Kang’s not my favorite villain, but this story is an embarassment of riches.
Kang uses the Justice League Squadron Sinister as his pawns/heroes in a battle against one of my favorite Marvel cosmic characters, Grandmaster (his debut!).
But it starts with Wasp throwing a villain in a trash basket. I bet that’s a first.
It’s growing man, who fights The Avengers (who are visiting Tony Stark in the hospital, after he just got his new heart in his own comic). Growing Man keeps growing and we get a cute little joke.
Anyway, he kidnaps Stark and then gets The Avengers to follow him to Kang’s out-of-time lair.
What follows is a big, dumb, fun scavenger hunt, where Grandmaster uses The Squadron and Kang uses The Avengers. And Thor displays a new power set.
He shrinks Hyperion and puts him in a bubble.
And that’s not all! In the third act, we get to meet The Invaders for the first time.
Recently, in the pages of Sub-Mariner, Namor’s history was retconned so that his WW2 past—with Captain America—became part of the 616 Universe.
Here, Roy Thomas is sewing the threads tighter. In a lot of ways, these issues represent the movement of the Marvel Universe from a simple “shared” one, where people would walk on to each others’ books, into a truly interwoven tapestry—where every Marvel comic might be essential to another, so to miss one issue of any book was to risk missing something important.
A terrific set of issues that everyone should read. Even though Black Knight shows up in the middle and adds his useless presence as a formal Avengers teammember. Ugh.
Yes, sadly, he joins the team.
I really hate Black Knight.
Hey! I LIKE the Black Knight!! Always did!! He’s plausible!! I would rather read about a geneticist with a magic, Merlin-minted sword on a flying horse than broads who can transform themselves into any frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum ( “Spectrum” ) or cosmic energy-beings who eat entire stars ( ‘Phoenix’ ) or mutants with Kryptonian power-levels ( ‘Rogue’ /’Captain Marvel’ ) The sheer, elegant simplicity of a ( admittedly unusually smart ) guy with a magic sword just speaks to me. The Ebony Blade can chop up adamantium, fend off gunfire, and can only be separated from it’s rightful owner’s hand by severely-powerful futuristic technology. So, there’s the Knight’s membership qualifications. He’s a “gimmick”-guy, ( like Green Lantern ) but I just like the gimmick! Plus, Dane Whitman is just a nice guy, as opposed to so many of Marvel’s coterie of super-jerks, like Wolverine, the Punisher, Deadpool, etc. In ‘Avengers vs. X-Men’, round-one, we get a million dollar scene where, when the two teams converge on each other, Wolverine makes the mistake of attacking the Knight under the misimpression that the Knight will be an easy target. Once the Knight establishes to the feral mutant that his claws ( Wolverine’s sole gimmick ) cannot penetrate the sword’s defensive parries, or shatter the metal, Wolverine states, in sheer astonishment, “Whaaaa–???? I don’t believe this!! My claws are made from…..” ( the Knight interjects ) “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Wolverine, we’ve all heard the drill- your claws are made from ‘nigh-invulnerable adamantium’, so I shouldn’t be able to do this- well, save it for your fan club, Wolverine, because the Black Knight is NOT impressed!!!!” Well put, Dane-couldn’t have put it better myself! Also, Mr. Whitman possesses a quality that I find highly refreshing among super-jocks, especially the at-times relentlessly noble Avengers-he likes the girls!! During his legendary tour of duty under the awesome Roger Stern in the mid-1980’s, Dane-baby clearly had the hots for the Wasp, and he let her know it- just in his gentlemanly, oh-so-courtly, British way. He crapped out, of course, but that is an accurate reflection of reality. Most men crap out with beautiful women, at least initially. ( see the Angel’s quest for Dazzler, in ‘Dazzler’s #17-22 , as well as Hawkeye’s attempts with the Black Widow and the Scarlet Witch in the 1960’s and 1970’s ) Love sucks, and some guys got it, and some just ain’t!! But, I like the Black Knight, because he’s a scientist, he’s relatable, he’s not a god, or a space/energy creature, he’s classy, he once showed the Wolverine who’s boss, and his gimmick is cool! So there!! As for the rest of this great issue, it was nice for Roy Thomas to put to rest for once and for all some of those nagging questions we all had at the time about who’s mightier, the JLA or the Avengers, Superman or Thor, Batman or Captain America, and so on, and so on, but I agree with Mr. Ekko here in that Thor’s new ability to stuff people into crystal balls was just a little TOO convenient for those rooting for Thor to take down the Man of Might, even though Thor had, admittedly, already displayed this particular talent a couple of years earlier in issue #140 of his own title!! ( just check it and see ) It did not really give us a clear idea of which one of these two is really mightier. We would have to wait a full thirty-five years later for that answer, in Kurt Busiek’s and George Perez’s masterpiece ‘JLA/Avengers’ miniseries. The answer: Just whoever’s having the better day! And you know WHAT-???? That answer works just fine for me!!! Excelsior!!!