Monday, July 08, 2019

Hey, it's the secret origin of...that thing!


The second chapter of this two-parter has two goals: get the Black Knight back to the 20th century, and continue the secret origin of the Evil Eye!...look, it's Marvel, you know somebody had to be clamoring for it. From 1982, Avengers #226, "An Eye for an Eye" Written by Steven Grant, pencils by Greg LaRocque, inks by Chic Stone.

Previously, Dr. Druid had sent several Avengers back to the dark ages and the other-dimensional Avalon, and he was in a trance at Avengers Mansion, along with the hypnotized Iron Man. One of the Fomor, Bres, was going to kill them, but is stopped by the sudden appearance of Thor and She-Hulk: they had seemingly been disintegrated by the Fomor giant Balor, but actually the spell keeping them in the past was just disrupted; She-Hulk throws Iron Man at Bres to take him out. (Double-checking: we don't see Iron Man regain consciousness--or at all!--the rest of this issue.) Meanwhile, in the past, the Avengers are down to Captain America, the Wasp, and Hawkeye against Balor; so the Black Knight charges into battle on his bat-winged steed (I'm guessing Valinor--Aragon was white with fluffy feathers) against the advice of druid Amergin.

After the Avengers and the Fomor regroup, Amergin almost has time to tell them Thor and She-Hulk weren't dead, when he's interrupted by the next attack and teleports to face Balor alone. It's not as foolhardy as it sounds, though: Amergin plans on sucking Balor's power--and possibly his literal eye, it's tough to say--to power up the Evil Eye, a mystic weapon/doohickus first seen way back in Fantastic Four #54 or so. (Somewhat disturbingly, Balor pleads that he'll be good, if Amergin will let him go.) In the fight, Balor is turned into energy and stored in the Eye, Amergin is mortally wounded, the Fomor are trying to escape to earth and the Avengers are in pursuit, and the Knight ends up sacrificing himself by using the Eye to seal Avalon off. Cap and the others are returned to Avengers Mansion, where Dr. Druid gives them no apology whatsoever for shanghaiing them for this mission, but they're all dismayed by the mystic vision of the Black Knight's corpse.

The vision then shifts to Garrett Castle, though; where the stone remains of the Knight's body reform, Amergin's final gift to him. Even sent him Valinor, too! Hawkeye immediately wants to give the Knight a call, but Druid suggests maybe just let him know you were alive, and hold off on anything else. Presumably leaving it open, if readers demanded it, for the Knight to join the team. Did readers demand it? He would eventually, but is that because they received a ton of mail, or because a couple years later Roger Stern was like, eh, why not? I'm also not certain if the Fomor were destroyed, or just stuck somewhere; and what happened to Bres? Was he sent back to the 12th century or whatever, or 20th century jail? So many questions, most of which can be written off with, "magic," so let it go.

1 comment:

  1. Probably, but over the years he's proven himself to be really solid addition to the team.
    That really was some shit though if Tony really was knocked out for the entire fight. She-Hulk just tosses his unconscious ass around like it was nothing and now I wondering if he didn't pay her back somehow for that later down the line.

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