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Avengers #78: Review

Apr 2004
Chuck Austen, Olivier Coipel

Story Name:

Lionheart of Avalon (part 2)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Avengers #78 Review by (May 28, 2021)
It's the Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne lettering show again.

We get more evidence this issue that Thunderball isn't quite the guy we know.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #78 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
The Avengers have come to Ipswich, England in search of the Wrecking Crew. Captain America, Hawkeye and Wasp found them robbing an armoured truck. Giant-size Wasp dealt with them quite well but in the end only took out Bulldozer by dropping the truck on him and is now insect-size and unconscious. Hawkeye now faces Piledriver and Wrecker. Captain America was knocked out and given a broken jaw by Thunderball. Kelsey Leigh and her 2 children now see the villain about to kill Cap with his wrecking ball.

We begin 5 minutes ago. She-Hulk was also in the area but not responding to calls. Now we see why. She's holding up a wrecked car while the emergency services try to free a man trapped under it. And she can see giant Wasp in trouble a few blocks away.

Now we return to the present as Thunderball delivers his killing blow. But Kelsey picks up Cap's shield and puts herself in the way.  The villain is surprised, and then they exchange lines from Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 1 involving Joan of Arc. (OK, Kelsey can respond because she's an English Literature teacher, but Thunderball's supposed to only be a science whiz.) Then after another blow on the shield he compares her to Jeanne de Montfort who led an army to defend Brittany from Philip VI of France (and because she also teaches history she recognises this allusion too). Then they pause to quote philosophy at each other about why he wants to kill and she wants to defend. (Is there nothing these 2 aren't versed in?!)

Elsewhere Wrecker orders civilians to gather up money that has fallen out of the armoured vehicle with threats of violence. Piledriver encourages him to make an example of someone, with added movie references. They both ignore Hawkeye who's only aiming arrows at them. He gets Piledriver's attention by mentioning Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, and then fires 3 arrows at the same time. 2 pierce PD's shoulders and the other hits Wrecker in the chest.

Now She-Hulk arrives to see Thunderball smashing at Cap's shield, which Kelsey is still holding up even though she has a shattered shoulder. Her 2 kids are screaming as she finally collapses on Cap's chest. But Shulkie grabs his ball before his next blow and then punches him down the street. Wasp wakes up normal-size, and then she grows tall again to carry Cap and Kelsey to their quinjet and thence to 1 of Tony Stark's English 'safe-houses'. She-Hulk leads the kids after her and reassures Jenny by telling her that her name is Jennifer too.

Hawkeye joins them and Martin comments that he likes that the hero stopped being Goliath (in #63-97 of the original series) and went back to Hawkeye. Clint Barton is surprised that the young fan knew they were the same person, but the lad says that the lower half of the hero's face was always visible, and you never saw the 2 of them at the same time. Jenny just wants to see her mum.

Wasp has already reached Stark's place where she, Tony, Scarlet Witch and Yellowjacket are watching a doctor examine Cap. Jan van Dyne explains how her rapid large size changes made her temporarily pass out and Henry Pym says he warned her about that. The doc tells them he can wire up Cap's jaw but he'll take weeks to recover. But the Witch uses her Chaos Magic to produce the improbable outcome of Steve Rogers mending immediately. He wakes up and asks what's happening. But now we learn that Kelsey was DOA.



Olivier Coipel
Andy Lanning
Chris Sotomayor
Scott Kolins (Cover Penciler)
Scott Kolins (Cover Inker)
Letterer: Richard Starkings.
Editor: Tom Brevoort. Editor-in-chief: Joe Quesada.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Clint Barton)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch

(Wanda Maximoff)
She-Hulk
She-Hulk

(Jennifer Walters)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)

Plus: Captain Britain (Kelsey Leigh), Jenny Leigh, Martin Leigh.

> Avengers: Book info and issue index

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