Post by owene on Jul 31, 2010 9:33:40 GMT -5
Meltdowns and Mayhem
By Roger Stern, Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott.
Line Up: The Wasp, Captain America, She-Hulk, Starfox, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel and the Vision
Guests: Spider-Man, the Guardsman
Villains: Moonstone, Blackout, the Rhino, Electro, Lava Men
So what happens?:
The Avengers send the Lava Man back home and start to clear up. The whole episode has left Spider-Man overwhelmed by the sort of threats the Avengers deal with and how it just seems like a day’s work to them.
The escaped villains watch the Avengers on the monitor system and squabble over how to deal with them. It takes all of Moonstone’s wiles to keep Blackout and the Rhino under control.
Despite his mistakes dealing with the Lava Men the Wasp is prepared to think about admitting Spider-Man to the team and they all head for home via Project Pegasus’s air elevator tube system. As they float towards the surface someone cuts the power on the device leaving them all hurtling towards the floor before Spider-Man manages to swiftly web a safety net across the tube. The heroes set about finding whoever had caused the problems before they, like the Lava Men, could endanger Pegasus’ nuclear facilities.
The heroes are confronted by a strange dark wall made of an unknown slippery substance that, from time to time, dissolves to allow Electro to attack them with lightning bolts.
Using the facilities communication system Moonstone threatens the team and commands Electro to keep harassing the heroes from behind Blackout’s darkforce energy wall. Wanda manages to momentarily clear the darkforce only for the Rhino to send most of the team flying and Blackout to trap Captain Marvel.
The villains aren’t really a match for the Avengers and Electro and the Rhino are soon dealt with. Moonstone manages to escape with Blackout, causing enough damage to the nuclear reactor for the Avengers to have to stay and deal with it while she flees.
Using all of his scientific knowledge Spider-Man manages to give Captain Marvel the proper instructions to fix the reactor from the inside, saving the day and seemingly winning him a place on the team as a trainee.
However the US government has other ideas and insists that there is no way a security risk like Spider-Man can be allowed to join.
So is it any good?:
It’s a solid conclusion to the storyline. The villains don’t really have enough of a connection to the Avengers to make it very personal and while there is an attempt to give them some depth by having them rebel against their treatment by Project Pegasus Stern doesn’t really go very far with it, possibly because Pegasus were generally seen as good guys whatever the ethics of constantly experimenting on super powered subjects.
Of the four villains it’s no surprise that Moonstone is the most developed but I did like the way that Electro too could see straight through the pseudo-science that Blackout used to describe his powers as gibberish. I haven’t read Blackout’s first appearance in Nova but i’d imagine that the same science was probably played straight there.
Like the Rhino and Electro, Moonstone is identified as a Spider-Man foe here although she had actually had a few run ins with Captain America as well. Her lack of interest in staying and fighting the Avengers and the ease that she grabs control of Blackout are very much in character for her. I liked the way she mixed up Electro and Blackout’s powers to keep the Avengers away as well. She is always written as a good field commander, even if she doesn't actually like personal conflict much.
Spider-Man probably does do enough here to get membership, even if the story piles on doubts for him about the sort of cases the Avengers deal with. His scientific know how saves the day, I always like stories that show off Peter’s scientific knowledge but I can see how having him as the ‘brain’ in a team book doesn’t quite fit the character, when you actually analyse the different things Peter can actually do it would be easy for him to overshadow everybody else.
Having had Captain America complain about his unreliability and his keeping his spider-sense from the others you do wonder about them all just trusting him to have the knowledge be able to avert a nuclear meltdown. Having him in the Tony Stark or Reed Richards role is a little strange.
The Avengers were handled well, although for the second issue Captain Marvel puts everything right and in fact it takes Blackout’s vague powers to keep her from dealing with all the villains immediately as well. I guess that was why Blackout was dug up from the obscurity of his single Nova appearance to become a Master of Evil during the period, the book’s writers actually needed to take special steps to deal with Monica’s power levels.
She is a character I like a lot but given a writer like Stern who not only was her creator but had enough scientific chops to know just what someone with those powers could do she can overshadow the others a little.
Wanda throws up similar problems but is used a bit differently, she doesn’t dominate the stories very much but Stern does wheel her in to deal with anything the heroes face that you can’t actually logically bypass. She seems to just hang around in the background and then Jan will go ‘Wanda can you deal with it’ and someone will knock themselves out or things will fall into place. Not the most satisfying character dramatically when used like that.
As I mentioned Jan seems to be making a lot of decisions about how to deploy the team, particularly Wanda and Monica, I’m not sure if she was the chair at this point. A lot was made of Cap’s leadership in both this and the previous issue but she seems to be the one making the actual decisions for the team, including regarding Spider-Man’s membership. Stern’s Wasp is one of my favourite Avengers and her competence here is typical of that.
Of the others Captain America gets a lot less time here than last issue where he was handled very well. Starfox is very quiet and She-Hulk seems to find fault in everything Spider-Man does and bicker a lot, I liked that for some reason but it isn’t much characterisation really.
The art is quite basic but there are a lot of characters and a lot of panels per page and Milgrom tells the story solidly enough while keeping the characters fairly distinct. With Sinnott’s inks smoothing it over it is very 80s Marvel house style but it’s not something that will live in the memory.
Are there any goofy moments?
Not really
Trivia:
Spider-Man picks up on the injustice of the American Government allowing an alien like Starfox to be an Avenger while he is still considered a security risk. Stern plays on the mysterious side of the character by having Eros worried that he hasn’t actually revealed all of his powers to his teammates; something Captain America insists is a condition of a membership. I can’t remember how much Eros’ pleasure powers were dealt with during this run but later writers would pick up on how much of them he revealed to his teammates in She Hulk and elsewhere.
Is it a landmark?:
Not really, .
Where can I read it?:
It hasn’t been reprinted.
By Roger Stern, Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott.
Line Up: The Wasp, Captain America, She-Hulk, Starfox, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel and the Vision
Guests: Spider-Man, the Guardsman
Villains: Moonstone, Blackout, the Rhino, Electro, Lava Men
So what happens?:
The Avengers send the Lava Man back home and start to clear up. The whole episode has left Spider-Man overwhelmed by the sort of threats the Avengers deal with and how it just seems like a day’s work to them.
The escaped villains watch the Avengers on the monitor system and squabble over how to deal with them. It takes all of Moonstone’s wiles to keep Blackout and the Rhino under control.
Despite his mistakes dealing with the Lava Men the Wasp is prepared to think about admitting Spider-Man to the team and they all head for home via Project Pegasus’s air elevator tube system. As they float towards the surface someone cuts the power on the device leaving them all hurtling towards the floor before Spider-Man manages to swiftly web a safety net across the tube. The heroes set about finding whoever had caused the problems before they, like the Lava Men, could endanger Pegasus’ nuclear facilities.
The heroes are confronted by a strange dark wall made of an unknown slippery substance that, from time to time, dissolves to allow Electro to attack them with lightning bolts.
Using the facilities communication system Moonstone threatens the team and commands Electro to keep harassing the heroes from behind Blackout’s darkforce energy wall. Wanda manages to momentarily clear the darkforce only for the Rhino to send most of the team flying and Blackout to trap Captain Marvel.
The villains aren’t really a match for the Avengers and Electro and the Rhino are soon dealt with. Moonstone manages to escape with Blackout, causing enough damage to the nuclear reactor for the Avengers to have to stay and deal with it while she flees.
Using all of his scientific knowledge Spider-Man manages to give Captain Marvel the proper instructions to fix the reactor from the inside, saving the day and seemingly winning him a place on the team as a trainee.
However the US government has other ideas and insists that there is no way a security risk like Spider-Man can be allowed to join.
So is it any good?:
It’s a solid conclusion to the storyline. The villains don’t really have enough of a connection to the Avengers to make it very personal and while there is an attempt to give them some depth by having them rebel against their treatment by Project Pegasus Stern doesn’t really go very far with it, possibly because Pegasus were generally seen as good guys whatever the ethics of constantly experimenting on super powered subjects.
Of the four villains it’s no surprise that Moonstone is the most developed but I did like the way that Electro too could see straight through the pseudo-science that Blackout used to describe his powers as gibberish. I haven’t read Blackout’s first appearance in Nova but i’d imagine that the same science was probably played straight there.
Like the Rhino and Electro, Moonstone is identified as a Spider-Man foe here although she had actually had a few run ins with Captain America as well. Her lack of interest in staying and fighting the Avengers and the ease that she grabs control of Blackout are very much in character for her. I liked the way she mixed up Electro and Blackout’s powers to keep the Avengers away as well. She is always written as a good field commander, even if she doesn't actually like personal conflict much.
Spider-Man probably does do enough here to get membership, even if the story piles on doubts for him about the sort of cases the Avengers deal with. His scientific know how saves the day, I always like stories that show off Peter’s scientific knowledge but I can see how having him as the ‘brain’ in a team book doesn’t quite fit the character, when you actually analyse the different things Peter can actually do it would be easy for him to overshadow everybody else.
Having had Captain America complain about his unreliability and his keeping his spider-sense from the others you do wonder about them all just trusting him to have the knowledge be able to avert a nuclear meltdown. Having him in the Tony Stark or Reed Richards role is a little strange.
The Avengers were handled well, although for the second issue Captain Marvel puts everything right and in fact it takes Blackout’s vague powers to keep her from dealing with all the villains immediately as well. I guess that was why Blackout was dug up from the obscurity of his single Nova appearance to become a Master of Evil during the period, the book’s writers actually needed to take special steps to deal with Monica’s power levels.
She is a character I like a lot but given a writer like Stern who not only was her creator but had enough scientific chops to know just what someone with those powers could do she can overshadow the others a little.
Wanda throws up similar problems but is used a bit differently, she doesn’t dominate the stories very much but Stern does wheel her in to deal with anything the heroes face that you can’t actually logically bypass. She seems to just hang around in the background and then Jan will go ‘Wanda can you deal with it’ and someone will knock themselves out or things will fall into place. Not the most satisfying character dramatically when used like that.
As I mentioned Jan seems to be making a lot of decisions about how to deploy the team, particularly Wanda and Monica, I’m not sure if she was the chair at this point. A lot was made of Cap’s leadership in both this and the previous issue but she seems to be the one making the actual decisions for the team, including regarding Spider-Man’s membership. Stern’s Wasp is one of my favourite Avengers and her competence here is typical of that.
Of the others Captain America gets a lot less time here than last issue where he was handled very well. Starfox is very quiet and She-Hulk seems to find fault in everything Spider-Man does and bicker a lot, I liked that for some reason but it isn’t much characterisation really.
The art is quite basic but there are a lot of characters and a lot of panels per page and Milgrom tells the story solidly enough while keeping the characters fairly distinct. With Sinnott’s inks smoothing it over it is very 80s Marvel house style but it’s not something that will live in the memory.
Are there any goofy moments?
Not really
Trivia:
Spider-Man picks up on the injustice of the American Government allowing an alien like Starfox to be an Avenger while he is still considered a security risk. Stern plays on the mysterious side of the character by having Eros worried that he hasn’t actually revealed all of his powers to his teammates; something Captain America insists is a condition of a membership. I can’t remember how much Eros’ pleasure powers were dealt with during this run but later writers would pick up on how much of them he revealed to his teammates in She Hulk and elsewhere.
Is it a landmark?:
Not really, .
Where can I read it?:
It hasn’t been reprinted.