Random Back Issues #95 - Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #3

Hank, the last time you didn't hold anything back, you built an android with your memory engrams and it went genocidal.

We looked at the issue after this 2.5 years ago, so let's see how we got to the point of Hank Pym having nightmares about crunching Adaptoids between his giant teeth like mints!

Nick Fury's sent the Avengers - Black Panther, Hawkeye, Wasp, newbie Vision, and leader Giant-Man - to an island that serves as base where AIM may be trying to make an army of Adaptoids. Still blaming Fury for the Black Widow breaking up with him and joining SHIELD, Hawkeye's giving Fury static about why he doesn't just use SHIELD agents. Apparently Fury was ordered to leave this to the superhumans, which Pym leverages to make Fury release Vision from custody, since the authorities have no proof Viz is the original Adaptoid in disguise.

For his part, Vision is grateful the team stuck up for him, and determined to keep them from failing. Hank's, on the other hand, feeling jittery, a feeling that gets worse when they find the Adaptoid replication plant leveled and the machines carving a path through the island, including at least one innocent village. A half-dozen knockoff Adaptoids notice the Quinjet and attack. Despite Vision's best efforts, they wreck an engine. The team bails out, except Hawkeye, who is determined to land the thing. Clint, it's fine, they'll just send the bill to Stark.

But he manages, in the Launchpad McQuack sense, and now he's in the main AIM base, joined by the Panther and Vision. The beekeepers aren't causing much trouble, but Hawkeye's not sure they're actually accomplishing anything beating up a bunch of libertarian nerds

(Hank notes at one point AIM loves to claim persecution when they're listed as outlaws, but they don't care who their experiments hurt. All for me, none for you types. I'm more used to AIM just openly admitting they do criminal stuff in the name of science and not caring, but maybe that mindset came in when MODOK took over.) 

Fortunately, the king and the tin can made a plan. T'Challa hacks into AIM communications and the base layout, using panicked AIM chatter to track the Adapotid, while Vision seeks out the main reactor and overloads it.

Back in the jungle, the swarm of Adaptoids are two miles from another village and closing fast. Pym sends Wasp to help the others and orders the villagers to leave. Then he gets ready to fight the entire army himself. Probably not a good sign he's having to work himself up by repeating that they aren't human, so he doesn't have to hold back. 

Casey also uses the first page of the issue to establish a subplot where certain Wakandan elements contract the Death Tiger to kill T'Challa, allegedly because he's not being a good king, hanging out with Avengers and being a schoolteacher, but probably really just to grab power. That won't come to a head for a few issues yet.

{2nd longbox, 26th comic. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #3, by Joe Casey (writer), Will Rosado (penciler), Tom Palmer (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Comicraft (letterers)]

Random back Issues #31 - Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #4

What time is it? Time to reset the "Days Without a Hank Pym Breakdown" counter to 0!

A comic written in the mid-2000s about comics written in the 1960s. OK, that doesn't narrow it down much, but we're looking at the second Avengers mini-series Joe Casey wrote, set at the point when the Vision joined the team. I used a page from this issue for Sunday Splash Page #52.

The first half of the issue is the the Avengers attacking an island under AIM control. While the Black Panther, Wasp, Hawkeye, and Vision try to reach Central Command, Giant Man faces a wave of Adaptoids alone. He stops them, but he went somewhere ugly in his head to do it.

Unfortunately, the Super-Adaptoid escaped, which means Nick Fury isn't happy, and neither is Agent Mirch, who is some sort of proto-Gyrich government liaison dipshit. The type who blames the Avengers for not doing a better job, blames them for the existence of threats like AIM, says the President is used to disappointment, crap like that.

In other developments, Hawkeye and Vision stop a high-tech bank robbery, but get some flack from a mouthy cop. Hawkeye quite reasonably points out that if the police are so sure they can handle guys with disruptor weapons, they're free to do so. Note that I'm not saying Hawkeye says it in a reasonable tone, only that he makes a good point. This is the exact reason I wouldn't last as a superhero. Someone would complain about how I saved them and I'd tell them to fuck off and handle their own problems next time.

On top of that the public hasn't exactly warmed up to the Vision, and neither has SHIELD, which harbors suspicions he's actually the Super-Adaptoid in disguise. Hawkeye notices their surveillance van and knocks on the side, asking if they can have a copy of the footage. Hawkeye's kind of honked off at SHIELD anyway, since he thinks they're stealing Natasha away from him. No Clint, that would be Daredevil doing that. Eventually.

This is also during the stretch where T'Challa is teaching high school under the name Luke Charles. He's worried about one of his students, a quiet kid named Delroy, who misses school a lot and gets bullied by some hotshot everyone calls Mack. Or "The Mack", whichever. Guy is twice Delroy's size and has six guys backing him up, pardon me if I'm not impressed. Anyway, Mack implies that Delroy should just kill himself, or else Mack will do it for him. Lovely.

And then Pym has the nightmare above. It's the Adaptoid in his mouth that really sells the creepiness. He heads to his lab where he thinks about Captain America and Iron Man telling him about the heavy burden of being leader, then begins smashing up his equipment in frustration. By next issue, he'll be running around as Yellowjacket, claiming he killed Hank Pym.

This is the halfway point of this mini-series, and before we're done, we have the Yellowjacket fiasco, the Super-Adaptoid shows up, a certain section of Wakandan society sends a top assassin after T'Challa for apparently abandoning his duties, and the Wasp tries marrying Yellowjacket to shock Hank out of this. . . whatever you'd call it.

[2nd longbox, 70th comic. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #4, by Joe Casey (writer), Will Rosado (penciler), Tom Palmer (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #52

"Pym Needs A Fly-Swatter", in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #4, by Joe Casey (writer), Will Rosado (penciler), Tom Palmer (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

This was the second of two mini-series Joe Casey did expanding on a particular part of early Avengers' history. The first focused on the very beginning of the team, and involved Scott Kolins on art. This one starts up almost immediately after the Vision initially tries to kill the team, then turns on Ultron and is allowed to join. Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor aren't on the roster, so the leader role falls to Hank Pym, with Vision, Wasp, Hawkeye, and Black Panther rounding out the roster. I figure nowadays it'd be T'Challa, or maybe the Wasp. Hawkeye as third choice. Not that he would be my third choice, but I figure if we're talking someone writing the book for Marvel. There's no reason to put any more responsibility on Pym's shoulders than you absolutely have to.

Not having read the issues these events took place in originally, I'm guessing Casey wanted to expand on various security agencies' reactions to the Avengers allowing an artificial being that just tried to kill them on the team. Plus, there's the Vision's early attempts to try and fit in to humanity, T'Challa assuming his identity as Luke Charles, schoolteacher, and Hank's first total nervous breakdown and the emergence of the Yellowjacket persona. Hawkeye and Black Widow are nearing the end of the road as a couple, but I mostly just enjoy Hawkeye being cocky and abrasive. He notices a SHIELD van running surveillance on him and the Vision (mostly Viz) and he walks over and knocks on the side of it to ask for a copy of the tape.

Casey takes that opportunity to present Jan trying to marry a Hank Pym who doesn't even realize he's Pym as her hoping it'll snap him out of this, rather than her figuring however she can get Hank to the altar is OK. I don't know how sound of an idea it is even with that motivation behind it, but it's a little better than what I've heard we got originally. 

Rosado's artwork feels a bit like John Buscema's in the musculature of the characters, that might be Tom Palmer's inking. There are times it doesn't feel as fluid as I'd prefer in the fight scenes, but in this issue, Hank has a nightmare that's a combination of his war against those Adaptoids and his own fears of inadequacy. The Adaptoids are swarming over him, and there's one being crunched between his teeth as he tries to fight them off with a wild eye. That's suitably creepy.