Marvel 1989 Week--Avengers #302

I think it's a pretty well known fact I despised the "New Team" of Avengers introduced in Avengers #300. What is less well known is that Marvel itself must have despised the lineup, because they broke it up as soon as humanly possible.

We'd just come off the era of Nebula's infiltration and Dr. Druid's "leadership" turning the team to evil--and gotten no real resolution to Walt Simonson's complex storyline (yes, I know it later turned out that she wasn't really Nebula, she was Terminatrix posing as Nebula). "Nebula" and Druid were never captured, and everyone just walked away. So seen in that light, perhaps an all-new, all-different team seemed like a good idea--then again, anything would seem like a good idea after Doctor Druid.

But the Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Gilgamesh (The Forgotten One), Steve Rogers as The Captain, and Thor? (By issue #301, Rogers had regained his Captain America identity).

Simonson left the title after introducing the new team, and surprise, they lasted exactly one 3-issue storyline. Reed and Sue were promptly returned to the Fantastic Four, and when John Byrne took over the scripting he promptly "killed off" Gilgamesh by having him trapped in the Eternals homeland of Olympia forever. Namor, the Black Panther, She-Hulk, and Sersi joined the team in short order, and the brief "FF/Avengers" were soon forgotten.

How much did the writers not like this team?

That's right--in the second part of their only storyline together as Avengers, they weren't even it it. Yup, relegated to floating heads while the West Coast Avengers took over the story. Man, that's embarrassing.

And who gets the credit for this particular mess?

I don't want to be too harsh on Ralph Macchio...he was called upon to take over the brief period between the runs of two heavy hitters, Simonson and Byrne, and was given a team nobody liked or wanted. But man, this issue is pretty bad.

Let's start with the splash page:

Trust me, after reading this, that title is still completely meaningless. Earth Rocks?!?

So, who is this guy? What's going on? Man, I wish I had some exposition!!


Thank you. (And you readers should thank me...I left out 8 more panels of exposition...)

So, this character, named Super-Nova, is the last Xandarian, and somehow has acquired the "combined powers" of all the Nova Corps, and is going to hunt down and kill Nebula for destroying his homeworld. But despite being told by bunches and bunches of people that Nebula isn't on Earth, he dismisses them all as liars, and sets of to destroy the planet if we don't cough up what we don't have.

But since our team of Avengers are all dead up in orbit, who shall defend our planet?


Hey, everybody, it's Quasar!! It's a nice guest appearance, as he's getting his own mag in a couple of months. Maybe he can halt our mad Super-Nova.

Two special notes here.

Dear Rich Buckler--Sorry, but that doesn't really look anything like the Sears Tower.

Dear Ralph Macchio--Sorry, but no one has ever called it the "Sears Trade Tower." EVER.

Anyway, Quasar gives a hearty whassup to Supernova, and he's not impressed.

A huge battle ensues, but I'm not going to show you any of it. Sorry. Suffice to say, Quasar get his quantum bands handed to him. Anyway, since the real Avengers are nowhere to be found, guess who gets involved?

Please, show me more shots of Hawkeye making the rounds of video monitors and checking Avengers protocol...Finally, though, we're getting some Avengers action, right?

Uhhh...Wonder Man aside, this is a pretty ludicrously underpowered group to send up against a world-ending threat, isn't it? Tigra, Hawkeye, and Doctor Pym (who doesn't change size at this point...he just changes the size of other things!!). Couldn't they have brought along the Scarlet Witch or the Vision (who, granted, might have been unavailable do to events happening that month in WCA)? I mean, really?

So, let's check our status. So far the issue has had 4 pages of Supernova rampaging; one page of Quasar changing his clothes (yes, really); 4 pages of Supernove and Quasar battling; and 2 pages of teleconferencing furor with the West Coast Avengers. And so, 10 pages into the comic, ten pages into the middle issue of the first arc of our exciting new Avengers team, they haven't even appeared yet. Not so much as a single panel, thought balloon, nada. As I said, even the creators couldn't stand to use the that team...

Oh, look, here they are!!

And, despite some 12,000 adventures where she's done it before, Reed is actually surprised that Sue managed to save them at the last minute with a force bubble. Has he not been paying attention all these years??

We then proceed to spend the next 3 pages getting a very long and very odd physics lesson.




Really, guys? You needed to spend 3 pages on that? Roy Thomas and Don Heck could gotten that done in 4 panels!! Sheesh. And Cap (and special guest star Firelord) or unconscious the whole time, so we can keep annoying things like non-expository dialogue and characterization to a minimum)!

Meanwhile, now that we've satisfied our contractual obligations by show the actual Avengers, back to Chicago, where Wonder Man leaps into action--and promptly fails:


Wait a minute--check out the backgrounds on these pages:

So, colorist Paul Becton--the sky in Chicago is alternately blue, white, yellow, and orange--all at the same time? Sure Rich Buckler didn't help by not giving you any background in many of these breakdowns, but c'mon--are you paid by the number of colors used per page?!?

Now Wonderman's out of action, and the rest of the West Coasters have no business even being there, so let's go back to our heroes--as they take 3 1/2 pages--yes, 3 1/2 pages--to travel through Earth's atmosphere, repeating the same trick they used earlier with Thor:


Please, show us every nanosecond of their flight and landing...anyway, they land safely, so wave goodbye--that's the last we'll see of our title heroes this story. Hope you enjoyed their guest appearance!

Meanwhile, Hawkeye gets wind that the Easters are safe and on their way. Which means it's time for Hawkeye to prove what a selfish dick he is.

Oh, Hawkeye, really? "The glory?" And you're leader of this band?

But, Hawkeye does know how to grab the glory--3 pages of jive talkin' to our villain. Really--three pages of nothing but blabbering to delay him (although how that helps the grab the glory from the Easters, I'll never know).



And the payoff to all of this? The lamest cliffhanger in the history of the Avengers:

Really, that's it. Not even a reply from Supernova. Just Hawkeye thinking to himself. They can't even come up with a decent next issue blurb:

That's it!! Really!!

So, to summarize: we have our heroes helpless in orbit the whole time, and the only reason they even appear in 1/3 of the pages is their shenanigans are ridiculously padded out; the West Coast Avengers are brought into the story for no discernible reason, except that nobody really wanted to write about the lame Easters; the climax of the story is simply 3 pages of conversation with one party remaining silent and the other not knowing what the hell he's saying; and the whole thing is so sad and tired that can't even be bothered to try and actually hype us on the next issue!!

But trust me, it's still better than the finale of this arc, which has the absolute most cretinous ending ever. Trust me.

But this too would pass, as I mentioned above, and the old order would changeth quickly (and as quietly as possible), ultimately having less impact on the Marvel Universe than the "new" Fantastic Four starring Grey Hulk and Wolverine.

Man...a bunch of heroes no one thought should be Avengers, the title team reduced to guest-star status in their own book, terribly lame villains...good thing that could never happen today...

BONUS PANEL OF FORESHADOWED ICKINESS:

These two will be having lots of sex in the future.

Oh, but he'll really be a Skrull and leave her knocked up with a litter of green kittens.

Ewwwwww....

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Speaking of the West Coast Avengers:

Just a few months until the marketing geniuses would make filing the series impossible by renaming it Avengers West Coast, WCA was rocking the free world under Byrne and Byrne. Crazy, amazing stuff, much underrated, and a much more interesting set of characters than this little guest appearance would lead you to think. Plus: the rebirth of the original Human Torch was in the offing. Extra bonus--the team never included Gilgamesh. And Hawkeye wasn't (exclusively) a dickweed.