Dee-doo-dee-doo
Doo-dee-doo
DEE DOO DEE DOO
Dee-doody DEE
BEE
BEE BEE BEE BEE
BUM BEEBOODA-DUM
We’re kicking things off with a bang in the double sized first issue; the aptly named
And There Came a Day!
Well, it’s one of those deals where every act change has a title, but that’s the most accurate one for the kick off to a new Avengers run. You could also call it
Once an Avenger or
Avengers Assemble or even
To Face a Foe, if you want.
Anyway, we kick things off with a cold-open that partly exists to let George Perez show off why, exactly, he's one of the best damn comic artists to ever live; as we're shown several former Avengers (Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Crystal, of the Inhumans) are out on a lunch date, complaining about the ludicrous amount of paper-work one has to put up with when a giant psionic demon boots you out of the universe, and then you suddenly reappear one year later like nothing ever happened.
There's forms for that kind of thing, apparently.
Anyway, their pleasant lunch is interrupted by a hoard of furious air-borne trolls.
As is the lunch of damn near every B-and-lower tier superhero who has ever shown even a passive interest in Avenging anything;
Everyone from Black Panther down to D-Man gets attacked by monsters largely out of Norse mythology, all across the planet, simultaneously. And the monsters all disappear at the same time. nd more to the point, even if there was a group of people around, the monsters all
specifically only attacked former Avengers. The entire New Warriors team showed up, and were largely ignored except for the one guy who Captain America on his speed-dial.
Anyway, the mosnters all disappear, leaving a sizable chunk of Earths superhero population to go "Whu?"
...
And we cut to Avengers Mansion, the present home base of the Avengers, where four of the original members of the team (Captain America, Iron Man, Wasp and Giant Man). We also get an info-dump in the form of a news report getting everyone up to speed on why, exactly, the Avengers haven't been aorund (Heroes Reborn happened, and then Thor and Dr. Doom said "Oh... nah", and then Heroes Reborn immediately stopped having happened).
The News Report also mentions that, yes,
technically, The Hulk was a founding Avenger, but he also immediately quit the team, since it was a group that was formed in order to beat him up, specifically, and he didn't see that as being a healthy environment for him, emotionally.
Anyway, the OG Avengers are sitting around, enjoying a nice cup of tea, provided by Tonys butler, Jarvis, as they try to work out why everyone with an Avengers membership *except* them, was attacked by monsters out of Norse Mythology, and also being kind of bitter that nobody else thought to do any Avenging while they were all away; it's not like
every superhero was zapped away by Onslaught.
To be fair, the Thunderbolts were definitely doing a lot of Avenging. You can read the other thread I made to see how well they did.
Anyway; Janet mentions that since all the monsters were from Asgard, Thors missing, and this is the start of a new Avengers run, this situation is
probably Lokis fault. And, honestly, pretty compelling argument; especially when a disheveled Thor crashes in through a window screaming that the Earth is in danger.
Janet also managed to sneak in a Midgard* [*Earth] joke, which I always appreciate.
Thor doesn't really elaborate on what, exactly, the danger threatening Earth is, but the Avengers give him some Mutton and Mead (the implication being that the Avengers Mansion fridge always has mutton and mead on hand for when Thor is a
day) and after he's calmed down a bit, he mentions that yes, the world is in peril, and it's the kind of peril that requires a lot more than 5 of Earths Mightiest Heroes...
They need
ALL of them.
Cap BCCs the entire Avengers company when he calls for an Avengers Assemble, and brings in every (living) person who has ever Avenged, or thought that Venging might be a viable career path, which I honestly think was Busiek daring Perez to draw this page and make it coherent.
And of course he could. He didn't even need to draw everyone fighting a gigantic robot made of outer space in the middle or anything; this was a warm-up for him.
Anyway, once every Avenger who could viable show up has (the Fantastic Four admit that most of their number HAVE been on the team at one point, but they've got their own comic to worry about, and Hulk left an angry voicemail asking to be taking off their calling list and that he has no interest in any crossovers), Thor finally explains why the world is doomed.
After Thor fought with Dr. Doom in order to end the Heroes Reborn timeline, each Hero who had required rebirthing found themselves back where they started from; and in Thors case, that meant the Eternal Palace of Asgard. Which, normally, would have been fine, because, you know... that's his house. But in this case, his reception wasn't as warm as it could have been, since Asgard, apparently, was completely destroyed, and empty of any life; from God to Monster, and the Bifrost Bridge that connected Asgard to the rest of the universe was shattered.
All of which would have been
pretty bad on its own, but one thing made it
significantly worse;
The Twilight Sword, the most apocalyptically dangerous weapon ever created, forged by melting down
an entire galaxy for raw materials, is
missing. The raw magic that runs through the Twilight Sword is so powerful that unsheathing it would immediately destroy and replace the entire universe. It's also the size of a large apartment building
So... umm... definitely something that's thankfully easy to keep track of.
Also bad, but
less bad is that the Norn Stones, Asgardian gems that can grant some pretty intense magic powers (like the Infinity Stones, but... lesser) have also gone missing, but Thor knows how to track them; they've been scattered around Earth, and the magic that powers them also opened up a pathway to Earth that also attracted everyone who at least a C+ in Magical Evil to the planet; which is why so many Avengers suddely got attacked by monsters.
It doesn't quite explain why only Avengers were attacked, but, I'm sure there's a solid explanation forthcoming.
Anyway, Thor and Cap come up with a plan, and it's a pretty simple one; split the (greatly expanded) Avengers into five teams; send each team after one of the scattered Norn Stones, and collect them to try to work out where the Twilight Sword went. Probably to Loki... this all really feels like a Loki kind of plan. It's also a pretty basic, GI Joe plot, really...
Justice is new to Major Superhero Teams and doesn't quite know how to handle himself, immediately ingratiating himself to me.
Anyway, the Avengers do their plan, each group heading to the far corners of the Earth in pursuit of the Norn Stones (Captain Americas team, including Quasar, Crystal, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Hercules and... umm... D-Man) but hit some unexpected snags. For one thing... a sudden tornado made of red lightning over Britain that requires the combined super-strength of Quasar and elemental control of Crystal to defuse.
Also, they just... find the Twilight Sword, which is presently just stuck into the ground outside Tintagel Castle.
Huh... kind of... thought that whole Norn Stone thing was going to need to get resolved first.
The team tries to speed-run this comicbook arc by grabbing the Sword immediately, but find it defended by a hoard of rock-monsters that abduct Wanda before she can react, and the actual villain of this storyline.
It's Loki, right?
It's definitely Loki...
This is a story about a new Avengers team coming together, armies of monsters from Norse myth, Thor's really concerned and stuff from Thor comics is the main focus, who else could it be but Loki.
You name me ONE OTHER incredibly ostentatious mythological arch-mage who wears a lot of gold and green and hates the Avengers just as much as they love theatricality.
Ah... well... okay... yes... that'd do it.
Morgan La Fey, as Quasar helpfully explained in that image I just linked, is... umm... the one from Arthurian Myth; she was basically the evil version of Merlin, wanted her weiner-kid, Mordred, to take over Avalon, but was thwarted. Basically the same deal here, except that she never really stopped trying, even after 1400 years of steady failures, and even though she's already a dominating warlord in one of the magical Otherworlds attached to Britain.
Britain, in the Marvel Universe, is basically built on the magical equivalent of a freeway turnpike; lots of Magical Demi-Planes are attached to it.
Morgan explains what her plan is and it's... pretty involved, I'll give her that. that she recently learned that the Celtic Magick she wields is, in fact, surprisingly similar to Asgardian Magic; not a 1:1 match, but close enough that she can do some real damaging things that really shouldn't have been possible otherwise; like summon beings from the Nine Realms, steal artifacts like the Norn Stones and Twilight Sword or shatter the Bifrost. The only thing she COULDN'T do, even with the Norn Stones boosting her power, was actually draw forth the Twilight Sword and rebuild the universe in her image; that requires ACTUAL Asgardian Magic to pull off. So she puts together a straightforward, 6-point plan;
1. She summoned armies of monsters to attack random former Avengers
2. This would inspire an enormous Avengers team to be assembled
3. She would then DIVIDE this enormous Avengers team by making some obvious macguffins to hunt down
4. She would personally show up, along with her weener-kid Mordred, to whichever team happened to have The Scarlet Witch in it
5. She would capture and torture Wanda until she released her Chaos Magic, because Celtic Magic + Chaos Magic = Asgard Magic
6. She would use Asgardian Magic, boosted by the Norn Stones, to draw the Twilight Sword and turn the Earth into a Medieval Fantasy Kingdom.
So she does (Quicksilver does get a chance to beat up Mordred a bunch trying to save his sister, at least), and Cap doesn't even have time to stop to think "Aw
crap" before Morgan draws the sword, rewrites history and FINALLY takes over the Earth.
Man... he
just got out of a rebooted universe.
NEXT TIME: The Knights Who Say "Fe"