With issue #26, we get full-issue stories that tie to a major event and don’t spotlight any particular Avenger. Why isn’t this just an issue of Avengers? I dunno. But it’s pretty good.
The story, “Tales from the Vault,” involves a mass prison break from The Vault, which enables a bunch of Avengers affiliated characters to fight other characters they are not usually paired against and enables tons of cameos. This is what Acts of Vengeance is about!
Loki, still in disguise and all dressed in white, offers Boomerang the chance to get revenge on Hawkeye. By giving him a power up.
But this is odd, because shouldn’t Boomerang want revenge against Spider-Man? And for that matter, shouldn’t Doom want to destroy the Fantastic Four more than Iron Man?
Don’t think about it too much. Just enjoy the match-ups.
Mad Thinker is imprisoned at The Vault. Loki asks him to participate in the Acts of Vengeance linewide event.
Thinker says no thank you. And knows it’s Loki. He doesn’t call Loki by name, but astute readers will recognize that a reference to a “brother” clearly has to be Thor.
Then he escapes from prison and sics the old Defenders villain Leviathan on Wasp and Wonder Man.
Mad Thinker does this to undermine Loki’s attempts to get the Superhuman Registration Act paranoia about superheroes by showing heroes defeat a bad guy in a public setting. Thinker’s doing this because he doesn’t see how Acts of Vengeance will benefit him, personally.
I rather like the idea of a second Acts of Vengeance happening, with Thinker activating villains in the same way Loki is doing it in the main event.
Acts of Vengeance leads to the capture and imprisonment of a whole bunch of D-list villains, so Tony Stark upgrades the Guardsmen’s tech to help ensure they don’t all overpower the guards and escape. And no sooner does he do that then Klaw and Wizard stage a jailbreak.
A random development: Apparently Angar and Screaming Mimi are dating now. It makes sense, given they both have vocal power sets.
There’s a Batman sighting (anyone recognize whether that guy in the shirt is a comic book creator?).
They’re foiled, and the story ends with Thinker back behind bars.