Issue(s): Avengers #139, Avengers #140
Cover Date: Sep-Oct 75
Title: "Prescription: Violence!" / "A journey to the center of the ant"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
George Tuska - Penciler
Vincent Colletta - Inker

Review/plot:
Whirlwind shows up at the hospital where the Wasp is being kept, but hastily retreats when he finds a full contingent of Avengers in the room.

Thor and Iron Man are still fighting over who gets to hang out with Moondragon.

Thor is nominally the Avengers' chairperson right now, and he's not happy with the lack of respect for the position. But Iron Man takes Moondragon to see if they can find Hawkeye, who went back in time to try to find the Black Knight during the last arc and, due to the nature of time travel, should have arrived back immediately.

Thor can take solace in the fact that Iron Man doesn't get anywhere with Moondragon.

Some confusion about the location of Dr. Doom's castle. This is the same castle that the Avengers went to in Avengers #56, which was the same castle where the Fantastic Four encountered Dr. Doom. That castle was in America, in the Adirondacks. But a caption in issue #139 says that Iron Man and Moondragon are in Latveria.

For my No-Prize, i'll suggest that Doom had the castle moved and rebuilt brick-by-brick when he returned to his home country.

Iron Man and Moondragon discover that Hawkeye hasn't returned to the present time yet. There's blood on the time machine, and both Iron man and Moondragon suspect it's a trap.

Meanwhile, Yellowjacket gets attacked by Whirlwind at home. There's a scene that's meant to give Pym the hint that Charles is really Whirlwind when he (Pym) whips out a special gun that Whirlwind shouldn't know the function of, but when Whirlwind sees it, he flees.

Well, der. It's a gun! Who wants to get shot by any gun? Plus, Yellowjacket had Whirlwind on the ropes already by having his ants cave in the area they were fighting in so Whirlwind couldn't spin properly. Anyway, Pym makes the intuitive leap.

Later, Yellowjacket defeats Whirlwind by utilizing both his growing and shrinking powers in quick succession, which he's not supposed to do.

He also kinda grossly climbs up Whirlwind's half shirt into his chest hairs and jolts his heart.

It's said it's "seven minutes" later when Pym collapses from the strain of all the size changing.

With both Pyms now unconscious, the Beast heads to his former place of work, the Brand Corporation, to get a serum he had been working on at the time. While he's invading Brand, the Beast refers to his healing factor in the present tense ("After all, even with my fast-healing metabolism... I wouldn't want to get sh---")(He cuts himself off when he gets spotted by a guard).

The Vision and the Scarlet Witch also return from their honeymoon just in time for Wanda to generate a hex that prevents Yellowjacket from growing uncontrollably while unconscious.

We get to see a little of Hank McCoy: scientist, which i always appreciate...

...and once he's done, in a deliberate twist of the time Pym had to shrink down to enter the Vision for repairs, the Vision has to phase the formula into Pym.

In addition to administering the serum, the Vision has to literally punch out some of the microbes.

With Yellowjacket revived, the Wasp miraculously wakes up on her own.

In these issues we see someone heading to the Avengers to find the Beast. We'll soon learn it's Patsy Walker, from the Beast's solo series in Amazing Adventures.

I can't say a lot for the main plot of this story, but i think Englehart does a decent job with the characterization.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This arc starts soon after the end of issue #138, with the Avengers still holding Toad and Yellowjacket irrationally demanding that Toad cure the Wasp's injuries.

References:

• Whirlwind was previously secretly the Wasp's chauffeur "Charles" but he was fired after Marvel Feature #9 for trying to defraud Jan's estate.
  
• Whirlwind first appeared (as the Human Top) in Tales to Astonish #50.
  
• Iron Man wasn't with the Avengers the last time they went to Dr. Doom's castle, in Avengers #56.
  
• A microbe trapped Pym at ant-size in Marvel Feature #4.
  
• We learn that the Beast was fired from Brand because of his frequent absences, especially his need to take a week off to go to Canada, as shown in Amazing Adventures #16 and Hulk #161.
  
• Henry Pym entered the body of the Vision to save him in Avengers #93.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Tuska's art is quite shaky in places, especially the first few pages of #139.

The title to #140 refers to Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

I bet Dave Cannon shaved that chest hair after Hank used it to defeat him, huh?

To an extent, I'm sad to see "Charles" exposed. The idea that one of the Masters of Evil would just pick himself up and go back to his day job as Jan's chauffeur, that he's "one of the gang" to the point where Thor knows his name, is just delightful. But I guess eight years was long enough to run with that gag.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Whirlwind can dodge ordinary bullets. I think he ran from the disruptor gun because he knew it could fire a wide enough burst of energy to hit him.

It's still lame reasoning- Pym wouldn't be pointing the gun at Whirlwind if he didn't think it would do SOMETHING to him.

In a Steve Englehart interview in FOOM#12, he discusses how he wanted to handle children for Vision & the Scarlet Witch. He initially decided that the Vision was anatomically correct but sterile, and thought the Comics Code wouldn't allow discussion of sperm banks, so he planned on adoption. However, Paty Greer/Cockrum convinced him that the Scarlet Witch wouldn't want kids, so he chose to explain to fans that Ultron made the Vision anatomically INcorrect because Ultron wanted only a son, not grandkids.

The Vision's line in #140 about the short honeymoon was intended to show that he still didn't quite grasp human romance & intimacy yet.

Englehart stated he wanted to bring back Quicksilver to explain his bigotry in more detail and come to terms with Wanda's marriage, but he never got the chance.

Other Englehart stories announced for Marvel Spotlight were: a Vision solo, a Yellowjacket solo, and a Hellcat/Moondragon team-up.

Knowing how later writers, especially Shooter would approach them, with hindsight #s 137-140 feel like the beginning of the slow dissolution of Jan & Hank's marriage.

It's always been apparent that, despite their mutual attraction, the two were very different people. Jan was a free-spirit who wanted an active social life, who enjoyed the adventure & excitement of being an Avenger. Hank on the other hand, was most happy experimenting in his lab, and he was very obviously relieved to be out of the hero game.

With these four issues Jan jumps right back into active duty at the first opportunity, and she also says "Yes" on behalf of Hank without ever consulting him, just assuming he will agree. Hank goes along reluctantly, even though he really doesn't want to, because it's easier than confronting the differences between he and Jan head-on. In other words, he's avoiding the elephant in the room.

And what happens? Literally the day they return Jan nearly gets blown to bits. Hank use of his powers quickly begins to once more cause him severe physical problems. Whirlwind pops up to once again try to kill Hank & Jan. Hank appears unable to deal with the stress of these crises. Perhaps in his mind all this is confirmation of his worst fears, that returning to the team was a terrible idea, and if only he & Jan had stay away they would have remained safe & happy. Maybe subconsciously he began to resent Jan for dragging them away from their domestic bliss.

Peter Sanderson has a letter in #139.