Issue(s): Solo Avengers #19, Solo Avengers #20, Avengers Spotlight #21
Cover Date: Jun-Aug 89

Hawkeye
Title: "Desert doom" / "Veg out" / "I've been in the desert with an Orb with no shame"
Credits:
Howard Mackie - Writer
Ron Wilson / Al Milgrom - Penciler
Don Heck / Don Heck, Tom Morgan & the Dudes - Inker

Black Panther
Title: "The vanities of Philip Whitehead"
Credits:
Sandy Plunkett - Writer
Sandy Plunkett - Penciler
Scott Hampton - Inker

Moondragon
Title: "The sun and the moon!"
Credits:
Peter Gillis - Writer
James Brock - Penciler
Roy Richardson - Inker

Starfox
Title: " The comedy of Eros"
Credits:
Peter Gillis - Writer
Tom Artis - Penciler
Josef Rubinstein - Inker

Sara Tuchinsky - Assistant Editor
Gregory Wright - Managing Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
For the main Hawkeye story, Al Milgrom does breakdowns on issue #21 only and the issue is finished by "Heck, Morgan & The Dudes". I've guessed that it's Tom Morgan.

With these issues, Solo Avengers becomes Avengers Spotlight as part of a branding effort:

We recently looked at our enclave of Avengers titles... and realized that due to the fact that they all began with different letters, our retailers who display books alphabetically were placing them all over the rack. Net result? No Avengers line identity.

I guess they didn't like Avengers Solo (although that name will be used for a brief revival of this series in 2010), so they considered Avengers Solo Missions, and then rejected that because they thought it was too close to GI Joe: Special Missions. So they changed the name to Avengers Spotlight as a nod to the old Marvel Spotlight comic.

It's worth noting that although the title was described as having "sagging sales" a few issues back, the only change is to the title, not to the split format, not to the lead character, and not to the content-lite stories. Howard Mackie did replace Tom DeFalco a few issues and that has improved the scripting, but i don't know that it would be enough to be noticeable to someone that already passed on the title.

I mentioned a few issues back (same as the "sagging sales" comment) that they were having a vote to replace Hawkeye as the lead character, and Hawkeye won the vote. The full results were:

Hawkeye: 53
Black Knight: 26
Sub-Mariner: 13
Doctor Pym: 13
Wasp: 12
Hercules: 11
Wonder Man: 11
Black Panther: 11

And other characters in the single digits that aren't listed. A lot of readers couldn't follow directions and wrote in with lists of characters without any weighting, and in that case the first name on the list was counted. It's said that Black Knight, with the second most votes, will be getting a limited series later this year (it'll be in 1990 on my project).

Now, if they could have just gotten people to open up issue #19 to look at the opening splash, i'm sure they would have sold out. Because it features Hawkeye chasing the Orb across the desert.

But it completely fumbles things by page six by smashing the Orb's helmet.

Why in the world would you take a guy in an awesome Residents mask and then have him walk around without it for two and a half issues?

It turns out that Hawkeye has chased Orb so far into the desert that he's not sure where he is, and both their vehicles get smashed during the fight. So Hawkeye has to drag an injured (and faking) Orb until he locates a biodome.

Once inside, they are attacked by evil fruit.

Which is better than running into Pauly Shore (sorry, that's pretty much an obligatory reference).

The dome turns out to be the lair of the Plantman.

The best thing about the Plantman portion of the story is the way everyone politely agrees not to mention that he's been creating lady-shaped plants to have sex with.

Here's the Plantman's plan, if you want to read it. I don't think anything comes of it.

Hawkeye doesn't actually stop Plantman so much as flee the biodome with Orb in tow.
So Plantman does get away...

...but his next appearance is as one of many joke villains that fight the Fantastic Four during Acts of Vengeance.

Don Heck's inks really come through sometimes in the art.

The final part of this arc has Hawkeye and the Orb finally making it to a town in the desert. There's a double-fakeout here. First it turns out the town is populated with the Orb's men...

...but then it turns out that the men have all been replaced with Plant people.

That's the death of the original Orb up there. No one could have foreseen a character whose power is a giant eyeball helmet being the catalyst for a major Marvel event.

Hawkeye has been on the go through the desert and has used up just about all his trick arrows. So he places a call to the West Coast Avengers even though he had quit the team...

...and at the end of the issue it's Wonder Man and Henry Pym to the rescue.

Again/still, no one seems too curious about what the Plantman was up to here.

Overall, i think it's cool for Hawkeye to go up against villains like the Orb and Plantman, but i don't think either was used all that well here. I did like Ron Wilson's art (he could have used a better inker; sorry Don Heck) but unfortunately he's replaced with Al Milgrom with the third part and going forward.

The Black Panther back-up is the boring horrible sort of story the Black Panther always gets stuck with. One thing of note is that the writer Sandy Plunkett originally drew thumbnail sketches to convey his ideas to whoever the artist was going to be, and the thumbnails evolved into layouts and then finally just became the art.

And it's a kind of Prince Valiant style art that you don't normally see at Marvel.

But the story is just this dreary thing about a conference about politicians coming back from a discussion of the financial distress in Zambia, which is said to be Wakanda's neighbor (there's no real discussion of that topic despite a mention that Zambia owes money to the World Bank; if they actually explored that topic it would have at least been interesting), and their plane crashes (due to an unexplained explosion in both engines) and then for some reason the Black Panther has to fight some native god-demon...

...and then he's rescued by his white friend, who dies.

The next back-up continues the interesting Peter Gillis Moondragon story. I say it's interesting because it's the only back-up feature to have continuing parts, and yet the segments aren't direct continuations. And also because the story is clearly following up on plot threads from Defenders even though this is nominally an Avengers title (and Moondragon has only nominally been an Avenger). This one opens with baby Moondragon, Gargoyle-in-a-gem, Moondragon's cousin Pamela, and Pamela's boyfriend, the Titan Demeityr, dropping in on another former Defender, Cloud. They're discussing the upcoming Batman movie.

Later, they say goodbye to Cloud and then baby Moondragon gets jealous when Pamela and Demeityr start having sex ("How can you do it with her?"), so she takes control of Demeityr's mind and causes him to believe she's a full grown woman again.

And when that still doesn't work, Gargoyle-in-a-gem comes in to explain that Demeityr is just a simple guy who is into simple women, and it's nothing for her to be jealous of. And he also admonishes her for reverting to evil form again so soon.

Moondragon responds by hurling all of them into space. Luckily Cloud is nearby, so she saves them and unlocks the potential in Pamela, turning her into Sundragon.

And Gargoyle now has a physical body again and can transform back into human form when he wants to.

Moondragon acknowledges that she's already making the same mistakes all over again, but no one is too upset about having been thrown into space to die. Just to be sure, though, they all take their leave, with Moondragon telling her ship that she wants to go "home", which i hope isn't anywhere near me since i'm not friends with a giant space nebula.

I'm sympathetic to Gillis trying to get through all this in these tiny stories, but it's a bit much to bring Moondragon back just to have her go evil and then get forgiven again. And "Sundragon" as a foil for Moondragon is the sort of name that you roll your eyes at, even if it makes a kind of sense. I imagine if the character hadn't immediately gone into obscurity i could have accepted her more. What i think i'm really saying is that i wish Peter Gillis' Defenders hadn't ended, but i'm glad to have gotten these three little bits.

The final back-up is a Starfox story, advertised in the issue prior with a riff on She-Hulk's new series.

Art in this story is by Tom Artis, credited under his full name, Tomasina Cawthorn Artis. You can see that the art has a soft, kind of cutesy vibe to it, and this is a comedy story. The story is that Starfox has come to the planet of Rescorla in search of his old girlfriend, Heater Delight. Rescorla is populated by repressed aardvark men who "dress in shades of gray and, on festive occasions, brownish-gray". They're so repressed that saying anything, like the word "weather", is considered an obscenity...

...so everything is referred to by a system of codes. Starfox naturally had previously offended these people, but he's able to use his pleasure power to overcome that.

His girlfriend Heater is being sold as a slave, so that's what Starfox pretends to be in the market for.

And he eventually finds Heater Delight, who has changed colors since her last appearance.

He contrives to take Heater out for a trial run, using his father's credit card to pay a deposit (and there's the panel that was used in the She-Hulk joke).

In Solo Avengers #18 i wondered about the line that Starfox was "traipsing around the galaxy running up credit card bills", and probably Gillis had this story already in mind while he was scripting that. That said, a blurb at the beginning of this issue says that this story takes place after Starfox has recovered from his recent injuries and given up on his quest for Nebula.

For placement purposes, i'm not worried about putting Solo Avengers #18 after Avengers #301; Starfox could have equally been running up Mentor's credit card bill while searching for Nebula.

Anyway, it turns out that Heater Delight sold herself into slavery to avoid the advances of Black Roger, Monarch of the Mystery Planet, who was a perfect "gentle-being" to her, but too persistent in his advances.

Starfox again uses his pleasure power while negotiating the final sale of Heater...

...but it only lasts a little while, and Starfox and Heater have to flee. There's an anti-flying field in the Rescorlan shopping center, so Starfox has to run...

...but in the end he uses a trick he learned from the Hulk to use his powerful leg muscles to jump away.

This is a "cute" story, which is a hard tone to square with the topic of sex slaves (and Starfox does leave all those other ladies to remain as slaves). Maybe i'm just as repressed as a Rescorlan.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - death of the Orb. Pamela Douglas becomes Sundragon.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The main story takes place after Hawkeye leaves the Avengers in West Coast Avengers #45. Starfox appears after recovering from his injuries in Avengers #301. The MCP place Black Panther here after his 25 part story in Marvel Comics Presents (although i don't think it matters).

References:

• Many of the Defenders died in Defenders #152 (no footnote).
  
• The previous parts of this Moondragon story were shown in Solo Avengers #16 and Solo Avengers #18, which explain how she wound up in a baby body.
  
• Dying in the desert, Hawkeye says, "Guess I'll never get the chance to rejoin the West Coast Avengers. So stupid to quit over one guy. Now I'll never see Mockingbird again.". Hawkeye quit in West Coast Avengers #45.
  
• Heater Delight was last seen in Warlock #12 (i think; both the footnote and the MCP say it was issue #11 and i'll forever by confused by the way my Warlock issues were reprinted, but it does seem to actually be issue #12. It's the same entry either way.).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I gotta like the Hawk-eye 3-parter. the first issue is a bit silly but the next two are Silver age type fun, what this title was going for. i even started to like the orb and Hawk-eye buddy routine. Plus the Orb had a great death "I could die laughing" and the plant creatures cam as a surprise to me.

The others were meh. Sundragon was completely redundant with Moondragon back.

I was not a devoted follower of Solo Avengers but I did pick up issues here and there. I'm not sure why but when the title changes to Avengers Spotlight, my local drugstore (which was the only place in the small town where I grew up that carried comics) stopped selling this title.

I get what they were going for with the Black Panther story- they wanted to make it ambiguous whether the guy that died for T'Challa was a hero or a fool that wanted adventure or both. It didn't work but they were trying.
I don't know where Gillis thought he was going with the Moondragon story. What was the point of establishing the Dragon of the Moon if Heather's homicidal even without it in her head? We're left with the impression Heather would have still killed her dad and raped Thor without the Dragon. (Dermie has tried to argue Heather's behavior might be a side effect of being in a kid's body but there's no evidence of that in the story.) It's the same problem with Strange's redemption in Strange Tales- Gillis just tells us the character is redeemed at the end without having to work for it. This would have worked if Heather was going to be written as a danger to everybody in her upcoming appearances but Heather's written as a straight hero over the next two years. Readers wrote in to complain but the letters page brushed them off.
Heather's appearance takes place before her appearance in Avengers 305. (Sorry, she comes back to Earth.) Starfox's appearance takes place after Captain America 355, since he's listed as still recuperating in Cap 355.
@Robert- that happened in a couple of stores I went to to.

The fact that Isaac's new body can change back to human is mostly forgotten about and it's mostly written as the same as his old body.

I don't know why, but I liked Sundragon, and I was looking forward to seeing more appearances of her and her little group. But that was not to be.

"That's the death of the original Orb up there. No one could have foreseen a character whose power is a giant eyeball helmet being the catalyst for a major Marvel event."

I want to write that comment off as fnord's sense of humor. But I fear what that comment might actually refer to.

It's a reference to the Original Sin crossover, where the second Orb played a major role.

Hey, now...the second Orb isn't wearing a helmet.His head really is just a giant eyeball.

Starfox's "Galaxy Express 999" gold card is named after a popular Japanese comic/cartoon.