Random Happenstance

The Old Order Changeth!...bringing back old members...

Last time in Avengers #211: Captain America's decided the team would be more effective with only six members (STUPID!). The various members mull over the decision. More hijinks insue.

1. We only see a few of the members actually think about staying or going. Wonder Man's tired of facing death and is going into acting. Beast plans on staying, the Wasp doesn't seem to even consider it one way or the other, and Iron Man's phoning it in at Stark International. As Dr. Blake, Thor takes a cab to Avenger's Mansion, and while he knows he won't be cut, he wonders if he'll choose to stay. I don't know, Thor: Cap's already decided they can lose three members, he could plan on doing without the most powerful guy in the Marvel Universe. Seriously, Cap: did the Avengers set a salary cap or something?

2. Thor's cab driver turns out to be Jake Lockley, one of Moon Knight's several secret identities. (Because that's how secret identities worked back then, that's why: if Thor had needed a lawyer, it would've been Daredevil; a photographer, Spider-man; and so on.) Under some kind of hypnosis, he changes into costume and crashes the meeting before it starts; followed closely by: Black Widow, Hercules, Yellowjacket, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Angel, Iceman, Tigra, and Dazzler. (Whew!)

3. It would be weird enough to have everyone show up out of the blue, but the first five on the list were already Avengers! Hell, Yellowjacket's wife was at the meeting! I love that one panel after arriving, Hank has taken his mask off and is firing up his pipe. Smoking a pipe inside is going to be one of those artifacts that dates a story terribly, like seeing a movie from before cell phones, or a TV predating remote controls. Of course, the current Marvel editorial mandate is that heroes can't smoke, even golden boy Wolverine. Can bad guys smoke, then? I don't think the Red Skull's too worried about secondhand smoke or lung cancer...moving on.

4. Also oddly, Beast, Iceman, and Angel were three of the original X-Men, but they have no lines acknowledging or even to each other. Probably because, allowing for Marvel time, this would be like seeing someone you went to high school with three or four years later; and one's still a rich worthless bastard, one became an accountant, and the third one mutated himself. See, that's why I don't go home anymore.

How the hell did I end up needing another post out of this? More later, I'm tired.