Issue(s): Avengers Spotlight #29
Cover Date: Feb 90

Hawkeye
Title: "What's the point?"
Credits:
Howard Mackie - Script
Howard Mackie & James Brock - Plot
James Brock - Penciler
Roy Richardson - Inker

Iron Man
Title: "'Tales from the Vault (Conclusion)'"
Credits:
Dwayne McDuffie - Writer
Dwayne Turner - Artist
Christopher Ivy - Inker

Evan Skolnick - Assistant Editor
Gregory Wright - Managing Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
The Hawkeye story in this issue is a team-up with Madcap initiated by an appeal from Dollar Bill, who really wanted Daredevil.

The story is that Dr. Karl Malus has some minions - with tools for hands and names like Handsaw and Vice - kidnap Madcap.

Madcap also apparently wanted Daredevil.

Your enjoyment of this story will depend greatly on how much you can tolerate Madcap. For me, that's "not at all".

The more important story in this issue is Dwayne McDuffie's final "Tales from the Vault" contribution to Acts of Vengeance that has been running in this book. This takes place after AoV is over. Iron Man has provided new Guardsman armor to the Vault guards, replacing the inferior Stane suits. But the new suits draw power from strips that run throughout the Vault, so they can't be used for more than 15 minutes outside the area. This solves Iron Man's concern about not wanting to provide anyone with Iron Man-like armor while still helping the Vault remain secure (a criticism voiced by Hawkeye in Avengers Spotlight #26).

Then a good portion of the villains captured during Acts of Vengeance are returned to the Vault.

Iron Man sticks around after the other heroes leave. As Cap is leaving he implies that he, like Hawkeye in issue #26, doesn't believe that Iron Man isn't Tony Stark.

Later, it's announced that the Wizard has been "caught" but in fact it turns out that Loki arranged for him to be teleported here.

Then Klaw shows up to rescue the Wizard.

Iron Man takes care of Klaw by disrupting his frequency, but the point of this story is to demonstrate the new Guardsman armor. So a guard in the armor shows up to fight the Wizard.

The issue ends with text repeated from the opening of issue #26, providing more thematic closure for this little sub-thread than we got for the larger Acts of Vengeance event.

Well, "no escape" until the next breakout, coming soon.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Iron Man portion of this story takes place after the final Acts of Vengeance battle in Avengers West Coast #55. The MCP actually have it take place during that issue, before the scene that takes place "three hours" after the fight with Loki. That's actually kind of difficult unless we assume that the scenes in Avengers West Coast #55 with Wonder Man and USAgent takes place later than it was shown in the comic (see the Considerations for Avengers West Coast #55 for more). I'm therefore placing this after AWC #56-57.

References:

• Madcap describes his origin, which was previously shown in Captain America #309 (no footnote).
  
• Dollar Bill hooked up with Madcap in Daredevil #234, which is probably why he wanted Daredevil and not Hawkeye (no footnote).
  
• We're told to see Avengers #313 to find out why Loki is so upset with the Wizard, but you really want to look at Avengers West Coast #55.
  
• Fighting Klaw, Iron Man says that he hasn't been hit so hard since fighting the Wrecker in Iron Man #251 (no footnote).
  
• The guard that wears the Guardsman armor in this one is the one that the Wizard nearly killed in Avengers Spotlight #26.

Crossover: Acts of Vengeance

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

We'll see in the avengers annual back-up that Hank Pym caught the wizard. and the Vision destroyed the red skull robot.

whats the point of making guardsman's armour stronger. they'll just have to weaken it again when villains need to break out. and im pretty sure we'll see guardsmen outside of the vault in the future.

To expand on what kveto said, there's a major problem with placing this issue. While the Avengers are fighting Loki, Simon and USAgent are trying to rescue Wanda from Magneto. They fail and at the start of AWC 56 we see Simon being held prisoner. The storyline in AWC 56 lasts until AWC 62. The problem is that this issue makes it seem like Wizard teleported directly from AWC 55 into this issue. The backup in Avengers Annual 19 establishes that Wizard was captured in Avengers West Coast 55. I think Gruenwald's idea was that Wizard was captured by the Avengers, teleported away after the end of AWC 62, and Loki messed with THAT teleportation, which is how Wizard ended up here.
The weird thing about the new Guardsman armor being shown to be much more powerful is that Avengers: Deathtrap the Vault was probably already in the works when this story was written. Avengers: Deathtrap the Vault came out in 1991 but takes place before Amazing Spider-Man 330, so it was probably written before Amazing Spider-Man 330. This issue came out the same week as Amazing Spider-Man 329. So Deathtrap the Vault was probably in the works when this issue was written. Of course, in Deathtrap the Vault, the villains easily defeat the Guardsmen and the Avengers have to save the day. (Interestingly, Klaw also played a major role in Deathtrap the Vault.)
Note that Klaw seemed to escape in Quasar 6 but he's imprisoned in this issue. Avengers Annual 19 tries to explain this by saying that Monica captured him. Unfortunately, Fantastic Four Annual 24 ignores that issue, this issue and Deathtrap the Vault and makes it sound like AIM captured him immediately after Quasar 6, implanted a gizmo in him to help them control him and he's been forced into working for them since. At the MCP, we just assumed that Klaw was captured by AIM, had the gizmo implanted in him, was captured by Monica and sent to the Vault and later AIM found him after he escaped again.

Another weird thing- Absorbing Man and Titania are being shown marched to prison together but Creel thought Titania was dead last time we saw him. It gets especially weird since DeFalco later makes a big deal out of Creel finding out Titania was alive.

Maybe they drugged everyone for security reasons? That would explain that Creel would not notice Titania

Unfortunately, Creel's next major appearance picks up as if he's still disintegrated as he was at the end of his Quasar appearance; maybe it's a different big bald supervillain dude, like, uhm.....