Issue(s): Avengers #244, Avengers #245
Cover Date: Jun-Jul 84
Title: "And the rocket's red glare!" / "Bombshells!"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Carmine Infantino & Al Milgrom / Al Milgrom - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
So you would think that if the Avengers were called in to deal with the threat of the Dire Wraith invasion, that they'd be striking a decisive blow. I mean, they're the Avengers! You don't call them in for clean-up activities. But in this arc, the Avengers stop a group of male Dire Wraiths, who are stealing parts from NASA so that they can flee the planet before the female Wraiths find them and kill them.

So basically, if the Avengers did nothing, the male Dire Wraiths would either have fled the planet or been killed (and as it ends, they are killed, but the Avengers defeat some females as well).

That said, this is Roger Stern, so we're going to get a good story with some nice continuity references, like the Dire Wraiths using the "Rocketeers" that they used circa ROM #21.

And, as Don notes in the comments, the fact that, since we're at Cape Canaveral, we see General Bridges, who appeared in the early issues of the Captain Marvel series (beginning in Marvel Super-Heroes #13). He'll later turn out to have been killed and replaced by one of the female Wraiths.

Roger Stern also provides some downtime for nice character moments.

Some shirtless downtime.

Some adventure.

And just a lot of fun writing that continues the uber-plot of the Vision's machinations while making the Dire Wraith menace enjoyable.

While all of this is going on, Hawkeye and Mockingbird are met by Bill Foster at the Los Angeles airport on their way to form the West Coast Avengers. And Quicksilver learns that Bova has been injured by Magneto.

Carmine Infantino co-pencils issue #244, and you know what that means. Crazy faces!

And super-gaunt pig-nostril faces!

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place a little before ROM #58 based on references in that issue. Nick Fury appears in this issue, still bandaged from the Dire Wraith attack on the SHIELD helicarrier. I mention this because according to Hulk #297-300, Nick Fury gets run out of SHIELD at some point, as depicted in a non-existent mini-series. Whenever that supposedly happened, it hasn't happened yet.

References:

• Cap is contemplating the changes that the Vision made to the Avengers team after he returned from Secret Wars.
  
• The Vision is aware of the fact that the Dire Wraiths are a variant form of Skrulls. ROM learned that in ROM #50, and the info must have been passed along to the government so that they could tell the Vision during his briefing.
  
• "Less than a week ago", the Dire Wraiths attacked the SHIELD helicarrier, in ROM #53.
  
• The male Dire Wraiths use a human "Rocketeer" suit that the Vision says is similar to a group that once attacked Clairton, West Virginia. Unlike the other ROM references in these issues, there's no footnote for this one, but it was in ROM #21-22.
  
• The female Dire Wraiths took over the Earth invasion and nearly exterminated all the males in ROM #48.
  
• Nick Fury shows up at the end to tell the Avengers that SHIELD now has the Dire Wraiths on the run, with a reference to "upcoming issues of ROM". I think there's been some kind of miscommunication, or Nick Fury is under the control of Dire Wraith sorcery, or he's just playing a turf war with the Avengers (The Vision is upset that he can't take the lead in the anti-invasion effort due to his own machinations), because Fury's statement just isn't true. But maybe this is why they only bother to send Ant-Man when they get a call from Rick Jones asking for help in ROM #58.
  
• Magneto hurt Bova back in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4 (no footnote for this yet).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Carmine Infantino's career was winding down at this time(he began drawing comics--at Timely--in 1940) and, well, he just did not care.

I remember reading this as a nine year old and thinking, "Wait, Cap's outfit is really chain mail? That's crazy! And awesome!" Wizardry was a big game at the time and I was always buying more chain mail for my characters.

I don't think anything was done with Quicksilver's vow to punish Magneto. As Magneto "belonged" to another title/editor, he was denied being able to use him. Given the quality of Stern's work, I think the EiC should have overruled that and told Stern and Claremont to work together on a mutually agreeable resolution.

There's something about this story that has puzzled me for over thirty years: Is the General Bridges who is in charge of military security at the Cape (and later revealed to have secretly been killed and replaced by a female Dire Wraith Witch) meant to be the same General Bridges who appeared in early Captain Marvel stories alongside Carol Danvers?

Sure, both characters have the same rank and family name and they're both Caucasian males with brown hair and mustaches, but is that enough for readers to conclude that "they" are actually the same character? Writer Roger Stern is known for paying attention to continuity so this Bridges could have been meant to be that earlier Bridges but there isn't any footnote that would confirm it.

I was just wondering if someone who visits this site might know for sure one way or the other.

Don, nice catch. I don't even really see that there can be any doubt. Same name and appearance and working at the Cape? It would be one heck of a coincidence.

On the letters page of #245 the creative team answer the question "Who is your favorite comedian?" - Al Milgrom rather presciently answers "Jerry Seinfeld (Watch for this guy!)"