But at the hotel -- uh, oh! -- Carol Danvers has arrived, telling clerk Jeremy Logan that she's Lawson's assistant and needs into his room; when that doesn't work, she bribes Logan for $10. As she rummages through the apartment, suddenly a giant eye appears at the window; nope, it isn't King Kong, but thank you for recognizing the homage. It's that giant robot the real Lawson created and it smashes its hand into the room and snares Carol, carrying her off to use as bait to find Lawson. Which is a weird tactic for this robot, considering he's supposed to be able to track his quarry. And, I hate to bring it up, but how good is your assassin as maintaining cover when he stands three stories high? Anyway, Chester the taxi driver drops 'Lawson' off at the hotel just in time to meet the police, who are investigating Carol's capture.
The robot brings Carol back to Lawson's laboratory; no idea why the robot needs bait rather than, say, staking out Lawson's hotel room or the lab. Carol thinks, "Captain Marvel, if you've got ESP powers in addition to everything else... I sure hope you hear me calling!" Which is an interesting note - why would a supporting cast member be aware of all the hero's powers? Captain Marvel goes looking for Carol while the Aakon pursue him; Yon-Rogg, monitoring from the Helion, decides to help the Aakon by beaming a radio signal to Mar-Vell, knowing the Aakon will be able to pick it up. This radio message is on Mar-Vell's wrist monitor, which in previous stories would paralyze him; this time it just causes him pain. The Aakon give chase.
The robot -suddenly calling himself 'Cyberex'- greets Captain Marvel as he bursts into the lab, but Cyberex is merely disappointed that Lawson hasn't taken the bait. As the two fight, Mar-Vell tells Carol to run, but she refuses, determined not to abandon him: "If you die here... I must, too!" In the midst of all this, the Aakon arrive; this causes confusion as the Aakon accidentally engage Cyberex in battle, thinking it to be a Kree robot (he's not entirely non-Sentry like, to be sure). It's amazing that Cyberex goes from "unnamed robot" to giving himself titles like "Cyberex-- Lord of Automatons!" within a few pages. The Aakon briefly overpower Cyberex then pursue Captain Marvel and Carol.
Captain Marvel brings Carol to a cave near Lawson's laboratory to conceal her. Once Carol is hidden, Mar-Vell heads back out to fight the Aakon. The Aakon are riding on one-man skiffs and firing their rifles at him; a few of the blasts hit Mar-Vell and stun him unconscious. The Aakon gloat over his body; they wouldn't be so pleased with themselves if they knew how often Mar-Vell loses fights in this series. Anyway, one of the Aakon picks Mar-Vell's pocket and finds a text written in Kree: code Z-19. "The Imperial war code of the Kree! Half-a-hundred years have we sought this key to their destruction! And now---it is ours! With it, their greatest secret will become ours!" So, this has not been set up very well... what's Z-19? Why is it on Mar-Vell's person? Like, this is the first time we've seen him go into battle carrying classified military secrets on his person. Considering the cylinder which contains his costume has a nuclear bomb deterrant, you'd think his personal security would be better.
However, Cyberex has self-repaired yet again; it has somehow detected the presence of Walter Lawson (even though that's not who Mar-Vell is--he's just impersonating Lawson) and has decided the Aakon must be Lawson's allies; ergo, it must kill the Aakon. I'm starting to think Cyberex isn't the perfect assassin Lawson envisioned. The Aakon decide they should simply leave with Code Z-19, but Cyberex fires fatal energy beams at the lot of them as they flee; the Aakon are all dead. Mar-Vell returns to the fight and again destroys Cyberex with his uni-beam, but this time smashes the self-repair system so Cyberex will remain down. Then Mar-Vell retrieves 'Code Z-19' which turns out to be Lawson's personal address book; he wrote the code in Kree scrawl on the cover to fool the Aakon and knew the scent of Lawson would draw Cyberex in. So... apparently his plan was to lose the fight against the Aakon so they'd take the address book, then have Cyberex kill them. How did he figure on the Aakon just knocking him out rather than killing him? Anyway, Yon-Rogg and Una watch all of this and Una remains heartbroken to see Carol's interest in the Captain.
Thoughts: The series is developing problems. After a few promising moments last issue, this time we get back to the same contrived plots as before - Yon-Rogg doing anything to help the bad guy of the month in defiance of his orders. This is such a tiresome idea and I had hope that when he fought the Aakon last issue it was a sign Drake was taking the character in a new direction. Considering the Aakon nearly killed him last issue, it would have been more interesting to see Yon-Rogg trying to help Mar-Vell for a change; perhaps Yon-Rogg's "help" would in some way backfire or endanger humans whom Mar-Vell wouuld have to save, but Yon-Rogg plotting Mar-Vell's death and calling Ronan to judge him is so, so, tired.
The Mar-Vell/Una/Carol love triangle continues to exist, though there's not much to it; Una has been such an insignificant background character that it's hard to feel for her and Carol was better served as merely respecting Mar-Vell.
Mar-Vell's plot to defeat the Aakon and Cyberex is dumb, but kind of typical of lame 1960s comics. Not The Shadow-level stupid, but definitely inferior to what Kirby or Ditko were thinking up. I would appreciate it if Mar-Vell would defeat his enemies by some clever application of his powers or knowledge instead of pulling a previously-unseen item or unintroduced factoid during the climax.
Next: But anyway, now that Cyberex is dealt with, what about the Organization? ...Oh, you had to ask...
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