Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The main story in this issue is a reprint of Avengers #12 where Mole Man and his Moloids teamed up with Red Ghost (without his Super-Apes) to threaten life on the surface. The 2 extra tales here are adventures of some little Moloids.
Story 2:- Into the great wide open
Early in Av#12 Mole Man sent some Moloids to attack the Avengers. When their attack failed the Moloids generated a mist to cover their escape from Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Wasp and Rick Jones (Giant-Man had already been captured). This tale tells us where they went.
They escape through an air vent into the wilds of Manhattan. There are 7 of them but 1 gets hit by traffic and 2 are savaged by guard dogs in a junk yard. The other 4 are shot at by 2 boys. 1 stops running to create mist to cover their escape but is fatally wounded in the process. Under cover of the mist his companions drag him away but he dies.
The remaining 3 debate whether to go back underground or stay to sample the delights that TV broadcasts had told them existed on the surface world. They find an unfinished carton of cola which they presumably share, and then catch a rat and roast it. But the little Moloids still wind up staring hungrily through the window of a restaurant until the waiter shoos them off with a broom despite a woman from a nearby shop telling him to leave the 'kids' alone.
This inspires the Moloids to try to befriend her. They get hold of a long coat, hat and boots and do the trick of sitting on each other's shoulders pretending to be 1 tall man. They enter her shop and give her a flower they picked earlier. She tries to talk with this tall handsome stranger but can't understand what he says, so she assumes he's Canadian. But still she arranges to go dancing with him at 8 o'clock.
They meet up and go to a bar where we learn her name's Annie as she warns her friend Gladys off her man. After some alcohol which the Moloids aren't used to (and which Annie has to pay for) they take vigorously to the dance floor watched by Gladys and Annie's jealous boyfriend Elmore. The Moloid-man's moves wow the crowd (because being 3 Moloids allows them to contort their 'body' in ways a human couldn't). Annie thinks Gladys is ogling her man and picks a fight. Elmore leaps in to 'save' Annie from the stranger, who/which breaks up into the 3 Moloids who leg it. Later they recuperate from their adventure by watching a portable TV they found earlier.
Story 3:- The Mole Man of the Ants
Writer Brian Pratchett. Artist Sergio Arigones. Colours Javier Rodriguez.
Moloids are busy toiling away at tasks set them by Mole Man. 1 with a broom accidentally switches on a device, at the same time snapping his broom in 2 leaving him with a sharp pointed handle. Then the device shrinks him and his handle to ant-size where he's menaced by a spider which he accidentally stabs to death with the sharp stick.
Watching ants think him a super-hero and make him their king, deposing their queen. The king then sets them to work on tasks like Mole Man did while they pander to his every whim. But eventually his advisors tell him that in the absence of the queen her eggs have all gone off (and of course there are no new ones). The smell is killing the ants (and of course their ranks aren't being refilled). They are now in drunken revolt and they turn on him and stone him until he runs away.
He gets away but collapses exhausted. Where 1 of his full-size compatriots finds his body and eats him as a snack.