This is "From a Different Point of View," a feature where I discuss a comic book series with another writer. In this case, it is Eileen Gonzalez who will be going over the history of the Avengers with me, story by story!
When last we checked in with our heroes in Avengers #82, "Hostage!" by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tom Palmer, the Avengers had agreed to split up, with Cap, Iron Man, Thor and Quicksilver going after the supervillain organization known as Zodiac, Black Panther taking on organized crime by himself and Vision, Scarlet Witch and Goliath go with a new hero, Red Wolf, to try to stop the old Avenger foe, Cornelius Van Lunt, from driving Red Wolf's people off of their land.
Red Wolf and his squad of Avengers succeed and Goliath, Vision and Scarlet Witch return to New York City, but have Cap and the others basically lost control of the city since they've been gone? Find out in Avengers #82, "Hostage!" by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tom Palmer.
Eileen Gonzalez: Another comic book trope is how ALL the other supers are out of town right now.
Eileen Gonzalez: This is partially Aries' plan, but partially just luck, since Spidey is stuck at home with Aunt May and Doctor Strange is not mentioned at all.
Brian Cronin: Yeah, but it's interesting that Thomas knew of the importance of shared continuity enough
Brian Cronin: To at least write Spider-Man into the issue
Brian Cronin: And, of course, have Daredevil play a key role.
Eileen Gonzalez: Yeah, it's impressive! But having a shared continuity as complex as Marvel's has become always lends itself to loopholes.
Brian Cronin: Definitely.
Brian Cronin: By the way, I love Clint's take on how they are locked out by the force field.
Brian Cronin: "Vision's powers, my fist, nope, no one else here has abilities that could take down a force field."
Brian Cronin: "No one here can alter probabilities and make force fields collapse."
Brian Cronin: "Nope, it's just either Vision's powers or my fists."
Brian Cronin: "And nether of them are working, so there's nothing that can be."
Brian Cronin: "NOTHING"
Eileen Gonzalez: This may be a new low for the Scarlet Witch. We're just pretending she's not in the room now.
Brian Cronin: By the way, Spider-Man's reasoning is also pretty specious, no?
Brian Cronin: "I can't let Aunt May know that New York City has been INVADED?"
Brian Cronin: How do you expect to keep THAT a secret, dude?
Eileen Gonzalez: Right? Is he going to lock her in her room or what?
Eileen Gonzalez: And I love how Aunt May woke up because Peter was talking to himself. The hazards of living alone, I guess.
Eileen Gonzalez: Spidey's whole sequence is pretty weak.
Brian Cronin: It was really just, "Oh, hey, Spider-Man is just not going to be in this story, k?"
Brian Cronin: That should have been it.
Brian Cronin: Just a couple of panels of Peter Parker at Aunt May's house.
Brian Cronin: And then the captions, "Oh, hey, Spider-Man's not going to be in this story."
Eileen Gonzalez: We get Daredevil instead!
Brian Cronin: Thomas was writing Daredevil at the time
Brian Cronin: And boy, he gets his voice down pat.
Brian Cronin: We also get a quick reference to the only comic, so far, that actually followed Black Panther's "I gotta leave the Avengers to fight gangs" story, which was a guest star bit in a then-recent issue of Daredevil.
Brian Cronin: Which is a bit of a shame, as I think that could have tied in more explicitly to this overall story.
Brian Cronin: "We're breaking up! We're going to help Red Wolf, you're going to go look for the Zodiac and Black Panther is going to show up in some other book that we didn't announce at the time"
Eileen Gonzalez: Kinda feels like they didn't know what to do with the "new" Black Panther
Brian Cronin: Yeah, which is weird, as doesn't it seem like they could have easily built a comic book (or at least a comic book FEATURE in one of their anthologies) around that concept?
Eileen Gonzalez: At least a miniseries or something! Yeah, I could see that working.
Eileen Gonzalez: At least Black Panther going solo means he wasn't captured with the other Avengers and can come to their rescue... ish.
Eileen Gonzalez: He tried.
Brian Cronin: Ha!
Brian Cronin: Yeah. Also, how would Black Panther be able to protect Daredevil from FLAMES?
Eileen Gonzalez: Asbestos suit? Or those herbs that gave him his powers are stronger than we thought.
Brian Cronin: By the way, while a bit silly, it's also a really well drawn actions sequence
Brian Cronin: Gotta love dialogue like Aries shouting "To the wall of captive Avengers!"
Eileen Gonzalez: What's annoying is that Aries just lets them go when he could easily finish them. Not good judgment there, friendo.
Brian Cronin: It'd be funny if the comic book went long because Buscema kept squeezing in these reaction shots from citizens to Aries' various declarations.
Brian Cronin: I love the citizens willing to fight back, inspired by Daredevil
Brian Cronin: But then, as soon as he is seemingly knocked down, they say, "Oh shit, never mind, let's all give up."
Eileen Gonzalez: Yeah, they sure gave up in a hurry, didn't they?
Eileen Gonzalez: This is not the same crowd of New Yorkers from Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, are they.
Brian Cronin: But once Daredevil has freed the big guns, I adore Thor's reaction.
Brian Cronin: "Free again! To strive and to conquer!"
Brian Cronin: What the whay?
Eileen Gonzalez: Thomas was probably just going for fancy Asgardian dialogue, but he's normally more careful about word choices than this. Thor's dialogue this issue is weirder than usual.
Okay, folks, join us next time as we finish our discussion of the epic battle in Avengers #82 (and its less than epic resolution). In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any thoughts about these Avengers issues and/or discussions.
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