Issue(s): Avengers #357
Cover Date: Dec 92
Title: "The night visitors"
Credits:
Bob Harras - Writer
Steve Epting - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker
Pat Garrahy - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Last issue the Avengers had captured the alternate dimension Swordsman. This issue #357 opens with the Avengers throwing a dinner party. Earlier, Hercules was hesitating about calling Taylor Madison and asking for a date, so Black Widow called her and invited her to a party at Avengers Mansion. Now there's an attempt at comedy, with Luna's nanny Marilla having brought in a contingent of Inhuman cooks to "help" Jarvis in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the Avengers try to interrogate the Swordsman, but he doesn't know much..

...and is still having trouble grasping the fact that the Avengers that (he thinks) betrayed him aren't the ones he's dealing with now. He doesn't recognize an image of the Vision in his original green and yellow color configuration, he doesn't recognize an image of Mantis, he does recognize an image of Moondragon but he calls her Mantis.

But then it's party time.

The party is interrupted by the arrival of the Watcher, who appears, looks around a little, and then leaves.

Meanwhile, an Acolyte of Magneto named Screener shows up, scans Luna, and then leaves. She's spotted by Lockjaw and Marilla, but she uses her powers to make them forget.

Screener will later be called Scanner, which is too bad because there was already a Spaceknight named Scanner while Screener was at least a unique name.

Also in #357, we see Zeus approaching Hera about the possibility that Greek gods went to Earth against his orders. She denies it, though.

We also continue to get what is more than a hint that something's wrong with Sersi. She's late for the party because we see her hanging around with a guy. And at the end of the issue, the guy is found dead. The way the scenes are interspersed, it feels like this is what the Watcher is warning about, but that may not be the case.

I originally expected this to be a continuation of the Gatherers plot from last issue, and it took me a while to realize that this was going to be a downtime issue. As a downtime issue, it's extremely bland. No fun dialogue or character interactions, with all the humor coming from Marilla, who i find intolerable. With Black Widow's speech, it almost reads like Bob Harras congratulating himself for keeping the roster consistent for half a year, which, let's face it, shouldn't really be considered an accomplishment. The story does set up future plots, but only in the vaguest ways possible. Very 90s in that regard, whereas the art is not "90s" in a bad way. The Epting/Palmer art team deserved a better writer.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Thor is no longer with the team; we're directed to "check out Thor's own book".

References:

• Black Widow's comment about the rotating state of the team "six months" ago is a reference to her conversation with Captain America from Avengers #343.
  
• Magneto is thought to have died in X-Men #3.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I think somehow that Jarvis' close-up expression here makes the entire issue.

Maybe the Watcher showed up because it was such an historic occurrence that the Avengers managed to keep their line-up the same for six issues in a row :)

I haven't read that particular issue in question... still, I'll once say that, overall, I think that Harras' run (at least, the Gatherers storyline) was a good one!

Was never a fan of Epting. Prefer Paul Ryan any day.

"Meanwhile, the Avengers try to interrogate the Swordsman, but he doesn't know much.."

But does he know what the colorist was doing to him in that panel?

Dear lord, I know it was the 90s but look at all of those mullets. even the black widow has one.

The mullets will get worse... when John Walker has a mullet, you know you're in trouble.

John Walker joins the mulletude?

Holy sex balls!

What makes this weird is that this is (I think) the first appearance of the "new" Acolytes...in an otherwise unrelated book (the big x-book "crossover is ten issues away. But itvstill feels weird to establish that the group was still around here as oppose to a book that would regularly document their story. Also if it's so important, you think the other Acolytes would make a mention of Scanner's mission when the appear in Uncanny #298.)

This swordsman is supposed to be an exact copy of Jacques. Unfortunately, he looks nothing like him...Every single time he's drawn.

I always assumed the fact that this Swordsman looked nothing like DuQuesne was supposed to be an indication that he was a completely different person who'd either invented or inherited the Swordsman identity on his Earth. That appears to be the way they ended up going, since his civilian ID was later revealed as Philip Jarvert.

But in issue 344, Dane says that this Swordsman has the exact same body language as the original Swordsman. Yes, Dane's not a tracker like the Black Panther or Wolverine but he still should have noticed a difference.
I always assumed that this Swordsman is called Philip Javert and the original was killed Jacques Duquesne because one of their ancestors changed his last name. Like an alternate reality Frank Drake might be called John Dracula.

"Same body language" in the sense that he moves the same way? That could just mean he was taught by the DuQuesne of his world or by whoever taught DuQuesne in 616 trained Jarvert in his world.

I won't say it's impossible his ID didn't change along the way once they decided they were going to keep him around for a while, but to me the fact that he didn't have a mustache while the 616 version always had one was an early indication that it wasn't meant to be the same guy under the hood.

Well, that and the Vision says right off in their first face-to-face that "You are not the Swordsman." I guess it's possible he was referring to some dimension-specific energy signature proving that he was from a different Earth, but I took it to mean that it was obvious to the Vision that the man in the Swordsman costume wasn't DuQuesne, either the 616 version or a multiversal duplicate.