Marvel 1999 Week--Avengers #17!!

When I left comics temporarily, this is what the Avengers were:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! IT BUUUUUUURRRRNSSSSSSSSSS!!

Sorry about that. Let's try something a little more soothing:


Ahhhhhhhhh.Obviously, it's the Avengers turn at Marvel 1999 week. Specifically, Avengers #17...which is the 2nd part of a three-parter. Let's see if we can get caught up:

OK, that's a whole lotta exposition for a first page. Let's see if I can help. A mysterious armored dude/robot hired the Wrecking Crew to kidnap Ms. Marvel (who was going by Warbird at the time, but the villains didn't know that). Being morons, they go after Monica Lambeau, who used to be known as Captain Marvel (but was going by Photon at the time). Really--they wanted Ms. Marvel, got Captain Marvel. That is hilarious.

Not so to our mastermind, who decided to disinitegrate the idiot Wrecking Crew and their captive...which leads to more exposition:

Yup...just coincidentally, everyone was bopped to Polemachus, the extra-dimensional homeworld of Arkon. Damn, that's convenient.

Meanwhile, Iron Man is hanging with Justice, young Vance Astrovik, who is suffering a concussion from fighting the Wrecking crew last issue:

And Giant Man and the Wasp rush in to tell them what we already saw last issue--the robot dude snatched Carol Danvers himself!!

There's a lot of irons in the fire here. What are Kurt Busiek and George Perez up to?

Ohhhh, it's NOT Busiek and Perez...they're taking a three issue breather while prepping for Ultron's return. So we've got Jerry Ordway (words and drawings) with Al Gordon inking.

I'd say "damn, I've got bad timing," but that would be ridiculously unfair. Sure, by choosing June I missed the heralded Busiek/Perez run, but Jerry Ordway ain't chopped liver.

Sure, his art isn't as flashy or popular as Perez's, but Ordway is the pro's pro, a penciller who has such a firm grasp of the superhero milieu that he makes it look all too easy...and so gets underrated by people who want a little more sizzle. But sizzle be damned...Ordway brings the steak just as well as anybody else.

And frankly, Ordway's writing is usually underrated as well. Yes, sometimes his dialogue's not the most subtle, and yeah, sometimes he does get a little exposition heavy with conversations, and sure, sometimes (especially in guest stints) he doesn't always seem to get some characters' voices right. But Bendis has made a career out of that, so we can hardly condemn Ordway for that. Plus, he's a fairly strong plotter. look what he gives us here--the team split up into two, against two old villains, in very different locales, with at least 4 guest heroes...and he makes it seem, well, seamless.

I mean, does anybody remember just how good his Power of Shazam series was (which ended just a couple of months before this Avengers guest gig)? For the life of me, I cannot fathom why DC doesn't just hand Captain Marvel et al to Ordway right now and give him a creative blank check. The sooner the better.

Enough rambling. Back to our story, wherein we discover that Hank Pym has the coolest day job ever:

Nugent Technologies? Wango-Zee-Tango, Pym!!!

Sorry about that. It's time to find out who kidnapped Carol:


Ah, the Doomsday Man...indestructible robot, who apparently has seen Jerry Maguire:


Eventually, of course, the Avengers show up for a rescue:

Meanwhile, back on a war-torn Polemachus, the other group of Avengers are ambushed, by what turn out to be a group of pro-Arkon rebels:

Who are led by Thundra, who at the time was knocking boots with Arkon...


GASP!! (OK, apparently this wasn't a permanent injury....)

So in more exposition, we find out that the Wrecking Crew, along with Arkon's traitorous Grand Vizier, found a way to use Photon as a power source, and had imprisoned Arkon and taken over. Good job, Wanda...

Meanwhile, back on Earth, concussed Justice is still trying to prove his worth as an Avenger:

And, after much trauma and a badly broken leg, Justice get the coup de gras:



It turns out that Doomsday Man is nae so much a robot as a robot with a Kree-powered human battery (get ready for a MODOK cameo!!):


The day is saved, and that subplot is resolved. Meanwhile, back in Arkon's dimension...


What? Cap captured? The Wrecker triumphant? Tune in next issue for:

SPOILER ALERT: The Avengers win.

Well, that was pleasant enough. Who said the Nineties were bad???


NOOOOOOOOOOOOO MAKE IT STOOOPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank heaven it was only a dream...or a silly sub-dimension...or whatever...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Speaking of the Avengers:

Avengers Forever #7 was on the stands. I've got to say, after catching up on this series, I wasn't too taken with it. Plotted by Roger Stern and Kurt Busiek, scripted by Busiek, this just struck me as the ultimate continuity porn, using a 12-issue maxi-series to try to explain every single Kang/Rama Tut/Immortus appearance ever in some kind of Grand Unified Theory of Kang. Cute and clever ideas aside, did anybody really need to suggest that the "time staff" Immortus gave the Avengers back in issue #134 was actually a disguised Space Phantom? Did anyone care?

I loves me some Busiek, but this was fan-wankery. Top class fan-wankery, great pictures by Carlos Pacheco, but ultimately trivial.