Citizen Kang, part four (will make you miss Atlantis Attacks. Or Bloodlines.)

Last time, after your typical Marvel misunderstanding fight, the combined Fantastic Four and Avengers force faced Kang's Anachronauts; warriors Kang gathered from throughout the timestream. Yeah, they're not great. Among others, there's a Bloodstone, a Black Knight, and a Red Wolf from the past; but none are the ones we've seen before, which begs the question, why?

Since the Anachronauts were ordered to capture the heroes, they opt to throw the fight and hopefully be taken to the still-missing Vision, Captain America, and Thor. The heroes are thrown into a hyper-cube, and Kang drops fifteen hundred words of hard exposition. Then Kang adds the missing heroes to the cube, which is also shrinking six inches per minute and will crush them all shortly. Oh, and Kang promises them three chances to stop him, between 1992 and December 31, 2000.

But, while Kang's been carrying on, the Temptress has snuck up on him, with weapons intended to stab through his force field, which she does. Sadly, she doesn't even get a panel of triumph, since the real Kang traps her in another field: the dead one was yet another of Kang's crosstime counterpart/lieutenants, and one that definitely wasn't paid enough for that. Kang explains this whole endeavor has been less about messing with the heroes, than it was to lure out his female foe, who's killed a number of his men.

Kang uses his future weapons to "strip away all artifice," by which he means get to the Temptress's real identity: Ravonna. We've seen her before, but she's from early in Kang's history (that we know of): she was the queen of a city-state conquered by Kang, and thus subject to death. Kang wanted to spare her, since he already was smitten, but his men then turned on him, and Kang had to enlist the Avengers to help him. Kang's lieutenant took a shot at him, but Ravonna, her heart swayed at last, threw herself in the way and took the bullet, or ray blast or whatever. Dead, or at least mostly, Kang had her put into cryogenic freeze; and would later try to win back her life in a contest with the Grandmaster.

Now, Kang would win that one, but only mostly: the Grandmaster would only give Kang one power, either life for Ravonna or death for the Avengers. After three seconds thought, Kang picks death, reasoning that he'll figure out how to save Ravonna himself later. Yeah, 'cause curing death is gonna be a snap compared to, I don't know, killing the Avengers in their sleep or childhood or something. Kang even fails there, since Grandmaster only gives him power of death over the Avengers, and the Black Knight hadn't joined yet.

What Kang, and we readers, didn't know: cheesed over his loss (even though he managed to completely dick Kang over) the Grandmaster went back later, swiped Ravonna's body and left a copy in her place, and revived her. Pissed over being left for dead, she set out for revenge over Kang's betrayal. And Kang finds that hot. He actually had gone back in time, more than once, and taken other versions of Ravonna as his consort...until they bored him, since they were all more "compliant," and not "his" Ravonna.

Even with the cube still shrinking, Reed's watching this rather intently...guy digs his soaps. Kang offers Ravonna a chance to fight him, she says she'll do him one better and kill him. Kang is digging this. Ravonna armors up, calling herself Terminatrix now...seriously? With a straight face? All right...

Meanwhile, Sersi--the older, present day Sersi; the younger one Cap met in his annual isn't seen again--had disguised herself and taken the place of the Bloodstone-type, and frees the heroes to pummel down the Anachronauts; while the main event goes on. Ravonna calls Kang incompetent, that he should've killed the heroes while he had the chance. But Kang rebuts, that Ravonna still doesn't understand him: he could've killed them, and her, at any time, but he's not in it for slaughter. Kang's future was boring, and he didn't become a conqueror to be bored.

The Avengers and FF watch the fight, which is behind a forcefield. Thor offers to take them down, kind of wanting to be the hero of the game for once, but it goes sour. To save Ravonna, Kang throws himself in front of the hammer, and takes a brutal hit. (Did I say brutal? It looked more embarrassing than anything, like it just pitched Kang on his ass, but he hit his head when he fell.) Ravonna isn't impressed, she feels more cheated than anything. She takes Kang's corpse (or 'corpse,' the Black Knight points out they've seen Kang come back from more convincing deaths than that) and disappears.

And the heroes...pretty much just pack up and go home. Maybe you guys wanna do something about Kang's weird crosstime city, the point of which still escapes me? Nah, even Cap's like, later. Sigh...so, Citizen Kang wasn't the best Marvel Annual crossover (although it beats the hell out of 1993's Superstars of Tomorrow Annuals) and wasn't the best Kang story either, although it beat the hell out of the Crossing.

It's funny, but these Annuals did make me look at Kang differently, since a lot of writers only go with his sense of honor, or a power-mad wannabe dictator, or as a ersatz Dr. Doom. (As in Secret Wars or Infinity War.) Kang could conquer earth in twenty minutes if he wanted to, he could go back in time and kill the Avengers as infants, but that's really not what he wants. Kang's really only in the conquering business for the challenge. He could really care less about the actual conquering, as long as the Avengers or whoever put up a good fight. At least, that was Kang, that day.
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Citizen Kang, part three (is terrible).

Rrr. Fantastic Four Annual #25 has the classic FF, it's got the Avengers, it's got Mark Gruenwald and Herb Trimpe, it's even got Reed Richard's time sled Rosebud II. (Or Rosebud III, II having been introduced and later destroyed in Walt Simonson's classic run.)

And yet it's just awful. There's at least four solid pages of recap, the first two as Dr. Druid and Nebula (or Temptress, as Druid calls her, since she's not the Nebula that said she was the daughter of Thanos) convince the FF to investigate Timely, WI. Then the Black Widow sends the Avengers to search Timely for the missing Vision, Captain America, and Thor; Natasha doesn't go presumably so there's someone left to go after the Avengers when they don't come back. (That and the Avengers here are Sersi, Crystal, Hercules, and Black Knight; all of whom are far more likable in other stories than they were together.) Hey, maybe the Avengers will bust out their world famous battlecry!

No...maybe they won't. Both teams go to Timely, investigate a hologram-camouflaged entrance in the mysterious factory, and end up in a future New York complete with Punisher-themed street gangs. Realizing the Avengers could be used as a distraction, Temptress lets herself and Druid be seen, and Black Knight recognizes them from balling up his last stint on the team. And we get six pages of FF/Avengers combat. Notably, Crystal fights her old boyfriend Johnny, and totally has his number: she knows all his tricks, and Johnny is a bit of a whiner about how she left him for Pietro, about a bazillion years ago.

I realized a moment ago, I don't think Kang appeared in the Thor Annual at all, and his face only shows up the last page of this one: Kang's new crew, the Anachronauts, show up to round up the heroes. But we'll give them the once over next week, in Avengers Annual #21!

Scans from Fantastic Four Annual #25, "Twice Upon a Time" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Herb Trimpe, inks by Brad Vancata. There's a halfway decent Thing backup from Tom DeFalco and Kirk Jarvinen; more not-great art from Herb Trimpe on a Mantis vs. Moondragon story; and then part three of the history of Kang. Hoo, boy. Did you know Kang lost his original body, after a failed attempt to change the course of World War II using the Hulk? Yeah...y'know, what I can't figure, since it's been threatened before, why Kang doesn't attack the Avengers thirty seconds after his last defeat? There may be a reason...that we'll see next week!

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Citizen Kang, part two, featuring Thor!

Thor Annual #17 opens with Thor stuck in tenth-century France, but then backs up a minute: in last week's Captain America Annual, Cap went off to Timely, Wisconsin to find the Vision. Cap never made it back, so Black Widow asks Thor (the Eric Masterson version) to fly out and take a look. So, yeah, at the time the Avengers were being run like Camp Crystal Lake.

Thor finds the weirdly over-wholesome slice of Americana that is Timely, with its far-too-earnest citizenry, and Cap's quinjet. He then investigates the town's factory, trying to get a look at the manager's office, and Thor's lost in time in less than seven pages into this thing. Flying, Thor is able to cover more ground--and get good and lost faster--than Cap. Thor thinks he sees Gilgamesh at some point, but doesn't really care enough to follow up on it, and it very well could be just another overly muscled guy.

Flying towards the futuristic towers Cap had seen before, Thor flies over the Trojan War (Eric remembers that the real Thor had been there, but doesn't see him) before arriving in medieval times. Two armies are about to tear into each other, but instead attack Thor when he tries to get information. Thor breaks it up by bringing down a thunderstorm, but can't really get anywhere, since he can't speak medieval whatever. (I don't know if the original Thor ever had that problem...)

The fighting resumes, and Thor is about to bring down the lightning, when a blast from nowhere knocks him on his ass. It's Prester John, whom Thor recognizes as having once fought the Fantastic Four, and who fortunately for Thor speaks English. (Did he fight the whole FF, or just the Torch?) John had been a knight of King Richard's, wandering after the Crusades and finding Avalon. It was a scientific wonderland, but after the inhabitants died in a plague, John was going to use their "Seat of Survival" to live and on tell future generations about Avalon, when Kang shows up. At first thinking Kang was looking for a team-up, John quickly realizes Kang's just looking for a lackey, and fights him; Kang knocks him through a hole to the year 911 AD, some three hundred years prior to John's own time.

John plans on killing off the Vikings here--who history tells him and Thor would go on to become Normans and conquer England in 1066--and taking over the place. Thor tries to stop him from screwing up the timeline, but a lucky shot (in the face) throws him back and he hits his hammer on the ground twice, turning back into Eric.

And now we're up to this chapter's interlude with Dr. Druid and Nebula, who sadly has put on some armor for her attempt to take over Druid's mind. Druid's upped his game, though, and isn't having it; but Nebula is still able to talk him into looking into Kang's scheme. Oh, and there's some swiped dialog from The Maltese Falcon, which brings to mind one of my main rules for movies, possibly stolen from Siskel & Ebert: there's little I hate more than watching a movie where they're watching a better movie.

Meanwhile, in the tenth century, Eric wakes up tied to a post with the Vikings, as Prester John tells King Charles how it's going to be: Prester's taking over, and is going to turn the place into Avalon, which featured a giant fire salamander for some reason. Getting his bonds in the fire, Eric manages to get free and get his cane to turn back into Thor. Who then beats Prester John in two pages: Mjolnir triggers "another time maelstrom" in John's Evil Eye, launching him out of that era. Eric figures he'll end up whenever he's supposed too, but is more worried about damaging the timestream. He gets the enemies to set aside their differences, which they do by turning against him.

Thor ends up heading towards the futuristic city, but instead ends up in Ellis Island around the early 20th century. For a joke.

Ugh. Not great: Eric does seem to be having a little more fun with this than Thor would, but no one was clamoring for the return of Prester John. No one. He may be a Lee/Kirby creation, but so is Tomazooma, and I think Toma's actually got more appearances. From Thor Annual #17, "The Hammer, the Cross, and the Eye" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by Geof Isherwood, inks by Fred Fredericks. I think I've seen Isherwood's name spelled Geoff more often, he did a stretch of Conan the Barbarian that I liked. Read more!

"Citizen Kang" is a great title, but is that it?

Sigh. I know I had these when they first came out, lost them, then just got them again out of the quarter bins a couple weeks back: Citizen Kang, a four annual crossover with Captain America, Thor, Fantastic Four, and Avengers. We'll take a look at one every Tuesday this month, see how that goes.

The first chapter, "An Epic Adventure," opens with Captain America on the hunt for the Vision, who went missing in Timely, Wisconsin. Well, that's an auspicious-sounding beginning; but the Vision (currently in his white, emotionless version) was doing a check of his internal systems, and found a part labeled as made in Timely. (And somehow never seen before in the multiple times the Vision has been repaired, taken apart, etc.) The Vision predates miniaturization: I believe he means his parts weren't mass-produced, so he shouldn't have anything labeled in him.

Since the Vision disappears after that, Cap investigates; and finds Timely to be a creepy tableau of "Norman-Rockwellish niceness." The factory, Timely Industries, doesn't appear to be operating or to have ever made parts that would go into a synthezoid like the Vision; and the supervisor Mr. Johnson is taking a nap. Not buying it, Cap sneaks up to Johnson's office...

...which opens somewhere, somewhen else: Cap finds a man being beaten by a trio of Stone Men. Moving to help the man, he realizes he recognizes both the Stone Men, who fought Thor in his first appearance, and the man, who is Gilgamesh. At least, that the name Cap knows him as, the so-called "Forgotten One, an Eternal who went by many names through the ages. And when Gilgamesh doesn't speak or understand English, Cap realizes he's in Gilgamesh's time, about 5000 years ago. Gilgamesh is in the middle of a quest (I know little of his story, at least compared to the myth or Marvel versions of Hercules and Thor) and Cap is going to let him go on his way, when he sees futuristic towers in the distance.

Meanwhile, in the present, Dr. Druid is meditating, when he's visited by Nebula. Sigh. So, this predates Druid's demise at the hands of Warren Ellis; and Nebula...errrg. This is the same Nebula that joined the Council of Kangs and mesmerized Druid into betraying the Avengers; who may or may not be the same Nebula that was a space pirate and claimed to be the granddaughter of Thanos. The point is academic now, especially since no one likes either Dr. Druid or Nebula, even though Nebula shows up in a bra. Druid's trying to play it cool, but yeah...

Incidentally, I had the issue mentioned in the footnote there, and it is abominable. Roy Thomas tries with every erg of writing power he can muster, to make Dr. Druid worthwhile, and fails spectacularly.

At this point in Gilgamesh's story, Cap knows he's seriously depressed as he's coming to terms with his mortality. But Cap also knows, Gilgamesh actually is immortal, and will still be alive some millenia later. Gilgamesh tries to get a plant that may grant him immortality, but loses it to a giant snake, and goes on his way glumly. Cap goes on to the mysterious future city with a young Eternal, whom Cap recognizes as Sersi.

Cap mentions feeling like the hero in Kafka's "The Castle," which is a pretty good reference. In the city, Kang has had his prisoner shown around his mighty Chronopolis; but the Vision remains unimpressed. Well, the Vision was emotionally dead at the time, so Kang could probably show him the face of God and not impress him. But I'm pretty sure Chronopolis still sucks a bit...

From Captain America Annual #11, "An Epic Adventure" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by Larry Alexander, inks by Kathryn Bolinger. We might look at some of the other features in this issue some other time, but...not great. I'm already wishing I had picked the Terminus Factor instead. I was about to say Cap's annuals are traditionally, pretty bad; but in actual fact, it's just that #11-13 are varying degrees of terrible. The old ones are better. Captain America Annual #5 is one of the first Cap stories I remember, and it's awesome: Gene Colan art, the Constrictor tries to blow up the World Trade Center and that's not even the A-plot.

Next week: Part two of Citizen Kang, Thor Annual #17, "The Hammer, the Cross, and the Eye!"
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