New Avengers #5: Review

May 2005

Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch

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Story Name:

Breakout—Part Five

Review & Comments

Rating:

New Avengers #5 Review by Peter Silvestro (February 27, 2010)

Why didn’t Wolverine know what Lykos would do when attacked? Pretty dumb of Logan to forget Sauron’s powers.

New Avengers #5 Review by Rob Johnson (June 10, 2013)

Sauron debuted in #60 of the original X-Men series. He's had a long involvement with the Savage Land and it's Mutates, who were genetic creations of Magneto unveiled in #62 of that series. Lykos was involved in the Weapon X program in the series of that name. This long-running government program of course gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton. Lykos and the Mutates don't know they are part of a Skrull scheme, and will fight against the Skrulls during the Secret Invasion. Iron Man should be in the Extremis armour here, but because of delays in his own series it hadn't yet been shown how the new armour worked. The Mutates may have removed his external armour, but the undersuit should still be secreted in his body. He shouldn't need to call his armour to him, just issue commands electronically via his built-in system. Yelena Belova is a Russian trained to be the replacement Black Widow after Natasha Romanoff defected to the West. She had 2 mini-series of her own. Now she seems to be working for SHIELD. But the Skrulls are involved in that too.

Wolverine's informant was Steven Hudak/Scorcher, a low-level villain with a flame-throwing armour he invented in Untold Tales of Spider-Man. He has appeared a few times in current continuity as a henchman. After his last appearance in Secret War he vowed to go straight. Thus when the Mutates approached him to free Karl Lykos he declined and informed the X-Men. He will go back on his vow, and take on the henchman role again during Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. It is implied that the Mutates then hired Electro to free Lykos. It is also suggested that SHIELD allowed it in exchange for vibranium. Spider-Man gained organic webbing in Spectacular Spider-Man (2003) #20, billed as part of Avengers Disassembled, after being mutated by a villainess called The Queen.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

New Avengers #5 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

A Tyrannosaurus Rex has just destroyed the Quinjet and is chasing the Avengers; Iron Man is chomped by the monster so he destroys it from the inside. ("There’s something I didn’t think I was going to do today.") Meanwhile, in the jungle, Wolverine has his claws at Spider-Woman’s throat; instinctively she grabs him, flips him around and slits his throat with his own blades. This makes him very angry and it takes a lot of effort to calm him down long enough to tell them why he’s there: Logan is tracking down Karl Lykos, having been tipped off that there would be an attempt to break him out of the Raft. The heroes suddenly find themselves surrounded by Mutates and Vertigo uses her powers to put them all to sleep. They awaken naked and immobilized with Brainchild planning to conduct some nasty experiments on them. Captain America calls on Lykos to surrender; Lykos responds that he was imprisoned for refusing to cooperate with the government’s secret Weapon X program and orders the Avengers killed. Tony and Steve have heard enough; the former orders his voice-controlled armor (on the other side of the room) to activate and blast the device holding them in stasis, scattering the guards. The heroes suit up and as the enemy masses for attack, Cap calls out, "Avengers assemble!" Wolverine pursues the fleeing Lykos and slashes him with his claws; Lykos absorbs Logan’s energy and morphs into his Sauron form. He places the Avengers under hypnotic control…and then is suddenly shot in the head. SHIELD agents led by Yelena Belova (the second Black Widow) train their weapons on the heroes, and Belova orders them killed.

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