Synopsis
Avengers: Initiative Featuring Reptil #1 Synopsis by
Rob Johnson
The SHIELD Regional Base in Texas is invaded by dinosaurs led by Stegron the Dinosaur Man. But he says they don't have what he's looking for so he gets a pterosaur to fly him away and the other dinos collapse into old bones.
At Camp Hammond Tigra and Val Cooper of the Commission On Superhuman Activities watch a video of the attack. Dr Cooper says that Dr Vincent Stegron has invented a method of temporarily reanimating dinosaur remains which he steals from museums. And he's made attacks like this at SHIELD bases in Colorado and Montana. The Initiative is in disarray after the Skrull Secret Invasion but she's put together a group that she wants Tigra to lead. Tigra approves of marksman Cloud 9 and Sunstreak's fire power which could herd dinos. But she baulks at Reptil, a kid who hasn't even been called in for basic training yet. But Val insists that he may be their only way of locating Stegron.
In Sparks, Nevada Humberto Lopez is living with his grandpa because his paleontologist parents went missing on an expedition up the River Niger. He gets sent out to get some food for Gramps who's busy with a video game. Vicente warns him not to use his powers, but Berto generates dinosaur legs to run fast with. But suddenly Tigra drops out of a tree to confront him, and he instinctively swaps dino legs for a dino head. Armoured Prodigy swoops down to defend her but Berto switches to dino tail and swats him away. Batwing also swoops down to carry him off but stegosaur spikes make him let go, and the teen generates his own dino wings. Then Komodo leaps on him and says they weren't trying to hurt him, but protect him from 2 others - Cloud 9 floating on a cloud with a sniper rifle and Sunstreak hovering aflame. Berto goes fanboy on Cloud 9. Tigra tells a cop that the Initiative will pay for any damage, and the cop says it's about time they took the boy away.
Flying to Camp Hammond in an Initiative aircraft Reptil celebrates being an Avenger, but Tigra brings him down to Earth by saying he's got a long way to go before that. He tells them how he got his powers. He emulated his paleontologist parents by looking for fossils in the desert. 1 day he found this stone that he wears on a chain round his neck, and later learned he could outrun a rockslide. Now he can take on any dinosaur ability with a thought. The medallion glows when he does it. He adds that scientists examined it when he Registered his power with the Government, but they can't figure out how it works. Tigra suggests it might be magic, or the power's in *him* and the stone is just window dressing. She also reminds him of the real reason they've inducted him, because the scientists found he had an empathy with a small dino from the Savage Land in Antarctica. He couldn't control it's behaviour but he could sense its presence and its feelings.
At Camp H Reptil is examined by Baron Blitzschlag who says he can extend the range of his abilities. It will take a few days, but it would go faster if he was allowed to implant electrodes in his brain. Tigra vetoes that idea, and in the meantime she can put him through a crash training program.
Prodigy teaches Humberto how to fight an armoured opponent. But 1st Ritchie Gilmore apologises for reacting badly when Berto knocked him about earlier. And he describes the Initiative as a life prison sentence - they won't let you go unless you're no use to them, or dead. So he recommends Reptil deliberately fail at everything - like he is at this lesson. P gets R in a full nelson, and then reveals the secret answer to this lesson - figure out the armour's power source and disable it.
Batwing takes winged Reptil through an aerial assault course and apologises for Ritchie's attitude. Volunteering for the Initiative was the only way Prodigy could get out of jail for attacking Iron Man while protesting the Superhuman Registration Act (Civil War: Front Line #2). Upbeat James Santini gives him the "with great powers comes great responsibiliy" speech. Reptil is caught by a net, and Batwing says that happened to him 1st time too.
When he faces energy projector Sunstreak she also says it's better than being in jail. But she advises him to look after #1, stick with it while the going's good and escape when it turns sour.
Komodo teaches him how to use a dino tail as a weapon (but I thought he did well with that against Prodigy in their 1st encounter). But she expresses her current dystopian view of life (after her love Hardball ditched her for a career in the villainous Hydra in the Initiative Special):- The good ones like Batwing are boring. Many are self-centred. Others are psychos. They make you think they're trustworthy and then prove they aren't.
He does well in Cloud 9's markmanship class thanks to an archaeopteryx's vision. She says she initially just wanted to fly on her cloud. But she realised it wasn't a weapon so she took up shooting. She admits to him that she has actually killed in the line of duty. It's changed her but it was necessary.
Last up is gymnastic agility training with Tigra. She's sad to hear what Cloud 9 said but she says Berto could do a lot of good in the Initiative. Although she's worried about the takeover by Norman Osborn since Secret Invasion. She promises to keep him out of danger as much as she can and get him back to his grandfather. Reptil protests that he desperately wants to become an Avenger. Everyone else thinks his parents are dead but he believes they're still alive, but he'll need the Avengers' quinjets, tracking devices and databases to find them. He says she can't understand what he's going through. But Greer Nelson says she does, and remembers holding her cop husband as he died.
Val Cooper comes to take them to Blitzschlag's lab to test his long-range dinosaur detection. Reptil picks up a herd in a SHIELD base in South Dakota. We see that Stegron's search is frustrated again. Then our team arrive led by Tigra. Prodigy attacks the Dinosaur Man directly. Sunstreak is directed to corral the dinos with fire, and Cloud 9 to shoot any that escape. Batwing starts evacuating wounded Agents.
But the dinosaurs aren't stopped by the flames because Reptil can sense that Stegron is controlling them. So he too approaches the villain with Tigra and Komodo. Greer warns him off but Steg tailswipes him and also knocks K into Tigra. Then he also takes over reptilian Komodo and sends her against Prodigy. Berto attacks alone and is soundly beaten until Batwing rescues him. Stegron leaves.
The Camp Hammond doctor Physique examines Berto and says his superhuman constitution will have him ready for duty in a couple of days. Cooper is OK with that as long as his dino-detection power is working, because it will take that long for Stegron to get enough dino bones to reanimate an army. But Komodo's off the team unless they can keep her from being taken over again. And she blames the failure of the last mission on Berto's rash actions (I don't read it that way) so he's not leaving base either. The teen accepts the criticism.
Greer talks to Val alone and persuades her to let the boy come along. She says he's learned a lesson the hard way. But if he's benched then what he's learned is that he's a failure and that could paralyse his future usefulness. On the other hand giving him another chance will stir him to do better. Val reluctantly agrees but says if he messes up again he's out of the Initiative, and Greer will take the blame.
Greer also takes Berto for a personal chat. She tells him she's got him back in the field but he's got to be more cautious. She tells him of her 1st stint as an Avenger (in their #211-216). They faced the Molecule Man who was literally all-powerful, and she broke down and begged for her life. For a long time after that she had no self-belief, but she got over it eventually. She points to the rest of the team training. Cloud 9's suppressing what she feels about killing, but it will hit her some day. Prodigy distrusts every authority figure. Batwing was abandoned by his dad and now desperately tries to please everyone. But if Berto learns from his mistakes (and others') maybe he'll get where he wants to go.
Stegron strikes again in Wisconsin, and this time he can tell that the SHIELD base has what he seeks. But the Initiative team arrive, including Komodo who's got a telepathy scrambler to stop him taking over her mind again. Reptil confirms something they've worked out, that the villain doesn't control *all* the dinos with his mind, but most of them with sounds. And now he produces his own dinosaur noises which enables Sunstreak's fire-herding to be effective. And Berto whipcracks an especially long dino-tail to produce a sonic boom which makes him seem like a dominant dino to the others.
Stegron is angry at losing control of his dino herd when he'd finally found what he was looking for. I think Reptil sends him crashing through a wall into a lab which happens to contain his target - a homo habilis caveboy who Tigra recognises as Moon Boy. Defeated Stegron tells them that this is the companion to Devil Dinosaur who is pining away after the mammal was abducted from the Savage Land. He knew that the Lord of the SL, Ka-Zar, wouldn't do anything about it so he took it upon himself to retrieve Moonboy. Humberto senses that Stegron is telling the truth, and he thinks that they should rescue Moon Boy themselves. Tigra takes a bit of persuading but she doesn't like leaving him in the hands of a SHIELD run by Osborn. She says Berto will have to make a tough choice.
The SHIELD enter to find Stegron in electric shackles submitting to be taken to Prison 42 in the Negative Zone. A SHIELD scientist also enters to find Moon Boy gone, and Tigra says that a dinosaur ate him. There are bloodstains that will surely match his DNA, but the scientist is suspicious because some vials of his blood have smashed. The head SHIELD Agent comments that Reptil is missing. Tigra says she sent him home because as Dr Cooper predicted he just got in the way. But we see winged Reptil flying away with Moon Boy.
Next day Tigra visits Berto at home in Nevada. Ka-Zar and his sabre-toothed tiger Zabu arrive in a flying craft to take Moonboy back to the Savage Land. They've been searching the SL for him, and paranoid Stegron never told him what he was doing. Tigra informs him that Reptil sacrificed his chance to join the Initiative in order to rescue Moon Boy. Ka-Zar offers to take him to the SL to see the dinosaurs there. Berto leaps at the chance.
In the Savage Land Moon Boy is reunited with Devil Dinosaur. And then KZ offers Berto his own resources and those of his expert tracker wife Shanna to find out what happened to his parents.