Avengers #402

Avengers #402
Writing: Mark Waid
Art: Mike Deodato and Tom Palmer

What Went Down: The Avengers start out by rescuing a subway full of people trapped underground. Didn’t something similar already happen in Uncanny? Don’t worry about it! Once they get above ground, Captain America seems overwhelmed by the chaos around them, as buildings crumble and fires rage. The Avengers spend some time rescuing civilians and getting them to safety. They come across the Black Widow, technically the leader of the Avengers at this point, being mobbed by desperate people. Cap orders them away, and the Widow goes off to help more people.

Iron Man and Giant Man show up and tell the Avengers that they’ve completed the psionic armor. Unfortunately they’ve brought it with them, right as they are attacked by Post and Holocaust. The two villains are trying to steal the armor, and they have cloaking fields that render them invisible. While they fight the Avengers, the surrounding civilians begin to feel hopeless as the heroes are beaten. As the fight rages, Wasp asks Captain America what they should do; he replies that they can’t beat them. The Wasp is shocked to hear that Cap is giving up, but what Cap meant was that they couldn’t beat the villains head-on and needed to trick them. So Captain America throws his shield, triggers Post’s cloak, and tricks Holocaust into shooting him. While Holocaust is shocked by his actions, the Avengers beat the crap out of him. The crowd cheers, inspired by the Avengers’ victory. Onslaught appears on a giant screen to taunt the heroes. They destroy the screen and charge off, while saying “Avengers Assemble” of course.

How It Was: This is actually the last issue of the Avengers’ initial run. After the Onslaught storyline, the Avengers get shuffled off to the Heroes Reborn universe and the numbering starts over at issue one. So Mark Waid had the task of providing a closing to the Marvel Universe’s greatest heroes while making it fit within the Onslaught crossover. Oh, and he couldn’t resolve anything in the Onslaught storyline either. What we get is an issue of the Avengers doing what they do best, saving lives and inspiring people, followed by a fight with two C-list X-Men villains, which probably isn’t the conclusion Stan Lee would have envisioned 401 issues prior.

The story is okay, nothing spectacular. Mark Waid doesn’t even get a chance to wrap up any of the dangling sub plots his tenure as writer had set up (Kurt Buisek would handle them years later), and he also has the unpleasant duty of writing the issue that essentially makes his job obsolete. Black Widow gets brushed aside during the course of the story because she can’t go to Heroes Reborn; she’s needed in Daredevil and around the Marvel Universe. Vision is still lying on a bed off panel and Hawkeye is nowhere to be found, so they don’t get to be in the finale either. Come to think of it, while this Avengers roster consists solely of veterans, these are not the best versions of these characters. We have teenage Tony Stark/Iron Man, a Wasp who is an actual insect person, the poorly named Giant Man, and redesigns of classic costumes for characters like the Scarlet Witch and Thor that show how hard the Avengers Bullpen was trying to rip off the look of the X-Men.

So they’re rescuing civilians, which is fine except that the same thing is happening in every other Marvel book, and then they have to fight two villains that they have nothing to do with. The art is phenomenal and it really makes the issue. The battle is brutal as heroes are ambushed and thrown around. The mislead of the disheartened Captain America is a little contrived, but it’s not like Waid can really build drama any other way, since the plot isn’t allowed to proceed until Onslaught: Marvel Universe.

This is just a really odd issue to end the Avengers on. Waid definitely does his best, and at least the characters aren’t overshadowed in their own book as the X-Men have been in theirs’. Considering how bad the next year was for Avengers fans, this probably didn’t seem so bad, but it still feels like Earth’s Mightiest Heroes deserved better.

C+

X-Men #50

X-Men #50
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Andy Kubert

See X-Men Unlimited #10 next.
 
What Went Down: Cyclops wakes up tangled in a tree, in his underwear, and without his visor. Storm gets him out, but notes that she has some broken ribs and a twisted ankle. Wolverine comes to, and comments that he wasn’t even at the mansion when he was ambushed, while Storm discovers that Iceman has a huge chunk missing from his chest.

At the mansion, Xavier wakes up to Gateway spinning a portal in Xavier’s room, seemingly trying to abduct him. Xavier also happens to be narrating this issue as well. Bishop bursts in shooting his guns, but Gateway deflects the shots. Jean follows and subdues Gateway; Bishop remarks that it seems as if Gateway wanted to be stopped. Back in the mystery forest, Cyclops is trying to get Iceman to calm down, but Bobby is panicking because of the hole in his chest. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to return to human form.

Wolverine and Storm scout ahead, and Wolverine senses something invisible following them. Logan manages to disable its cloaking device temporarily, and Storm mistakes the threat for Onslaught. Actually this is Post, the herald of Onslaught. He is testing the X-Men to collect data for Onslaught. After knocking the X-Men away, Post fixes his cloaking device and disappears again.

At the mansion, Beast talks to Banshee about the disappearance of Chamber last issue. In an example of horrible planning, after abducting Chamber, Gateway ended up immediately depositing him back at the school, so last issue’s seemingly significant clue is now a dud. Suddenly an outline of Onslaught appears before the X-Men, causing discomfort for the Professor and Jean.

Cyclops and Iceman meet up with Storm and Wolverine to discuss their plan. They pretend to argue and fight, but really they are positioning themselves to attack the only area in the clearing large enough for Post to be in. How Cyclops and Iceman know the size of Post, I’ll never know. Post looks defeated, but he wakes up and conducts his powers through Iceman. Storm has to put him out with a blizzard.

At the mansion, Beast figures out that Onslaught is testing the X-Men. He comes to this conclusion because three of the X-Men taken were energy wielders, whatever that has to do with anything, and finds it interesting that Onslaught had to abduct the X-Men when he should be powerful enough to storm the mansion. He also figures that the captive X-Men were taken to a source of power.

As Post is about to kill Cyclops and Wolverine, Storm senses something unnatural about the forest around them. She tells Iceman to attack everything in the environment, which in some way weakens Post. Iceman chills Post’s brain, and Cyclops finishes him off with an optic blast. This results in the X-Men teleporting back to the mansion for some reason. Onslaught contacts Gateway to tell him that he overestimated the X-Men because they could barely stop Post, the weakest of Onslaught’s soldiers. Then Onslaught threatens the X-Men, saying that no one can stop him, before disappearing.

How It Was: More double-sized comics…NOOOOO! This particular one comes with a spiffy shiny wraparound cardboard stock cover. Oh, nineties comics gimmicks… thank God you’re not still around because comics are already expensive enough nowadays.

This is the first significant mention we’ve had of Onslaught since Uncanny #322, when we learned Onslaught beat up the Juggernaut. It’s also the first appearance of Post, who has the second worst villain name ever, next to Sack of Gene Nation. Because at this point the X-Office was still trying to figure out who or what Onslaught was going to be, this issue is very vague, and the hints it does give turn out to be inconsequential. Post, for example, has no major function during the Onslaught crossover other than fighting a few random heroes.

The sequence of Beast making scientific observations about Onslaught’s plan is one of the worst scenes ever as none of his conclusions make any sense or serve a purpose. Why does Beast have to figure out they’re being tested when the captive X-Men could just tell them the same thing after they get back?

In fact, this entire issue doesn’t make a lot of sense, before or after you learn that Xavier is Onslaught. The whole sequence with Chamber being captured and sent back reeks of poor planning on the part of the writers, and there’s no reason for Onslaught to tell Gateway to abduct Xavier, since he is Xavier. The narration of the issue also seems to indicate that Xavier hasn’t yet been decided upon as the identity of Onslaught, although you could read it as Onslaught being a repressed part of Charles’ mind. And why does Onslaught even bother to test the X-Men when Xavier’s been doing that for years? It seems as if he’s just screwing with them for the sake of being malicious because I can’t think of another reason. Even the fight with Post doesn’t make a lot sense. How is the environment tied to Post? Why would anybody open themselves up to that kind of weakness?

There are far too many plot holes that never get filled. Most of the issue is padded with various members of the X-Men threatening Gateway to talk when he is effectively a mute, and their two telepaths are just sitting there.  We also never learn why Gateway is working for Onslaught or what his overall purpose is with abducting various characters. It’s a shame because the setup of the story is rather good with a bunch of handicapped X-Men forced to fight one of Onslaught’s weapons. There’s not a lot to care about within this issue. All we get is the introduction of a C-list villain with Onslaught threatening the heroes from behind the scenes like a Bond villain or something. It’s not very impressive at all.

C-