Powered Up and Then Betrayed--Count Nefaria Trilogy Part 1

cover art by George Perez

Avengers #164 (October 1977) is the beginning of a very entertaining trilogy. Written by Jim Shooter and drawn by John Byrne, it gives us a strong plot and excellent action scenes while also providing us with some really strong character moments.

I've always considered Count Nefaria to be a sort of second-stringer, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Both Marvel and DC have their major villains--Dr. Doom, the Red Skull, Lex Luthor, Joker, etc.--that play an important role in defining their heroic arch-nemeses. But both Universes are also filled with villains who are less important on a personal level to the heroes they fight. But they are still perfectly viable characters who can be used effectively in a well-written story.

That's what happens here with Count Neferia. He has no superpowers, depending on his brains and/or his minions to carry out his evil schemes. But at this point he's been beaten by the Avengers, Iron Man and the X-Men, so he's pretty much broke.

So he plans to:

1. Recruit several villains.
2. Use them to rob a bank for seed money
3. Re-hire some former Nazi scientists who used to work for him.
4. Use the scientists to temporarily amp up the power of the villains.
5. Double-cross the villains to get them out of the way.
6. Have the scientists permenantly amp him up with superpowers.
7. Destroy the Avengers.

According to the logic of a Comic Book Universe, this is a perfectly sound plan. Neferia recruits Power Man (the evil one--not Luke Cage), Living Laser and Whirlwind. He then has them blow a bank.

The Avengers soon show up, with Wanda having to cut short a visit with his dad to get there. (This was at a time when Wanda's dad was supposed to be World War II hero Whizzer. This was before Magneto turned out to be her real dad.)

I really enjoy the short but effective fight scene that follows. Captain America has a plan and the Avengers follow it, but Black Panther doesn't quite manage to take down Whirlwind and the bad guys are able to get away with the money.

This is followed by a scene at the villain hide-out--another sequence I enjoy enormously. The petty arguements, jealousies and greed exhibited by supervillains and the scientists mark them for what they are--cheap crooks despite their power or their skills. The scene contains some key exposition, but much of the characterization here isn't essential to the plot. But Shooter includes this because these insights into the various characters draw us farther and more effectively into the story. I know Shooter's tenure as editor at Marvel has its detractors, but he was a good writer.

 Despite the internal bickering, the scientists do amp up the powers of the supervillains. Looking for revenge against the Avengers, they attack the Mansion, beginning their assault when Power Man tosses a car throught he window, knocking out Wasp.

What follows is another fun fight scene, with the amped-up villains at first getting in some licks and giving a newly resurrected Wonder Man a crisis of confidence. But when their new powers suddenly fail, they collapse.

And this, of course, is the culmination of Nefaria's plans. He didn't need his minions anymore, so he had them attack the Avengers as the most convenient way of getting them out of his hair. Now he shows up with his own new powers to take his own revenge against the heroes.

As I said above, this is a strong beginning to an entertaining trilogy. We'll return in two weeks to take a look at the second part of the story.

Next week, though, we'll join a pre-Columbian Indian tribe as we learn that you simply DON'T mess with a warrior's wife.