Issue(s): Solo Avengers #10
Cover Date: Sep 88

Hawkeye
Title: "The sinking of Los Angeles"
Credits:
Tom DeFalco - Writer
M.D. Bright - Penciler
Jose Marzan - Inker

Dr. Druid
Title: "Token sacrifice"
Credits:
D.G. Chichester & Margaret Clark - Writer
Lee Weeks - Penciler
Lee Weeks - Inker

Gregory Wright - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
The opening credits specifically say that i am allowed to sit and jeer.

Well, i'm not going to jeer exactly. Just roll my eyes a bit at these pointless filler stories. The Hawkeye one has an astrologer predicting that Los Angeles will sink into the sea, but it turns out that it's really just a scale model version of the city that gets flooded while Hawkeye is fighting some thugs at a science expo. M.D. Bright has some fun with the expo environment...

...but there's no actual story here. The "something predicted turns out to be true but not in the way you expect" twist is an old one we've seen many times in Marvel's Strange Tales days and elsewhere, and there's nothing wrong with using it but it'd be nice if there was some character development or something for Hawkeye to make this feel like it had any relevance to him.

The Dr. Druid half is the Marvel universe debut of D.G. Chichester and Margaret Clark (they'd previously done some New Universe and Epic stuff together). I don't know much about Clark except that she seems to work exclusively with Chichester. Chichester i know mainly as the guy that did the Fall From Grace story in Daredevil that brought Elektra back from the dead and put DD in an armored suit for a while. This story is also the MU debut of Lee Weeks, who had worked previously at Eclipse and was the regular penciler on the New Universe's Justice.

The story has Dr. Druid walking around with his agent when he notices Celtic runes spelling out a ritual of human sacrifice on a subway train that also looks like it has been through World War III.

While he's investigating the runes, an old man runs out and is then struck down by a semi-verbal priestess named Stonecutter.

Dr. Druid gives up his slot on Letterman to pursue.

He fights off some little goblins along the way...

...and finds an underground Stonehenge made of subway cars.

Stonecutter is about to kill the old man to complete a ritual that will bring demons into the world.

Druid fights the rest of her goblins. Kinda funny to see them punching themselves.

In the end he disrupts the ritual, brings down Trainhenge with an earthquake spell (delayed somewhat by the iron on the trains), and stops Stonecutter, who turns out to be a goblin herself (unclear why she disguised herself as a hot lady for most of the issue). I include this final panel just to show that Druid considers himself at Avenger tat this point, since the talk about book promotion and David Letterman seems to suggest that this took place before he (seemingly) gave that up to help the Avengers in the Masters of Evil story.

The Dr. Druid story lacks the twisty ending of the Hawkeye story but it does have a Stonehenge made of trains. In terms of character development it just seems to reinforce Druid's decision to have given up the occult book circuit for the Avengers, something that i didn't think was in question at this point.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Who really cares? Both stories are context free. Since Dr. Druid identifies himself as an Avenger i can't push this prior to Avengers #275-277 even though it seems like the most natural place for a story like this. It therefore doesn't really matter, and i'd even be ok with placing this after he came under the influence of Nebula-Ravonna's mind control (maybe he's renewing his public image for her). The Hawkeye story just needs to place during a break in his West Coast Avengers appearances and shouldn't take place between West Coast Avengers #36-37 since Hawkeye and Mockingbird are continuing their fight between issues.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

So: Druid can change his clothes with a spell and he has An earthquake spell too. Is he really that powerful?

Oh I don§t know. These hawkeye stories are silver age style fun. they are at least more fun than mcp stories.

and if they wanted to give Dr Druid a rival enemy I wonder why they didnt pick the druid from Cap Am? (as guenwald later does in the capwolf)