Borrowed Villains and New Heroes

 

cover art by Dan Heck

Avengers #47 (December 1967), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema, borrows an X-Men villain and begins the process of introducing a heroic version of the Black Knight to the Marvel Universe.

There are several subplots here, which we'll discuss first. Captain America quits and Hank Pym (currently called Goliath) is planning to rejoin the team. Also, Hercules is currently away, returning to Mount Olympus--which he finds deserted. This begins a subplot that will play out in a future issue.

The main plot begins with Magneto and Toad trapped on a deserted asteroid, left there by the cosmic being the Stranger in an issue of The X-Men. But Magneto is sensing magnetic waves arriving at the asteroid. 

These waves are coming from Earth. Dane Whitman, the nephew of the recently deceased villain The Black Knight, has set up an experiment in the family castle. He wants to redeem the family name by doing good and hopes to discover alien intelligence by magnetic wave communications.

This is an effective way of introducing Dane as a good guy. But a part of me wonders--in a universe where Earth has regular conduct with aliens, is there a lot of urgency in figuring out new ways to communicate with them. Will Dane run to the newspapers if he's successful and yell out "I have proved there is alien life!" only to be told by a bored editor that "We know that already, doofus. We were invaded by the Rock Men of Saturn just last month!"

Anyway, Dane is cursed not just with rotten relatives, but also with rotten lab assistants. When it looks like the experiment is about to be successful, his assistance knocks him out with a rock so that he (the assistant) can take credit for everything.

Then Magneto and Toad appear in the room. The science here isn't clearly explained--but then, Comic Book Science isn't something that CAN be clearly explained. Apparently Magneto was able to hijack the magnetic beam, teleporting himself and Toad across interstellar distances to Earth. This is well within the logical perameters of Comic Book Science and Thomas is wise enough to avoid bogging down the scene with technobabble, allowing us to just go with it and enjoy the story.

Magneto knocks out the jerk assistant, then locks both him and Dane in the castle dungeon. Then he works on putting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants back together. He is dismissive of Mastermind, but really wants Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch as members. We get to see how he met them in a flashback--how he saved them from a mutant-fearing mob.

He sends an anoynomous message to the siblings, luring them to the castle, then testing them by pitting them against a big robot. 

 They defeat the robot, but when Magneto confronts them, they explain they've become good guys and are now Avengers. Magneto doesn't take this well and, between a swarm of more robots and his own powers, manages to capture them both.

It's a well-written story with great Buscema art. Magneto is in full-on mustache-twirling mode, eithout any of the depth that Chris Claremont would give him. But his bombastic villain speeches are a blast to read, so I'm okay with his mustache twirling here.

It's also the beginning of a multi-part story arc that will cross over into the X-Men's book for several issues. I've always resented this--team-ups are great, but don't force someone to perhaps buy a book they didn't normally buy. Besides, in the days before comic book shops commonly existed, there was no guarentee you'll FIND the other title. It's just wrong.

But I'm nearly six decades too late to whine about this, so we'll continue to judge the story on its own merits, rather than by iffy marketing schemes. Next week, we'll see Dane Whitman enter the superhero business.