Featuring: Avengers
Release: January 10, 1967
Cover: March 1967
12 cents
Edited for everyman by Stan Lee
Scripted for somebody by Roy Thomas
Penciled for posterity by Don Heck
Inked for immortality by Geoge Bell
Lettered for a living by Artie Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #670 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Ghost Rider #2 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #88, Story B |
| Avengers #37 | Avengers | Avengers #39 |
Nuts! Those creeps yell “Avengers Assemble” every time somethin’ goes wrong with the pop-up toaster!
Goliath and Hawkeye are fighting because Hank doesn’t want Black Widow to join the Avengers. He doesn’t quite say why. Because she’s Russian? Because she’s a woman?
The other male Avengers join the fray. Because.
Goliath finally admits he doesn’t know why he’s so opposed to her joining. This is a concept known as unconscious bias.
Janet is the current chairman. (Chairwoman? Chairperson?) From the beginning, the Avengers had rotating chairs. Until the new Avengers formed, and then it just seemed like Cap was in charge. But they seem to be back to the rotating concept, and it’s Jan’s turn.
We noted recently that the Avengers have finally broken Marvel’s strict one-woman-per-team rule. Counting Black Widow, we’ve had three women around. To contrast with Goliath, Hawkeye, Cap, and Quicksilver. That’s getting close to gender parity.
We’ll take a step away from that parity, as it looks like Black Widow may be leaving us, and Hercules will be joining.
It’s worth noting that while she has been hanging around, Black Widow has not officially joined the Avengers. The internet tends to be very interested in who joined the Avengers when.
Here is the roster to my mind. The original team: Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk. With Captain America officially joining in issue 4. Wonder Man officially joining, then betraying the team, then redeeming himself, then dying… all in issue 9. He’s an edge case. With Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch officially joining in issue 16.
Namor was offered membership, but turned them down. Spider-Man was tested for membership, but it didn’t work out. Swordsman applied for membership, but was rejected for being evil. Let’s pay attention to what happens with Hercules.
We finally see Black Widow, heading to the meeting.
Unfortunately, she will miss the meeting, as she is captured by mysterious attackers.
We shift then to Olympus, where we find Hercules in combat with Ares.
Enchantress appears, secretly in league with Hercules, and gives Hercules water from the fountain of Eros. Which makes him fall in love with her. Enough to destroy the Avengers on her behalf.
If destroying the Avengers isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
I will note an issue with the art above. The key thing that happens in that scene is Hercules drinking from this cup. But we don’t even get a panel of him drinking. We only see him dropping the cup after having a sip.
Iron Man and Thor are missing the meeting. We haven’t seen them with the Avengers for a while, but they seem to attend special sessions, like when new members are being considered. We last saw them with the Avengers when Spider-Man was being considered.
If they reject both Spider-Man and Black Widow, I’m going to suspect anti-spider prejudice. The Wasp freely admits to this.
Note we last saw Iron Man battling the Mole Man, and know from X-Men #31 he is about to reopen the Stark Factory Mole Man destroyed. And we last saw Thor on Earth battling the Growing Man.
After much deliberation, the Avengers reach the only sensible decision: they are going to get burgers. We know that Thor and Iron Man have already agreed to support any decision they make. I also support this decision.
Alas, one Avenger must always remain on monitory duty. So no burgers for Cap. They could at least bring him back a burger, but it seems like he’s getting a sandwich from Jarvis instead.
Who captured Black Widow? Why, SHIELD of course. Nick Fury has a special mission for her as a double agent. She will need to pretend to be a villain again, and let nobody know the truth. Not even the Avengers or her beloved Hawkeye.
While we had read Iron Man’s battle with Mole Man in Tales of Suspense #88, we had specifically held off on the second half of that issue, because it ties directly into events here. Captain America receives a message while on monitor duty which causes him to leave without alerting his fellow Avengers.
Or even waiting to see if they brought him a burger. We’ll see how that plays out in Cap’s own title.
“Can anyone ever truly escape his past–while he yet lives?” asks Black Widow, oddly referring to herself with masculine pronouns.
She informs Hawkeye and the Avengers that she declines membership and will be headed behind the Bamboo Curtain immediately.
Hawkeye should have known not to believe “a leopard like you could change her spots”. Even though he did. As did Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. That’s the majority of the people in the room. Reformed super-villains.
Hawkeye and Wasp walk out. Quicksilver calls this the blackest day in the history of the Avengers. I can think of like a dozen worse days. Remember when they all turned on Hulk and he quit? When Wonder Man died? That time they sort of broke up? When they were declared criminals and then Wasp almost died? When Iron Man, Giant-Man, and Wasp quit? When Thor quit? When Swordsman betrayed them? When they were declared criminals again and ordered to disband? When Captain America quit?
Apparently the “darkest day in the history of the Avengers” is when Wasp and Hawkeye left to get dinner.
Finally, with the issue half finished, we get to the main battle as Hercules attacks the Avengers.
“It’ can’t be Hercules! He is only… a myth!” C’mon, Pietro. You know Thor.
Hawkeye and Wasp are eating Chinese food when they hear the distress call, but disregard it.
They are eating Chinese food despite having already eaten burgers for dinner. No judgment here about second dinner. I think the Hobbits would call the burgers dinner and the Chinese food supper.
The battle goes poorly. Quicksilver is unconscious, and it seems Hercules has killed Goliath.
But then Hawkeye and Wasp show up. Certainly the guy with arrows and the 2-inch tall woman will turn the tide against an ancient god of power.
And they do. With science. Sulfur is brimstone and brimstone undoes the spell of Eros. So Hawkeye’s sulfur arrow is the key.
The battle is over, but now Daddy’s angry. Hercules traveled to Earth without his leave.
Exile, it is.
“It’s almost beyond belief! A god– exiled to Earth!” What do you think Thor is doing here, Pietro?
While in exile, the Avengers invite Hercules to stay in their mansion. By “their mansion”, I mean Tony Stark’s. But they seem pretty ready to loan out rooms.
Note that Hercules has not been offered Avengers membership, just a bed.
And they can’t decide on his membership now. We know they lack a quorum when they decided they couldn’t vote on Black Widow’s membership. So they need Cap back to make that decision.
So let’s see what Cap is up to…
Confession time, here’s what I got. I think I screwed up the reading order here. Hydra returned in Strange Tales #150, and SHIELD’s battle against them remains ongoing. To that end, and because of the happenings in the Dr. Strange stories, we read ahead in Strange Tales. We read up to issue 155, getting several months ahead. This allowed us to get to a decent enough breaking point in both Fury’s and Strange’s sagas. Dr. Strange had rescued Clea, though the threat of Umar loomed. And we got to an okay pausing point in the Hydra saga.
However, we did leave Nick in the middle of a pretty tense situation. The Supreme Hydra has impersonated a SHIELD agent and captured Nick’s lady friend, while Fury himself has been relieved of duty and confined to quarters by order of the president.
That’s where we last saw him. So he’s not sending Black Widow off on a secret mission as he does this issue. That scene really needs to be before Strange Tales #155. The MCP wants it before #154. I think either is fine, but Fury needs a good breathing point for this scene to fit, and that wasn’t it.
In hindsight, I think I should have split up Strange Tales #155, though I dislike doing that. Read the second half of the comic back when to get to Clea’s rescue. And then slotted the first half where it fits in amongst our upcoming Avengers/Tales of Suspense reading.
In terms of publication, Strange Tales #155 came out the same day as this Avengers comic. We really had read ahead in that title to find a breaking point in the Umar/Hydra sagas.
And the next issue of Avengers explicitly takes place after Strange Tales #155 in continuity. So it really should have been slipped in between the two.
The Nick Fury scene here isn’t set strictly in the continuity of Fury’s own title. It could go a lot of places. That’s often true with crossovers. The character just needs what I think of as a “breather”. A space between issues where the character isn’t especially in distress, and can be shown in the status quo.
This comes up often. If a non-Spidey title shows Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle, that doesn’t inherently tell us where the story goes in Spider-Man’s saga. But it means Spider-Man shouldn’t at that moment be trapped under some rubble at the mercy of Dr. Octopus.
So I’m going to retroactively adjust the reading order. Save the first half of Strange Tales #155. The Reading Order page is updated. Unfortunately that means the numbers on the last 50 posts need correction. I’ll get to it one day.
I have no real excuse for the error, as I even had a note for myself in the spreadsheet I use to track all this stuff. But internalized that note far too late.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 52/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Characters:
- Wasp
- Scarlet Witch
- Quicksilver
- Captain America
- Hawkeye
- Goliath
- Black Widow/Natasha
- Hercules
- Ares
- Enchantress
- Nick Fury
- Jasper Sitwell
- Dum Dum Dugan
- Jarvis
- Zeus
Story notes:
- Wasp is the current chairman.
- Wasp notes that Black Widow should be part of the meeting.
- Black Widow lost track of time, but is heading to Avengers mansion on her Widow’s Web.
- Black Widow thinks she will be admitted to the Avengers for the defeat of Ixar, as long as they don’t know she won by violating the code.
- Gas surrounds Avengers mansion; morpheus mist from mysterious figures. They fire the vacu-ray.
- In Olympus, Hercules and Ares are in combat.
- Ares’ armor was tempered by Hephaestus.
- Hercules reminds Ares of his cowardice against Pluto in Thor #129.
- Enchantress appears and witnesses the fight and offers them goblets of mead from the table of Odin. Ares accepts. Hercules is wary.
- Editor’s note claims we last saw Enchantress in Avengers #22.
- The goblets actually contain water from the Fountain of Eros, god of Love.
- It is written that only one who is not of Olympus may drink from the Fountain of Eros.
- Ares and Enchantress were in league, and his cup was different.
- Hercules now thinks he is in love with the Enchantress.
- Ares wants to kill Hercules but Enchantress wants him as a love slave.
- Ares goes to tell Zeus that Hercules has forsaken his Olympian heritage for the love of an Asgardian.
- Hercules swears to destroy those who have offended the Enchantress, such as the Avengers.
- Enchantress reminds Hercules of his past battle with Thor, but his memories are clouded.
- Iron Man and Thor have sent word they cannot attend the special session. They will abide by the decision of those gathered.
- Only Hawkeye knows Black Widow defeated Ishtar with a threat on his life, a fact they keep secret from the other Avengers.
- Captain America is officer-of-the-day and needs to stay to monitor incoming information. Jarvis will fix him a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
- Black Widow finds herself on the SHIELD Helicarrier face to face with Nick Fury.
- Black Widow is meeting Nick Fury for the first time. They spoke once by telephone.
- Fury wants her to go on a mission to the Far East, where she was brain-washed months ago.
- Widow is ready to do anything to prove she is a loyal citizen.
- Goliath notes Cap left his post without being relieved.
- Since Cap is absent, they lack a quorum to vote on Natasha’s membership.
- Natasha doesn’t tell the Avengers about SHIELD, only that she must go behind the Bamboo Curtain. She tells Hawkeye to forget he was ever in love with her.
- Hercules and Enchantress attack the remaining Avengers.
- Enchantress’ spells attempt to slow Quicksilver down.
- Quicksilver insists he needs no help from Goliath against Hercules.
- Hercules deduces Enchantress has bewitched Hercules.
- Finally Wanda does something, using her hex power against Enchantress. She motions with her arm… and I don’t know what happens next.
- Hercules’ nickname: “Prince of Power”.
- Hawkeye and Jan are having dinner at a Chinese Restaurant on 55th Street. Hawkeye ordered the pork lo mein.
- Hawkeye almost refers to Jan as Natasha.
- Wanda directs her hex at the floor. It ricochets into machinery and creates falling debris.
- Goliath wonders where Cap or Hawkeye or Jan are when they need them.
- Hercules seems to have killed Goliath.
- Hawkeye has only one untested sulfur arrow.
- Sulfur apparently is brimstone, which undoes the spell of the Waters of Eros.
- Enchantress tries to attack the Avengers, but Hercules forbids it.
- Zeus exiles Hercules to Earth for one year.
- Is the Enchantress in love with Hercules?
| Previous | #670 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Ghost Rider #2 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #88, Story B |
| Avengers #37 | Avengers | Avengers #39 |
