Featuring: Avengers
Release: July 7, 1966
Cover: September 1966
12 cents
Stan Lee, writer and raconteur
Don Heck, artist and bon vivant
Artie Simek, letterer and patron des artes
Irv Forbush, scapegoat, junior grade
20 pages
| Previous | #578 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Strange Tales #147, Story B | Reading order | Avengers #33 |
| Avengers #31 | Avengers | Avengers #33 |
Freedom belongs to all– or else it isn’t worthy of the name!
Goliath appears to be undressing his enemy on the cover.
The Avengers are caught in their own intruder system, but Hawkeye disables it with ease. Doesn’t seem all that effective.
Captain America thinks Goliath is the rightful leader, presumably because he’s a founding member. Originally, the Avengers didn’t have a leader, but a rotating chair. Only when the new Avengers formed did Captain America become the regular leader. Goliath declines the offer. He’s too depressed about being Goliath instead of Giant-Man.
Wasp is also a founding member, and has also returned to the team… her face has even made it back into that little cover box. But it seems like she wasn’t even considered for leadership. Why?
Captain America then attacks Goliath. He sees it as a form of therapy to break Hank out of his funk. It’s a guy thing.
Wasp gives Cap a kiss to thank him for helping Hank with the violent therapy.
The new villainous group is the Sons of the Serpent. We see them attacking Mr. Gonzalez, an immigrant.
Let’s focus on a couple looking out the window. They see the situation but choose not to get involved. There’s a lesson for all of us here.
The Serpents plan to drive all immigrants out of America. If they accomplish that goal, will they stop there? They seem to suggest they will not. That there will always be new targets for their hatred.
When we last saw Black Widow, she’d been brainwashed by Reds into destroying the Avengers. Her love for Hawkeye seemed to have broken her free of that conditioning, but she still needs to earn the trust of Hawkeye and the Avengers. We find her now infiltrating the Sons of the Serpent, and disgusted by their hateful rhetoric.
As the original serpent drove Adam and Eve from Eden– so shall we drive all foreigners from this land!
This issue makes villains out of those with racist xenophobic sentiments, but our heroes show some sexism still. Implicitly, like not supporting Wasp for leadership before. And now much more explicitly.
Hank has broken out of his funk and is back to working on a cure, but is downright mean to Jan. He “accidentally” elbows her, then yells at her about being a “chattering female”. We’ve learned before that Hank once had a mental breakdown. This is the first hint of him being particularly abusive toward Jan.
Black Widow and Hawkeye reunite. She makes a weird comment.
Even without your mask, I’d know you anywhere!
They spent a good amount of time as partners and lovers. Was he usually wearing his mask?
I wonder if she knows him by any other name than Hawkeye. We don’t.
We’ll discuss the continuity of this issue more below. Note that Tony Stark has been pretty busy lately, so even taking a phone call with Hank isn’t something he’s often had time for. Hank needs scientific assistance, and Tony recommends Bill Foster.
Bill Foster shows up to aid Dr. Pym in his research. Hank has never been especially careful with his secret identity. He recently told the Avengers his secret, and is entirely open about it with Bill. Perhaps by this point it’s clear he just doesn’t have a secret identity.
Bill Foster will go on to be an important part of the Marvel Universe. He was portrayed by Laurence Fisburne in the film Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Wanda and Pietro remain in Europe. They are working now with a scientist who expects them to soon be back to full power.
At first, the targets for the Sons of the Serpent appeared to be immigrants, people born in a foreign country. But Bill Foster seems to be American-born. Perhaps it’s the color of his skin that makes him a target.
They were never going to stop with just immigrants.
Wasp suggests the Sons of the Serpent may be too small time for the Avengers. It’s still not clear what their scope is. Captain America finds them a legitimate target, as a large-scale well-resourced terrorist group.
Captain America visits Nick Fury for information. He had been given a card when they teamed up against Them in Tales of Suspense #78. We had just seen the barbershop attacked by AIM/Them. It seems to be in good shape now. It’s possible this scene precedes the barbershop attack. We’ll discuss more below.
Nick Fury has deduced AIM are the bad guys, but not yet defeated them. He was going to tackle the Sons after AIM, but is happy to let the Avengers take the lead on the Sons.
General Chen is visiting to address the UN, and protesters are unhappy.
The Officer notes that in America, people don’t get arrested without evidence. That’s an important principle, worth remembering.
The Avengers remind people they are a nation of laws, not mob violence. That’s also an important principle, particularly this idea of being a nation of laws.
It’s a good point, even if the Avengers are a bit hypocritical, as they tend to exercise their own brand of extralegal justice.
Goliath notes the Sons are consumed with hatred and bigotry, and blinded by it.
This comic is almost 60 years old, but contains lessons we haven’t learned in the time since. Racism is wrong. Xenophobia is wrong. Due process matters. The law matters. There are no shortage of groups in America today just like the Sons of the Serpent, though perhaps less extravagantly garbed. When you hear today’s politicians going on about “migrant crime” or referring to humans as “illegals”, it’s not hard to imagine such phrases coming right out of the Sons of the Serpent.
Don’t be like the couple looking out the window and doing nothing.
As Cap says, “Freedom belongs to all.”
Continuity has been tricky. A big thing that happened recently was Galactus’ attack on New York, and we tried to place where every superhero not helping was. Iron Man battling Ultimo in Asia and the Avengers in a hidden South American kingdom made sense. This was contradicted by an editor’s note lining up Iron Man’s return from Asia with the Avengers’ battle with Black Widow before going to South America. So we disregarded that editor’s note. Iron Man had visited the Avengers and found them not home, which we interpreted to mean they weren’t yet back from South America.
Now the Avengers are back from South America. But Iron Man got immediately into a battle with Namor, and then called Senator Byrd to agree to go to DC. He’ll then get distracted by Titanium Man. So we imagine his phone call with Hank this issue to be around the time he made the phone call to Senator Byrd, after the battle with Namor, and before heading to DC.
The problem with this theory is that Tony Stark says Bill Foster works in his Baltimore Factory. Yet at this point in time, all Stark factories are closed. That’s not necessarily a contradiction. Maybe Tony just meant he worked there when the plant was open, and hopefully would be again soon. Maybe it was just a bit of optimism on Tony’s part that his trip to Washington would settle matters. There’s not really a good time in Tony’s story for that phone call to take place while his factories are open.
I choose to place that phone call there. The MCP agrees. The MCP also wants to put Iron Man’s next meeting with the Avengers at the same time. But this was a quick phone call. The next meeting implies a bit of time and carefree on Stark’s part, which doesn’t seem to fit while he’s got his factories closed and about to head to DC. So we’ll push the next meeting later in Iron Man’s timeline.
Then there’s Nick Fury to consider. AIM has not yet been defeated, but Nick Fury has already deduced AIM is the enemy. This deduction became clearest in Strange Tales #147, so this fits after that, or somewhere in the middle. There’s not much time between Fury putting it all together and AIM attacking the barbershop, so presumably the meeting with Cap is after the barbershop attack, and they’ve just cleaned up a bit.
We last saw Captain America trapped on the remains of an island after his battle with Red Skull, but he seems to have made it back to New York okay.
We last saw Wanda and Pietro in Europe near Wundagore, where their powers already seemed to be returning.
Meanwhile, Boomerang is still conspiring to steal the Orion missile. An amnesiac Namor is being manipulated by Number 1 of the now-defunct Secret Empire. Dr. Strange has been warned about the threat of Kaluu. Asgard has won the Troll war. And Peter Parker has bought a bike and met a girl.
Marvel superheroes are expanding, per the Bullpen Bulletin. New animated series and paperback graphicless novels featuring our favorite superheroes will be coming soon.
And here’s the two-page spread of letters pages.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 57/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
The introduction of Bill Foster as well as the Sons of the Serpent earns that precious 4th star in Significance.
Characters:
- Captain America
- Wasp/Jan Van Dyne
- Hawkeye
- Goliath/Hank Pym
- Supreme Serpent
- Black Widow/Natasha
- Tony Stark
- Bill Foster
- Wanda/Scarlet Witch
- Pietro/Quicksilver
- Slim
- Barbershop barber
- Colonel Nick Fury
Minor characters:
- Mr. Gonzales
- Henry
- Henry’s wife
Story notes:
- Sons of the Serpent attack an immigrant. They plan to drive out all foreigners from America.
- Helicopter will take them to the Serpent Den
- Black Widow has infiltrated the Sons of the Serpent.
- Hank very mean to Jan, and elbows her in the face, seemingly on accident.
- Black Widow recognizes Hawkeye without his mask.
- Black Widow still has feelings for Hawkeye and crashes through the window of the Avengers mansion to prove she can be trusted.
- Pym looking for way to strengthen blood cells enough to enable them to stand the strain of changing back to normal size.
- Stark recommends Bill Foster, who works in the Plans and Research Division of Baltimore Factory.
- Bill Foster comes to oversized door of Henry Pym’s cottage.
- Pym no longer concerned about secret identity; shared readily with Bill.
- Goliath suggests a modification of a theory of Von Steinholz’s.
- In Europe, scientist studies Wanda and Pietro. He knows their secret and is confident she will regain her power.
- Doctor gives them diathermatic treatment which should help them regain the peak of their powers.
- Foster attacked by Sons of the Serpent.
- Sons leave mark in shape of serpent stick
- Wasp suggests this job is better for the police than the Avengers. Cap notes the Sons are rich, well-organized and operate on a national scale. That makes them Avengers business.
- Meeting around table with large A on it.
- Cap reaches out to Nick Fury for dossier on Sons of Serpent.
- Cap goes off to see SHIELD while Hank, Jan, and Hawkeye discuss strategy in the planning room.
- Cap taken down tube from barber shop. Fury wants to know where Steve got Cap’s ID card.
- SHIELD doesn’t know where their main headquarters is or who the leader is.
- Protesters don’t want General Chen to address the UN.
- Ray took out taxi, just missing Chen’s car.
- Supreme Serpent orders Plan K.
- Invisible force ray captures Cap.
- Cloud conceals Serpent airship.
- Captain America fights well but is overwhelmed by numbers.
- Hawkeye has turned around on Cap, having seemingly lost his recently gained faith in the leader.
- Ultimatum from Sons to Avengers: Join them or Cap dies.
- Attorney General calls Avengers for help, but Goliath’s plan involves telling him the Serpents may be right and refusing.
| Previous | #578 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Strange Tales #147, Story B | Reading order | Avengers #33 |
| Avengers #31 | Avengers | Avengers #33 |
