives at the school, he’s attacked by a mysterious villain who’s face we never see. He’s incapacitated and taken prisoner!!

The Prof realizes he’s lost mental contact with Angel, so he and Cyke head back to the school to check on him. Once there, they too are attacked and captured by our mysterious baddie. Things aren’t looking good for our X-Men!! Jean and Beast quickly notice that Cyke and the Prof are gone, so they also head to the school, after checking on Iceman, who is still in a coma. They are just as quickly captured by our bad guy, but not before Jean sees his face and clearly recognizes him (although we still don’t know who it is!) While back at the hospital, Iceman is getting worse (and his doctor is prescribing new, experimental medications), the remaining X-Men are being put into a giant metal ball attached to a hot air balloon. Our villain sends the balloon off, explaining that once it gets too high, it will pop, and the X-Men will plummet to their deaths trapped in the steel ball. Just as the ball drifts out of sight, Angel’s parents pull up to the school and ring the bell. The door is answered and we finally get to see who our bad guy is on the last page of the issue. And it’s…MAGNETO!! Seriously you guys, I’m SOOO excited to have Mags back. He’s the best. Especially ‘60′s Mags. He’s so ridiculously nuts. It’s glorious.

Anyway, issue 18 is where things get weird and crazy. First of all, we see Mags lift the entire school up to move it! I love seeing his raw power like that. Sometimes I think that some writers try to get too clever with how to stretch the idea of “magnetic powers” instead of focusing on just how scary powerful Magneto is. He doesn’t need his powers to manipulate things they shouldn’t be able to manipulate (as we’ll see in this issue). He’s just crazy powerful! Ok…where was I?!

So, Mag’s uses his magnetic powers to hypnotize the Worthington’s into going to sleep in one of the bedrooms. I know, I know, it’s a HUGE stretch to say his powers allow him to hypnotize people through “magnetic attraction”. This is what I was talking about with the stretching the things his powers can do. It’s dumb and a catch all to make him nearly unbeatable. It’s a deus ex machina so that he can capture the Worthington’s, but at the end of the issue, they won’t remember anything so the X-Men can remain a secret. It’s contrived and annoying, but it’s also not the last god from a machine we’ll be seeing in this issue, so pay attention!

Anyway, Mags is building a machine that will use the DNA of the Worthingtons to build new mutants! (WHAT?!?!) See, since the Worthington’s gave birth to a mutant (Angel) they clearly hold the DNA for mutation. I can get behind that reasoning. What I can’t get behind is that Mags can build a machine that will create living things from nothing but a scan of some genes, or that he can manipulate those genes into any power he wants. In my mind, I feel like the “X gene” (as it will come to be called later in continuity) is unique for each mutant and their powers. So the Worthington’s DNA only holds the markers to create Angel, and not an endless amount of different powers. But what do I know? At this point, we haven’t been told much about mutation and the science behind it, so I guess anything goes for now!

While all this is happening, the X-Men have woken up in their big steel balloon. Professor X has explained how Magneto escaped from the Stranger, leaving Toad behind, and came back to Earth with the sole purpose of destroying the X-Men. He’s also contacted Iceman, who is responding well to the meds his doctor tried, and gets him to leave the hospital, still weak, and go to the house to fight Mags while the other X-Men find a way to save themselves from the trap they’re in. Bobby manages to sneak into the school, find out what Mags is up to, stop the machine, and then fights Mags. It’s looking good for Bobby until he tries to trap Mags in an igloo and Mags seals Bobby in with him “magnetically” Can someone who knows more science then me please explain to me how you us magnetism to solidify ice? Seriously? It’s getting a little stupid with all these aspects to Mags powers that make no sense. It’s like the writers just said that he can do anything and they’ll just explain it using “magnetism”. GRR.

So, Cyke and Jean work together to get the steel ball back to the ground safely and then Cyke blasts them out of it and they race to Iceman’s rescue. They fight Mags for awhile before Professor X calls them off. He tells Mags that only he knew how to stop him for good. And then…our second god from a machine shows up in the form of The Stranger. You see, the Prof called him telepathically to come get Mags again. Seriously. It’s so dumb. The X-Men could beat Mags all together if the writers didn’t insist on giving him a ridiculous power set that makes no sense. But instead, they need another deus ex machina to save the story from the box they wrote it into. I’m more than little annoyed at this. Mags is a great foe, and will be forever. But having him be more powerful then he should be, so that the only option is to have the god-like Stranger come swoop him up again isn’t just lazy writing; it’s writing without regard to the whole story.

But anyway, Mags is gone, his machine and the mutants it was creating are destroyed, and the Worthington’s remember nothing! So everything’s A-OK at Xavier’s Institute! Hooray!!!

So, this entry is super long. I said in the beginning that I wasn’t going to give you long summaries of the issues because it would be too much work, but here I am, giving you fairly detailed summaries. This won’t be the case once we have more then 2 books to cover each month, just so you guys know. Once we’re into the 90′s and ‘00′s, there is just WAY too much to summarize everything. So, enjoy it while it lasts kiddos! And, until next time…Keep searching…

Original Tumblr Post: here