Thursday, May 2, 2019

Space-Born Super Hero Part 32: Avengers #94

Welcome to another entry in my blogging series 'Space-Born Super Hero' as I work my way through Captain Marvel's career prior to the arrival of creator Jim Starlin. Today I'm up to Avengers #94 (1971), another entry in the ongoing 'Kree-Skrull War' saga with the story "More Than Inhuman!" by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and John Buscema (inks by Tom Palmer). The Avengers have just defeated three Skrulls at a farmhouse in upstate New York. The team calls up Mister Fantastic to let him know about the Skrulls and ask if he can come up with a way to track the Skrull starship which escaped with the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Captain Marvel aboard. Unknown to the team, the Vision phased inside the ship before it escaped and he's now spying on the heroes' captor, the Super-Skrull. The Skrull ship isn't headed for outer space, though - it's headed to Attilan, the home of the Inhumans! The Super-Skrull is about to launch a weapon to destroy Attilan when the Vision emerges from hiding and fights him. Unable to best the Vision, the Super-Skrull simply turns invisible and throws the lever on his weapon!

The ship emits a massively destructive explosion, but none of it pierces the defensive shield which surrounds Attilan's Great Refuge. The Super-Skrull is infuriated at the survival of the "Kree-spawn" (as noted back in Avengers#90, the Inhumans were engineered by the Kree) and it seems his only reason for the assault was that he considered them Kree-by-proxy. Vision considers continuing the fight against the Super-Skrull, but he worries that the Scarlet Witch could be killed in the clash, so he phases out of the ship and departs as the Super-Skrull sets his course for the Skrull Galaxy; at least now Vision can tell the other Avengers what he's learned.

As the Super-Skrull's ship uses a space-time warp to return to the Andromeda Galaxy, Mar-Vell ponders the situation from where he's been confined. He knows the Skrull will want to interrogate him for Kree strategic information and wonders what decision he would make if the Skrulls forced him to choose between the Kree and Earth; realizing he doesn't know the answer, he begins to think the humans were right to question his motives. The Super-Skrull's ship is met by heavy fire - not because of the Kree, but because the Super-Skrull is in exile and Emperor Dorrek has no reason to want him back. The only inch Emperor Dorrek is willing to grant the Super-Skrull is that he "pierced the nega-shield which the Kree have placed" around Earth. This is the first we've heard of this shield. Anyway, Dorrek contains the Super-Skrull inside an energy sphere. When the Super-Skrull attempts to blast his way out using the Human Torch's nova flame, he burns up his oxygen supply and falls unconscious; what a dope.

Dorrek is all too happy to accept the prisoners from the Super-Skrull's ship and transfers Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel to his own prisons. When Dorrek notes Mar-Vell became a rebel for opposing Ronan, his daughter Anelle remarks, "If he hates Ronan, he must be a good man indeed." Anelle asks her father to release the trio, but Dorrek wants the secret of the omni-wave projector from Mar-Vell; Mar-Vell notes the Super-Skrull already tried and failed to accomplish that goal. Dorrek notes he can't "abuse" Mar-Vell because of the "Convention of Fornax" (I believe this is the first mention of Fornax, which is later established as a major galaxy in the Marvel Universe), so he'll simply torture Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch until Mar-Vell gives in. The siblings are placed in a confined room with a massive reptillian creature and a number of small, pink, fuzzy creatures. The green monster seems like the greater threat, so Quicksilver runs about to generate a cyclone, but the force of his movement causes the pink creatures - Druffs - to be flung everywhere and each time one of them strikes something hard, they duplicate themselves. Before you can say 'Tribble', the Druffs become so numerous that they threaten to smother the two heroes to death.

Mar-Vell can't bear to see Wanda and Pietro suffer such a horrible (albeit goofy) death, so he relents, noting those two had already saved his life once. Dorrek releases the Avengers from the cell and informs Mar-Vell if he doesn't turn over the secret of the omni-wave projector, the two Avengers will die.

We cut back to Earth as H. Warren Craddock is continuing his search for aliens in the midst, subjecting government employees to an alien-detection device; he starts by subjecting the research scientists who testified at the Avengers' hearing (Avengers #92); the scientists now regret having gone to Craddock with their information. After this, Nick Fury sends a coded message to the Avengers, suggesting they might want to get out of town. The team is rejoined by the Vision, who begins to explain what's happened when Craddock's forces appear outside Avengers Mansion and demand the heroes exit. Craddock has brought tanks and helicopters, as he didn't expect the heroes to come willingly: inside the helicopters are the Mandroids, three SHIELD agents wearing powerful suits of battle armor built by Tony Stark (a footnote informs readers they're not connected to the Mandroid from Captain Marvel#18, which you'll recall was also written by Roy Thomas).

Goliath is down to his last dose of growth serum but uses it to attack a Mandroid, only to get an electrical shock from him. The armor can also generate an anti-magnetic field to ward off Captain America's shield. However, these guys were trained by Tony Stark, so Iron Man has an obvious advantage, and that is... they don't know about his armor's roller skates!

... No, seriously, that's what he thinks his advantage is. He rolls himself at two of the Mandroids to bwol them over but the third fires a blast which makes Iron Man go tumbling head over heel. The Invincible Iron Man, ladies and gentlemen. Suddenly, Triton crawls out from the sewers below and-- the story is to be continued!

Thoughts: I've always enjoyed the Kree-Skrull dynamic which Roy Thomas first hinted at way back in Captain Marvel #2 and it is neat to see the scenes where Dorrek and Anelle comment about the Kree. As both races are villains in the Marvel Universe, it's intriuging to see what they think about each other.

Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer had previously been the Inhumans' creative team over in Amazing Adventures, so they use the Kree-Skrull War as a means of wrapping up the series. This begins what will become a recurring tradition of audiences rejecting the Inhumans but Marvel creators forcing them into a more popular series anyway. It's the circle of life.

Next: The Kree-Skrull War (and those pesky Inhumans) continues into Avengers #95!

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