Featuring: Avengers
Release: December 8, 1966
Cover: February 1967
12 cents
Electrifying editing by Stan Lee
Scintillating scripting by Roy Thomas
Invigorating illustrating by Don Heck
Languishing lettering by Artie Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #652 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #36 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #87 |
| Avengers #36 | Avengers | Avengers #38 |
How must it feel to be the last of your kind– alone in a world where you don’t belong? Can it be even lonelier than to live forever behind the colorful mask of… Captain America?
Ixar’s Ultroids have defeated the Avengers and plan to absorb their powers.
We learn the Ultroid who had impersonated Scarlet Witch is named Ultrana.
They had learned of the Avengers from the minds of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch… but the twins had been gone a while, and didn’t know Goliath could shrink down to ant-size again.
Ixar absorbs all the Ultroids to become a giant Ultroid to fight.
Or does he?
It turns out the town Burgomeister was not a prisoner, but Ixar in disguise!
The ship is now in space, and the only way to stop Ixar is to kill him. But Avengers don’t kill.
But Black Widow is not an Avenger.
She wins the day with a threat to kill Ixar. Only Hawkeye knows this, but neglects to tell his teammates, as he fears it would make them reject her for membership.
What is the relationship between Ixar and Lucifer?
In X-Men #21, we learned that the last conquest of Lucifer’s race had been a planet of the star Sirius. Ixar is from a planet of the star Sirius.
However, the details differ between Lucifer’s account of that conquest and Ultrana’s account of Ixar’s war. In the X-Men story, the planet has been conquered and its inhabitants made slaves. In Ixar’s story, all people on his planet save himself were killed. And he still describes his conflict as a two-sided war, not a conquest from an invading race. Lucifer decribed the planet as the latest in a series of conquests. Ixar talked of a millennia-spanning war.
Perhaps these accounts can be reconciled, or perhaps two planets with intelligent life orbit the star Sirius.
Some Avengers villains will become major villains and some will not. It’s not always clear at first who is who. Living Laser seemed lame to me, but will become a major villain. Because enough later writers will be inspired to reuse him. This is the last we will see of Ultrana and the Ultroids.
But Roy must like the names for android villains. His next robot villain will be named along those lines.
Avengers Assemble!
The most notable letter is from Seymour Forbush, cousin to Irving.
Rating: ★★½, 48/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Characters:
- Ixar the Invincible
- Ultrana
- Black Widow
- Captain America
- Hawkeye
- Scarlet Witch/Wanda
- Quicksilver/Pietro
- Goliath/Hank
- Wasp/Jan
Story notes:
- The Avengers stand defeated by the Ultroids and their might will be stolen by Ixar in the Ability-assimilator.
- No cylinder had been prepared for Black Widow, as she is not an Avenger, so was not expected. She is taken to Sector Five to be disposed of later.
- Ultrana narrates Ixar’s origin.
- Ixar had once been human (perhaps human-like?). A millennia-spanning thermonuclear war was waged between Ixar’s anccestors and a nearby star system. They used up all fissionable materials and the war changed to more basic weapons.
- All humans but the leaders of the two worlds had perished, and the war was now fought between Ultroids.
- In an attack on the palace, Ixar was left wounded and dying. He transferred his life force to a computer. Ixar then sought out a planet with super-beings whose powers he could steal to power his Ultroids.
- Wanda’s hex power recharges faster now.
- Wanda’s hex short-circuits the Ixar Ultroid. But his components are self-repairing, so it’s a temporary victory.
- Ixar was the Burgomeister. The computer was a ruse.
- Ixar knows the Avengers oath means they won’t kill him… but Black Widow is not an Avenger.
- Ixar agrees to never return to Earth. Hawkeye doesn’t tell the others how Black Widow won, for fear it will jeopardize her chances for membership.
| Previous | #652 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #36 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #87 |
| Avengers #36 | Avengers | Avengers #38 |
