Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #152, Marvel Comics Presents #153, Marvel Comics Presents #154, Marvel Comics Presents #155 (Vengeance story only)
Cover Date: Apr-May 94
Title: Dangerous Games: "Dangerous Games" / "Urban safari" / "Hunter's prey" / "Targets"
Credits:
Chris Cooper - Writer
Reggie Jones - Penciler
Fred Harper - Inker
Michael Kraiger - Assistant Editor
Richard Ashford - Editor

Review/plot:
Vengeance watches as a limousine carrying a crimelord named Joey Starrs is attacked, and Starrs and his driver are killed. Starrs' girlfriend Rebecca Taylor survives, and wonders if the attackers might be the Poison Memories (a gang familiar to New Warriors readers) or Hammerhead. Rebecca is rescued by Vengeance.

Taylor turns out to be an undercover police officer (Vengeance knows her thanks to his human identity as Michael Badilino). Vengeance tells her that a group called the Big Game Posse was responsible for the attack. The Posse are "sick rich folks" who hunt, as the title of the storyline says, the most dangerous game.

Vengeance and Lt. Taylor are attacked, and Taylor is seemingly killed.

Vengeance begins to make short work of the Posse, but then Annex of all people shows up and misreads the situation.

But when Taylor turns out to still be alive, Annex breaks off the fight and agrees to take her to the hospital. Annex is in favor of Medicare For All.

    

After leaving the hospital, Annex is attacked by the Posse, who want his weapons system for their game. And then Sam Buchanan shows up at the Posse's hideout. He wants to utilize the Posse and Annex's tech for his own assignment (and vendetta) of taking down Vengeance.

The Posse intend to capture Taylor and use her as bait. But Vengeance is visiting the hospital as Badilino when they show up, so he transforms into Vengeance. But they utilize Annex's power to create copies of Buchanan's anti-occult gun...

...and they're able to take "Ghost Rider" down.

By the way, if you're thinking "I thought it was Frank Drake, not Sam Buchanan, who had an anti-occult gun", that is covered, or at least acknowledged.

Vengeance manages to recover, and he kills all the members of the Posse at the hospital.

Feedback from their deaths (and the destruction of their guns) causes the Annex equipment back at the hideout to explode. Annex himself escapes. He doesn't catch the Posse leader, but he destroys their base. Sam Buchanan, cosplaying as the Punisher, kills the leader.

One good thing about Chris Cooper is that he's very continuity-minded, so he's able to pepper the dialogue with random comments about the Poison Memories, Hammerhead, the Hulk, the Avengers, etc.., and he's also utilizing a lot of elements here: Vengeance, Annex, Sam Buchanan. It's also worth noting that Cooper, by virtue of being the consistent writer on the Vengeance stories for Marvel Comics Presents, is building up some intra-comic continuity. Buchanan's vendetta will continue and Rebecca Taylor will also appear again. It makes the stories feel more meaningful than, say, all of the random Wolverine stories that have been in this book. None of this makes the series good, exactly, but it makes it more tolerable.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

Annex first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man annual #27.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The 90s! It burns!

Looking at the upcoming MCP covers, some of those Vengeance covers have *really* cool kinda fantasy-oriented art; wondering if the insides reflected that at all or if it's typical bait-and-switch