Synopsis
As the tale opens, Wonder Man is undergoing an identity check in order to be reinstated in the Avengers. His acting career has fizzled though he has taken a part-time TV job that he is reluctant to talk about. The Falcon, who was added to the team temporarily by government mandate, turns in his membership card, preferring the life of a loner. In the snowy courtyard, Captain America explains to Ms. Marvel how the Avengers is a team of heroes with special abilities who have learned to work well together. (As they are talking, a punk kid tries to conk Cap with a snowball; without looking Cap hurls his shield so that it ricochets off a wall and intercepts the icy missile, sending the frightened kid home to change his pants.) Iron Man is inside, thinking of relieving some of the pressure on him by relinquishing his role as the team leader—or buying a Maserati. Lonely with the absence of the Scarlet Witch, Vision seeks tranquility in precision testing of his synthetic body; when Jocasta compliments him on his poetic turn of phrase, Vision reacts violently, denying that he is in any way human. Beast and Wonder Man relax with a game of ping pong, then in front of the TV where the Furry One discovers Wondy’s secret acting gig: as Mr. Muscles, the patsy of pie-throwing Uncle Elmer on a goofy kids’ show. Before the pie-in-the-face payoff, though, they are summoned to the medlab. Jan has admitted a refugee seeking help, a frightened man named Selbe, dressed in the gown of the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane. Shortly thereafter, a pair of white-coated attendants from the Institute arrive with a court order for Selbe. Since everything is in order and the Avengers can’t prove that his rantings are anything but the result of paranoia, they do not intervene as the unfortunate man is carted off in a straightjacket to a meeting with an unseen figure in a waiting car. Adjourning to the conference room, they notice that Wasp is missing, correctly assuming she went off to investigate the matter on her own.