Friday, December 21, 2012

I think Ravonna's wearing a Kang suit, and her regular outfit, under that...


So, we checked out Avengers: the Terminatrix Objective #2 about two, two-and-a-half years ago; and recently I found a quarter bin copy of #1. "Borderlands" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Mike Gustovich, inks by Bud LaRosa.

The Terminatrix of the title is actually Ravonna, who returned and replaced Kang, in "Citizen Kang." Unfortunately for her, she's finding that managing Kang's vast chronal empire, is a colossal pain in the ass. She has to pretend to be Kang, but isn't fooling Kang's elite team, the Anachronauts. (Who, aside from having a great name, never accomplished anything, ever.) She has to deal with the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, which is either a vast army of formidable time-traveling conquerors, or a bunch of cannon fodder, depending when you ask. And she's just discovered the creature Alioth, which claims to be "the supreme time being of the timespan prior to Kang's!"
Meanwhile, the mysterious (and previously unseen) Revelation pulls War Machine, Thunderstrike, and USAgent out of time; allegedly to help her stop Ravonna from reviving Kang. The guys huddle up and discuss it, and decide Kang's a dick, so they'll go along with this. They fight "Kang," who is quickly revealed as Ravonna; who pulls other versions of herself out of time to fight the guys and makes a good showing of it, but is having technical difficulties. Her equipment not fully functional, she ducks back to the Old West for a drink, then decides to recruit some Avengers of her own--a gambit Revelation saw coming, as she spies on Ravonna...

Ravonna seemed friendly and reasonable in her first appearance or so; but her association with Kang seems to have done a number on her better nature, and her patience. This was by no means the best Kang (or Kang-related) story ever, but at least Gruenwald was trying something a little different.

2 comments:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Ahh I remember this series. It was back when the 2nd-stringers/replacement-kickers were hot at the time. Gruenwald did try, but this Kang stuff doesn't stand up as well as it could've.

Tom said...

Don't suppose you could possibly scan the page that comes before that one with War Machine and co? My copy's got a page missing (I think it's just one - comes between 10 and 14). :-(