Avengers Spotlight #28Issue(s): Avengers Spotlight #28 Hawkeye & Mockingbird Wasp & Wonder Man Evan Skolnick - Assistant Editor Review/plot: The real Hawkeye gets pretty upset over this, and since, per Mockingbird, "there's nothing we can do about all the other craziness until Cap and the Avengers get to the bottom of it all", the two of them fly to Denver to investigate. They're nearly arrested by the local authorities upon arrival, but luckily another robbery is reported while they are talking to the police. It turns out the fake Hawkeye and Mockingbird are really Angar the Screamer and Screaming Mimi. Only Hawkeye can see them, though, due to his hearing problem. He uses some gas to stop them. Of course they aren't powerless even after that, but Hawkeye remains immune. Hawkeye is able to stop them with his patented bolo arrow. Afterwards, it's explained that their combined powers created a unique "Doppelganger Effect". Hah. Cute story. I've labelled the second story a Wasp & Wonder Man story, but it's really about the Mad Thinker. He had earlier been approached by Lackey Loki and invited to join the Acts of Vengeance cabal, to which he replied, "I'll think about it.". "Several weeks" later, Loki returns for an answer. By then, the Thinker has calculated everything out and decided it won't work. He's also figured out that the Lackey is Loki. After Loki leaves, we also learn that he's determined that the Super-powers Registration Act will cause a backlash that will effect him. So he's determined to stop it. To act, he doesn't transfer his consciousness into a robot body like we've seen him do in the past. Instead, he removes a lockpick hidden in his shoe, and physically escapes the prison he's in (which otherwise seems empty, from the little we can see of it). "Several weeks later", again, Wonder Man and the Wasp are speakers at a demonstration against the SRA, when a giant calling himself Gargantua attacks. A couple panels later, a footnote confirms for us that it's really Leviathan, a super-hero experiment that has previously been manipulated by the Secret Empire a few times. You can really only feel sorry for the poor guy... ...and it turns out he's being manipulated by a device in his ear, which the Wasp learns when she employs one of her favorite tricks. The way the Wasp handles that is kind of mean. She disables the device and starts talking in his ear. But not just to tell him to stop and give up peacefully, which i'm sure he would have done. She has him bend down and stand still so that Wonder Man can punch him out. Poor guy. The attack helps bolster the anti-SRA case, which is exactly what the Mad Thinker intended. He says at the end that helping heroes isn't something he wants to make a regular practice of, but that it's "pleasant to win one every so often". Quality Rating: C+ Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP have this between Avengers #312 and Avengers West Coast #54 for the Wasp and Wonder Man. That requires Wonder Man to give up his search for the U-Foes to fly to Washington, DC, but it's already the case that the scene of him and Human Torch searching for the U-Foes in AWC #54 can't be directly continued in #55. Both stories in this issue have Acts of Vengeance occurring over the course of "weeks", for what it's worth. References: N/A Crossover: Acts of Vengeance Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (1): showCharacters Appearing: Angar the Screamer, Hawkeye, Leviathan (Gargantua), Loki, Mad Thinker, Mockingbird, Songbird (Screaming Mimi), Wasp, Wonder Man CommentsJust realized this is probably the first real team-up of Angar and Melissa (I'd say Screaming Mimi but she's the future Songbird so gonna stick with just her real name); it isn't that notable but it is a cool combo for the moment. Posted by: Ataru320 | April 6, 2015 3:22 PM The Hawkeye/Mockingbird story is cute, but I've seen Clint's deafness being used as an ersatz superpower way to often at this point. I like the Thinker story though. He's one of those villains who I always thought had a lot of potential, but never quite made it. Posted by: Berend | April 6, 2015 5:49 PM I liked McDuffie's pointing out that it was too easy to figure out the lackey was Loki. "It's obvious if one thinks about it". Posted by: Michael | April 6, 2015 7:51 PM It really is ridiculous that they didn't have Loki disguise himself. He took off the horn helmet and put on a suit. Okay....? Even if we use the Superman/Clark Kent excuse for suspension of disbelief (which Marvel shouldn't be using anyway), it still doesn't make sense. The disguise isn't just supposed to be fooling the other characters, it's supposed to be fooling the readers. I seriously doubt there were ever any Superman readers who flipped the page and saw Clark Kent and wondered "Wait -- where did Superman go?" It's moronic. Posted by: Robert | April 6, 2015 7:59 PM Loki is supposed to be magically disguising himself, Robert. It's mentioned in his fight with Apocalypse. Posted by: Mortificator | April 6, 2015 8:57 PM The way I see it, one of the themes of Acts of Vengeance was hubris leading to intentional blind spots. We readers are supposed to guess he is Loki (it is indeed obvious if we think about it). The cabal is depicted as too proud to overcome their self-imposed delusions. For instance, several of them seem to buy into the line that all the others are subordinated to themselves personally, which of course they all know deep down to be a lie. There is actually some interesting, subtle commentary on the nature and effects of evil in there. I wonder if it was intentional. Posted by: Luis Dantas | April 6, 2015 9:23 PM Mortificator, thanks for telling me that. I haven't read every issue of the crossover and, at the time, I certainly wasn't buying every issue. I'm still not sure why they didn't make more of an effort to hide his identity from the readers. If he's disguised why not draw him looking differently? IIRC he wasn't revealed as Loki to the readers until the end of the storyline, right? And that seems like an unnecessary misstep on Marvel's part. Even as a kid I knew it was Loki or Namor just because of how he was drawn. And I knew the many reasons it couldn't be Namor, so it had to be Loki. The mystery is not there for us and it could have been with the simplest of changes to the art. Posted by: Robert | April 6, 2015 10:43 PM The clues were there, particularly in Quasar #5 where he improves the Absorbing Man's powers. Not too many people have seen Loki up close (Creel is one of the few exceptions), and Loki is well established to be capable of sorcery, illusion casting and shapeshifting. He is, after all, the god of lies and trickery. It is not too much of a jump to assume that he enjoys tricking several proud masterminds basically by hiding in plain sight with no disguise. Personally, I think it works better that way than if he decided to make himself appear as a blond dwarf or something. Posted by: Luis Dantas | April 6, 2015 11:55 PM I have no problems with the readers figuring out it is Loki before the villains or heroes. Obviously we have a lot more knowledge as readers than people do in the comics. How many mortals has Loki really interacted with? Very few. Posted by: Chris | April 7, 2015 12:20 AM I suppose Leviathan's new name is better than "Pantagruel". Posted by: Mark Drummond | April 7, 2015 11:10 AM There were some nicely written little stories in Avengers Spotlight, but, good lord, that art looked rough. Posted by: Bob | April 29, 2015 5:10 AM That was fairly new Dwayne Turner artwork. Posted by: Vin the Comics Guy | October 17, 2016 1:36 AM Comments are now closed. |
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