Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

Avengers #372 - 375

This is great stuff. From the resolution of the Proctor and the Gatherers storyline...to the revelation of who Proctor actually was.

Dane breaks free of being Sersi's Gann Josin...but in the end, does something even more.

Epting is great here, and Harras is solid in wrapping things up.

In thinking about what happened after this, I lost track of the Avengers even though I continued to collect it. I followed Dane and Sersi into the Ultraverse, and back (in fact, I have the issue where they return to the Marvel Universe with me to review later.

I also wonder if Dane was indeed someone for Harras to speak through, as I think his run lost a little something after this. Dane being one of my favorite characters not taken into account.

One other thing, the headset things bugged me.

Overall, this is my favorite run of the Avengers ever...and there are some other pretty good runs out there. It suffers only with the majority of the fill in stuff...Fabians two issue New Warriors / Rage story being the only bright spot of those.

I think this run deserves the binding treatment...maybe next year.

Never followed the Avengers, but I have to say that this lineup (Cap, Dane, Crystal, Sersi, Widow etc.) remains one of those I'm most interested in reading about.

To be honest, there are a lot of Marvel characters I dislike - but none of them are in this lineup.

Too bad Crystal and Sersi in particular have been criminally underused recently.

I think what we need is a buddy book with Herc and Dane, written by Harras and drawn by Epting.

Glad we've piqued your interest, IB.

Crystal's appeared quite a bit in the cosmic titles and more recently in FF, but she rarely shows the spunk she had as an Avenger.

The 4-part wrap-up of the Gatherers Saga remains a high-water mark of 90s superhero comics. As I said a few posts ago, Epting seemed to be burning out a few issues earlier, but maybe knowing that this was the full flowering of the seeds he and Harras had sown helped Epting find his second wind.

Like I said earlier, even though I love the Avengers, I've had to admit to myself recently that the Harras/Epting era will probably always be the Avengers era that I'm most enthusiastic for, and it's not likely that any Avengers era to come will engage me as much.

I'd hate to see how long (or how many tie in comics) writers like Bendis or Johns would create for something like what Harras did.

There is more packed into any one of those issues than what a lot of writers of today do in an arc.

I do believe that there is a happy median between the two styles. There are stories that need to breathe a little, and others that are allowed on life support for months on end.

This may be one of the worst comic books I've ever read ... if not THE worst.

I'm reading through a bunch of these before I post reviews but I just had to pop in .... and condemn this one

mostly, It's about the Delta Force, a group of Deviant super heroes who Sersi assembles to rescue the Avengers who are taken hostage by Deviants ... most who I think are professional wrestlers ... not sure from the story actually ... one of which is a set of twins that combine, after the female is nearly raped and the brother gets stabbed ... to become a four eyed four armed amalgam.

This issue is actually really comical to me. The scene of the hero 'who's not a hero' from Peru is especially funny ... it's SO bad!

and Sersi gets her arm blown off and Ghaur kidnaps the Avengers. At the end Ghaur says it was all part of his plan to get Sersi to assemble a new team to bring to him to use to start a uni mind ... In that case, blowing off her arm was cutting it a bit close.

The cover is very misleading in quality. because it's actually ok.

Totally agree Peebs.

and the really sad thing is I thought this issue was superb:

(But this book would have been really hard to follow at the time with the huge leaps in quality for two ro three months at a time)



It was just great! I think this is the one where Ikaris just comes out and says "Sersi is the most powerful of us." ha!

I thought this was a very satisfying issue in the grander story line and in the 30 pages of itself. A lot happened, we got some resolution but then also some teasers and new stuff to keep us going.

I feel bad for Dane being turned into Sersi's *soulmate* without being asked ... but at the same time I don't hate Sersi ... Somehow I think Dane has been giving her mixed signals on and off panel ... it reads a bit like a real relationship that Dane dosn't want to be in but he still lets Sersi kiss him ... and well ... Sersi is losing it through no fault of her own.

This issue also reminded me of Sersi's (first?) previous appearances and her character's premise where she really dosn't want to be an Eternal, she wants to do her own thing and live in the world.

p.s.: evil Vision is creepy.

These were ok for fill ins, although I'm not very invested in Arkon and I thought the second issue was implausible and really stretched out. (but the second issue was better than the first IMO) I did really enjoy the last page with Sersi.

Anyway, this fill in was better than the Grim Reaper one but, was still just so so. 359 is a great cover though!

Still not a lot of transmutation coming out of Sersi which I believe is her main power set.

I know. I actually wish he had stuck around longer than he had. It could have been like Data / Lore in ST:TNG.

Um...Peebs, I believe I warned you not to get #370-371.

And BTW, #358-359 were not fill-ins. That shocking scene at the end was pivotal to the issues that followed.

I know where he's coming from though, it did feel like a fill in from the regular creative team. I know it wasn't, but was a set up for what came next. It just seemed to come out of left field and have no bearing on the current storyline, until Sersi does what she does at the end...then it all makes sense.

...and yeah...she did warn ya on the whole 3700/371 thing. I tried to to with my review.

Dev, fair enough regarding #358-359, although I did think it was nice that Harras dug up an old Avengers villain as a change of pace.

ahhh not fill ins exactly then sorry ... tangents or segways or something ...

370 was SO bad. <span style="font-size: 8px;">so bad!</span> my head hurts ... it's beyond so bad it's funny ... it's just bad. It's kind of like the super friends cartoon. 'Enter the realm of the Deviants' !

355, 361 were really cool. 364 was ok ... I liked the 2nd story focusing on Sersi. and I'm in the middle of 368, I have a couple problems with but it's enjoyable so far.

AVENGERS ACADEMY: One of the original students comes out to Lightspeed-- if only my real gaydar was as accurate as my comic book superhero one. X-23 joins and it isn't as annoying as I thought it'd be. An old X-men villain I vaguely remember infiltrates the team in a cleverly done fashion. The circumstances surrounding Reptil and his connection to the future will be the ground this book will be treading for awhile.

With these machinations from the future, a team-up with the Young Avengers and that team's connection to Kang would seem to make sense. Will we be reading it?

As a reader, I'm enjoying the tenterhooks the future AAers are putting me on, but I hope that after a not-too long-lasting period, the 'current' students can claim their futures as their own, without the sense of 'fate' hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.

That crazy detective is smoking ALL THE TIME ...even in the morgue!!

Anyway, I love the mystery and build up of 372.

Pietro and Crystal ?? By this time, I'm all about them breaking up. In a nice mature good way but, really going their separate ways. I want Dane to be with Crystal and to suck it up and tell Sersi he just dosn't want her. BUT at the same time I LOVE the 'Sersi of Myth' with the time travelled 'Black Knight'!

*le sigh*

Anyway, well done issue, I love the guys new armored boots. (I do have to laugh about how there are so many mullets in 1994!! What was it with comics fashion in the 90s?? And Palmer draws a lot of hair in people's faces ... especially that one long 80s strand that hangs over the forehead. )

Gatherer's attack! I think Dane unreasonably takes out one hulk like member with a kick.

Poor Sersi is framed for murder.

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373 confused me at first when Sersi and everyone, even her rival Crystal, keeps going on about how she's not a murderer!!! There is one especially funny scene where Sersi freaks out and destroys the mansion shouting 'I am no killer!'.

But then Epstein pulls it back and much later has Dane confront her about killing that guy on Arkon's planet.

BTW, I love how Sersi is written here, she gets so many awesome one liners!

Sersi and Dane fight the Avengers, Sersi destroys the Brooklyn Bridge.

What I also love about Sersi and Cystal is that they're still friends really, despite being rivals, they've really got each others back in combat and Crystal really tries to *save* Sersi here by bringing her back from madness.

TWO GREAT COVERS SO FAR.

and i've been noticing how much Sersi seems like the Scarlet Witch in red, and I like the homage!!

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374

Pietro figures it all out. Sersi is captured by the Proctor but manages to tell him off so bad he should've just slunk away ...

'What in the name of Zuras are you talking about?! You're a self-pitying MADMAN, Proctor! Release me now!"

she's a diva even in captivity.


anyway I don't want to go through too much, but I suspected who Proctor really was and I LOVE IT.
also, it seems Epstein was deteriorating the chances of a Crystal Dane romance for a while ... which I find realistic. It's bad timing as they say.

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375

thunderstrike joins in. I kinda like the Black Widows back seat throughout this era, she's resigned herself to leadership and dosn't get much free time or characterization spotlight. but i like seeing her in charge and professional. The others can be all dramatic, we like our leaders to have it together.

Love Proctor's surprise weapon! and the explanation for how he became so powerful.

*Sersi's STILL not a killer btw* LOL. I think she's awesome though. I enjoyed the Eternals here as well.

well, I really enjoyed the ending, I liked the Black Knight and Sersi ending up together, for awhile at least, I wish we got a spin off of this and their adventures through some sort of medieval other dimensional place(s).

It's a bit of a bummer the Crystal and Dane thing didn't work out but it makes sense to me.

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Overall, I really enjoyed this era of the Avengers!!! I'm an even bigger fan of characters like Sersi, Crystal, and Dane than I was before.

I lost my reviews of 364, 365, and 368.

364 and 365 were kinda short, I didn't love Deathcry, and 365 had a nice crystal Vision scene, and a Sersi Dane scene.

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368 was pretty cool, The beginning of Bloodties. I didn't love it, but it had about four issues of today's comics worth in text!!! Fury came off as a jerk. Luna got kidnapped. It really set everything up .. wish I could track down the rest of these. There was a nice bit with Prof. X and Hank McCoy. Of course these big crossovers are gonna side line the regular Avengers programming.

The actually ended up in the Ultraverse, and on the team Ultraforce, until returning in The Black Knight: Exodus one shot.

I'll be reviewing those issues at some point.

YAY!!

One more Harras/Epting convert...so many more to go.

As a side note, Dane's and Sersi's (for part of it) travels go a little like this...

ULTRAFORCE 8
ULTRAFORCE 9
ULTRAFORCE 10
ULTRAFORCE/AVENGERS PRELUDE
AVENGERS/ULTRAFORCE
ULTRAFORCE/AVENGERS-FB
ULTRAFORCE/AVENGERS
ULTRAFORCE V2 1
ULTRAFORCE V2 2
ULTRAFORCE V2 3
PHOENIX RESURRECTION: GENESIS
PHOENIX RESURRECTION: REVELATIONS
FOXFIRE 1
FOXFIRE 2
ULTRAFORCE/SPIDER-MAN 1A/1B
ULTRAFORCE V2 4
THE ALL-NEW EXILES 4
ULTRAFORCE V2 5
ULTRAFORCE V2 6
ULTRAFORCE V2 7
ULTRAFORCE V2 8
ULTRAFORCE V2 9
ULTRAVERSE: FUTURE SHOCK 1
ULTRAFORCE V2 10
ULTRAFORCE V2 11
ULTRAFORCE V2 12
ULTRAVERSE UNLIMITED 2
Black Knight: Exodus

Then he goes into the Heroes for Hire book.

ah! Thank you DEV! I will look those up!

I was trying to google Ultraforce actually ... and not succeeding.

They're a bit different from the Avengers stuff, and some of the story telling is a bit strange.

I collected the Ultraverse comics back then, so I have all of these comics.

They're not the worst comics ever, but they're far from great.

...and I just thought of a new set of books to get bound. The Black Knight volumes, collecting his major appearances as far back as I can afford (I have quite a few of them already.)

It may take some time to finish the issues I need, but not that long...and I have stuff getting ready to go anyway, so no rush.

All the people reading this thread who haven't attempted this simple question , thee disappoint me!

Avenger's Academy continues to be a good read.

X-23 appears in this 23rd issue, appropriately, and is used well. Personal drama resulting from Mettle killing someone during Fear, Itself crossover is dealt with, instead of being, as it would be in some other books, ignored or abandoned, and something that's been foreshadowed for pretty much the entire run is revealed about Stryker.

The current line up of the 'core' team appears to be Mettle, Hazmat, Finesse, Reptil, Stryker, Lightspeed (Julie Power), White Tiger 2 and X-23.

Having Finesse, White Tiger 2 and X-23 on the same team should prove interesting (particularly with Tigra as teacher / combat instructor). That's a lot of concentrated emotionally distant ninja ass-kicking morally ambiguous kung-fu chick going on! I'm not terribly interested in White Tiger 2 yet (we haven't even seen her with her mask off yet), but I have high hopes for interactions (and fight-training!) between Finesse and X-23 (who may or may not be Taskmaster's Daughter and Wolverine's Clone, respectively).

I'm possibly in the minority here, but, perhaps as a result of her being the focus / POV character of the very first issue, I never cared much for Veil. While Stryker and Finesse, and to a lesser extent, Hazmat, were heavily foreshadowed to be potential villains-in-training, Veil, the 'good girl,' seemed to me to be the one most inclined to make disastrous and selfish (and utterly understandable and character appropriate) decisions based on her own fears, so I'm kind of not missing her as much as I perhaps should have.

There's a few 'outings' in this issue, and, somewhat like Northstar (and very much unlike DC's Bunker), one of the gay characters turns out to be kind of a dick. I think Marvel has an advantage over DC here, in that they now have enough high profile gay characters that they can get away with making some of them not-very-likable. Where sometimes a writer has to tiptoe around presentations of characters to avoid 'dead lesbian cliches' or whatever, I think the presence of totally likable Hulkling and Wiccan allows them to mix it up with snotty Northstar and this jerkish Academy student (who, we find out this issue, has some deep-seated reasons for his traditionally obnoxious behavior).

A real blast-from-the-past villain is re-introduced. One born in the pages of Rom, Spaceknight, and who starred in a crossover involving the X-Men and Alpha Flight, IIRC!

There's a pretty heavy subplot used as a framing device involving time travel and treachery, that includes a fairly surprising glimpse at how the memory issue alluded to by the Taskmaster in a previous issue (where he admitted to Finesse that she may or may not be his daughter, and that he doesn't remember stuff like that, because almost all of his memory is filled up with fighting techniques and combat maneuvers) could affect Finesee, in the future.

X-Factor and Avengers Academy are the only two Marvel books I'm still buying, and I'm glad I gave Avengers Academy a shot, since it was an impulse buy.