Told today, about sixty people would have to ignore their phones to get down to a roster of six.

Great, so I've written posts for next week, next month, even a couple years out; and still didn't have anything prepared for today! There's some planning. So why not check out today's book on the fly! From 1988, Avengers Annual #17, "Prometheus Mutans!" Written by Walt Simonson, pencils by Mark Bright, inks by Mike and Valerie Gustovich. (And Mary Shelley and Milton in the opening!)

This probably seems hard to believe, nowadays when there's piles of Avengers comics every month and seemingly everybody and their mom has been on the team; but while the West Coast team existed at the time, there were no active Avengers on the main team! As of Avengers #297, there were no active members: Dr. Druid had disappeared, I think Black Knight was paralyzed by the curse of the Ebony Blade, and Thor and She-Hulk quit in response to Druid's mind control. So no one's on duty to hear the call when the High Evolutionary is about to set off the genetics bomb he had been preparing the length of the Evolutionary War crossover! Literally the call, in this case: seemingly restored android Jocasta breaks away from her captors long enough to make a phone call, and having no one there to field it, the computers send out a call to reserve members.

The members that show are a snapshot of Marvel at that time: Steve Rogers as the Captain, in the black costume that would later go to USAgent. The gray Hulk, the recently returned-to-blue Beast in an uncharacteristically full-body X-Factor uniform, the female Yellowjacket, and Hercules and the Falcon. Together, they manage to stop the Evolutionary, although Jocasta sacrifices herself again, and Hercules is evolved beyond godhood, seemingly out of existence. There's a silent panel where Steve, Beast, and Falcon acknowledge their fallen comrade; that also seems like they're thinking "Well, at least it wasn't Thor." (Herc would be back inside of fifty issues or so, but I have no idea how! No, take that back: H.E. and Hercules would appear in Thor #419 a couple years later.)

Also, a good chunk of the issue is a battle between the Atlanteans and Lemurians: they were tricked into it, so the High Evolutionary could lure them into position to sterilize them! (H.E. had done something similar to the Subterraneans in the first chapter of the crossover.) So Attuma may be shooting blanks now. I don't know if that ever came up again, or if was a factor for next year's Atlantis Attacks annuals, which I'll get around to finishing blogging sometime.

Also this issue: the conclusion of the history of the High Evolutionary, written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Ron Lim, inks by Tony DeZuniga. There is some dialog dropping on the last panel there! Huh, this is the first issue of the crossover I've blogged, so no guarantees we'll ever get close to looking at all of that one here. Pretty sure I had all of them once...!