Issue(s): Avengers #198, Avengers #199
Cover Date: Aug-Sep 80
Title: "Better Red than Ronin!" / "Last stand on Long Island"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Writer
George Perez - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker

Review/plot:
This issue is a very enjoyable 2 issue battle with Red Ronin from the Godzilla series.

The fight makes its way to Cross Technology, where Hawkeye is working as a security guard, so he gets involved as well.

It's a rough fight - i mean, the robot was built to fight Godzilla! - and gets to show off all the Avengers doing cool things.

We also learn that Ms. Marvel is now 6 months pregnant. Clearly something supernatural is going on.

She reveals her secret identity to the Scarlet Witch.

In the lettercol for #198, Michelinie says that the reaction to his downtime issues has been extremely positive and that he intends to continue to focus on character development. It really has been a strength of this book.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue starts very late in the evening after Wonder Man and the Beast's double-dates. They are drunk, and their reaction to seeing the Red Ronin robot in the river is amusing.

References:

• The Scarlet Witch returns to the Avengers with Ms. Marvel. She left the team in Avengers #192.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I'm reading through Avengers back issues now, and there's one very interesting detail about these issues.
Red Ronin's crazy pilot is trying to attack Russia to kick start WWIII. He thinks that starting a war against Red Ronin would alleviate the world's cold war fears.
His motivations seem very similar to Ozymandias in Watchmen.

That's because Watchmen and this issue were both inspired by the same episode of Outer Limits, where scientists try to fake an alien invasion to unite the world.

I think the plan here wasn't as well thought out, since i'm pretty sure the Soviets would have been aware that Red Ronin was created by SHIELD to fight Godzilla. At best the US could claim a rogue agent hijacked their equipment (which was true), but i don't think that would improve relations between the two countries.

When Marvel eventually raised its cover price to 50 cents to match the profit margin retailers got from DC books(among other reasons), the page count raised to 22 pages rather than DC's 25. The reason given was that Marvel had more regular advertisers than DC, so to help increase the page count, the "Bullpen Bulletins" page was dumped--the checklist was moved to the letters page, and "Stan's Soapbox" was retired. The $2500 contest was added to soften the blow to the buyers. However, the price change happened too quickly to increase the story length by 5 pages, so Marvel announced that for at least 2 months all the books(including the reprint titles) would have backup stories. I'm not sure how many titles actually did run backups, though.

In Avengers #198, Ms. Marvel tells Wanda her real name is Carol Danvers, and Vizh and Clint meet Carol in the next couple of issues. Just curious, has it ever been mentioned, by the characters or Marvel editors, that these Avengers had met Carol before, back in Avengers #90 and #92?

Looking over the cameo Carol has in the Kree-Skrull War, Vision did actually appear to meet her. But my guess is that none of them knew that Carol was Ms. Marvel and probably still thought she was still a security guard at NASA (or a writer for Jamison) without realizing she was the same one that they had met all that time ago.

I also think i would have caught that as a reference if it was mentioned, and looking at the Inbound References for the Kree-Skrull War i don't see anything from Ms. Marvel or Avengers issues referring back to her appearance there in that way. Not definitive, but it's a good bet that hadn't been brought up again.

Thanks, Ataru and fnord12. I assume the Carol in #90 was the real one (but who knows?) and Wanda, Pietro, Vizh and Clint spent some time with the fake Carol (Super-Skrull) in #92, so I was just wondering. But"Carol Danvers" is not a unique name, so yeah, I don't blame the Avengers for not remembering that they'd met a Carol Danvers some years earlier. I'm a bit surprised though that some editor or writer didn't have a footnote or something, either in #198 or back when Ms. Marvel joined the Avengers. Anyway thanks again!