Writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema bring the Quicksilver/Wanda story arc to a satisfying end in Avengers #53 (June 1968). Of course, we had to put up with cross-title shenanigans, with an important chunk of the story unfolding in X-Men rather than The Avengers. It would have been perfectly acceptable to simply have one team guest star in another team's book, Roy! It would have been! A shared universe doesn't mean forcing your poor readers to buy a book they might not otherwise want to buy!
But the story itself is very good and, as I believe I've mentioned in earlier posts, I suppose I should stop whining about this after nearly half a century has passed. But I still whine nonetheless. Whine, whine, whine.
Anyway, the Avengers show up just after Cyclops defeated Quicksilver (which happened at the conclusion of X-Men #45). Cyclops decides the Avengers might be imposters working for Magneto, and a brief fight follows until Cyclops runs away to free the other X-Men.
We then get a flashback, showing Angel arriving in New York to bring the Avengers back to Magneto's hide-out. But along the way, the Avengers find the bug that Magneto had planted on Angel before allowing the flying hero to escape.
Magneto's plan is to lure the Avengers to the island and then use a mind control ray to get the X-Men to attack them. BUT the Avengers have deduced that--at the very least--they are walking into a trap. So they leave Angel tied up very loosely and pertend to argue among themselves to convince Magneto they are completely unprepared.
While the mind-controlled X-Men attack the Avengers, Angel gets loose, sneaks onto the island and sabotages Magneto's machinery.
Magneto decides its time to retreat, but not before abusing Toad one more time. This FINALLY pushes Toad over the limit, causing him set the island to self-destruct and then getting away with Wanda and Pietro. Magneto tries to bum a ride with them, but Toad does some finger-stomping, causing the Master of Magnitism to fall to his presumed death when the island explodes.
The Avengers and X-Men get away as well and call it a day. The Wanda/Pietro story arc comes to an end, with the siblings disappearing from continuity for a couple of years before returning to the Avengers.
This last issue is fun, with several very effective plot twists. The story arc as a whole is good as well. Roy Thomas was able to set up conditions that made it believable for Pietro to consider returning to Magneto and still leaving it believable that he would eventually return to being a hero. A story arc like this makes one regret how badly the characters of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were assassinated by modern writers. It's one of many reasons why, in my personal Head Canon, the Marvel Universe ended around 1986.
Next week, let's visit with Superman.
Posts
Nice summary. I do remember this story arc hitting the spinner racks, and remember how stupid Pietro must be to be manipulated by Magneto, the master of magnetism, when it was obvious that the guns were jerked by Mags. It was frustrating to see how this was going... and after the X-men were captured and imprisoned, it was obvious that at least one of them was going to break free... and two did... Angel and Cyclops. But the twist at the end of Mags falling to his death on the stalagmite... well that stayed with me for years and years. I wondered about it when he reappears in the Neal Admas run on X-men, but that's another story.
ReplyDelete