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Avengers #15: Review

Feb 2019
Jason Aaron, David Marquez

Story Name:

The battle for the throne of the damned

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Avengers #15 Review by (March 2, 2019)
Again the only thing to do with War Of The Realms here is the promo banner on the cover.

All the Legion Of The Unliving are new chars except for Baroness Blood. She was a foe of the modern Union Jack (Joe Chapman) in his 1998 mini-series (where hse found the Holy Grail and became immune to sunlight) and #4-5 of the 2004 New Invaders series, which team UJ was a member of (where she was a member of Axis Mundi, a Nazi terrorist group).





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #15 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
There's Civil War amongst the vampires and Dracula's side is losing heavily. The contenders are the Shadow Colonel and his Legion Of The Unliving. The Colonel and his Hellhound Sarge allowed themselves to be captured by the Avengers and taken to Avengers Mountain. But this was only so that Sarge, who can walk through walls, could get to Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes and with a magical incantation turn him into the kind of Spirit Of Vengeance that previous GR's have been.

So now Sarge's master doesn't have to pretend anymore. The armoured Colonel beats up Blade and turns to mist to avoid Captain Marvel's attack, causing Carol Danvers to fly headfirst into a wall. Black Panther and Captain America join them but Cap is set upon by the blazing Sarge. But the villains are only delaying things until Ghost Rider drives his Hell Charger car through various walls to reach them. The large spiky GR is hardly recognisable, and a blast of Hellfire gives the bad guys time to escape. All the while we've had a voiceover from Robbie trapped helplessly inside GR.

Iron Man and Thor get there when it's all over, and She-Hulk even later. The Avengers lose track of the demonic car, but Blade opines that they'll go after Dracula to sic the Rider on him. T'Challa says he's received reports that Dracula has surrendered himself to the Russians.

Later Iron Man uses his stealth armour and hacking skills to get into Russian Federal Penal Colony 9 in Sol-Iletsk (which according to Wikipedia in our reality houses FPC 6, known as the Black Dolphin Prison) and talk to Dracula who's in serious confinement. There follows some verbal sparing as the vampire tries to get under Tony Stark's skin by telling him things about his father Howard. He then says that people like Howard Stark told him secrets in the hope of gaining eternal life (as vampires). And he's bartering those secrets to the Russians for protection. Tony offers the Avengers' protection instead, but Dracula doesn't trust any team that has Blade the Vampire Hunter in its ranks. Iron Man says he could just *take* Dracula away by force. But the vampire lord says he'll be too busy dealing with the riot. And alarms go off.

Elsewhere in the prison Crimson Dynamo is trying to deal with rampaging prisoners who are acting like rabid animals. He asks if anyone has checked on Dracula and is surprised to find Iron Man fighting by his side and telling him Drac is still in his cell. CD tells Stark he's under arrest, but Tony suggests to Dmitri Bukharin that they concentrate on the problem at hand 1st. He also tells him that Dracula is behind this but doesn't seem to *want* to escape.

We switch our POV now to Madripoor where Shadow Colonel and his Legion have some more vampires at their mercy. These vamps plead that they keep a low profile and only "feed on the blood of the wicked", but the Legion kill them all anyway. And now we get properly introduced to the members. The armoured Rat Bomber has an army of trained rats bearing sunburst grenades. The Japanese Snowsnake and the giant bat-thing called the Carpathian have allegedly been active since prehistoric times, and they forebear from killing the Colonel as long as he gives them a plentiful supply of other victims. Baroness Blood, Lily Cromwell, is expecting the War to give rise to the 4th Reich.

When the slaughter is over Blood points out that their victims fought hardest in front of a vault at the rear of the room. We now find out why the Colonel has a small Man-Thing on his shoulder. He tells them/us that he grew the Boy-Thing from a piece of the original. SC carries a Gatling Gun that we saw fire wooden stakes last issue. Boy-Thing provides the wood for the stakes. Now the Colonel uses the gun to blast open the vault. Inside they find vampire children. The Colonel calls in Ghost Rider to prove his loyalty by burning them all.

In Russia the riot has been quelled and IM and CD check on Dracula along with 2 others of the Winter Guard, Darkstar and Vanguard. They still wonder why Drac did this - just to prove he *doesn't* want to escape? Dmitri agrees not to arrest Tony. But punches his armoured fist into Stark's armoured gut anyway. Iron Man leaves and reports back to Panther that they're not going to get Dracula without a fight.

In Madripoor Ghost Rider unleashes the flames that have been building up inside him, but deliberately misses the children. The Colonel orders him to wipe them out, and Robbie Reyes says "No". So SC utters a spell which causes GR great pain and prepares to kill the kids himself. Except that the 2 Cap's, Blade and Thor bust there way in. And the Colonel tells GR to kill *them* instead.



David Marquez
David Marquez
Erick Arciniega
David Marquez (Cover Penciler)
David Marquez (Cover Inker)
Justin Ponsor (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Tom Brevoort. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Black Panther
Black Panther

(T'Challa)
Blade
Blade

(Eric Brooks)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel

(Carol Danvers)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
She-Hulk
She-Hulk

(Jennifer Walters)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)

Plus: Baroness Blood (Lily Cromwell), Boy-Thing, Carpathian, Crimson Dynamo (Dmitri Bukharin), Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Legion Of The Unliving, Rat Bomber, Sarge, Shadow Colonel, Snowsnake, Vanguard, Winter Guard.

> Avengers: Book info and issue index

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