Avengers Assemble #5: Review

I'm sure the Avengers have had previous quinjets with interstellar capability. But the obvious places I checked didn't work. In the Kree/Skrull War they used Mjolnir to power a SHIELD spaceship. And in Galactic Storm they used a Shi'ar stargate. Star-Lord's spaceship looks like the intelligent ship called Ship he had since his 2nd appearance in Marvel Preview #11 (but we don't witness any intelligence from it in this series). And the suit he dons for space battle looks like his original uniform since MP#4. But according to Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord #1 both items were destroyed before his appearances in Thanos (2003). The galactic council mentioned here sounds like the one in the forthcoming GoG series. Indeed they both declare Earth a no-fly zone. But there is a continuity problem. Peter Quill will learn about the quarantine there, and tells Iron Man when they meet in #1. But they also refer back to their meeting in this series. I'll discuss this more in #8.

When Black Widow mentions Hawkeye's girlfriend she should be referring to Spider-Woman. But #1 leaves open the possibility she means Mockingbird. Of course Clint and Natasha were much more than the best friends he calls them here in the early days of Iron Man and the Avengers. The Hawkeye/Widow relationship is another nod to the Avengers film. Plus the film Tesseract is a Cosmic Cube by any other name. And Thanos appears at the end of the film as a promo for the next one. Thanos has had a Cube before in Captain Marvel (1968) #28-33, and several of them in Infinity Crusade. Gamora was adopted by Thanos as a child, who trained her to be 'the most dangerous woman in the galaxy'. Captain America discovered in Avengers (2010) #7-12 that Iron Man and the Illuminati have the Infinity Gems since Illuminati #2. Cap says here that Gen'l Whedon reported the attack by Zodiac on his convoy to the Avengers, but denied the attack happened. This is essentially what we saw in #1 and #2, but makes even less sense stated together here.

Star-Lord was suspicious of the the Badoon attacking the planet. But Rocket Raccoon said that's just what they did. I'm with Rocket on this one. We 1st met Badoon way back in #2 of Silver Surfer's 1st series. But they became more prominent as the main foes of a different Guardians of the Galaxy in an alternate future. Iron Man introduces the Guardians of the Galaxy to the Avengers but I don't think he's met them before. He may have learned about them from the Annihilators in Annihilators: Earthfall, but none of the current Guardians were there. Hulk and Drax are wary of each other. They've been part of the general mish-mash in things like Infinity Gauntlet/War/Crusade. But they had a 1-1 fight in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #13 during that period. And another face-off later as part of Secret Defenders vs Defenders in SD#24. Thor tells Gamora he's very impressed with her as a warrior. (She's not sure how to respond, and others regard the exchange as flirting.) They too have been jointly involved in things like Infinity Crusade. But he too is probably remembering where they fought each other, in Thor #470.