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Avengers #53: Review

Jun 2002
Kurt Busiek, Kieron Dwyer

Story Name:

The Last Castle

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Avengers #53 Review by (October 30, 2020)
Kieron Dwyer and Rick Remender return as artists.

This is genuinely the end for Jonathan Tremont, dying sort-of a hero.

Firestar, Justice, Living Lightning and Photon will skip next issue but be back for the #55 epilogue.

Quasar will be around for the JLA/Avengers company crossover mini-series but then will bow out until the renumbered series end in #501-503.

Presence will return to his exile in the Khystym Forbidden Zone but will re-emerge for the Hulk: Winter Guard 1-shot and the Darkstar & Winter Guard mini-series.
Starlight will appear with some of her old team the Defenders in JLA/Av#4, and then as a member of Winter Guard in opposition to her love Presence in the D&WG mini.
They'll both die in that mini (though Presence will have a temporary resurrection in Deadpool & Mercs For Money #4-5).





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #53 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Kang has conquered the World. Last issue saw a strike against him by the Avengers' Resistance. He was about to destroy them with the weapons on his orbiting Damocles Base when it was attacked by the huge black pyramid that Triathlon and others got control of by defeating the Triple-Evil in #50. Kang projected his giant image outside in space to dwarf his base and the pyramid, but this holo-image can do physical damage. So Triathlon used the pyramid's systems to give Captain America a similar image, and the 2 giants began to duke it out.

The pyramid is getting closer, and Firestar, Jack Of Hearts, Justice, Living Lightning, Photon, Quasar and Vision fly ahead leaving the physical Cap with Triathlon (currently merged with 3-D Man and his brother Hal) and the caged Jonathan Tremont (leader of the Triune Understanding revealed in #50 as a power-mad villain). As Cap and Kang fight, Steve Rogers and the physical Kang feel the effects of their blows. And within Damocles Kang also is told by his son Marcus, the Scarlet Centurion, that the Base is under renewed fire from the Avengers on Earth which threatens to break through the ship's forcefield.

This weapons fire comes from the Arctic base that used to belong to the Master Of The World (until Warbird killed him in #48). Now the Avengers have learned how to control it. Wasp is coordinating the fightback from the base. She has scientists Black Knight, Stingray and Yellowjacket monitoring the Damocles' variable forcefield and adjusting the weapons fire to compensate. Meanwhile she's sent Firebird, Iron Man, Thor, Warbird and Wonder Man into space for a direct attack. En route Carol Danvers agonises over killing the Master. Firebird tries to apologise for her angry outburst to Thor last issue but he just grimly flies on.

Cap and Kang continue to pummel each other in giant-size while each declares his confidence in winning. Damocles Base is simultaneously firing on the pyramid, and Triathlon is having to concentrate on getting damage to the structure repaired as well as firing the pyramid's own weapons. But Quasar's group have now reached Kang's ship and are starting their own bombardment. And Justice is telekinetically scanning the Base looking for a forcefield control the synthezoid Vision can remote-control.

Tremont tries to shake Triathlon's confidence by reminding the former Triune member that he judged Jonathan evil for using power drained from his acolytes against their will in order to try to save Earth from the Triple-Evil's pyramid. But now Delroy Garrett is using the power of the pyramid to try to save Earth from Kang, and they both know where that power stems from.

Meanwhile Thor's team show up to add their fire power. Quasar suggests they all attack different areas of the forcefield, but Tony Stark advises them that the field will adapt to each of their attacks. He suggests their best chance is to all hit the same place to overload it. And Wasp has sent them some extra help in the form of the Presence and Starlight. (Last issue saw Wasp-coordinated rebellions all over the globe. 1 of them was in Russia where these 2 started turning Kang's forces there into radioactive green skeletons under their control.) All the energy-casters pour their output into 1 spot on the forcefield, and Iron Man detects that it's weakening. (In an aside Presence plans what reward to claim after they've won, but Starlight warns him that she'll leave him if he tries taking over Russia again.)

Back at the giant-size fight Kang's holo-image suddenly dissolves. Kang himself is wrenched out of his holo-projection armour. The continuing assaults have damaged Damocles' systems and Marcus reports that they are now in defensive mode. He suggests retreating to the future and returning refreshed, repaired and rearmed to the instant they leave. Kang rejects such trickery (though he's done just that before). He planned this war well and should win it here and now. He anticipated the Presence and the alien pyramid (as seen in #42). The only thing he doesn't understand is how the Avengers now have the Master's tech. And Marcus lets pass a 2nd opportunity to confess that in his infatuation with her he aided Carol Danvers in defeating the MOTW (#48).

Cap wants the pyramid to continue attacking Damocles Base, but Tremont's words have made Triathlon wary of doing that. Delroy tells Steve that the power of the pyramid consists of the lifeforce of all the aliens the Triple-Evil has defeated, and their spirits are still in there. It was OK to use them against their enemy the Triple-Evil, but not against *Earth*'s enemy Kang. The spirits long to be free. Cap is conflicted but he can't help but agree.

Jonathan Tremont is angry with disbelief - the aliens' souls don't matter when the Earth is at stake. He reveals that he's been secretly absorbing power to escape. But now he bursts free and takes even more. Tremont in energy form flies out of the pyramid towards the Base. He's mortally wounded by an energy blast. But he unleashes all the stolen energy, joining in with the heroes. And this tips the balance and the Damocles forcefield fails. The heroes seize the opportunity to invade the base, and only Justice looks back at Tremont's body floating in space.

In the Master's Arctic citadel Wasp tells her science trio to scan the interior of the now-revealed Damocles and send the info to the attack team, while still continuing to make the Master's fortress blast away at Damocles in space.

Within Damocles Iron Man, Photon and Wonder Man are downed by blasts. Justice telekinetically stops enemy troops from attacking them. IM recovers but Vance Astrovik has to take Monica Rambeau and Simon Williams to safety.

Damocles is now concentrating its fire on the MOTW base, and the Arctic installation starts to fall apart. But Yellowjacket has located Damocles' power core and Wasp delays evacuating in order to contact Warbird and guide her to the site. When Carol Danvers gets there she finds Scarlet Centurion as the last hurdle. Marcus says he doesn't want to fight her but he will. Carol hesitates, but Jack Of Hearts bowls the Centurion out of the way. And Warbird dives into the power core. When she was Binary she channelled the energies of a star. She has since lost the link to that star, but she can still handle that level of energy. She absorbs it all and then releases it in a blast that shreds the interior of Damocles Base.

The invading Earthers escape, but Kang's troops aren't so fortunate. Kang himself stalks the dying craft looking for his son. Marcus has been doing likewise, and when they meet he urges his father to escape with him in the command pod back to the future. However Kang says he'll stay to meet his fate, but Marcus must go on to carve his *own* place in history. He pushes the Centurion into the escape pod and triggers it manually from without. The pod flies clear and then vanishes into the timestream.

And Kang is left on his giant sword-spaceship plunging afire into Earth's atmosphere.






Kieron Dwyer
Rick Remender
Tom Smith
Kieron Dwyer (Cover Penciler)
Kieron Dwyer (Cover Inker)
Tom Smith (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Richard Starkings.
Editor: Tom Brevoort. Editor-in-chief: Joe Quesada.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

3-D Man
3-D Man

(Chuck Chandler / Hal Chandler)
Black Knight
Black Knight

(Dane Whitman)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
Jack of Hearts
Jack of Hearts

(Jonathan Hart)
Kang
Kang

(Kang the Conqueror)
Quasar
Quasar

(Wendell Vaughn)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)

Plus: Firebird, Firestar (Angel Jones), Jonathan Tremont, Justice (Vance Astrovik), Living Lightning (Miguel Santos), Photon (Monica Rambeau), Presence, Scarlet Centurion (Marcus Kang), Starlight, Stingray (Walter Newell), Triathlon (Delroy Garrett Jr.), Warbird (Carol Danvers).

> Avengers: Book info and issue index

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