Issue(s): Avengers #358, Avengers #359
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 93
Title: "Arkon's asylum" / "Gift of the gods"
Credits:
Bob Harras - Writer
Steve Epting - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker
Pat Garrahy - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
The Avengers help Arkon with his sun problems for like the 90th time.

Arkon's planet is possibly the worst place in the universe to live, and i guess this is also an example of Tony Stark's fallibility, since the device he built to protect it keeps failing. Also, when is Arkon going to lead his people out of barbarism? A lot of the tension in this story is around a disloyal minion of Arkon's, Anskar, who keeps pushing human sacrifice as a way to solve the problem, so Arkon's problems are in part due to the fact that he keeps his people in ignorance. He's been on Earth enough times to know better.

In the end, the Avengers solve the problem by blasting a whole lot of energy through a hole in space and time. God knows where it ends up. So no human sacrifice... yet, anyway.

After the fight, Anskar sacrifices a woman anyway, and Sersi kills him.

Meanwhile, the Gatherers continue to scheme, Sersi continues to go crazy, and the hot steamy triangle between her, Black Knight, and Crystal continues.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• The original Swordsman died in Giant-Size Avengers #2. The alternate dimension version finds the story of the death, with Mantis marrying a tree, to be "absurd" and "horrific".
  
• The Avengers first helped Arkon in Avengers #75-76.
  
• The X-Men have also helped, as in Uncanny X-Men annual #3.
  
• Not really a reference, but Thundra is with Arkon per Avengers West Coast #75.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Fnord, you say "no human sacrifice...yet", but at the end of the story the girl IS sacrificed, to "thank" the gods for allowing the Avengers' plan to work. And then Sersi, in turn, murders the man who killed Astra in order to avenge her. Sersi murdering a man in front of her teammates is a pretty significant plot point in terms of her ongoing arc.

I was just writing about Micah Symm from Daredevil and I cam across Arkon just now. I never read about Arkon. What are the differences between Micah and Arkon in terms of their morality? Is Arkon less "savage"?

The title to #358 is most likely a play on Arkham Asylum.

Back in the late 60s, Conan the Barbarian and other Robert E. Howard stories got big again when they were republished as mass paperback books with Frank Frazetta covers.

Roy Thomas had probably gotten pretty heavy into those because he created Arkon in 1970 around when he was also getting the Conan comic set up at Marvel.

Roy Thomas has said Arkon and his world were half inspired by Conan/Kull and half by John Carter. His lightning bolts were inspired by the Weaponers of Qward.

I always thought that Arkon had potential. He's basically Conan with Superman level powers. You can do all sorts of great stories with that as your villain. But all of the stories he is in are just awful.

I wound up with the first issue of this arc somehow. It was depressing to see Thundra so secondary to Arkon. Goes against everything she was all about.