Issue(s): Avengers #233, Avengers #234
Cover Date: Jul-Aug 83
Title: "The annihilation gambit!" / "The Witch's tale!"
Credits:
John Byrne & Roger Stern / Roger Stern - Writer
John Byrne & Joe Sinnott / Al Milgrom & Joe Sinnott - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker
Mike Carlin - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
John Byrne co-plots Avengers #233 and provides breakdowns.

Issue #233 is a cross-over with Fantastic Four #256. Sort of. The two teams don't encounter each other until the very end.

The Avengers spend the majority of their issue trying to hold back Annihilus' null-barrier.

They don't have much success, and in the process reserve Avenger Vision is disabled when he tries to phase through it...

...and Thor is forced to flee the battlefield to preserve his secret identity after his hammer gets stuck on the other side of the field...

...but eventually Captain Marvel is able to penetrate the barrier using gamma rays, thanks to Starfox's suggestion.

Thor having to run off due to his hammer being stuck is handled well...

...and there's also a cute scene with Starfox idly hitting on a paramedic.

Stern continues to be a great character writer. Byrne's breakdowns with Joe Sinnott's finishes don't mesh all that well (compare Sue's weird face to the same basic panel in FF #256).

The next issue is a down-time issue and largely a flashback/history lesson regarding the Scarlet Witch.

After spending a long time keeping vigil over the Vision's inert body...

...Wanda returns to her home in New Jersey to pick up some fresh clothes and other sundries. While she's there, Dr. Strange shows up in astral form, seeking her help.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye gets a sky cycle built by his employers at CTE so he can move around on his broken leg.

Never a big fan of flashbacks that fill half an issue, but the rest of the downtime stuff was great.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly from Fantastic Four #256. Continues directly in Doctor Strange #60.

References:

• Annihilus is dying because Blastaar took his Cosmic Control Rod in Marvel Two-In-One #75.
  
• We find out here that the Hulk did not accept the Avengers' invitation to join the team. The invitation occurred in Hulk #284, but the reference is to Hulk #285, where we see the Hulk after he's rejected the offer.
  
• After the Vision is disabled, the Scarlet Witch mentions that they've "been through so much in the past months", with references to Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1-4 and Marvel Team-Up #129-130.
  
• Captain America determines to see Tony Stark again and confront him about his drinking. We'll see that in Iron Man #172.
  
• There's no footnotes for all of the Scarlet Witch flashbacks, but here we go:
  • A lot of the early history was settled on in Avengers #185-187.
    
  • The break-up of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants after the Stranger whisked Magneto away in Uncanny X-Men #11
    
  • the "Kooky Quartet" Avengers fighting Dr. Doom in Avengers #25
    
  • Wanda falling in love with the Vision and fighting with her brother about it (circa Avengers #102-104).
    
  • Wanda getting mystical training from Agatha Harkness (circa Avengers #128).
    
  • Learning that Magneto is her father in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

In issue 234 we are shown that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch reject Magneto's love after the reveal in V & SW #4.

This was one of the first issues I owned. Seeing the same scene in this issue and the FF issue was a real "WOW" moment for me. It brought to light in my mind the continuity that Marvel is so famous for.

I think it's worth noting that She-Hulk and Starfox totally have a one-night stand in #234, but it's written so that it all adheres to the Comics Code. She-Hulk asks Starfox whether he has any plans for the night, and he says he was gonna check the local sights, but she boasts she can "show you some things you won't believe". The next morning She-Hulk is shown alone in her bed, naked, and she walks to the shower, which Starfox is revealed to be using at the moment. He then proceeds to thank her "for the use of your shower". Stern's writing is quite clever here: a kid reader could interpret the scene as Starfox merely borrowing She-Hulk's shower, but for an adult it's quite obvious what happened the night before.

These events were later referenced in She-Hulk #5 (from 2007), where Starfox is brought to trial for essentially using his powers like a date-rape drug. In that issue Dan Slott confirms the two did indeed have sex in Avengers #234, and She-Hulk starts to question whether that happened because he was using his powers on her. (We get no definite answer to that question before Mentor beams Starfox back to Titan, out the reach of Earthly laws.) While I think it was generally a good idea to deconstruct Starfox's creepy powers, I wish Slott didn't have to revisit the events of #234 to do that. I think the hookup of Jennifer and Eros here is a cool, sex-positive moment, where two adults are just having a bit of fun, and (remarkably) no jealousy or any other kind of drama follows from it. Having casual sex because they enjoy it fits the way both characters were written at the time, so Slott's semi-retcon (as I said, we never find out for sure whether Starfox really used her powers on She-Hulk) kinda ruins this nice little subplot.

Sorry, I misremembered, this story is referenced in She-Hulk #7, not #5.

Tuomas, Slott returned to the Statfox plot later in She-Hulk 12-13. Basically, Starfox only recently started using his powers "like a date-rape drug" due to the manipulations of Thanos, so Jen slept with Eros of her own free will.
To be fair to Slott, it was a backup story in the 1991 Silver Surfer Annual which convinced people that Starfox used his powers to rape women. Fnord will get to that story eventually. (I say eventually because we've reached the point when Marvel's line explodes to a ridiculous number of books per month. Poor fnord.)

Yeah, and since I don't think there is anything in that SILVER SURFER back-up story that pins it to a particular point in time, personally I think it should be considered to take place during the period where Eros' mind and powers were warped by Thanos' brain tampering (established in Slott's SHE-HULK run).

After all, that back-up story is totally inconsistent with how Eros has been portrayed in all other stories, and flat-out ignores the fact that the question of Eros using his powers inappropriately had already been raised and specifically addressed as him never using it that way without permission. Slott's story provides the perfect 'out' for explaining away the awful portrayal of Starfox there without simply ignoring it from continuity.

There's an interesting ethical quandary there with Eros that I don't think I've ever seen anyone address -and forgive me if Slott did. I consider myself ethical, but if I had his power, I'd tend to only turn it off when I was asleep or someone loved me so much they were giving me a rash.

Everyone wants to be liked.

Northstar has made this very argument about his pro skiing career - he had to hold back anyway to not out himself as a mutant, but why is bringing your A-game just like everybody in the competition? Starfox could most assuredly use his power in an extremely skeevy and rapey way, but asking someone who can make everyone around them happy to not do it is a little like asking Captain America to stop being handsome and always knowing the right thing to do and say. It's an inherently unfair competitive disadvantage Cap has, and he could have slept with She Hulk had he wanted to - pretty much all the ladies; it's Cap,.

Everybody with a lick of sense brings all the personal charisma they can to their human relationships to grease the wheels, and often, to make people they care about happy. I have people in my life with depression - I'd love to be able to help with a little low-level serenity projection, y'know? It would help me deal with my own depression, to be surrounded with mildly happy people.

Eros is a bit of a skeezer, and not the first person I would want to trust with the potential for mind control, so I don't mean to simply be saying "pleasure power is good - let fly", but suggesting that it's an incredibly,/I> complex issue that calls for a nuanced reaction.

(There's a side-issue in there where I wonder if the power is an extension of Eternal telepathy, one of those developed potential specialties like Sersi's molecular manipulation --- or if Mentor really needs to see a doctor about why he keeps fathering mutants, which an Eternal should be able to...)

-Why is bringing your A-game immoral, that is.

Dangit.

Eternals are supposed to be very genetically stable and not mutate, according to the HOTMU. Sorry for the double corrections.

Sorry my system doesn't allow for editing of comments, BU. Your point is an interesting one, as long as, as you say, it's something that is addressed with nuance.

No sweat - I knew the deal coming in, and am just having a big typo day, which is not on you.

---

Does anyone see the implication that Eros didn't use the power full bore on She Hulk during the act, or she'd probably been hanging around his neck like a 6'7 green pendant?

And the further implication of that, that if he got interested in girls at age 13 and had the power, he had to learn the hard way not to overdo it unless he wanted a girl-pendant cramping his style? There's actually a pretty good story in there, that, alas, they'd probably actually go there and publish it these days if from Bendis or Reminder...

What's with She-Hulk's arms in that panel? Horrible.