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The Avengers #73

Feb 1970

Roy Thomas, Frank Giacoia

Story Name:

The sting of the Serpent

Synopsis

The Avengers #73 synopsis by Rob Johnson

Rating:

While Black Panther has been away in Wakanda the Sons Of The Serpent hate group have resurfaced promising to drive the unfit, the foreign born and the inferior from the US. They burn down New York's Equal Employment Bureau and African-American talk show host Montague Hale condemns them on TV. That night some Serpents beat him up, but are under orders not to kill him. The controversial figure loses his TV program but goes on as a guest on a show with right-wing host Dan Dunn. They of course disagree until Dunn cuts Hale short and moves on to the next part of his show Afro-American singer Monica Lynne. When she joins them at the table she says she doesn't want to take sides. On the way out Hale tries to sway her to his cause but she doesn't want to play.

The 4 active Avengers (Goliath (Clint Barton), Vision, Wasp & Yellowjacket) have been looking into the SOTS. The 3 longer-standing members tell Vision about their previous encounter with such a group (#32-33) when Henry Pym was Goliath and Clint was still Hawkeye. The Sons attacked Hank's assistant scientist Bill Foster and then captured Captain America, telling the Avengers to endorse their views if they wanted to see Cap alive again. Our team pretended to agree until they located the Serpents' base and exposed the Supreme Serpent as foreign agitator General Chen.

Now the Supreme Serpent sends 3 men to attack Monica Lynne, and it happens to happen near Avengers Mansion. But Black Panther is returning from Wakanda and lands his aircraft on the roof just in time to notice the attack and leap to her defence. During the fight 1 Serpent gets accidentally killed by a blast from another 1. And the Supreme Serpent is remotely watching and sees that his men are losing so he triggers their Serpent suits to electrocute the other 2 to death. Monica is angry that the police only turn up when it's all over.

BP joins the other Avengers and next evening they watch a new Dan Dunn show with Hale and Lynne as return guests. This time Monica is fully on Hale's side, and the show is a ratings hit. Hank Pym fears that the show is helping the Serpents to achieve what they failed to do last time and polarise Americans into 2 camps. Goliath wants the Avengers to go after the SOTS but T'Challa asks them to give him 24 hours to resolve the problem alone.

Hale drives Lynne home but BP accosts her at her door to ask her not to go on TV again. He asks as a soul brother and says he previously hadn't revealed his ethnicity publicly because he didn't want it to influence what people thought of him. Then he leaves her to track down some Serpents. He finds some and KOs 1 to take his uniform as a disguise. The Serpents fly 1 of their craft to rendezvous with their snake-shaped submarine HQ. But Panther is found out when he doesn't know the password. However the Supreme Serpent is overjoyed at this turn of events.

Review / Commentaries

The Avengers #73 Review by Rob Johnson (September 24, 2022)

Frank Giacoia is guest penciller for this issue, but Herb Trimpe pencilled page 4 featuring the 1st Dan Dunn Show app.

Black Panther has been in Wakanda since before #66, but he cameoed from there in #68 and got time-napped from there by Kang for #69-71.

Dan Dunn and Montague Hale are new chars. As is Monica Lynne but she at least is in for the long haul as a supporting char for BP.

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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Roy Thomas

Frank Giacoia

Sam Grainger

Marie Severin (Cover Penciler)
Sam Grainger (Cover Inker)
Marie Severin (Cover Colorist)

Additional Credits

Letterer: Art Simek.
Editor: Stan Lee.

All stories. Listed in alphabetical order.

Avengers

Black Panther
(T'Challa)

Vision

Wasp
(Janet Van Dyne)

Yellowjacket
(Hank Pym)

Plus: Goliath (Clint Barton), Monica Lynne, Sons of the Serpent.

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