Avengers Forever #1: Review

Dec 2021

Jason Aaron, Aaron Kuder

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The lords of Earthly vengeance Part 1: Where 'hope' is a four-letter word

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Avengers Forever #1 Review by Rob Johnson (December 31, 2021)

This series gets a new version of the standard Avengers intro:- And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when the mightiest Avengers of many Earths found themselves united against a common threat - to fight the foes no single universe could withstand.

Avengers Forever vol 1 saw Earth-616 Avengers from the past, present and supposed future assembled to fight in that case Immortus, aided by Kang. This series will supposedly assemble Avengers from alternate timelines to fight the Multiversal Masters Of Evil and their bosses Doom Supreme and Mephisto.

The Knowhere Gun is a side-reference to Knowhere, the Celestial head that the Guardians Of The Galaxy used as a base.

The Goddesses Of Thunder are Thor's future granddaughters from various Thor series starting with Thor: God Of Thunder #8 through to the King Thor mini-series. They are the creation of this series' writer Jason Aaron.

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers Forever #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

There is an Avengers Tower in the God Quarry at infinity's end and from there the Avenger Prime directs his cybernetic army of Deathloks to protect the multiverse. During Avengers #50 1 of these Deathloks appeared on Earth-616 to warn our Avengers about Doom Supreme and his Multiversal Masters Of Evil. But he and Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), who he named as an Omni-Avenger, were teleported to Earth-818 which has been devastated by the MMOE and is currently ruled by their member Black Skull and his War Machines.

We begin on E-818 in 1MBC. In Av#50 we saw this Earth and time's Avengers slaughtered by the Masters. Now dying Odin reaches out to Mjolnir and casts a spell on it. We see that its inscription now reads "Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of All-Vengeance".

In present-day E-818 we see a masked Ant-Man with apparently a metal left foot who describes himself in his inner monologue as Earth's 1st and last living archaeologist. He's being chased underground by Black Skull's Venom Ants and he calls out to his bodyguard Shellhead for rescue. He manages to escape through a small hole to the surface and expands to human size. When he opens his helmet we find that he's Tony Stark, and his size-changing is due to what he calls Stark Particles.

The Venom Ants follow and attack with black web lines. But Shellhead arrives, a large ant in red & gold armour, and he's carrying a large head. Stark draws a gun and the head shrinks to attach to it. Tony's monologue informs us that it's the head of a Space God he found at the North Pole (ie the Progenitor Celestial that E-616's Avengers use as an HQ). He calls it his Knowhere Gun and uses it to blasts the Venom Ants.

Now Ant-Man shrinks to ride the Iron Ant deep underground to where he's detected another powerful object - Mjolnir. He becomes full size again and tries to lift it. As you'd expect he fails, but then briefly succeeds and it emits a burst of energy. And then he falls backwards with it crushing his chest, but he manages to shrink out from under it. Tony has a drink and then shrinks the hammer and some ground beneath it so that Iron Ant can pick it all up and they fly away.

Outside there are War Machines waiting. Stark's monologue tells us that he was once caught looting the tomb of the Fist Of Khonshu, and the Wastelord Black Skull had him tortured until Stark agreed to make weapons for him - including the War Machine armour. But this time the WMs get a call to attend a higher priority problem.

Next we see some other War Machines fleeing from Ghost Rider in his Hell Charger. His Hellfire chains pluck them out of the sky 1-by-1. He's accompanied by the Deathlok and they're attacking a Crematrain. Deathlok thinks Robbie is the greatest GR ever. GR applies his Penance Stare to the WMs as DL opens up the train to reveal lines of chained humans waiting to be used as fuel. Robbie removes the engine from the front of the train and hitches the 8 miles of carriages to the Hell Charger. They leave chased by more War Machines. Ant-Man and Iron Ant watch from a distance as the train is halted by a barricade of chained slaves. They face Black Skull (an alternate Red Skull in a Venom symbiote suit) and more War Machines (including some giant-size versions).

AM and IA leave them to it and retreat to Stark's underground base where Shellhead stores Mjolnir with other stuff they've unearthed. Including a cave painting with the symbols we recognises as the signs of the 1MBC Avengers. 1 of which he links to the Ghost Rider he's just seen. Tony explains everything to an audience, and we pan out to see versions of (I think) Thing, Storm, Vision and Wonder Man.

Our last port of call is the Superflow between universes where a 'boat' weathers a superstorm caused by all the timelines that the Masters Of Evil have been rewriting. Inside are the 3 Goddesses Of Thunder, and the boat is being towed to their destination by Mjolnir.

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