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Avengers #110

Apr 1973
Steve Englehart, Don Heck

Avengers #110 cover

Story Name:

... and now Magneto


Synopsis

Avengers #110 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 3.5 stars
Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Vision are watching Black Panther spar with Iron Man when Thor rushes in with good news. He leads them to the comms room where Scarlet Witch sees her long-lost brother Quicksilver waiting to talk to her via long-distance video call. He explains how he was severely injured in the Sentinel's Australian base in #104, and was only saved from death when Crystal and Lockjaw of the Inhumans teleported in. They took him home and Crystal nursed him back to health. Pietro says that he was near death and it's taken him a long time to get well enough to contact Wanda.

He also says that as Crystal ministered to him they fell in love. (Crystal was on the rebound from Human Torch.) Now they plan to marry. Wanda is overjoyed, but she doesn't get the same reaction when she tells her brother that she and Vision are in love too. Pietro angrily reminds her he warned her against it in #99, and now he forbids the relationship and terminates the call.

While Vision consoles Scarlet Witch, the other 4 discuss the Avengers roster. Hawkeye quit last issue and now Quicksilver isn't coming back. Thor hopes nothing else happens to shrink the numbers (though as he correctly points out the team has often been smaller and weaker). Black Panther thinks this isn't the time to let them know the Wakandans want him to return as their chief.

But just then they get another video call. The person holding the camera transmitting the video takes them inside a suburban mansion, and confronts a crippled bald man whom Thor recognises from X-Men #9 as Prof X. Someone else remembers meeting him at Reed and Sue's wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3.

The Avengers split up to search for the mansion in the video. Iron Man, Thor and Vision fly off in independent directions. Cap and Wanda take a quinjet while Panther pilots his own craft. Cap tells Wanda not to let Pietro's emotional blackmail make her lose Vision. Meanwhile Thor ponders the fact that he risked angering his father Odin for the love of Jane Foster, but that love died in the end anyway. And Tony Stark remembers the bad endings to most of his romances.

Despite the fact that Hawkeye quit last issue, we're still following him around. He's gone to  San Francisco to look up his old flame Black Widow in her new home. He knows she's dating Matt Murdock, and partnering Daredevil in crime-fighting (but doesn't know they're the same person). He finds Natasha's aide Ivan recovering from injuries sustained in DD#96. Ivan tells him the Widow's out with DD, Clint leaves, but decides to hang around until Natasha comes home. He's determined to try to rekindle their romance.

Back in New York Cap and Wanda have spotted the mansion in the video, and they call the other Avengers to join them. Inside they all find Cyclops, Ice Man, Marvel Girl and Prof X in comas. Steve and Wanda are attacked by wires emanating from Cerebro, until Cap uses his new superstrength to stop them, and break through a suddenly-stuck door. The pair join the others in carrying the X-Men out of the building. Iron Man has also found someone in Angel's costume.

When they get outside rocks start to erupt out of the ground all around them. The Avengers use various tactics to get themselves and their X-burdens safely to the quinjet. And the rock assault stops. Scarlet Witch guesses that all the attacks have been Magneto toying with them.

Panther recalls that they found no sign of Magneto with the Beast-Brood in the Savage Land in #106. But suddenly they hear the sound of a flute, and they are faced with 4 dinosaurs that now only exist in that Antarctic realm. The Big 3 and Vision deal with 1 dinosaur each, and then the assembled team converge on the piper who seemed to control the beasts.

Vision recalls that Piper was the only 1 of Magneto's Savage Land mutates absent from the Beast-Brood in #106. This adds weight to Wanda's theory that they face Magneto. And boulders rise from the ground once more to form a protective shell around Piper, that even resists Thor's blows with Mjolnir.

Then the supposedly comatose 'Angel' stands up, discards his fake wings and unmasks himself as Magneto. He intends to take the quinjet with the X-Men, and also Scarlet Witch. He magnetically uses Iron Man to KO Cap, and buries Panther, Vision and Thor in more boulders. Vision stays there to help Thor shield Panther, rather than escape via intangibility.

Magneto reveals he has a new power of mind control, which he used on the X-Men. He makes Wanda join Cap and IM in sleep. And flies off with all of them in the quinjet. The remaining 3 Avengers break free of the boulders to find their ship gone.

The issue ends by saying that the story will be continued in DD#99.


 

Review / Commentaries


Avengers #110 Review by (August 28, 2013)
Black Widow joined the Daredevil cast in DD#81, after the end of her solo series in Amazing Adventures. In DD#87 they moved to San Francisco, where Natasha shared a house with Matt, and BW was DD's crime-fighting partner. In DD#92 she started sharing the masthead. In DD#99 Hawkeye will confront Natasha, having convinced himself that she must still love him. But of course he'll wind up fighting DD. And then the Avengers pop in. Panther, Thor and Vision have tried to recruit extra manpower in their fight against Magneto. They couldn't find Falcon, Luke Cage or Spider-Man, but Panther suggested they go to Frisco for Daredevil. Hawkeye will misunderstand and storm out. The Avengers will ask DD to join them, with Panther calling in a favour from DD#92. Black Widow will join too, and they'll all head into Av#111.

Thor lost Jane Foster's love in Thor #136, and in the same issue reignited his passion for Sif. Tony Stark's romances *have* so far not ended well. He lost Pepper Potts to Happy Hogan, Janice Cord died, his first love Meredith returned but turned out to be married, Marianne Rodgers was driven insane by her ESP. He could also have mentioned Whitney Frost/Madame Masque, with the slight problem that she was a villain. Cap gained superstrength in CA#158, while he was absent last issue. It happened due to the combination of Viper's drug and antidote with the Super-Soldier serum, but it will gradually wear off.

Despite his people's desire for his return, Black Panther will hang around until #126, after which he will go home for his own series in Jungle Action. Thor must have a good memory for voices to recognise Prof X from their mental chat in X-Men #9, but he had more chance than Iron Man after his single short message from Xavier in Tales of Suspense #49. Charles was incognito in FF Annual #3, but anyway may have caused guests at the wedding to forget him. Prof X was supposedly dead when Panther tangled with his students in the XM#45/Av#50 crossover. But surely Scarlet Witch should have known him, even if she didn't know where the Westchester school is. Beast's absence is because he left the X-Men for his own series in Amazing Adventures. And hangers-on Havok and Lorna Dane also went off to do their own thing. More on where Angel is next time. The Avengers can be excused for not knowing about Magneto's appearances after his 'death' in X-Men: The Hidden Years and with Beast in Amazing Adventures, but surely they would have spotted him invading New York with Sub-Mariner in FF#102-104!

Crystal's rescue of, nursing and romance with Quicksilver has already been covered in more detail in Fantastic Four #131. She had been travelling with her teleporting dog Lockjaw after FF#118 when they came across Pietro. Crystal had been separated from her love Human Torch since FF#105 because she was allergic to the pollution of the industrialised world. But it was only in FF#131-132 that she officially broke off her relationship with Johnny Storm because she had fallen in love with Pietro. The explanation of why Pietro didn't ring Wanda earlier doesn't really hold much water. He's been well enough to have long conversations with Crystal, but couldn't call his distraught sister! Crystal and Pietro's marriage will happen in Av#127/FF#150 where Ultron will gang-up with Maximus of the Inhumans. Quicksilver will make a confusing appearance before then in Marvel Team-Up #9-11 featuring both Avengers and Inhumans, but with Pietro apparently with the Avengers. It was probably a continuity gaffe, but the MTU Official Index gives a No-Prize explanation by positing that he happened to be visiting the Avengers, probably to try to bully Wanda out of her love for Vision. Quicksilver's future involvement with the Avengers will be largely peripheral. He'll pop back for stories that purport to reveal his and Wanda's parentage (in Giant-Size Avengers #1 they're the children of the Golden Age Whizzer and Miss America, in #185-187 their father goes from being gypsy Django Maximoff to an unknown man who will later in Vision & Scarlet Witch #4 turn out to be Magneto). He'll have the occasional short stint as an Avenger, but will also feature as a villain against the West Coast Avengers. But he will be drawn more and more into X-Men related titles like X-Factor.

Vision has been the masthead star since #93 and will continue to be so for a long time. And now this issue and the next only have him and the Big 3 on the cover. Dept of not-so-misleading covers:- Magneto's in his own costume. The X-Men are shown in their old uniforms. But at least Angel and Beast aren't included. My rating goes back up a bit for this issue and next mainly because of the intricate connections with other comics, that it should be by now obvious that I love.


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Don Heck
Mike Esposito
Glynis Wein
Gil Kane (Cover Penciler)
Frank Giacoia (Cover Inker)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Shelly Leferman.
Editor: Roy Thomas.

Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Black Panther
Black Panther

(T'Challa)
Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steven Rogers)
Crystal
Crystal

(Corystalia Amaqulin Maximoff)
Cyclops
Cyclops

(Scott Summers)
Daredevil
Daredevil

(Matt Murdock)
Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Clinton Barton)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Anthony Stark)
Ivan Petrovich
Ivan Petrovich

(Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov)
Marvel Girl
Marvel Girl

(Jean Grey)
Professor X
Professor X

(Charles Xavier)
Quicksilver
Quicksilver

(Pietro Maximoff)
Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch

(Wanda Maximoff)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)
Plus: Piper.

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