Synopsis / Summary / Plot
At the end of last issue the UN made an offer to the Avengers. This issue we discover that the team has agreed to work for the UN, and now Avengers Mansion has been renamed Avengers Embassy and is no longer part of the USA. Defence Secretary Dell Rusk isn't happy about the US losing control of the Avengers but the President tells him to drop it.
In the Embassy Edwin Jarvis is supervising the creation of a new Assembly Room. Henry Peter Gyrich is trying to insist that the team be cut down to 7 members (as he forced them to do when he was their US Government liaison way back when). Captain America stands firm that he and his co-chair Wasp will decide how many Avengers there are, and who they are. HPG also wants to take over security from Jarvis but the butler puts him down too. Gyrich is almost reduced to begging. Cap says he'll appoint him their UN liaison, because everyone deserves a 2nd chance.
Then Sub-Mariner flies in with a new Atlantean-crafted meeting table to replace the 1 he damaged in a tantrum in #59. He avoids apologising by saying it's a gift of gratitude (for saving the Earth's oceans from being sucked dry by Scorpio's vortexes in the last arc). Steve Rogers asks Namor to rejoin the Avengers, to show the world the hero he knows (from their days in the Invaders). Subby laughs and says Cap always did have a sense of humour - and flies off.
Other Avengers are having new ID cards created. Vision is made to smile for his holographic headshot but is *not* pleased by the result. Extra-tall She-Hulk is equally unhappy that the camera cut off the top of her head. Scarlet Witch has recovered from her ordeal in the last arc and she enters to say *she* always liked Vision's smile. But her ex-husband ghosts away coldly and Wanda Maximoff leaves dejected. But a little later Vizh finds her again. He startles her by phasing through a wall because she hasn't got used to the fact that his skin now goes transparent when he does so (a result of his battle with the synthezoid Gremlin in the Avengers Icons: Vision mini-series). He apologises for his earlier abruptness, and the smiles return to their faces.
Cap and Wasp have a meet with Falcon and Thor. Sam Wilson agrees to stay on as an Avenger, and Steve tells him he has a special surveillance mission for him. But Thor (now Lord of Asgard after Odin's death) gruffly says he has more important things to do and quits.
Meanwhile Iron Man confronts Black Panther. He accuses King T'Challa of Wakanda of foreseeing this UN connection would happen and that's why he joined them for the Scorpio arc - he's only here for the top security clearance to every country in the UN. (He has grounds because BP recently admitted he only joined the Avengers the 1st time round because he wanted to keep an eye on them as a potential threat to his country.) He also accuses him of manipulating people like chess pieces, which almost got IM killed (during BP(1998)#41-45 - Enemy Of The State II). But T'Challa indicates that he *will* be staying in the Avengers.
Yellowjacket (Henry Pym) is recovering from the injuries to his hands in the Scorpio story, but Ant-Man (Scott Lang) still manages to make him laugh. Wasp joins them to offer Scott a place in the team, but he says he's got to concentrate on the custody battle for his daughter Cassie. 1 thing he won't miss is Jack Of Hearts (they didn't hit it off). Jack is currently having 1 of his 10 hours a day confinements to the Zero Room.
Cap shows the new team to the public. Besides him there's Black Panther, Falcon, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, Vision, Warbird, Wasp and Yellowjacket. (JOH is presumably on the team too, but possibly more so that they can try to help his 'condition' - we'll get to that next issue.) Wasp attends to a flagpole which we see is flying an Avengers flag and a US flag. (I presume she's going to take down the US flag leaving the Avengers flag alone as on the cover.)
Late that night Henry Gyrich goes home to his apartment where he finds Dell Rusk waiting for him. The Secretary wants him to be the Government's spy in the camp. In return he promises any Government position he wants, even a seat in Congress. Gyrich flatly tuns him down. So Rusk picks him up by the throat and threatens him, claiming to be relaying the President's orders. And Falcon's bird Redwing watches through the window. And we know that what Redwing sees and hears Sam Wilson does too.