the vynsane asylum

So. I started reading last week’s books. But I only got three issues into the pile, because the end of Batman 163(which is the end of HToosh, which is also the end of the previous Batman ongoing, even though the current ongoing is on issue 10 already) infuriated me SOOO much that I literally stopped reading this weeks comics. I will eventually get back to them before the end of the week, and this week’s books come out today, so I’ll have two weeks worth of reading to do. But in the meantime, here is Jed MacKay’s Avengers run, which I finished instead of reading last week’s books.

Avengers 1-2. Carol becomes Chairman and puts together a new team. While fighting Terminus, Carol gets knocked into a time-fractal where she finds a mortally wounded Kang(who was attacked in the Timeless oneshot from that year by a new “villain” Myrrdin and his Twilight Court. Kang offers Carol insight on future calamities called “Tribulation Events” in exchange for the Avengers helping him find a ‘missing moment’ in time that can’t be accessed by time travel before Myrddin finds it and does something diabolical with the knowledge.

3-6. The first Tribulation Event is the attack of team of incredibly powered individuals called the Ashen Combine. From their space station called the Impossible City, each of the Combine attacks a specific city on Earth. T’Challa and Sam Wilson head to their Impossible City to sabotage it, but they realize it’s sentient and convince it to aid the Avengers in defeating the Combine and City becomes the Avengers new HQ for the duration of the series. They are keeping the Ashen Combine is stasis aboard the City.

7-10. Myrddin and his Twilight Court(their designs are roughly analogous to Arthur and Round Table Knights) arrive and battle the Avengers and their new sentient base while their leader sneaks into Kang’s medical room, and steals his knowledge of the missing moment and the upcoming Tribulation Events from his mind. Kang is furious that the Avengers allowed the one thing he had asked them to prevent happening and departs once again as their sworn enemy.

11. A one off issue where Jarvis arrives on the Impossible City to help it acclimate to assisting the Avengers. He helps foil a plot by the Mad Thinker to infiltrate the City, but before he’s ejected, he finds the Combine is stasis.

12-13. Fall of the House of X tie-in. The Avengers finally join the fray against Orchis with a series of strategic strikes on Orchis facilities around the world. Orchis, controlled by former Avengers 3D Man, sends an armada of StarkTech Sentinels towards the Impossible City. The twist is T’Challa sent a hypnotized 3D Man into Orchis undercover, and they wake him up with the trigger words to stop the Sentinel Attack. Issue 13 also marked Tom Brevoort’s final issue as editor. He’d been editing the Avengers for the last 26 years, since the first issue of the Heroes Return series by Busiek and Perez back in 1998.

14-16. Blood Hunt tie in. While the main Avengers team were fighting Blade and his vampire army in the main BloodHunt book, Steve Rogers put together an adhoc team of Hercules, Quicksilver, Hazmat, and Kate Bishop to fight Baron Blood and a helicarrier full of Nazi Vampires who were kidnapping citizens.

17-18. Storm joins the team and Thor leaves(because of what was happening in his solo series). The Hyperion from the Heroes Reborn event returns. He realizes he’s a fictional construct of Mephisto and begins a suicide run at Earth from the orbit of Pluto. The Avengers are contemplating having to kill him before he destroys Earth, but Vision teleports him to an alt-Earth that the Ashen Combine had destroyed and tells Hyperion this world needs a hero since their’s were all destroyed. He accepts.

19-20. The new Sorcerer Supreme Doom confronts the Avengers about how best to protect Earth. And T’Challa goes on a mission into the Ashen Combine stasis to free thousands of souls one of the Combine had trapped while he was attacking Earth.

21. Softball game between the Avengers and X-Men. MacKay was writing both series at the time. Plenty of character moments for both teams.

22-24. A lead on Kang’s back up key being stored on a space casino run by the Grandmaster sends the Avengers on a heist mission. But Kang has recruited Black Cat and her time displaced father to beat the Avengers to the key(MacKay had previously written a Black Cat series, so this was a nice little coda to that series as well). Myrddin has placed a wager with Grandmaster on whether Kang or the Avengers will be successful. When the Avengers get back home, they find out Doom has taken over…

25-28. One World Under Doom tie in. While the main team is fighting Doom in Latveria, Sam is recuperating on the City alone. Mad Thinker recruits a new team of Masters of Evil to invade the Impossible City and use the Ashen Combine as basically a nuclear deterrent threat. Sam and the City fight alone to neutralize the Masters one by one. Then T’Challa emerges from his months long mission and together he and Sam take down the Thinker himself.

29. The ‘missing moment’ is revealed as ‘glitch’ Reed Richards purposefully left while the FF were recreating the cosmos after Secret Wars. The Avengers travel into a sub-dimension that is the leftover remnants of Battleworld.

30-32. Myrddin shows up and releases hordes of Marvel Zombies on the heroes, and ultimately reveals that he is a future version of Kang that was using his own team of heroes(the Twilight Court) to find the missing moment. But realized they were ineffective, so he had to manipulate his past self into goading the Avengers into helping him track it down. He’s going to use the missing moment to reset the universe again, but at the last minute the Impossible City shows up and reveals it was originally the Twilight Court’s base all along and it was called Camelot!

33. The origin of the Twilight Court and Impossible City/Camelot was originally the Damocles Space Station from, holy shit, waaaaay back in Kurt Busiek’s massive Kang invasion storyline from the 1998 Avengers run.

34-36. The series wrapped up with a massive tryptich cover featuring every Avenger ever. Kang/Myrddin triggers the missing moment and the Avengers don’t know how to stop it. They open a portal and Camelot releases the Ashen Combine from stasis. They greedily grab the moment and jump thru the portal which ends up being the point in time before the first cosmos(the Zeroth Cosmos if you will) so when the moment detonates it creates the original
first cosmos. (For context, Galan was the last survivor of the Sixth Cosmos, and became Galactus in the Seventh. Secret Wars ended the Seventh, and the current iteration that Franklin Richards and the Molecule Man created after Secret Wars is the Eighth iteration). So basically, the Avengers created…everything.

There were also two Annuals. But they both had a “1” on them. One was the final part of the Contest of Chaos where Agatha Harkness had a bunch of heroes fighting each other, and ends up recreating the Darkhold book, but instead of a book, it’s a little kid.
The other annual was the finale of the of the new Infinity Watch saga where Thanos is trying to gather the new Infinity Stones and the new stone bearers all work together to stop him.

Hmmm. So, this wasn’t a bad series. But it closed its own loop and will probably not be remembered in the great scheme of Avengers runs. I also think maybe MacKay was forced to wrap it up earlier than he wanted. They had made a big deal of all these “Tribulation Events” at the start of the series, giving them names. But after the “Endless Night” one(which ended up being Blood Hunt) they discarded the rest in favor of the Myrddin/Kang reveal. So perhaps declining sales forced him to pivot towards his endgame sooner than he wanted. It also wasn’t nearly as epic as Jason Aaron’s run.

There are more Avengers books. There were short ongoing West Coast Avengers and New Avengers series that also recently concluded, as well as several minis like Avengers Twilight and Aliens vs Avengers. That will get me current on all things Avengers, just in time for the Armageddon Event starting next month.

But first I’ll catch up on last week and this week’s books.

May 27ths books.

Absolute Wonder Woman 20. Diana is captured and tortured by Veronica Cale. But thanks to her ingesting Persephone’s seed, she is obligated to return to Hades’ underworld once a month. Her getting involuntarily whisked away against her wishes is incorrectly interpreted by her friend and ally Barbara as Diana escaping and leaving her in Cale’s hands alone.

ASM:Spider-Versity 2. Norman Osborn and Jessica Drew continue to train all the secondary spin-off Spider characters in one team book.

Batman 163. Ugh. No. This might be the issue that makes me boycott Jeph Loeb for the rest of his career.

Batman:Dark Knight Falls. The final fascimile issue of DKR.

Detective Comics 1109. Batman and Green Arrow come up against a teenage assassin using the same codename as a previous retconned ally of theirs.

Doomquest 1. Dr. Doom conceives of a new plan to seed history with reality changing events to be triggered simultaneously that will “fix” humanity’s endless conflicts throughout time. But Reed Richards sabotages the Time Machine and sends Doom to the Titanic the night it sinks.

Planet of the Apes vs FF 4. The FF get their powers restored, stop the pending Ape conflict started by the Red Ghost and Dr Doom, and get back to their own reality/era. Bleh.

Flash 33. With the help of Captain Cold, Flash tracks down a nuke set to explode somewhere in Central City seconds before it detonates. He also practices refining his newest superpower, seeing a few seconds into the future; his ‘Flashes of insight’

Generation X23 4. Laura and two of the Facility mutates track down Gabby and the other kidnapped kids. But then X-Infinite predictably betrays her once they are in the facility. But the time-traveling chick that died in the first issue shows up via time travel.

Infernal Hulk 7. The Eldest sends out a psychic invitation to all mutants to join her army of ‘monsters’. Eldest kills off several ancillary mutant characters like Marrow and Erg so she can kidnap Leech. Then uses Leech to attack Cyclops’s team in Alaska to kidnap Glob Herman and show him his future evolved version(which looks pretty badass TBH). Meanwhile, Banner shows up at the Avengers/FF meeting, ready to get back in the fight. I dislike writers casually killing off minor characters for shock value.

Justice League Unlimited 19. The League has to do PR damage control after Lex Luthor revealed their villain Ammesty program to the world. After Dr. Polaris publicly quells a dangerous situation, public opinion shifts. Then Brainiac Queen shows up. I have no idea who that is.

Marvel Free Previews 57. June’s solicits for August. Man, this new ‘Midnight’ Imprint looks like a huge whiff. Also Amazing Spidey hits 1000 issues, and Thor hits 800.

Psylocke:Ninja 5. The retro-mini concludes with Psylocke and Elektra teaming up to rescue Jubilee from the Hand’s Snakeroot ninjas.

Sentry 3. Reed suspects the crystalline infection of the world might have something to do with Bob. Bob takes his dog to the vet to say goodbye to him. And now I’m fucking crying about a fictitious dog. Thanks a lot.

Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Echoes of the Empire 2. What are the odds that Darth Vader and a bunch of Imperials show up at the exact same time as Leia and bunch of Rebels in the tiny outpost on a backwater planet that just so happens to be a licensed theme park at Disneyworld?!

Superman 38. Superboy Prime teams up with Witchfire to stop a demon invasion of Metropolis. Then Manchester Black breaks the fourth wall and reduces Prime to his in progress art pages on the issue, before sending him back in time to his fateful battle during Infinite Crisis.

Ultimates 24. The final issue of the series. The Ultimates finally confront the last of the Maker’s Council. After a huge battle, She-Hulk literally beats Hulk to death. To be concluded in Ultimate Endgame 5.

Void Rivals 30. Fleeber’s dad(the president of the left half of the planet or whatever) gets eaten by Sharkticons. He and Dildoia have to escape the planet with Pythona from Cobra-La. Dildoia’s brother(who is the new emperor of the right side of the planet or whatever) surrenders to the Quintessons.

Wiccan and Hulkling:Raid of Ultron oneshot. A Marvel Voices issue. Teddy and Billy invite their complicated extended family over for a barbecue, and Ultron attacks. Meh.

Wonder Man 3. The Spot is trying to kill Simon’s friend, who’s been accused of murder. We find out the Spot is working with Simon’s agent. This confusing murder mystery is failing to hold my interest.

X-Men 30. Jed MacKay has a thing for sentient bases. The X-Men recruit “Leviathan” the sentient cargo ship that was designed to lure them to their deaths. Psylocke and her team, track down the designers behind the new Danger Room, but Maxine gets away. After, Cyclops and the entire team show up in Bohannon’s bedroom and give him a final warning; the next time ONE assaults the X-Men, he’s dead.

Zatanna 2. Eh. I’m dropping this one. Jamal Campbell’s art isn’t enough to keep my interest.

Up next, June 3rds books.

Last week’s (June 3rd’s) books.

Absolute Green Lantern 15. While the Lantern ship barrelsntowards Mogo, the Blackstars are in battle against Jo’s allies John, Guy, and Hal. Meanwhile, Jo and Tomar Re are locked in a spiritual and moral battle in Jo’s mindscape. Tomar wants to sacrifice the few thousand residents of Evergreen to save trillions of others and Jo is opposed to sacrificing her neighbors, even if she doesn’t care for them all that much.

Amazing Spidey 30.
Batgirl 20.
Batman 10. Commissioner Vandal Savage has declared victory against the vigilante Bat-family after the GCPD raids on their backup caches. Batman sends a different message by stopping a bunch of crime in one night, and unleashing the new Bat Signal: 3000 light drones coordinated in a bat symbol pattern in the sky. Fucking awesome.

Cyclops 5. A blinded Cyclops rescues the enslaved hostage children from Donald Pierce and ends his attempts to mine Uru metal.

DC x Sonic: Metal Legion 2. Lex and Eggman collaborate while trying to out-duplicit each other. They succeed in trapping the Justice League and their Team Sonic Allies in a sub-universe.

Deadman 1. New mini series about the deceased DC hero Boston Brand. Not interesting enough for me. I’ll find the cheap back issues later on. Dropped.

Deadpool 5. Wade and Al retrieve her notebook of premonitions from Hammerhead.

Doctor Strange 7. While investigating magic users being murdered by Downfall, Strange must unleash his dark scythe magic alter ego to travel to the God Quarry for answers.

Fantastic Four XII(aka 12). To stop time traveling alien invaders from deleting history, Reed and Johnny travel to ancient Gaul and team up with a Roman Legion. Fun stuff.

Godzilla Infinity Roar 5. Knull and Godzilla have returned to Earth and conquered it. All that stands in their way is Dr. Doom and his handpicked team of Avengers; Miles Morales, Johnny Storm, Emma Frost, Kang, The Punisher, Man-Thing, and a Latverian baker to venture into the Multiverse! To be concluded in the third miniseries in the trilogy this summer.

Harley and Ivy Life and Crimes 6. The story of how Harley and Ivy fell in love concludes. This was a cute series from Erica Henderson.

Iron Man 6. When the Iron Patriot Armor is stolen, Tony has to reluctantly team up with Norman Osborn and Spidey to confront the real thief, The Ghost.

It’s Jeff! Brand New Week oneshot. More cute digital first stories about everyone’s favorite baby land shark.

J Scott Campbell’s Just Spectacular Collection oneshot. JSC did a series of variant covers a few months ago. They collected them in this issue and interviewed JSC about which characters got chosen.

Moon Knight 5. Moon Knight heads into the haunted mansion to rescue his friends, only to have his possessed sword betray him and join the bad guy. MK goes to Clea for help to reconvene the Midnight Sons as backup.

Star Wars Rogue One:Jyn Erso oneshot. Jyn helps some other prisoners escape in a prequel story to when she got rescued.

Storm 5. Storm confronts and rejects Eternity’s second attempt to let him/it possess her body before the coming War. Then the series is abruptly cut short and like five subplots are “resolved” on the final page. Tragic mishandling of what was a wonderful series.

Supergirl:Survive 1. An Elseworlds mini series where Kara is given baby Kal and they take off in the same ship before Krypton’s destruction. It was a decent start, but I don’t think I’ll finish it.

Transformers:The Movie 1. 40th anniversary reprint of the original Marvel adaptation.

What If…? A new series of oneshots celebrating the 50th anniversary of What If…? begins with Scott staying with Madelyn Pryor and raising their son Nathan. The domino effect up to Arrako invading Krakoa and the world ending in nuclear destruction.

Uncanny X-Men 29. The end of the Greymalkin Prison arc. Monet and Quicksilver defeat the new bad guy Perimeter with Rogue’s team’s help.

X-Men of Apocalypse 4. Gambit tried going to the past to stop Rogue from absorbing Ms. Marvel’s powers. X-Man goes back and stops Gambit from changing the past. In the present, Holocaust and Sinister from AoA arrive via a space portal that the traitor Forge made so they could conquer the main Marvel timeline. To be concluded in an Omega issue next month. I’ll finish this story arc, but after this I’m boycotting anything Jeph Loeb writes in the future because he has become the shittiest writer ever. Between this series and the abortion HToosh in Batman, I’m downright perturbed he’s still getting work.

Up next, more Avengers stuff.