Issue(s): Avengers #110
Cover Date: Apr 73
Title: "...And now Magneto!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
Don Heck - Penciler
Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia - Inker

Review/plot:
This story starts with Quicksilver finally giving the Avengers a call to let them know where he's been since issue #104. As we learned in FF #131, he's been with the Inhumans and is going to marry Crystal.

However, what should be a happy reunion turns sour when the Scarlet Witch tells her brother that she's in love too.

If you wanted to, you could read a subtextual incestuous thing in Wanda and Pietro's early appearances, and it's possible that's what's really behind Quicksilver's objections here. Wanda is interestingly direct; Quicksilver says that he's issued "repeated warnings" about her relationship with the Vision, and she doesn't really have anything new to say about it here but she's sure to bring it up again. I don't know what it all means, if anything.

After Quicksilver hangs up, the viewscreen turns back on, showing Professor Xavier's mansion and an unconscious Xavier.

The Avengers actually don't know where the X-Mansion is, but they begin a search in "ever-widening circles" starting from their own headquarters. It's pretty hard to believe, but they actually find it (it would have been so much less bizarre to just have the viewscreen start by showing an address placard).

While searching for the mansion, the other avengers begin thinking about the Vision and the Scarlet Witch's romance. Iron Man has quite a laundry list.

Thor, meanwhile, seems to have rationalized his break-up with Jane Foster. He says that they "did persevere, pushing aside all obstacles to our love, and in the end -- our passion died anyway". Yeah, their "passion died" when Odin refused to turn Jane into an immortal and instead mind-wiped her and sent her back to Earth to fall in love with another doctor.

None of the Avengers think to ask who had activated the viewscreen, so they're taken by surprise when Magneto, disguised as the Angel and laying amid the wreckage and other X-Men in the Mansion, attacks.

Actually, the first part of the attack comes from the Savage Land Mutate (or Beast-Brood, as the Avengers insist on calling them) Piper, who summons some dinosaurs.

In this story, Iron Man is vulnerable to Magneto's powers.

In the distant past he had taken precautions against magnetism, but he seemed to have failed to carry that feature over when he moved on to newer suits.

Between the dinosaurs and Magneto (and, apparently, the high iron ore content in the rocks and soil around the X-Mansion), half of the Avengers are captured, including the Scarlet Witch, Captain America, and Iron Man, as well as the X-Men (it's not said where the real Angel was, and that becomes a long running concern). Magneto also has a "new secret power" of mind control (although we know that he's always had some innate mental abilities in addition to his magnetism).

Meanwhile, Hawkeye shows up at Daredevil and the Black Widow's place and, hearing that Natasha isn't home, decides to wait in a tree until she gets back.

While this is a clunky issue (i am really biting my lip over Heck's art), it is, at the same time, everything i love about the Marvel Universe. We've got the nice connection between the Fantastic Four and the Avengers now that Quicksilver is marrying Crystal. Hawkeye over in Daredevil thanks to his history with the Black Widow, and the mini-crossover with that title. And of course, the X-Men and Magneto appearances. Even when the individual stories aren't that great, it's the sense that this is all part of an even larger story that makes it so cool.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This story continues in Daredevil #99.

References:

• A flashback repeats info from Fantastic Four #131 that showed how Crystal rescued Quicksilver during Avengers #104 and then they fell in love.
  
• The Avengers vaguely recognize Professor Xavier from Reed and Sue Richards' wedding in Fantastic Four annual #3, probably thanks to a mind-wipe. Thor remembers him more clearly from Uncanny X-Men #9.
  
• There's no footnote but i can't help reference Thor #136, where Thor and Jane Foster's romance was ended.
  
• Ivan Petrovitch is recovering from injuries sustained fighting the Man-Bull in Daredevil #95.
  
• Some more inferred references. A footnote says that the last time the Avengers and X-Men met, "the Vision was just a gleam in Ultron-5's mechanical eye". That's not true; the X-Men were at Hank and Janet Pym's wedding in Avengers #60. I guess the reference is really meant to be the crossover circa Avengers #53 (which is surprisingly not mentioned directly even though it was the Avengers' previous encounter with Magneto), while the Vision was introduced in Avengers #57.
  
• A footnote scolds us if we don't know why Captain America has super-strength, which he got in Captain America #157-159.
  
• The Avengers fought Magneto's "Beast-Brood" (we know them as the Savage Land Mutates) in Avengers #105.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This issue makes the Illuminati retcon awkward- supposedly Xavier formed the Illuminati right after the Kree-Skrull War. So he had already joined the Illuminati at this point but didn't tell Tony where the X-Men's headquarters was? And even if Tony didn't know, couldn't he look it up in the phonebook or something? Bendis has a tendency to make it look like the X-Men were friendlier with other heroes then they historically were- it shows up in both his Illuminati and Alias stories.
Later on, in Byrne's Avengers West Coast issues, Tony makes his armor immune to Magneto.
Englehart seemed to think that there was an incestuous element to Pietro's protectiveness of Wanda- in Vision and the Scarlet Witch 10, he has Pietro state that he was attracted to Crystal because she reminded him of Wanda.

Magneto's "innate mental abilities" was later retconned as circuitry in his helmet (probably from pre-Cerebro type designs he worked out with Xavier when they were still friends pre-X-Men #1) as shown in the story in X-Factor Annual #4 where he has a mental duel with Dr Doom.

The Illuminati was just a terrible idea all around. This probably isn't the only instance that contradicts it.

As fnord points out in his review of Avengers 115, it makes no sense for Tony to be suspicious of Strange if you believe the Illuminati retcon.

Well then, let's ignore that retcon. Seems like that would be better for everyone.

I never really though of anything incestuous about Pietro's reaction. I always found it to a portrayal that Pietro could bea bigot.
The Wanda/Vision relationship was used as a stand-in for inter-racial relationships.

Millar would eventually play on this speculation (in his usual over the top way) by having Wanda and Pietro as lovers in the Ultimate universe.

I'm also biting my lip over Heck's art. What the Heck!! Although to be fair I do think the Scarlet Witch looks beautiful in a few of those top panels. Must be the inker!

Yet another reason why the Illuminati is so stupid.
Honestly, it's so half-asset and contradictory that it might be the worst idea anybody at Marvel has ever had. Other writers have produced bad stories, but the whole Illuminati concept just doesn't work on any level.

Pietro doesn't have to be quasi-incestuous or even creepy and controlling to have been warning Wanda away from romancing the Vision. Given that he well remembers that the first time she used her powers, she nearly got *burnt at the stake*, it doesn't take an enormous amount of foresight to imagine what's going to happen in #113, just a little bit down the road.

Yes, he's being cynical and paranoid, but he's pretty much right. And I say this being 100% on Wanda's side (you can't let the bigots win, etc), but she's rather sheltered and naive here, IMO.

As I continue to read my Fantastic Fours I revel in Crystal cutting her ties with the piece of sh*t that is Pietro Maximoff. I was reminded of the page shown above. Unfortunately, Crystal ignores the red flags Quicksilver displays for all to see here. A self-appointed head of the family who truly has no right to make such demands of Wanda. A spiteful bigot who gives every indication that physical violence is not beneath him.
Yep, that's the miserable SOB you're going to marry. A stupid decision from the outset. Crystal... and...Quick F-ing Silver.

Damn Sentinels didn't do their job.

Can you tell how much I have and always will hate that character? Not healthy to feel that way about a comic book character perhaps? I quote '70s era SNL Steve Martin: "Naaaah!"

@KevinA: I think it tells you everything you need to know about how awful a husband Quicksilver was that Ronan the Accuser, of all people, was a better spouse to Crystal.