John Byrne pays tribute to one of the greatest covers of all time.
The first few pages of this Acts of Vengeance tie-in have Magneto telling Loki—who has still not revealed himself to be Loki—talking about their master plot, with Magneto being delusional and thinking he’s in charge. But it kind of makes sense because in the Captain America tie-in, he totally got the master Nazi, Red Skull, entombed alive and taken out of the picture. So Magneto’s not all bad. Then it’s time for some character work with the team. Scarlet Witch is still moping about Vision being mindwiped, and Wonder Man finally relents and says he’ll let them use his brainwaves to restore Vision.
So Vision doesn’t want Wonder Man’s brain patterns AND he wants them all to move back to the East Coast. (And what’s with Wasp trying to cockblock Scarlet Witch?)
That’s all in four panels—Byrne knew how to put a lot of content into a few panels because he was a true ‘80s creator, when character mattered as much as story. Also, see what he did there? He completely wiped Vision—basically turning him into a new character—and then threw him off to another creator–the East Coast Avengers guy. Very generous to unload a tabula rasa for someone else to create.
After that there’s a brief diversion into Immortus doing something with alternate realities (but how bad can it be if Uatu isn’t worried?), and then it’s on to the Acts of Vengeance events First, the U-Foes…
….Then Mole Man.
