Issue(s): Avengers #240, Avengers #241, Avengers #242
Cover Date: Feb-Apr 84
Title: "The ghost of Jessica Drew!" / "Dark angel!" / "Easy come... easy go!"
Credits:
Roger Stern & Ann Nocenti / Roger Stern - Writer
Al Milgrom - Breakdowns
Joe Sinnott / Joe Sinnot & Andy Mushynsky / Josef Rubinstein & Brett Breeding - Finishes

Review/plot:
Ann Nocenti is "story consultant" for issues #240-241.

At the end of Spider-Woman's series, she was killed off, which seemed unnecessary to me. Furthermore, a spell was cast that actually wiped the world of her memory, which was just overkill. This arc undoes most of that, although it does leave Jessica Drew without any powers.

It turns out that Spider-Woman is not dead, but her body is in a coma and her spirit along with Magnus' is trapped on the Astral Plane by Morgan Le Fey.

With the help of Dr. Strange & Henry Pym...

...plus Tigra, and the Shroud...

..the Avengers are able to defeat Morgan and restore Jessica to her body.

Morgan Le Fey vows revenge, and she will become something of a recurring Avengers foe after this. Magnus dies for real during this arc. I'm ok with that; he was a creepy annoyance anyway!

Stern seems to be playing up the "Tigra's a scaredy cat" angle that Shooter established in her last Avengers' appearance. In a number of panels, Tigra either notes that she's afraid or out of her league, or another Avenger makes a point of telling her to calm down.

There's some really well written scenes with the Wasp and Henry Pym meeting again for the first time in a while. Janet starts off acting really stuffy towards him (in her stuffy Chairwoman voice, as she says), but they later mellow out and act relatively comfortably around each other.

Issue #242 is really a separate story arc, but it begins with the team traveling home from the West Coast (I thought this panel with Starfox kinda hitting on She-Hulk and the Scarlet Witch was funny; especially Wanda's expression).

It's a downtime issue. Thor returns to the team (Cap returned in issue #241 while the rest of the team was still out west), they throw a party celebrating Hawkeye & Mockingbird's engagement (i love Thor's flagon)...

...and the Vision reveals that he can walk again.

The Vision continues to act oddly.

Then the Vision sends out the Avengers to investigate some energy fluctuation that he detected, which leads to the team getting sent to Secret Wars.

The Spider-Woman story was fun and it's a nice correction to the way Spider-Woman's series ended. The downtime issue is a lot of fun. Good character moments and a good building of the Vision's megalomania.

Milgrom's art can be stiff at times but it's good enough.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - Vision walks again. Spider-Woman is resurrected, loses her powers.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Avengers leave for Secret Wars this issue. Thor's appearance in issue #242 takes place slightly after the opening page and a half of Thor #341, but the rest of Thor #341 takes place after the Avengers return from Secret Wars. Captain America appears here after the events of Captain America #292 (and the last few panels of that issue overlap with the end of Avengers #242). Dr. Strange's appearance is context-free.

References:

• The Wasp struggles to recall Spider-Woman from the prospective members brunch in Avengers #221.
  
• Similarly, the Scarlet Witch re-remembers that Spider-Woman helped Ms. Marvel in Avengers annual #10.
  
• This arc follows up on the events of Spider-Woman #50.
  
• Tigra called the Avengers for help regarding Spider-Woman's "ghost" in Avengers #238.
  
• Tigra is one of the few Avengers who knows Thor's alter-ego is Donald Blake, which she learned in Avengers #216. Tigra thinks Blake might be able to help with Spider-Woman's conditon, but Thor is currently unavailable, and by the time he's back he'll have given up his Donald Blake persona, as shown in Thor #337-340.
  
• Tigra and She-Hulk swap tragedies. Tigra describes the death of her husband from Cat #1, and She-Hulk describes two: when her father disowned her, and when friends of hers were killed in a trap meant for her. There's no footnotes for any of these, and i don't have the relevant She-Hulk issues.
  
• When the Wasp meets the Shroud, she notes that Captain America filed a report on him. No footnote, but that would have been after Super-Villain Team-Up #10-12.
  
• It turns out that the reason Magnus left Spider-Woman in Spider-Woman #13 was because he was borrowing someone else's body! He was also in love with her. Yechh!
  
• Hearing about the Vision's immobilization, Pym offers to help, as he helped in Avengers #93, but the Viz turns him down. It'll turn out the reason why is that Vision can already walk again at this point, but he's saving it as a surprise.
  
• The Vision proposes expanding on the six-member limit established in Avengers #211 due to the alien energy emissions he's been detecting.
  
• The Avengers membership was also limited by the government in Avengers #181.
  
• The Vision declares that his peculiar behavior is in part because of his recent immobilization, as well as the fact that he was possessed by the demon Necrodamus in Marvel Team-Up #130, and the fact that he lost an arm in Vision & The Scarlet Witch #2.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The Wasp's costume has a strange resemblance to the Molecule Man's.

Yeah, there definitely appears to be something wrong with Vision: that one panel shows him as if he's trying to eat Wasp!

Tigra says the events of Spider-Woman 50 happened just days ago. I guess it's been a pretty busy few days in the Marvel U.

Is there something wrong with the lips in these issues? I'd say its just the females (see the scary Shulkie where she places her hand on Jess) but even Vision and Cap are affected based on the pics.

These were some seminal issues of my childhood - the only ones I read in real time as the heroes went off to Secret Wars.

1 - I also love Thor's flagon - one one of my favorite Thor scenes. Poor Jarvis.

2 - These were nice in that we actually had a time that was a bit female dominated. The team of Avengers that flies west is four females and Starfox. A nice change of pace for the team.

3 - A nice use of Hank Pym. This is the start of Marvel remembering to use him as a scientist now that he's not a costumed superhero anymore. That will last a few years before he becomes a combination of both in WCA.

4 - A nice large group of Avengers at the end, which means that they can actually have something happen in the next Avengers issue before the heroes return, unlike in almost all the other titles, which start the next issue with the return of the heroes.

5 - "Morgan Le Fey vows revenge, and she will become something of a recurring Avengers foe after this." That must have happened years later because it still hadn't happened when I stopped reading Avengers in the early 90's.

Erik Beck, yes Morgan Le Fey's status as a recurring Avengers foe got going in the late 90s when Kurt Busiek made her the villain for the opening arc of AVENGERS vol.3. Chuck Austen used her as well during his brief run, and Brian Michael Bendis used her twice, in his MIGHTY AVENGERS and his DARK AVENGERS books. And most recently she was in the AVENGERS WORLD series by Nick Spencer.

I think there should be an increase in historical significance for the debut of one of the all-time worst costumes that the Wasp has worn in her entire career. Always thought it was unfortunate that she had to change into that green & purple monstrosity immediately before the original Secret Wars miniseries started. Not even Mike Zeck could make that outfit look good.

"Engagement party"? I thought Hawk & Mock eloped and were already married by this time. They seemed to get martied on quick succession.

Jon Dubya, you are correct. The Avengers didn't find out about the marriage until after the fact, so this is a party to celebrate it after the fact.