New Avengers (2005 series) #28

I haven't written up #26 and #27 because they don't fit into our Libraries. They are basically solo tales of Hawkeye and Echo/Ronin respectively. Scarlet Witch killed Hawkeye and destroyed Avengers Mansion in Avengers Disassembled. She recreated him as part of the House of M reality, and killed him there again. But in #26 he finds himself alive in the ruins of the Mansion. He goes searching for Wanda via Dr Strange and Genosha where she was in the HoM reality, then finds her in Transia where she was born but without her memories. Finding her doesn't help Clint. There's something disturbing about Wanda's Aunt Agatha who keeps to her own room. She is presumably Agatha Harkness who taught magic to Wanda. But SW killed her in Disassembled and kept her corpse for company, like Norman Bates' mother. Presumably she's still a corpse here. (Agatha appeared to appear in Marvel Knights Four #25-26 but was really Nick Scratch in disguise.) The opening section obviously occurs straight after House of M. The search meanders through Civil War and then Clint turns up again in Fallen Son #3 (Captain America). Maya Lopez (Echo) featured as Ronin in the adventure with the New Avengers in Japan in #11-13, and stayed there to fight the Yakuza. But in #27 (which is also effectively mainly flashback) she sent a message to her friend Matt Murdock for help. In the Civil War period she was killed by Elektra and the Hand. But they resurrected her and started brainwashing her to be their agent. Now a new team of New Avengers turn up to rescue her, including a new Ronin. This Elektra is a Skrull and has been since the Daredevil arc The Murdock Papers, where she was also already head of the Hand. The real Elektra's last appearance before that was in the Wolverine arcs Enemy of the State and Agent of SHIELD. In there she was also leader of the Hand, but only so she could destroy them from within.

While researching what the Official Index and Marvel Continuity Project say about what the New Avengers characters have been doing since Civil War I uncovered a continuity problem. Looking back in MCP's forum archive I find that there was a lot of discussion about the sequencing of the relevant issues and the Wolverune part of this subject was raised, but then seemingly forgotten about. I have proposed an amendment to the MCP, which they have agreed with. The MCP timeline has the connected sequence of flashbacks in #28-30 immediately before the non-fb action in #27-31. But in Fallen Son #1 (Wolverine) I described how Logan believed Captain America could be alive in this issue's flashback whereas he verified his dead body in FS#1. The solution was to move this issue's fb before FS#1. Similarly, in Civil War: Initiative (before FS#1) Spider-Woman was told that Cap was alive and in this fb she tells the New Avengers this. But she's spent FS#2(Avengers) and #5(Iron Man) plus Captain America #26 with the New Avengers, so why would she wait until now to tell them. Also it definitely sounds to me as if this flashback is the 1st time the NAv have seen SW since the Civil War. Moving this fb to before the FS series solves this problem too. The split in the 3-issue flashback is necessary because #30's fb must occur immediately before the non-fb story in #27-31. I proposed to split the combined fb within #29, and I'll go into more detail on that next issue. Putting this part of the fb before FS also explains Iron Fist's comment that they haven't heard from Falcon since Cap's assassination, rather than since they meet him after the funeral in CA#26. In fact Sam Wilson becomes a registered hero in the CA series. There is no contradiction with having this flashback early and no Ronin in the FS and CA#26 apps, because Ronin doesn't join until the #30 fb.

So now I'll just describe the exploits of the New Avengers characters between CW and this flashback. (I'll leave till next issue the events in the flashback gap.) Immediately after Civil War Spider-Man's Aunt May got shot at the end of Amazing SM #538, and then in ASM#539-542 Peter donned his (non-Venom) black costume and tracked down the man ultimately responsible - Kingpin, still in Ryker's. Then he was interviewed in the black costume in CW: Front Line #11. Meanwhile Danny Rand swapped his Daredevil costume for his old Iron Fist id in Immortal Iron Fist #1-14, to be joined by his old partner Luke Cage in many of the issues. And Wolverine featured in the X-Men: Phoenix Warsong limited series followed by fighting Sabretooth in his own #50-51. And Spider-Woman was in CW: Initiative of course. Then I place this flashback and part of next issue's. This is thus the 1st appearance of the latest incarnation of the New Avengers. Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman and Wolverine continued from their involvement in the resistance. Dr Strange basically sat the War out, but has now jumped in to host the team. The early placement of this flashback makes this the 1st appearance of the Mighty Avengers after they were recruited in the flashbacks in MAv#1-2.

After a series of 1-off artists for the Civil War issues and #26, Leinil Francis Yu from the Luke Cage issue #22 returns as penciller for a run (starting from last issue). Stephen Strange's security seems worse than useless. There's a password to get through the illusion of abandonment. Luke Cage forgets it but a voice says 'Shuma-Gorath' which is presumably it (as well as the name of a Robert E Howard demon and a Lovecraftian-type entity in the Marvel mythos). The same voice lets Spider-Woman in even though she's presumably not even been given the password. It would have been better just to say Strange's spell could recognise friend from foe. The whole 'Cap is alive' ruse doesn't seem kosher. Ms Marvel seemed to believe what she was saying in CW:I. Maybe Cap did hang on for a while but died later. But that doesn't explain why Maria Hill and the SHIELD troops acted here like the body was really Steve Rogers. Were they not in on the plot? Or were they continually play-acting in case some snooper was listening in? I don't believe either. Ronin will be revealed in #30 as Clint Barton/Hawkeye. More on that then. Silver Samurai was invented by Steve Gerber in Daredevil #111, but then Chris Claremont used him in several Marvel Team-Up stories and Spider-Woman, and then dragged him into the X-fold via New Mutants. He was soon deeply embedded in Wolverine's life as half-brother of Logan's doomed love Mariko Yashida, and he's never been able to extricate himself since.