Avengers Annual #1 (Part 5)

 

cover art by John Buscema

(with alterations by John Romita)

We come to the last chapter of Avengers Annual #1 (1967), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Don Heck.

While all the other Avengers have spent the previous chapters fighting for their lives, Captain America and Quicksilver have been sitting on their duffs back at the Mansion.

Actually, that's not quite fair. What they've been doing is tracking Mandarin's transmissions sent to the various super villains. They've finally discovered the source of those transmissions, so they borrow a rocket from NASA and blast off into space.

Because the Mandarin's secret lair is a giant space station. The villain allows Cap and Pietro to board, because he wants the satisfaction of killing them personally. It's a tactically silly thing to do--he could have easily blown up their rocket while it approached the station. But this sort of ego-based decision fits a lot of master villains, including Mandarin. What could have seemed like a cheat by the writer comes across as an acceptable way to progress the story. 

Mandarin and the two heroes go at it for a round or two in another nicely choreographed fight scene--with everyone using tactics that make sense in a world ruled by Comic Book Logic. Then the other Avengers show up. Cap had, of course, sent them the coordinates.

But it's at this point that Mandarin unveils his master plan, showing off the big diamond we saw back in Chapter 1. It emits a hate ray. Mandarin wanted at least one of his villain teams to bring some diamonds back to him, which would have allowed him to amplify the power of the hate ray and blanket the Earth with it. All three of his teams failed, but the hate ray will still work at short range. The Mandarin pulls a lever and the Avengers are soon pounding away at each other. This allows Don Heck to give us a magnificent splash page.

 

In an ironic twist, the Mandarin doesn't stop to consider that one of the hate-filled Avengers might attack HIM. He soon finds himself bowled over by Wasp's sting, knocking the hate-ray lever to the OFF position as he falls. Before he can recover, Quicksilver wrecks his equipment at super speed. This causes some violent explosions, which tear a hole in the space station wall. The Mandarin is hurled into space, probably dead but one never knows about villains. 

In another nice ironic twist, the Avengers plug up the hole with the giant hate-diamond. They then rig the station to explode, crowd into the space craft that brought Cap and Pietro to the station, and head on home. 

It's a great climax to a great story. Don Heck gives us some superb fight scenes and the script is solid--with the action following Comic Book Logic in a way that allows us to follow the story as it jumped from one location around the world and off the world. The Mandarin's plan makes perfect sense within the confines of a Comic Book Universe and the characters are all given appropriate personalities and dialogue. This was fun from start to finish.

Next week, we'll take a break for Thanksgiving. (Readership always drops during the big holidays, so I've planned to begin skipping Thanksgiving week and Christmas week from now on.) In two weeks, we'll jump to the DC universe and look at a Justice League annual.