Issue(s): Avengers #244, Avengers #245
Published Date: Jun-Jul 84
Title: "And the rocket's red glare!" / "Bombshells!"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Carmine Infantino & Al Milgrom / Al Milgrom - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
So you would think that if the Avengers were called in to deal with the threat of the Dire Wraith invasion, that they'd be striking a decisive blow. I mean, they're the Avengers! You don't call them in for clean-up activities. But in this arc, the Avengers stop a group of male Dire Wraiths, who are stealing parts from NASA so that they can flee the planet before the female Wraiths find them and kill them.

So basically, if the Avengers did nothing, the male Dire Wraiths would either have fled the planet or been killed (and as it ends, they are killed, but the Avengers defeat some females as well).

That said, this is Roger Stern, so we're going to get a good story. And that means some downtime.

Some shirtless downtime.

Some adventure.

And just a lot of fun writing that continues the uber-plot of the Vision's machinations while making the Dire Wraith menace enjoyable.

While all of this is going on, Hawkeye and Mockingbird are met by Bill Foster at the Los Angeles airport on their way to form the West Coast Avengers. And Quicksilver learns that Bova has been injured by Magneto.

Carmine Infantino co-pencils issue #244, and you know what that means. Crazy faces!

And super-gaunt pig-nostril faces!

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place a little before ROM #58 based on references in that issue. Nick Fury appears in this issue, still bandaged from the Dire Wraith attack on the SHIELD helicarrier. I mention this because according to Hulk #297-300, Nick Fury gets run out of SHIELD at some point, as depicted in a non-existent mini-series. Whenever that supposedly happened, it hasn't happened yet.

References:

• Cap is contemplating the changes that the Vision made to the Avengers team after he returned from Secret Wars.
  
• The Vision is aware of the fact that the Dire Wraiths are a variant form of Skrulls. ROM learned that in ROM #50, and the info must have been passed along to the government so that they could tell the Vision during his briefing.
  
• "Less than a week ago", the Dire Wraiths attacked the SHIELD helicarrier, in ROM #53.
  
• The male Dire Wraiths use a human "Rocketeer" suit that the Vision says is similar to a group that once attacked Clairton, West Virginia. Unlike the other ROM references in these issues, there's no footnote for this one.
  
• The female Dire Wraiths took over the Earth invasion and nearly exterminated all the males in ROM #48.
  
• Nick Fury shows up a the end to tell the Avengers that SHIELD now has the Dire Wraiths on the run, with a reference to "upcoming issues of ROM". I think there's been some kind of miscommunication, or Nick Fury is under the control of Dire Wraith sorcery, or he's just playing a turf war with the Avengers (The Vision is upset that he can't take the lead in the anti-invasion effort due to his own machinations), because Fury's statement just isn't true. But maybe this is why they only bother to send Ant-Man when they get a call from Rick Jones asking for help in ROM #58.
  
• Magneto hurt Bova back in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4 (no footnote for this yet).

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: N/A

Carmine Infantino's career was winding down at this time(he began drawing comics--at Timely--in 1940) and, well, he just did not care.