Synopsis
Avengers: The Children's Crusade #2 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Last issue Magneto found the Young Avengers. He wants to take Speed and Wiccan to Transia to find their 'mother' Scarlet Witch, his daughter. Wiccan says they'd already looked there. His boyfriend Hulkling (along with Stature and Vision) tries to stop Magneto abducting the twins, but Wiccan breaks free of Magneto's forcefield anyway. Hawkeye and Patriot don't want to help a known terrorist, but Wiccan insists that Magneto take the whole team or none.
The question becomes irrelevant as Avengers (Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man, Luke Cage, Ms Marvel, Spider-Man and Wolverine) arrive to stop Magneto. They don't want Wanda found because they're afraid of what she might do. Wolverine in particular says he'll kill her, and Wiccan too if he gets in the way.
While the other YA defend Magneto (who probably doesn't need it), Wiccan uses magic to whisk them (and Magneto) to Wundagore Mountain in Transia, where Scarlet Witch was born. Wolverine isn't too concerned. He suggests the Avengers let the YA find the Witch, and then they can grab her.
Wiccan disguises the troop in civilian clothes, based on the Von Trapp family from the Sound of Music. Including Vision as a nun. As they walk along 2 couples show their bonds of affection:- Hawkeye and Patriot, and Stature and Vision.
They reach the grave of Magneto's wife Magda, and he gives them a potted origin of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Magda left Erik (Magneto) when he used his power to kill their persecutors. He didn't know she was pregnant, and she gave birth to the twins in the High Evolutionary's castle on the mountain. She died, and Pietro and Wanda were raised by gypsies Django and Marya Maximoff. Later Magneto saved them from a mob, and recruited them into his Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants, without knowing who they were. But they soon abandoned him and his cause, and joined the Avengers.
Wiccan senses Wanda's possible presence in the nearby village, and Speed dashes off to search. Until he runs into Quicksilver. Magneto and the YA follow, but Pietro runs off carrying Wiccan.
Billy doesn't use his magic to escape, because he wants to persuade Quicksilver to join their search for his sister. But there's no love lost between Pietro and his father. (Last time they met Magneto tried to kill him). So Pietro makes a counter-offer, that the 2 of them go look for Wanda, without the rest.
But just then Speed catches up with them. He's miffed that his 'uncle' didn't kidnap him too. And seems mainly concerned with proving that he's the faster.
Magneto tries to stop them from a distance with his magnetic power. Quicksilver drops Wiccan and speeds back to throw wooden stakes at his father and the YA. They miss or are stopped, but 1 hits a passing village female who looks just like Wanda. (She's wearing a red hooded cloak and carrying a basket of red apples. Just which fairy tale is she in?!)
The stake pierces her body and exposes her as a robot. Vision recognises it as a Doombot, and the assembled cast jump to the conclusion that the real Scarlet Witch is a prisoner of Dr Doom.