Avengers #674: Review

Dec 2017

Mark Waid, Jesus Saiz

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Worlds collide: part 5

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Avengers #674 Review by Rob Johnson (December 15, 2017)

This is part 5 of the Avengers/Champions crossover 'Worlds Collide'.

We haven't met the Higher Evolutionary before. He is not to be confused, as I did briefly, with the Low Evolutionary who was a human who opposed the High Evolutionary on this Counter-Earth in Uncanny Avengers vol 2.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #674 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Continued from CHAMPIONS #14.

The Avengers and Champions are on Counter-Earth trying to stop the collision between that planet and Earth organised by the High Evolutionary. The HE escaped at the end of Champions #14, but the teams are heading deep beneath his citadel where a means of salvation should be available - a machine to change the vibrational frequency of Counter-Earth so that it will pass through the Earth. But allegedly they will have to face someone even the Evolutionary fears. And they only have 58 minutes left.

Thor (Jane Foster) and the teen version of Cyclops are smashing and blasting the way through barriers. They are miles underground, and Wasp (Nadia Pym) figures there must be an incredible magnetic field keeping the C-Earth's heat out. Vision calculates that they are nearing the optimal place for the machine to be.

With 52 minutes to go they reach a large door, which Hercules and Nova (Sam Alexander) force open. Behind that they find a deep shaft which even Thor's lightning can't show them the bottom of. The fliers will carry the non-fliers down. Once again Vision tries to tell his now-human daughter Viv Vision to stay behind. Once again she refuses.

With 48 minutes left they start down. Thor carries Cyclops and Spider-Man (Peter Parker). Wasp carries Hercules. Falcon (Sam Wilson) has Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). Nova takes Hulk (Amadeus Cho) and teen Spider-Man (Miles Morales). And Vision reluctantly lifts his daughter.

Vision takes the time to tell Viv what he's been hinting at for the last couple of issues. Vizh says he met a version of himself from the far-future (#5-6 of the 2017 series) and learnt that he will live for millennia. But when he created Viv he built her to age and die with a normal human lifespan. This is why he is so protective of her. (He doesn't mention that High Evolutionary turned her fully human last issue.)

They reach the bottom with 33 minutes remaining. And they are confronted by 3 giant Ani-Men (a minotaur, a tiger-man and a snake-man) each with 2 human-sized versions on leashes - who won't let them past. But while the others engage in combat Viv Vision sneaks around the side as the countdown reaches 29 mins.

There are only 18 mins left when Viv finds another large humanoid with armour very similar the the HE's, manacled in front of the machine. He tells her he is the Higher Evolutionary, created by the HE from his own genetic code. The HE considered his Ani-Men failures and wanted to create a better species to replace them. But the Higher E had compassion for the Ani-Men. He begged the High E not to destroy them, and so his father imprisoned him down here.

With 9 mins to go Viv tells him that the High E has fled. She and her friends can help him if he lets them use the machine. But he is immediately suspicious because tampering with the Orbit Engine will destroy the planet. High E didn't chain him here - Higher E put himself here to protect the machine. Viv tells him that his father has set his Earth to collide with *her* Earth and only the Orbit Engine can save both planets. But he doesn't believe her.

All this while we've seen the other heroes fighting the Ani-Men. Now with 5 mins left Viv continues to try to convince the Higher Evolutionary. And with 3 mins to go he breaks his bonds and steps aside. Behind him is a short lighted tunnel. Any slight adjustment to the controls at the end will be enough to avert the collision. But only he can survive the vibrational feedback.

But as he prepares to enter the others arrive. He believes they are attacking him, and fights back because he thinks Viv lied to him and they intend to destroy Counter-Earth. So at the last minute Viv enters the tunnel, with memories of her short life flooding through her brain. She lays her hands on the control surface at the end, and CE fades as it meets Earth. But Vision watches his daughter too fade away.

The there are 2 epilogues.

1st the Avengers and Champions standing over a gravestone for Viv Vision.

2nd Viv herself in a white space.

So what's left for the conclusion in CHAMPIONS #15?

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