Do You Believe in Magic, In a Young Girl's Heart? Avengers 187

Avengers #187 (September 1979)
"The Call of the Mountain Thing!"
Steven Grant & Mark Gruenwald (plot)/David Michelinie (writer)
John Byrne/Dan Green (pictures)

Doug: When we left Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Wanda had been taken over by an evil demon named Chthon and the Avengers had gone around the will of Agent Gyrich and headed off to the Balkans in a quinjet. And in the Marvel Universe, you know what a bunch of super-heroes in an airborne vehicle means...

Karen: I think the X-Men hold the record though. But before we go any further, I have to say that I've heard a lot of comments in the past about what a memorable cover this is, and I can't help but think that fuels the idea that this is a great story, which I think is debatable.

Doug:  It is a pretty nifty cover, though.  I think the color scheme of the background, emulating a little reddish-orange Kirby Krackle, makes it special.  I always wonder if artists turn the paper around to draw figures that are upside down.

Doug: As the Avengers approach Wundagore Mountain, after having received Pietro's call for help last issue, the quinjet begins to malfunction due to the magic forces at work. Wonder Man was asked to accompany the team in place of the Vision -- he had been ordered by Gyrich to remain behind. As the Beast loses the ability to effectively pilot the craft, Wonder Man slides into the lead seat. Cap orders all who can fly to prepare to evacuate. Beast protests, but Wonder Man straps his own belt onto McCoy, and jettisons him as well. The quinjet indeed crashes, but out of harm's way. Hank has no control over the flight belt, so faces a roller-coaster ride right into the side of the mountain. Once on the ground, however, Henry McCoy spies something odd that catches his attention -- more on that later. The rest of the team lands safely, only to come face-to-face with Modred. The Falcon attempts to stake his claim to "usefulness", but to no avail.

Karen: Falcon's been called up to the majors and he's trying to prove he should stick there. He gives a pretty impressive punch to Modred, but unfortunately it's shrugged off. I thought Wonder Man's bravery in taking the quinjet down seemed a bit uncharacteristic, as he had been portrayed as fearful of dying in the past, but perhaps he really did not think a crash would hurt him.

Doug: Wonder Man emerges from the wreckage and sees a bright light off in the not-so-distance. Recognizing it as a hex sphere he begins to head toward it when he's greeted not by Wanda Frank, but by the demon that has possessed her -- Chthon. Captured within an energy cocoon, he finds himself spirited away. Back to the battle against Modred, the mage makes short work of our heroes -- except for the winsome Wasp! Jan gets a clean shot in, and drops him. However, she's soon disposed of by the arrival of Chthon. Now all of the team is moved to the spot we saw in ish #185 where Modred had shown Wanda the altar. The Avengers, and Django Maximoff, are held inverted in stasis, in a circle, while Chthon begins to narrate his origin to Modred.

Karen: This story was my introduction to Modred (I'm sure this was true for many readers) and I was shaking my head at the time, wondering where this guy came from. I mean, he could take on the entire Avengers! I also liked Beast's discovery of the armored skeleton of one of the High Evolutionary's New Men on the snowy mountainside.

Doug:  I didn't know anything about Modred, either.  Where I bought comics a lot of the out-of-the-ordinary series like Creatures on the Loose, Monsters Unleashed, etc. were not sold -- I was tabula rasa here, so I appreciated all of these introductions and origins.

Doug: Chthon and his sister were the last of the gods who formed the Earth. She became known in legend as Mother Earth while he fled to Hell (inferred) after scribing the Darkhold -- the book that would be his gateway back to Earth. He then relates the history of the Darkhold, through the ancient world and on into the Middle Ages, when it fell into the hands of Morgan LeFey. She and other magicians had sought to bring Chthon back to Earth to do their bidding, but finding that they could not control him succeeded in imprisoning him within the mountain that would become known as Wundagore. Modred had actually attempted to use the Darkhold for good, but had become consumed by it. And on and on, through even more history, the tome encountered men who fell under its spell. Finally, shortly before the present a Russian named Gregor Russoff became cursed. In an attempt to raise money for his schemes, he sold Wundagore Mountain to two scientists. And here the High Evolutionary created his New Men -- warriors who eventually rose against one of Chthon's attempts at return.

Karen: This was both annoying and fascinating! It seemed to go on and on, yet I sat there nodding my head as I read it, thinking, "Oh yeah, the Darkhold is the book responsible for Werewolf by Night!" and so on. Typical convoluted Marvel lore.

Doug:  I got the same sense reading this as I did when I read the introduction to Thor Annual #5, and much later the History of the DC Universe.

Doug: To conclude (somewhat) the origin of the Scarlet Witch, Chthon tells that on the night he was defeated by the Knights of Wundagore, the twins were born. And as Wanda's birthright was her mutant powers, it was Chthon who also imbued her with latent magical powers. These would begin to manifest themselves under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness. As the demon tells Modred how he came to be Chthon's pawn, a Knight of Wundagore suddenly appears, distracting Chthon. Piercing the Darkhold with a lance, the hold on the Avengers is broken and they are free. Quicksilver strikes the face of his sister, attempting to punish the demon. But as Chthon shakes that off, the attention focuses on Django Maximoff, who still cradles the marionette of Wanda. He remarks that he had previously channeled her spirit into the doll. He finds that it is still there. Pietro deduces that the combination of the uranium-exposed wood on Wundagore, coupled with the magical essence of Chthon on the mountain, has indeed imbued the puppets with mystical powers. Seizing the doll, Pietro points it at the body of his sister in an attempt to exorcise the demon.

Karen: Henry McCoy to the rescue! Beast had donned the armor of the knight and used his flying steed to save the day. Loved that! Another thing I liked was how Byrne made the possessed Wanda appear more and more cadaverous facially as the story went on. She truly looked evil. At this point, with many years of perspective, I can say that I wish this connection between Wanda and 'elder forces' had never been made. It opened the door for many more opportunities for messing with the character, having her go nuts and go evil several times. Her learning magic was one thing; her being tainted by evil, so to speak, was another.

Doug:  Question:  Is this the same sort of flying device that Hawkeye would employ in later stories?  It seems that the Black Knight also rode a similar vehicle.

Doug: And here's where this story heads south for me. I'm just really not a fan of magic. I suppose from a writer's standpoint, it's pretty nifty because there are no rules and it's a built-in deus ex machina. And for my money this is what happens here. Quicksilver finds that there's not enough "will" in the doll to drive out the spirit. But Ms. Marvel steps forward and places her hand on Pietro's arm. Cap chimes in with a "we can do this thing" of his own. And then, in a narrative box I don't quite understand, David Michelinie writes: "And thus ensues a literal battle of wills, as six struggling heroes pool their concentration into a phalanx of sorcerous thought, hoping to restore a soul -- and in the process, save a world!" Whatever it is they do, it works -- Chthon's spirit is ejected from Wanda's body, her soul moves from the doll into her person as Chthon's essence is stored in the doll. Pietro races with the marionette to the top of Wundagore and hurls it into a chasm. Wanda, no worse for the wear, summons a mighty hex and blasts off the top third of the mount, it's debris falling onto the puppet, thus returning Chthon to his prison inside the mountain.

Karen: Yes, I didn't care for the whole doll thing either. The team joins wills -good vs. evil -and drives the demon out. Doesn't that sound more like Chris Claremont's stuff? In fact, the whole scene is very similar to the one in X-Men #108, where the team gives their energy to Phoenix so she can mend the universe. Also, why throw the doll in the chasm? Why not just destroy the thing?

Doug: As the story wraps, Bova offers to care for the eyes-are-open-but-no-one-is-home Modred, who looks an awful lot like Loki did right after the Avengers/Defenders War. The Avengers, their work done, walk off into the sunset. I suppose they didn't fly commercial out of Sofia, but how they got home is a mystery.

Karen: You're dead right about the Loki-Modred thing. I guess that's what happens when you form alliances with devils.

Doug: So, how was this as far as an origin story goes? Did we learn anything? To recap -- we know that Bob and Madeline Frank were not Wanda's and Pietro's real parents. We know that their real mother was a woman named Magda. We know that the Maximoffs were not their real parents, either, but had a role in raising the children. In spite of knowing who their mother was, we know only that she was scared of their father because he had begun to manifest real power -- scary real power. She'd fled, to hide the children from him (do you think George Lucas read this story?). And for all the loose ends to be tied up, we'd all have to wait four years, until the conclusion of the first Vision and the Scarlet Witch mini-series. How 'bout them apples?

Fire on the Mountain, Lightning in the Air: Avengers 186

Avengers #186 (August 1979)
"Nights of Wundagore!"
Steven Grant & Mark Gruenwald (plot)/David Michelinie (writer)
John Byrne/Dan Green (pictures)

Karen: I gotta say: I'm a sucker for floating heads on a cover, especially all lined up like that. Don't ask me why. We're back with the middle section of our three-part review of this late 70s story featuring the Avengers' brother and sister act, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Last time you'll recall, Wanda had been kidnapped and Pietro had run up the mysterious Wundagore Mountain to find her, only to come crashing into an invisible barrier. Here, he awakes to find himself in the care of a humanoid cow, Bova, who is serving him milk soup. No, really.
Doug: Milk soup... is that like mushroom soup, without the mushrooms? Hey, before we get too far into this, I want to throw out a "thank you" to my partner for her patience with me over the past couple of days. For those of you who don't know how this works, we always reserve Mondays for our tandem reviews -- the rest of the dates are first-come, first-served as individuals, with the occasional collaboration thrown in. So Mondays are a big deal for us. Well, my son's graduation party was Sunday, and all of the preparations, cleaning, etc. as well as the day itself got the best of my blogging. So I appreciate everyone's patience during one of my "real life" interludes.

Doug: I, too, love the floating heads covers. While certainly other mags had their fair share, this motif always cried out "Avengers" to me.

Karen: Not a problem pal! Bova explains to Pietro who she is, and her story ties in with the birth of his sister and he. Bova was "evolved" from a normal cow by the High Evolutionary. She was to serve as the nursemaid to the children of the New Men the Evolutionary was creating. One night, a pregnant woman, Magda, came to Wundagore seeking sanctuary. She explained that her husband had gained great powers and had begun to talk about ruling the world. Fearful, she fled him. Bova and Magda grew close, and the cow-woman delivered Magda's twins, a boy and a girl. You guessed it, they were Wanda and Pietro. As Wanda was born, there were bright lights in the sky, and the tiny babe also seemed to glow at the same moment. But the children were healthy and Magda was pleased. However she took left them behind, leaving a note that said she feared her husband would find the children if she stayed with them.

Doug: For a somewhat cross-referencing of some of the events on Wundagore, you can check out our review of Spider-Woman #1. As to Magda and the twins, it was difficult to read the line about the husband becoming fearsome due to his acquisition of "great powers" with any sense of wonderment. I'm sure when I was a kid that went right by me. Now I think it's an ingenious little gem hidden in a throwaway line. And don't the artists (colorists included) do a remarkable job of making Magda look just like Wanda? Hmmm -- and who were we to assume Pietro looked like? Any thoughts on Bova's statement about Wanda's glowing like the sky lights? Is there a reference, a foreshadowing, that I'm not getting?

Karen: It's coming, but not til next issue. Not long after the twins were born, Robert and Madeline Frank -aka the Whizzer and Miss America - came to the village below the mountain and the High Evolutionary summoned tham. Madeline was pregnant and died giving birth to a hideous still-born child. The Evolutionary presented the twins to Robert Frank, representing them as his own children, but Frank was filled with grief over his wife's death and ran from the mountain. This really reflects poorly on the Whizzer, don't you think? Finally, the Evolutionary, certainly fed up by now, decided to play God and appeared before a Gypsy couple, telling them to take the children and raise them. The couple had lost their own son and daughter so they were more than willing. Bova wraps up her flashback by saying she stayed behind on Earth when the Evolutionary took to the stars.

Doug: Do we know what happened to Miss America after WWII? As this is a retcon, was there ever an explanation in the 1950's comics as to her fate? I agree -- Bob Frank doesn't come off as looking too good. Also, I'm going to have to check out the Nuklo stories, as the whole "still born" thing has me curious. What was the High Evolutionary's role in his growth? I'm sure I'm just forgetting something. And... what "personal reasons" would a cow have in wishing to stay on Earth? No grazing in space?

Karen: So the origin of the twins is a convoluted one. While tying together past references to their childhood, Michelinie has also sown the seeds of the idea that Magneto was their father, without actually stating such. But he was not the originator of that idea. Both Byrne and Steven Grant had come to the idea separately. Anyone who is interested in the backstory should take a look at this post from Comic Book Legends Revealed from May 2010. It'll explain it all.
Doug: The Magneto non-reveal is really all here, isn't it? In an era when comics would soon become way too confusing, this is a nice, slow evolution. I'm still not sure it makes sense overall, but it does create that legacy feeling among Marvel's characters -- so even as the relationship to Golden Age heroes the Whizzer and Miss America falls away, a new older/younger generation tale dawns. Here's my next question -- has the Jewish heritage of Wanda and/or Pietro ever been mentioned or played a role in a storyline? Oh, and one other question -- would the offspring of a mutant still be considered a mutant? It would seem to me that any mutation would be passed on simply as re-ordered DNA. There would have been no mutation in Wanda or Pietro.

Karen: The other sibling in our story, Wanda, is being held on top of Wundagore by that mystical loon, Moodred. It seems his magical powers are greater than hers. However, Wanda still has her mutant hex power, and it frees her. She and Modred begin throwing spells around, but she quickly realizes that he's stronger than her. She feigns defeat, only to give the wizard a good sock to the jaw, sending him plunging to his doom. Wanda frets that she's never killed before, but she couldn't let Modred unleash the occult force in the mountain; it could kill millions. Unfortunately for her, Modred comes back and blasts her from behind.

Doug: There are some really nice panels during this battle, and the coloring is a big-time enhancer. I like the original bondage scene, with Wanda suspended by magic while Modred floats above the Darkhold. As they really get to blasting each other, there's a really cool panel somewhat akin to depictions of Havok. Lastly, I thought there was some real force behind the blow Wanda landed on Modred's kisser!

Karen: Well, hey, she was trained by Captain America! As Quicksilver prepares to go back up the mountain, despite Bova's pleas not to, Wanda's face appears in the stormy skies above. She tells Quicksilver to flee and sends a blast of energy at he and Bova. Bova convinces him that he can't face whatever's waiting on the mountain alone. He finally concedes and runs towards the village. On the way, he finds Django Maximoff, his foster father, wandering in the forest. Suddenly the trees themselves attack them. Pietro grabs Django and races for the village, as the sky erupts in a hail of rocks, and the earth splits open before him. Pietro outruns it all and makes his way to the post office (the only place with a phone) and places a call to Avengers mansion.
Doug: I am just full of question today! In the panel where Pietro is snared by the mystical tree branches and vibrates his body in order to create enough friction to set the limbs ablaze -- have we ever seen Quicksilver use this Flash-like power before?

Karen: I seem to recall him using his speed in a variety of ways back in the Kooky Quartet days, but not so much later on. The Vision is on monitor duty and gets Pietro's call. As friendly as ever, Pietro calls him 'robot' and tells the android that Wanda has been possessed. The rest of the Avengers are having dinner as the Vision phases through the wall and tells them what's happened. Cap begins to issue orders to get to the quinjet when who should appear but the government watchdog, Henry Gyrich. Gyrich says there's no way the team is going to Bulgaria, as it's not a matter of national security and they don't need another international incident. Cap is fed up and disappears for a moment. As the Beast berates Gyrich, Jarvis appears with a telephone, a call for Gyrich. The crew-cut bureaucrat begins to yell at the person on the line until he discovers it's the President! Cap certainly has some clout. The President says the Avengers need to head out for a 'goodwill tour' of Bulgaria immediately. Gyrich is humiliated, but has another trick up his sleeve. He says the Vision will have to stay behind to continue monitor duty. Enraged, the android Avenger grabs Gyrich and hauls him off his feet, but a cooler headed Cap intervenes, telling him they don't want to lose all their privileges, and that they will bring Wanda back safe. The Vision accedes, although he is clearly furious.
Doug: Ah, yes -- back to the regular Pietro we all know and loathe! You may recall that last week I said he was actually somewhat likable; yeah, not any more. How silly is it (and we've discussed this before) that Ms. Marvel and the Falcon are eating with their masks on? There has been some nice characterization for the Vision in this series of issues. His condition always made great fodder for the writers, though.
Karen: He looks as furious here as he did back in Avengers 95, when he nearly killed a Skrull commander in his rage over Wanda's abduction. Gyrich is lucky Cap held him back -we all know what happened to that Skrull! Back in the shadow of Mount Wundagore, Quicksilver and Django hope that the Avengers will arrive in time. But their hopes are shattered when the door to the office flies open and an explosive force blasts them unconscious. On the last page, a possessed Wanda stands over their bodies, proclaiming that there is no more Wanda, only Chthon.

Doug: Pretty scary stuff! It's a great splash page, too -- as we've said, John Byrne was really at his peak around this time.

Karen: This wouldn't be the first or the only time Wanda would be possessed, but I think it did set things up for her to be possessed again and again. Why does Marvel seem to require that their powerful female characters become possessed so frequently? Her powers were redefined here, giving her a much closer tie to magic, which may not have been such a good thing eventually ("Avengers Disassembled", anyone?). Still, the art here is fabulous, with Dan Green doing a pretty good job of inking Byrne, who was in top form.
Doug: The possession angle, or the storylines where characters have to fight evil doppelgangers, does grow tired. I don't mind super-baddies whose powers somewhat mirror the hero's (Flash vs. Professor Zoom, for example, or Hulk vs. the Abomination), but the turning bad of good guys will certainly be abused in the coming decade that was the 1980's.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough: Avengers 185

Avengers #185 (July 1979)

"The Yesterday Quest!"
Steven Grant & Mark Gruenwald (plot)/David Michelinie (writer)
John Byrne/Dan Green (pictures)

Doug: Before we begin, I just have to say that this comic book is a slice of "fallen angels" history. In the middle of the magazine, within five pages of each other, are ads featuring Pete Rose and O.J. Simpson. Talk about being your own worst enemy... OK, on to today's fare. How do you feel about origin stories that are told much later? We've discussed among us that Wolverine became quite a bit less interesting as more layers were stripped away from his backstory. I think in the case of Wanda and Pietro, there was a sense of coolness in the fact that these were (as Karen says) "legacy heroes" -- the offspring of Marvel's 1st generation of super-heroes. With the notion that their parents were Miss America and the Whizzer, Marvel had in these two young mutants something that DC Comics has made a hallmark of their universe. But what happens when all is not what it seems, or what we believed?

Karen: By the late 70s, DC had plenty of legacy characters -the Super-Squad, the Huntress, and so on. At this point, only Wanda and Pietro could trace their lineage back to the heroes of yesteryear. At least that's what we'd thought. But honestly, that Whizzer/Ms. America idea had only popped up five years prior to this issue, in Giant Size Avengers #1. So even that origin was relatively new. Before that, we really didn't know much about the siblings, other than their Gypsy roots and association with Magneto and the Brotherhood.

Doug: Although we're going to review this three-issue arc, it would have been helpful to have seen the last few issues. This one opens right after the big battle against the Absorbing Man, with a wharf and warehouse destroyed. A local cop asks who is going to pay when the owner finds out, and since there's no Absorbing Man to hand over, Iron Man coyly wonders if a check from Tony Stark will suffice to keep the Avengers off the hook. Remember, this is in the period immediately after the arrival of one Henry Peter Gyrich and the incessant meddling of the United States government. The battle against the Absorbing Man was also one of the first with the new 7-hero line-up -- the line-up which had left Hawkeye on the outside while the Falcon got a spot based on Affirmative Action. As Iron Man talks to the police, Hawk stalks off, to emerge minutes later in his civvies, with a duffle bag over his shoulder. He tells the team that he's done (again) and exits. The rest of the heroes return to Avengers Mansion.

Karen: Hawkeye really did get a raw deal, but instead of handling it stoically, like a stereotypical hero, Hawk fumes about it. And that's exactly what I'd expect from him!
Doug: Once at the Mansion, there are a series of short vignettes that really show the characterization we grew to know and love during the Bronze Age. Stark puts a move on Ms. Marvel, who returns the sentiment (did anyone think it was a bit naughty back in the day when Carol told Tony he could "bump her" any time?). Jocasta hears the banter, but leaves, feeling out of place. She heads to the parlor, where the Vision sits brooding. Jocasta tries to strike up a conversation, but the Vision remarks that he's distracted by Wanda's absence -- her trip with her brother Pietro to their Balkan homeland is on his mind. But when Jocasta uses the word "worried", Vision calls himself a "machine", and questions whether he is capable of emotion. This is off-putting to Jocasta, who leaves him.

Karen: Ms. Marvel was a really different female Avenger; Wasp had always been a flighty, girly-girl and Wanda had been reserved. Ms. Marvel was more assertive and confident than either of them. Her flirtations with Stark seemed fitting. I was more taken aback by the Vision's behavior. By this time, it seemed like he had accepted his emotional side and gotten past the whole Wonder Man issue. His treatment of Jocasta seems out of character.

Doug: The story moves to Transia, a small nation nestled in the Balkans of Bulgaria. Wanda and Pietro have come here with Django Maximoff, the old man we'd seen in several of the previous issues often cradling a marionette of Wanda or Pietro. Pietro cannot sleep, and his mind wanders to his childhood -- at least to what he can recall of it. He sees himself and Wanda, playing in the presence of a mother and father, the father carving puppets from wood. They are Gypsies, transients as those people could be. Pietro recalls always being told to take care of his sister -- an order that was impressed upon him repeatedly. The camp was eventually burned, and the twins fled as villagers beat their father. But Pietro wonders, too, why Wanda's memories always settle on Wundagore Mountain, and of Bob and Madeline Frank entering a citadel to have their children -- twins. Madeline died in childbirth. Of course, as the twins became young adults, they fell in with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants -- but could never find further clues as to their heritage.

Karen: I liked this sequence. It was a fairly long recap of the sibling's history, but it was done well. My only surprise was the lack of notations regarding which books these scenes had occurred in. I thought that was still common at Marvel in 1979.

Doug: I never tired of the editorial footnotes -- even if they referenced only an issue or two past. That was an element that made every issue back in the Bronze Age a jumping on point. As Pietro retired, Wanda was in the next room sleeping. A narrative box alludes to her "will-induced slumber" -- is that an example of her probability-altering powers? I don't know if anything like that was addressed before or after. Suddenly her room is illuminated by the presence of another: Modred the Mystic. Modred paints himself as an ally, displaying a clairvoyance toward Wanda's presence in the mountains. He convinces her that he can help, and she allows him to spirit her away to Wundagore Mountain. But once there, they are attacked by defensive mechanisms, devices installed by the High Evolutionary. Modred allows Wanda to defeat the blasters, perhaps in an attempt to size her up. The come upon an altar, with a book laid open hovering above it. Modred remarks that the tome belongs to him who he serves, but the altar is for Wanda. Then he takes her out with some nasty beams of his own!

Karen: I just recently got Marvel Chillers #1, which features the first appearance of Modred. But when I first read this issue, I had no idea who he was! It didn't really matter, I suppose. His role is clear enough. I think we see a more confident Wanda here -a product of the years that Steve Englehart wrote her. Prior to his handling of her, Wanda would never have gone off without consulting Pietro!

Doug: I agree -- and I agree that I like the relatively safe ambiguity of their relationship here, unlike the heinous perpetration in Ultimates 3 with the "no implication required" incestuousness. So Pietro awakes the next morning, and discovers that Wanda is not in her room. Asking around the inn, he cannot find anyone who knows her whereabouts. A quick patrol of the village reveals nothing. Suddenly a young girl tells him that she was awakened in the night by a blinding light atop Wundagore -- and off speeds Quicksilver. Racing up the mount, he's repelled by a forcefield. The recoil sends him down, hard. He blacks out from the strain and comes to in a cottage. His wounds are tended to by a stranger, who suddenly reveals herself to be a... talking cow!

Karen: I always felt Byrne did a great job depicting super-speed. Pietro's search for Wanda, and his consequent frantic run straight up the mountain were really exciting. His depiction of Bova, the cow, was also well done. This character could have been cartoony or ridiculous, but he managed to make her look very realistic.

Doug: John Byrne's art is really solid in this story. This was certainly during the period when Byrne's figures had some mass to them; and Byrne has always been a master of facial expressions. Dan Green does a good job on the inks, but as we all know Terry Austin is the gold standard for Byrne inkers. I read this from the comic book, and it seems a bit muddy here and there -- I'll write that off to the printing process and paper quality of 33 years ago. I also want to give a shout-out to Pietro Maximoff -- he's actually likeable in this story! Scribe David Michelinie makes him seem a bit more introspective and less spontaneously combustible. That rounding-out allowed me to empathize with the speedster rather than simply loathe his presence, which had been standard operating procedure over the previous several years' appearances.

Karen: I agree, Pietro's characterization here seems much more in line with how he was during the Kooky Quartet years. You know, it might be interesting to trace his path over the years and figure out exactly when he really turned into a jerk. It seems like it began with Roy Thomas but later writers ran with it, probably a bit too far.

Doug: So you're saying he got "Hank Pym-ed"?