Random Back Issues #158 - Amazing Spider-Man #328

I think I'm going to post these anytime someone does that bit.

Acts of Vengeance tie-in, whooooooo! This is the issue where Spider-Man breaks his own logo on the cover by punching the Hulk into, though I'm kind of fixated on how they colored Hulk's tongue green, while the rest of him's grey.

Anyway, Joe Fixit's trying to get some peace and quiet in the Nevada desert to mope about current circumstances, Banner being in control during the day. He's interrupted by Sebastian Shaw, while wondering if he's got to go to the Moon for a little privacy. Some mysterious group promised to take revenge on the Hellfire Club Inner Circle (including Magneto) if Shaw destroys Spider-Man. Spidey's suddenly a lot stronger so, get somebody really strong to fight him. The Hulk's game, for a price.

Back in NYC, the Statue of Liberty's been seized by terrorists with hostages. Spidey - who flew out there - is crouched on the torch, dwelling on his new powers and if they're too dangerous to use (he almost killed Erik Josten in the most recent issue of Web of Spider-Man), but figures he might as well deal with this. The terrorists are easily corralled, and he's able to alter his webbing's molecular structure to make it adamantium and encase the bomb.

Day saved, he and Mary Jane are off to a double date with Flash and his latest girl, who is a total Karen. Keeps having her steaks sent back as undercooked or overcooked, complains the waiter will hassle her for smoking - in the "No Smoking" section. Fortunately, MJ has to get to a location shoot for her soap opera before dawn and Peter's tagging along, so early bedtime spares us any more of Amber's charm.

While Peter's hanging around the shoot, he senses trouble. Hulk drops from a helicopter and decides to create a disturbance by chucking a Red Cross truck at a building. Look, I know the Red Cross is irritating with how much they hound people for blood, but that's uncalled for. Spidey catches it with webbing, and Hulk, while admitting that's a nice trick, says he's here to fight Spider-Man for money. 

Sick of being attacked by random dickheads, Spidey tackles the Hulk and knocks him down an alley, to Hulk's surprise. Before the fight can continue, Hulk remembers he crossed a bunch of time zones and is about to change into Banner. He wrecks an ambulance - Hulk smash insufficient American health industry! -  and bails, telling Spider-Man to meet him on Roosevelt Island tomorrow. The medics are OK but their ride's trashed, leaving Spidey to fly the patient to the hospital.

A confused Bruce Banner wakes up in an alley and manages to bum a quarter to call in sick, though he thinks a cop's eyeing him for panhandling. It's probably the fact you're walking around in torn pants, no shirt and no shoes, genius. Weirdly, the Hulk has a shirt (part of one) in both fights with Spider-Man, but Banner doesn't. Forget the incredibly stretchy pants, I need to know where these shirts are coming from!

That night, Round 2. Roosevelt Island's a deserted spot, which is why Spidey showed, figuring it was better than having Hulk come looking for him. The fight's inconclusive early on; Hulk can't hit Spider-Man, but even with the emergence of eye beam powers, Spider-Man's not doing much more than irritating Joe Fixit. But two kids, Stan and Steve, snuck out to the ruins to smoke, and Steve's not going to stand for anyone trashing Spidey! Hulk hefts a girder, just intending to scare them, but telepathy isn't one of Spidey's new powers - or he has no reason to give Hulk benefit of the doubt - so he punches him into orbit.

Literally. It's not the Moon, but plenty of privacy. Until the Sun rises, Hulk reverts to Banner and goes 'ker-pop!' Fortunately, Spider-Man flies up and brings him back to the surface, though Hulk of course insists he had everything under control. Still, as a favor, he won't kill Spider-Man. Spidey doesn't respond, wondering if he can even die. Later, commiserating with MJ, Peter wishes the power would just go away, while Shaw puts a very confused Banner on a helicopter and makes other plans.

Reading through this, I never realized what odd postures McFarlane gives Spidey. I knew about the hips that can seemingly dislocate at will when he's webswinging. But even when standing, Todd Mac gives Spider-Man these odd, hip-cocked stances, or he's webbing up the terrorists while standing on spread legs and bent at the waist. Strange, but maybe in keeping with Ditko's approach? 

{1st longbox, 75th comic, Amazing Spider-Man #328, by David Michelinie (writer), Todd McFarlane (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #147 - Spectacular Spider-Man #160

We'll check back in on these two later.

We looked at the previous issue 4.5 years ago, but today, Spidey's problem isn't random villains attacking him. At least not yet. Today, it's villains - Rhino, Hydro-Man and Shocker - fighting each other in what Spidey describes as beef over guys stepping on each other's turf. Probably shouldn't have used 3 villains primarily associated with the same hero, then. Especially since two of them were in the Sinister Syndicate together. Spidey drops the trio with one blast from his new powers, only to have onlookers start throwing crap and claiming 'super-creeps' like Spidey are 'worse than muties.'

Scumbag paparazzo Nick Katzenberg loves what he sees, hightailing it to Jameson's apartment. Jonah, his wife Marla, and Robbie Robertson's attorney (in prison over something involving Tombstone), Cynthia Bernhammer, are watching Congressional hearings on the proposed Super-Human Registration Act. Jonah is, of course, grousing that he's been telling people for years these costumed types were menaces, only now he doesn't have a paper to crow about it (because Thomas Fireheart, aka the Puma, bought the Bugle out from under him.) In a few months he'll have a new magazine running, but for now, he can only seethe. Katzenberg offers the photos, but wants a salaried position as staff photographer. His other condition? Jonah has to blackball Peter Parker. Oh no, Peter won't be able to work for a skinflint yellow journalist responsible for 20% of Spider-Man's rogue's gallery?

While all this is going on, Dr. Doom's got some guys pulling the TESS-ONE robot out of the muck off New Jersey. One of the guys nearly lets the (adamantium-coated) robot fall (into seafloor mud) due to not properly securing a secondary clamp. Doom considers letting it go, then kills the guy anyway, by shooting his air tank and letting him suffocate, all while lamenting incompetent help. That's what you get for not hiring union labor, Doc.

When Doom brushes off a summons from the other head villains, Loki (in his businessman disguise) and Kingpin pay a visit. Doom's not holding up his end of these acts of vengeance. Doom argues that he's got them a perfect weapon to destroy Spider-Man and has TESS identify Spidey as a super-soldier and smash a big-screen TV with his image. Doom brushes off Kingpin's concerns the robot might turn on them by saying it's under his complete control. Loki astutely, and quietly, notes that's the problem.

Peter returns home, but when MJ makes a comment that his new powers do make him look kind of menacing, he flips out, accusing her of siding with 'creeps and proto-fascists,' then jumps out the skylight before she can get him to calm down. Swinging across the city, Peter reflects he needs to apologize, and that he's still having a hard time not over-reacting to his heightened senses. Which is about when his spider-sense starts screaming, as TESS tears through the building he's clinging to.

Peter monologues how annoying these attacks are getting as he saves an officer worker from falling to his death and keeps onlookers from being hit by debris when TESS smashes what I assume is a statue of Columbus. The onlookers, of course, blame Spider-Man, which brings us back to the image at the top of the post, as Spidey encourages the robot to step into the ring for a few rounds. Let's see how that turned out.

TESS gets knocked clear across town into the Queensboro Bridge, where it begins to repair itself by drawing on the bridge. A new device Doom built into it, with the notion TESS would eventually draw on Spidey's new energy to rebuild itself. For now, the 'bot's content to throw cars. Spidey catches the first, the driver asking him to be careful of the paint. The next, the driver pleads for Spider-Man not to hurt her, even after the robot threw her. Fed up, Spidey unloads with enough energy to blow TESS to bits, shouting, 'I've Got Your Menace Right Here!' Which might be the most New York thing he's ever done, though points deduction for not gesturing to his crotch at the time.

All the drivers decide that, this time, they're better off spitting hate from the safety in letters to the editor and the local bars. Look, it's barely 1990, internet message boards aren't widely available yet (thank goodness.) That evening, Doom plucks what's left of TESS-ONE's head from the river bottom. It couldn't gather enough of Spidey's power to rebuild itself, but it still got a sample, so Doom figures he's made in the shade.

(Note: He is not, in fact, made in the shade.)

{10th longbox, 9th comic. Spectacular Spider-Man #160, by Gerry Conway (writer), Sal Buscema (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #75 - Avengers Spotlight #29

That is the most exposition-laden attempt at a threat I've ever seen.

We looked at the issue prior to this back in February, when Acts of Vengeance was in full swing, but it's into the epilogue now. So much so, the lead story isn't even part of the event!

Hawkeye arrives at the hospital in response to a plea for help. The guy making the plea, former Defenders supporting cast member and general pain in the ass Dollar Bill, specifically requested Daredevil, but supposes Hawkeye will do. 

Dollar Bill's been filming a cable TV show with Madcap, called, creatively enough, "The Madcap Comedy Hour." If the brief clip we see is any indication, it's basically Jackass, as Madcap is standing in a burning trash barrel, to the confusion of assorted homeless people. It doesn't actually harm him, as he hops out, scrubs off, and throws on a fresh costume, all while talking about the pointlessness of life. Then he gets abducted by two guys in a van whose hands turn into tools. Dollar Bill admits Madcap is obnoxious and a menace to society, but will "Mr. Eye" help him?

Besides, their show was just about to get syndicated.

Hawkeye, having either absolutely nothing better to do, or having taken too many shots to the head, agrees. He tracks the license plate of the van to the Scuzz Club, and has barely taken a seat at the bar before he's dumped through a trap door. Madcap's tied up, and there are three guys with tools for hands: Pick Axe, Vice, and Triphammer. Oh god, this is really scraping the bottom of the burning trash barrel. Hawkeye quickly frees Madcap, who gets an arm chopped off by the fourth member of the team, a lady with a saw for a hand. During the fight, he gets her glasses off and is able to use his weird eyes to make her go nuts.

Hawkeye reveals the one behind it, and as we saw, Dr. Malus thankfully introduces himself for people who wouldn't otherwise recognize a scrawny Dr. Octopus-looking dweeb. I'm not sure how he expected Daredevil to show up. Dollar Bill doesn't mention receiving a ransom note or anything that specified Daredevil. Smart guys, always missing the obvious stuff.

Malus sets the self-destruct, everybody clears out, then Madcap goes back in for his arm. There's an explosion, but he walks out fine, determined to find Malus, because whatever his machine was, the energy it produced made him actually feel. Clint regrets getting involved almost as much as I regret reading it.

The second story is actually Acts of Vengeance related. A bunch of villains are being dropped off at the Vault, right as Iron Man is delivering new models of Guardsmen armor. The rest of the Avengers depart, with Captain America asking Iron Man to let his "boss" Tony Stark know they appreciate his work helping make the Vault more secure. You know, after that time Stark broke in and wrecked all the Guardsmen armors. Iron Man says he'll make sure Stark gets the message, and Cap replies, 'I'm sure he will.' Because Captain America's not a dumbass.

Iron Man's just about done walking the guards through using the armor when the Wizard gets brought it, his costume neatly packed in a suitcase, courtesy of Loki. Klaw makes an attempted rescue, kicking Iron Man around with sound-created Triceratopses, but Shellhead creates a counter-frequency with his unibeam to dissolve them and then Klaw. 

The Wizard's suited up by now, not that I expect it to help much. But one of the Guardsmen shows up, wanting to handle things. Sure, should be good for a laugh. Well, he takes everything the Wizard can throw at him and drops him in just over one page. I was right, it was good for a laugh. How embarrassing. It's almost like the Wizard was a third-rate schmuck all along. The Guardsman proclaims this new (really bulky) armor as good as Iron Man's, who replies, 'Don't you believe it.' Tony is no doubt already planning another attack on the Vault to trash these new armors as well.

Inside the Vault, the Wizard, now stripped down to his briefs, can't resist the urge to run his yap. He claims the guard would be no match for him man to man. Has the Wizard looked in a mirror lately? The guard, who was nearly killed by the Wizard in the original breakout, obliges by getting out of the armor. Then he flattens the Wizard with one punch. Trust Dwayne McDuffie to know what I wanted to see.

[2nd longbox, 55th comic. Avengers Spotlight #29, "What's the Point?" by Howard Mackie (writer), James Brock (writer/penciler), Roy Richardson (inker), Mike Rockwitz (colorist), Jack Morelli (letterer); "Tales from the Vault" by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Dwayne Turner (penciler), Chris Ivy (inker), Mike Rockwitz (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)]

Random Back Issues #52 - Avengers Spotlight #28

That's it, that's the entire conceit of the story.

The last time we looked at an issue from this series, it was still called Avengers Solo, and focused on Hawkeye being roped into working for Silver Sable to get home after he was abducted and taken to France by his mentor Trick Shot. Now it's Avengers Spotlight, and we've got an Acts of Vengeance tie-in. Which would normally be cause for celebration on this blog, but the first story is pretty lackluster.

As arguments over the Super-Human Registration Act rage, Hawkeye and Mockingbird are committing robberies in Denver. Which is news to Hawkeye and Mockingbird, news they only learn by reading the New York Post (despite living in Los Angeles?). Hawkeye wants to sue someone, but Bobbi suggests they simply investigate, so they hop a Quinjet to Denver. Since they radio the airport for permission to land, the cops are waiting, stunned they actually come back. Clint's ready to throw down, but a convenient radio call informs the police Hawkeye and Mockingbird are robbing a bank.

The heroes rush off, and when they reach the bank, well, Mockingbird thinks she's seeing doubles, but Hawkeye sees Angar the Screamer and Screaming Mimi (the future Thunderbolt Songbird). I don't know if I'd ever really looked at her Screaming Mimi get-up, but holy shit that's terrible. Turns out the two acoustic-based villains figured out their powers could combine to make Angar's hallucinations something other than weird monsters. So they decided to impersonate two Avengers and have a crime spree. Brilliant.

 

Anyway, Hawkeye's immune because he doesn't have his hearing aid turned up (not joking), so he catches them with no sweat. Not sure how he was able to talk with the police or Mockingbird if he couldn't hear the villains' sound powers, but maybe it's some sub-harmonic his hearing aid can't detect. 

The second story is a bit more clever. Makes sense, considering it was written by Dwayne McDuffie while the first one was by Howard Mackie. The mysterious guy (Loki) who convinced all the bigwig villains to team-up, is making the same pitch to the Mad Thinker. Who declines, because he predicts disaster for everyone involved, especially Mysterious Guy when his "brother" figures out he's behind it. Loki freaks out the Thinker deduced his identity and bails, but the Thinker's not quite done for the day. The SHRA passing would be bad for a lot of his schemes, too, so he decides to turn public opinion against it.

Several weeks later in Washington D.C., Wonder Man and the Wasp are supposed to make a speech about why the SHRA is a bad idea, although neither is sure what to say. Great planning there, team. They're saved from needing to be eloquent by the arrival of a large man calling himself, eventually, Gargantua. He starts picking up cars and throwing them around, although he's confused at the reason. Wonder Man's trying to fight him, but he forgot his little jet packs he wore on his hips, so he can't reach the guy's jaw.

 

Really? Guy's only 50 feet tall or so. Wonder Man's supposed to be a strong as Thor. He can't do a Hulk-jump that high? Spider-Man can almost jump that high. Fucking lame, Simon, go back to your crappy Arkon movies.

Anyway, the Wasp figures an attack from inside might go better and flies in Gargantua's ear. Where she hears a voice giving commands. She crawls further in, reflecting this guy never cleans his ears, and finds some little transmitter, which she smashes so she can give orders.

Outside, Simon's climbed a telephone pole, and Gargantua, as ordered, politely bends over so Simon can paste him one. Simon and Janet figure out what to say for their speech, to a crowd already fired up by their heroics, and the Thinker sits in his lab and reflects it was nice to win one for a change, even if helping heroes isn't something he wants to make a habit of.

I like the idea that not all the villains were on-board with this scheme, for whatever reason. I know in Spectacular Spider-Man, they nodded at the fact that some villains didn't appreciate others horning in on their turf so to to speak, and started fighting amongst themselves.

{2nd longbox, 54th comic. Avengers Spotlight #28, "Denver Doubles" by Howard Mackie (writer), Al Milgrom (penciler), Don Heck (inker), Paul Becton (colorist), Jack Morelli (letterer); "Second Thoughts" by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Dwayne Turner (penciler), Chris Ivy (inker), Mike Rockwitz (colorist), Jack Morelli (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #47 - Spectacular Spider-Man #159

Has anyone studied it to see how big a pie you can make with 24 blackbirds?

All right, Acts of Vengeance tie-in! It's gonna be a good Friday! (Note that I'm typing this on Monday evening, so the week between now and then may have put that to lie entirely.)

We're in Month 2 of the Spider-books tying into Acts of Vengeance, and Spider-Man is still trying to get a handle on his strange new powers. Which is how he finds himself floating in mid-air without realizing it. Worse, his spider-sense is reacted with almost blinding sensitivity to everything, and he can't keep himself from reacting on instinct. Like when it warns him of a flying camera drone, and he immediately tries webbing it, only for the drone to explode.

Doom's spying on him, trying to understand the source of the new powers, so he can claim it for himself. When the Wizard calls and says he's busted the Brothers Grimm out to send after Spidey, Doom politely suggests they start in the Lower Midtown area and sits back to watch.

The old spider sense kicks in, saving Peter from an awkward conversation/job offer from Jonah (having lost the Daily Bugle to Thomas Fireheart, who made it pro-Spidey as a way to pay off his 'debt of honor' to the webslinger), and directs him to Madison Square Garden. Which promptly lifts into the sky.

When people say no team on earth should be as incompetently run as the Knicks, this is not the solution they were hoping for.

The brothers are using some the Wizard's anti-gravity discs, and now that Spidey's there, start in with the exploding pies and tear gas Easter eggs. None of which does more than annoy Spidey, so they make the anti-grav discs detonate and try dropping the Garden on him.

Spidey does three panels of exposition about how sick he is of random nuts trying to kill him recently, while using his webbing to keep the arena suspended in mid-air. Which is enough to convince the villains it's time to run, not that it does them any good. Spider-Man catches up easily, and is able to make himself stop reacting instinctively to all the different warnings his spider-sense is putting out, and finishes the fight by swinging one Brother Grimm into the other.

Peter's feeling pretty good about himself until his spider-sense goes off again, and he instinctively shoots a webline at the threat, blowing up another camera drone. So much for having things under control.

Before it was all said and done, Doom would throw Goliath (Erik Josten, the future Thunderbolt Atlas), and the TESS-ONE robot at Spidey, both of whom would push him further, but eventually get trounced (and in TESS' case, completely obliterated). Doom doesn't get his hands on the Captain Universe power, either, unless there's a What If? out there I missed.

[10th longbox, 8th comic. Spectacular Spider-Man #159, by Gerry Conway (writer), Sal Buscema (penciler), Mike Esposito (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #119

"Under New Ownership" in Damage Control (vol. 2) #1, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Ernie Colon (artist), John Wellington (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

The second Damage Control mini-series took place entirely during Acts of Vengeance, which, if you know me, is considered a plus. They're called in by accident during the initial mass breakout at the Vault, although the biggest issue there is Captain America gets a little annoyed they were chummy with Thunderball. Mrs. Hoag resigns as head of the company to join the Commission on Superhuman Activities, leaving Robin in charge. The Punisher figures out Wilson Fisk was part owner of Damage Control (along with Tony Stark and Mrs. Hoag), and targets Robin as a possible criminal with connections to the Kingpin. Of course, Frank is in Dr. Doom's crosshairs, so he's got other problems.

The main conflict is that, with Fisk and Stark both selling their shares, the company is bought out by CarltonCo, and is promptly run into the ground. The new owner promptly guts the company, slashing pay, benefits, basically everything so he can use that money to pay off debts he incurred elsewhere. Boy, good thing such unscrupulous business practices don't take place all the time these days!

I don't know enough about the editorial staff at Marvel or DC in the late 1980s-early 1990s to know if McDuffie is making a point about either one with how Michael Souris and his weaselly assistant Roy Lippert behave, but I wouldn't really be surprised. Certainly the short-sighted, self-serving, cruel attitude towards the employees sounds familiar to things I've read about how those companies run. At one point, Souris tells Albert, the company comptroller who got Doom to pay his overdue bills in the last mini-series, that CarltonCo saves its tokens for the front office and the subway. Yikes. I'm guessing McDuffie was writing from his own experiences there.

Random Back Issues #25 - Avengers West Coast #55

I just had to go and open my fat yap about Byrne and his weird interest in who can and can't have kids last week. Now look where it's gotten me. Stupid dice.

We are one issue away from the "Darker than Scarlet" storyline, where the Scarlet Witch goes entirely off the rails. She spends most of this issue in a comatose state in their "Whackos" compound/mansion. Which is in low-Earth orbit because Magneto thought that would snap her out of it. Explains a lot about Mags' parenting style, right there.

That gets Immortus' attention, fresh off erasing a timeline where Lincoln gives John Wilkes Booth a taste of the back of his hand. Wonder Man and U.S. Agent (ugh) track the house into space, but something blows up, and then the house is back where it's supposed to be by the time Wasp swings by.

OK, whatever, that's more time than that deserved. Relevant to my interests, this is the end of the line for Acts of Vengeance, minus Loki magically fusing three Sentinels in one and sending them at a nuclear plant. The Avengers caught the Wizard after he and a few others tried to attacking the East Coast Avengers, but he can activate the dimensional door the "lackey" gave all the baddies to reach their secret meeting room. He gets back, learns Doom may have been a Doombot the whole time, and Magneto has bailed (for reasons detailed above). The "lackey" isn't too happy Wizard used the door in the Avengers HQ, since Thor could track it and reveals he's actually Loki, who's been manipulating them this whole time.

Or maybe he just took offense to the Wizard, of all villains, trying to boss him around. I will never get over how out of place that schmuck looks next to Doom, Magneto, and the Red Skull.

Thor does lead a bunch of Avengers there, except "there" is the Isle of Silence, where Thor fought Loki after the crap he pulled that brought the Avengers together in the first place. Every hero other than Thor is basically useless, to the point Byrne doesn't even bother drawing what Hank Pym (cargo suit version), the Vision (albino, emotionless version), or Hawkeye (just Hawkeye) are doing after bothering to have them there.

Thor and Loki fight in their usual way. Thor asks Loki to try, please, to not be such a dick. Loki yells a bunch of crap about Odin and hatred, and tries to use magic attacks against Thor. Thor yells "I say thee nay!" and smashes crap with his hammer. You know how it goes. Skull, the Mandarin, and the Wizard escape during all the fighting. Which is good, because it enables Magneto to find the Skull later and throw him in a pit to die slowly. (He does not die.)

Then Thor explains Loki was mad about inadvertently creating the Avengers, so he tried to create a Bad Guy Avengers of his own. Earth's Vilest Villains, or something. I'm not sure how the part where they farmed out destroying each other's villains to other bad guys who weren't on the team factors in, but it's Loki. He's a few crackers short of full pack.

{12th longbox, 126th comic. West Coast Avengers #55, by John Byrne (writer/penciler), Paul Ryan (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #14

 "Hope the X-Men Are Taking Notes", in Amazing Spider-Man #327, by David Michelinie (writer), Erik Larsen (penciler), Al Gordon (inker), Rick Parker (letterer)

Hot damn, I love Acts of Vengeance. Spidey with the serious power upgrade, where suddenly it's everyone else punching out of their weight class trying to fight him. Ahem, outside of the Acts of Vengeance issues, the David Michelinie and Todd MacFarlane/Erik Larsen run isn't a favorite of mine. Too much Venom (although that problem would only grow in next week's run), and I've never really loved Todd Mac's figurework. His people always looked a little too strange.

But there's a Sinister Six story not long after the issue above I don't mind; it continues Sandman's face turn. And another shortly after that where the Black Cat has to keep bailing out a temporarily depowered Spider-Man (who can't help himself when it comes to trying to help people). Although that one ends with Felicia depowered (a status that lasts about 25 issues). This is also when she took up with Flash Thompson, initially as some revenge against Peter for choosing Mary Jane? Oh and there's an Inferno tie-in much earlier that has a few pages of Spidey fighting a possessed Macy's parade balloon of himself. I have a soft spot for that one, strictly for novelty factor.

OK, so it's a mixed bag. The last issue before Larsen departed is a pretty good one involving Doctor Doom, though.

A Lot Of Rambling About Acts Of Vengeance

I'm in one of those odd writing moods where I have three or four ideas for posts, but none of them feel quite ready to go. For two of them, I'm waiting for the next batch of comics so I can see how a couple of things play out. The others, I'm just not feeling like they're ready.

I spent most of last night flipping through all the Acts of Vengeance tie-in stuff. I have pretty much everything, save the X-Factor issues, which didn't seem necessary. The team itself is off-world throughout, so the tie-in is limited to Apocalypse mulling over whether to join Loki's little roundtable. Since I know he declined, it didn't seem worth the trouble.

I had read something of Tim O'Neil's from 2012, relating to how much of a disaster Avengers vs. X-Men was in terms of logical progression or coherence, and he brought up Acts of Vengeance as a comparison for how there used to at least be a minimum amount of care given to making sure the pieces fit. He mentions used to have a reading order mapped out for the whole thing, which sounded like the sort of odd time-consuming exercise I might enjoy. That was one of my projects two summers ago, pick up all the AoV tie-ins I didn't already have, but I hadn't gotten around to trying to figure out an order until last night.

It's early stages for me yet, so I'm not sure how it's going. I currently have no idea where the X-books (Uncanny and Wolverine) fit relative to everything else. Wolverine precedes Uncanny X-Men for sure, but past that. . .

It is strange to see the Mandarin in that weird blue armor he rocks for most of the crossover, then to see Jim Lee slap him in a suit about half the time during the Uncanny arc. I think he looks better in the suit myself.

I don't understand how Iron Man #250 can come after the whole thing had started, considering Doom doesn't give any indication he's part of some group. You'd think Loki might notice when Doom is magically whisked away to the future by Merlin.

I know Doom wonders why he has to work with a common gangster like the Kingpin, but the guy who felt most out of place to me was the Wizard. Kingpin can at least say he's an archfoe for Daredevil and the Punisher, and as he noted, he's the closest thing to a Spider-Man arch-enemy of the bunch. Mandarin's an Iron Man foe, Red Skull for Captain America, Doom for the FF, Magneto for the X-Men, Loki for Thor/Avengers (even if they don't realize he's there). The Wizard's smart, sure, but I had a hard time buying him as a topflight villain. He tries, but it's never really panned out. I think the Leader might have served better, as a Hulk arch-enemy, but this was the Joe Fixit era, when the Hulk was allegedly dead (though Doom clearly knows better), so maybe that's it. The Jester made an offer to the Leader, but he sent one of his lackeys instead, so I guess he had better stuff to worry about. The Wizard has spent more time networking with lesser villains than the others, so perhaps Loki thought that would help.

The order of the Spider-books among themselves isn't difficult. Amazing, Spectacular, Web, starts with Amazing #326, ends with Amazing #329, which comes after the big Avengers vs. Loki showdown in Avengers West Coast #55. I've had all the Spider-Man issues for years. Cosmic Spider-Man is one of my favorite stories ever. watching him struggle with the new powers, with the question of what he ought to be doing with them. And the idea that after years of being the guy who always winds up in fights where he's punching way out of his weight class, now he's the guy everyone else is overmatched against. Him uppercutting the Hulk into orbit is something I always enjoy reading, at least in part because Joe Fixit Hulk is such an ass he needs to be knocked down a peg.

It's kind of interesting to see which of the lesser villains pop up in more than one book. Most of them are among the third-raters that get trashed by the FF in their crossover. Hydro Man, Owl, Shocker, Orka, Whirlwind. The last two oddly, were a couple of the villains that didn't seem to make a successful escape from the Vault at the start of the whole thing, while the Owl fled for Canada at some point (naturally running smack dab into Alpha Flight). Shocker gets dropped by Spidey alongside Rhino as a warm-up to Doom sending TESS-One after him. Hydro Man winds up in a team led by the Jester, and attacks the Avengers at a town hall meeting the heroes are using to try and address public concern about heroes. There's a whole backdrop to Acts of Vengeance about a Super-Hero Registration Act - which the FF were called to testify about, and which Reed Richards spoke against, in stark contrast to his behavior in Civil War, in case you needed reminding the latter story was a pile of burning garbage. If you were trying to forget Civil War ever happened, sorry.

Maybe the trick is not to take the Fantastic Four issues seriously. Simonson was clearly having some fun with it, because Doom ends up picking the FF's foes. The trick is, he uses a device that compels all these loser, second-rate villains to attack, when they have no hope of winning. Half the time, the baddies don't even reach the heroes, they get taken out by the security system or each other. Which is the point. Dr. Doom is damned if he's going to let anyone else kill the accursed 4, so no Ultron, or the Wrecking Crew or whatever for them, no sir.

It's also neat to see how the different lower-tier villains get into it. Some of the are approached directly by one of the roundtable guys. Web of Spider-Man and Spectacular, are Doom and the Wizard setting up different guys to go after Spidey (Doom's mostly trying to get a sample of that cosmic energy). Oddly enough, in Amazing Spider-Man, most of the threat comes from Sebastian Shaw, who isn't even part of the group, but is approached about killing Spidey in exchange for the death of the X-Men, and also had a Sentinel project going (and ultimately, Loki fuses all the Sentinels together to destroy a nuclear plant and that's why Spidey got the cosmic powers). Some of them get suckered into it (the U-Foes and Mole Man both go after the West Coast Avengers because they think the Whackos attacked them first), or dropped in with no idea what's going on. Loki basically blinks the Juggernaut out of an English prison and dumps him in New York. Juggy has no idea how it happened or why, but he's fine with smashing stuff until the reason becomes clear. And that's how we got the New Warriors, which is why Acts of Vengeance is the greatest Marvel event thing ever.

Then there are villains no one approached, they decided to get in on it all on their own. New Mutants has a whole bit about Vulture being pissed no one thinks he's worth using, except as a dope to free Nitro so he can wreak havoc. Then Nitro goes and gets punked by Skids, for pete's sake. Moon Knight runs afoul of Killer Shrike and Coachwhip, both of whom spend the entire fight bemoaning the fact they couldn't find anyone better to kill. Which is pretty funny coming from a couple of losers like them. Coachwhip was second-rate even among the Serpent Society, who are hardly the Masters of Evil when it comes to super-villain groups. The first time I ever saw Killer Shrike, he was attacking Spider-Man, believing the Webhead had been sent to get him by some mysterious group, only for Spidey to take him down in three pages, sighing internally the whole time how tired he was of fighting the same foes over and over.

One thing that was kind of nifty was only one guy figured out who was behind everything from the start, and it was the Mad Thinker. Loki - in his role as a mysterious benefactor - offered the guy an escape from jail, and spot on the team, but the Thinker turned him down. Saw a high likelihood of failure, and immediately surmised who he was talking to. It makes a bit of sense the heroes would have so much trouble figuring it out. Even when they can catch one of the people who attacks them, assuming it's one who was directly approached, that person was approached by one of the roundtable. Loki somehow managed to play to all their egos simultaneously, making them all believe it was really each guy's idea, and he was merely a lackey helping them out. Which has the benefit of keeping him in the background, and the heroes chasing after the other guys, not realizing that Doom attacking the Punisher, or the Brothers Grimm attacking Spider-Man are all part of the same plan, hatched by the same person.

I don't know, it'll be a process, but it's been fun to go back and reread the books. A lot of them I hadn't read since right after I bought them. But a lot of them have a tone that suggests the creators know this is a little silly, but they're having a good time with it. Quasar, for example, treats some of the threats as serious, Absorbing Man with the power of the Quantum Bands, but it doesn't insult your intelligence by treating Venom like a real threat to Wendell Vaughn. They put him on the cover, possibly as a joking sales boost thing, and Quasar takes him out in the first two pages, then goes on to have slightly greater trouble with Klaw, before getting stuck chasing the Living Laser into the Watcher's digs, only to get sidetracked by the Red Ghost. None of these guys are really on Quasar's level, but he's trying to be polite and careful, and each villain keeps popping up to attack while he's preoccupied with the previous one, so he only ends up with one by the end of the whole thing.

In most cases, the ongoing plotlines are treated as being more serious, and these attacks by unfamiliar super-villains are intrusions that highlight those problems. The Avengers are scattered and preoccupied with their own problems, so no one can show up to defend the Hydrobase, or they have to fight Freedom Force with a bunch of people unaccustomed to working together. Having Cosmic Power amplifies Spidey's usual concerns about power and responsibility. Daredevil's trying to figure out what the hell's gone wrong with his life, whether the problem is that he doesn't want to care about others, or that he still does. And here comes an Ultron who can't reconcile all the different views in its mind, it's issues as creator and created, which makes it a danger to itself and others. The X-Men are scattered, which makes Psylocke easy prey for the Hand and Mandarin, and Logan still hasn't recovered from the thrashing Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers gave him. And everyone else thinks they're dead, so no one's on the lookout to see if they're in trouble.

Some of the stories work better than others, some of the art is much stronger, but it really does hold together pretty well. There's a common sense of the heroes being caught flatfooted by it all, and struggling to figure out what's happening. Meanwhile, there's tons of property damage (since Damage Control has been purchased by entities that gutted its effectiveness in their own mini-series). That the damage isn't being rapidly fixed, raises public concern, which plays into the whole arc about the Registration Act. Most critically, the creative teams are able to, as I mentioned above, use the thing as part of their ongoing plots. The stories they were telling don't come screeching to a halt for the duration. They keep moving in the background (like Immortus' plans for the Scarlet Witch), or they stay in the foreground and absorb the event into them. Which is not something I feel a lot of books these days can manage. Some writers can (bringing up Civil War again, I still contend Nicieza on Cable/Deadpool, and Peter David on X-Factor did just fine using it, without letting the stories they wanted to tell be derailed).