Avengers #84: Review

Albert Deschesne co-letters with Richard Starkings again.

The issue numbers for this series have been accompanied by what will be called Legacy numbers the number this issue would have had if the Avengers had never switched to vol 2 and vol 3. This began with #41/456 and has now reached #83/499, cunningly arranged so that next issue could begin Avengers Disassembled by reverting fully to #500. But this means the new numbering will only get as far as #503 before being replaced by New Avengers #1.

The previously page for this issue gets confused and calls the previous 2 issues Part 2 and 3 of 4. It's only half-confused however because there *are* 4 issues to this story arc, the 4th is in New Invaders #0.

This is Chuck Austen's last issue as scripter but he will co-write NI#0. Brian Michael Bendis will take over scripting the AvD issues and then of course The NAv series.

Left-behind Goliath (Hank Pym) will miss out NI#0, but all the other chars will be there, even relevantly the corpse of the ex-dictator.

After that the team will have many scattered apps before the Avengers Disassembled story arc.
Hawkeye has the last issues #7-8 of his his 2003 series with guest stars Captain America (and sometime-Avenger Black Widow, Edwin Jarvis and Henry Peter Gyrich in his last app as Avengers liaison to the UN).
She-Hulk does some lawyering in #5-6 of her 2004 series with Yellowjacket (Hank Pym) popping in.
There'll be a big Avengers party in the last issue #5 of Wonder-Man's 20076 mini-series. The Avengers from this issue will be there, apart from Captain Britain and Hawkeye) plus Falcon (and also Warbird, Black Panther and even Thor and many more).
Cap A and She-Hulk attend Franklin Richards' birthday party in 4 #1.
Cap A is in some of the present-day bits of the WWII All-Winners Squad: Band Of Heroes mini-series (as much of it as was published).
Cap A and Iron Man appear in Thor #80-81. Thor calls on their help to prevent Ragnarok but they are too late to save Asgard, so he sends them back to Earth. These are the 1st 2 of 6 parts of the Ragnarok story, and are also billed as Prologue To Avengers Disassembled.
IM cameos in Gravity #1, and as Tony Stark in 4 #4 offering Reed Richards financial help during the FF's bankruptcy.
(I'll just mention that Scarlet Witch is in Witches #1 at this point.)
And then Wasp is with Hawkeye in a significant flashback in #503 where she triggers SW's buried memories of her 'dead' twins. (SW then interrogates her witchy mentor Agatha Harkness.)
Cap A, Iron Man and Hawkeye (along with SW and Falcon) attempt to arrest Madame Hydra in Daredevil (1998) #61.
CA, IM and Wasp (plus SW, Ant-Man and Jarvis) won't help Spider-Man in Marvel Knights SM#2 unless he tells them who he is.
Hawkeye appears in Marvel TV: Galactus - The Real Story with a cameo by She-Hulk.
She-Hulk's lawyering goes cosmic in her #7-9.
(Meanwhile in Thor #82-85, declared to be part of Avengers Disassembled, Ragnarok ends the Asgardians and Thor's last act is to prevent the repeating cycle of Asgardian lives starting again. Until of course it does 3 years later.)
Hawkeye appears in a cameo flashback with CA in his post-Disassembled (2005) #1.
CA (with cameos by Scarlet Witch and Vision) in Runaways #18 arranges for the teen team members to be taken into care.
CA&Falcon #1-8 include the Avengers Disassembled issues in #5-7. These issues begin a conflict with an Anti-Cap that runs through all 14 issues of the series. Scarlet Witch is in all of #1-7.
In the opening story arc #1-4 The 2 Americas she plays a major role in #2. She shares her cameo in #3 with Iron Man and Yellowjacket.
In the Avengers Disassembled #5-7 Cap starts having hallucinations, which include him starting a romance with Wanda Maximoff. Meanwhile YJ pops up in #6 and he and IM are in #7 (and Tony Stark is preparing for a speech to the UN which is probably the 1 he does in the main Av Disassembled story).
#8 doesn't have any guest-stars and it's part 1 of #8-12's Brothers & Keepers. This (pre-Av Disassembled) issue suggests that it's bad guys may have been messing with Cap's mind in the previous issues. But in the next (post-AvD) issue Steve Rogers will say he's discovered it was the insane SW doing it.
CA(2002)#29 starts its own Av Disassembled arc featuring Red Skull. The issue ends with Cap answering the Avengers Alert that starts #500.
Iron Man already had a very early so-called Prologue to AvD in his #84-85 (between our #76 and #77). Now we see Tony in a flashback in #87 (an actual Disassembled issue) to an interrupted meal with Rumiko Fujikawa where he was possibly going to propose to her.
SW then appears in 2 Young Avengers flashbacks. In the YA Special Wanda meets Billy Kaplan, who she doesn't know is a 'reincarnation' of 1 of her dead sons, and encourages him to stand up to a bully. And in Av: Children's Crusade #7 she asks Dr Doom for help bringing her children back to life. The attempt gives her reality-altering power but shatters her sanity.
Then A#500 starts the main Disassembled story for all the Avengers.