Along with the conclusion to the Black Knight two-parter, I got this one, the conclusion to the Spider-Woman two-parter, at the last comicon. With all the set-up out of the way, how will this one roll? Um...into several pages of recap. From 1984, Avengers #241, "Dark Angel!" Written by Roger Stern, with story consultant Ann Nocenti, breakdowns by Al Milgrom, finishes by Joe Sinnott and Andy Mushinsky.

Jessica Drew is still in a coma, with her spirit trapped in the astral plane; and the Avengers are trying to save her, with the help of Dr. Strange, the Shroud, and the not-entirely-forgiven Dr. Pym. Morgan Le Fey makes a mystic appearance, to tell the collected heroes to step off, she's going to return to the physical world in Jessica's body. Since no one gets to stepping, Morgan then attacks; as Dr. Strange puts it, "she's unleashed some of the very substance of the astral plane into the physical world!" (By the way, I haven't watched Runaways yet, but casting Elizabeth Hurley as Morgan le Fey is nice work.) Strange is occupied keeping Jessica alive, so it's up to the Avengers, since this is their book and all. With the Shroud's darkness covering them, they attempt to take the fight to Morgan, with not a lot of success: she makes a giant body for herself, the better to throw She-Hulk around.

Meanwhile, the astral body of the sorcerer Magnus wakes up, and realizes he sent Jessica into a trap. Dr. Strange was using the light of the Eye of Agamotto as a lifeline, for Jessica to follow to her body, but she was losing strength. Magnus tells his origin: he and Morgan used to be a thing, until she went from insanely hating the king to full-on Darkhold evil, and when he stole the Darkhold from her she killed him while he was astral projecting, leaving him a bodiless spirit, that eventually worked up enough strength to occasionally return to earth, as he did in Spider-Woman #13. Magnus fell in love with Jessica, but also felt guilty for setting her against Morgan, and sacrifices himself to save her. Jessica returns to her body, much to the joy of Dr. Pym, who really didn't do much, but needed a win.

Furious over losing a perfectly good potential body, Morgan threatens to take She-Hulk's instead, but is stopped by Dr. Strange, since he no longer had to divide his attention. She swears vengeance on him as the Avengers escape. Dr. Pym does have to give Jessica the bad news: her spider-powers were gone. Still, she's undeterred, planning on continuing her private detective career. Of course, that wasn't the last we saw of her, and her powers weren't even all gone at that point: I remember her return in Wolverine, I think she still had her wall-climbing powers then. Which she thought of as kind of dumb without the other powers, but still. I don't think much else from this one comes up, except it would be great if Magnus was the great love of her life, and Jessica was always going on and on about her dead wizard-ghost boyfriend with the Friar Tuck haircut...


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Another post on this issue? You're lucky it's not a month on it. Seriously.

Last week, we started on Super-Villain Team-Up #7, ("Who is...the Shroud?" Written by Steve Englehart, art by Herb Trimpe, inks by Pablo Marcos.) and focused on the origin of the Shroud himself. This time, let's take a peek at some of the rest of the story.

In the last issue, Dr. Doom has Namor onboard, sworn to serve him in order to save his Atlantean subjects. Doom has also just signed a non-aggression treaty with Henry Kissinger for the United States. This frees up America to focus on Russia and China (this is 1976) but bars Americans, like the Fantastic Four, from interfering with Latverian affairs. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Johnny Storm gets really, really worked up about it. I was going to say he probably fell asleep in front of the Discovery Channel, but again, 1976. Let's go on.

While Doom gets ready for a little walk, the Shroud introduces himself to Namor, shares his origin, then his purpose for being there:
It's interesting that the Shroud's motives are still completely above board: he's not doing this to profit off his name, he's doing this to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, by taking out what he sees as the lead dog. Plus, this is well before 'think globally, act locally,' the Shroud doesn't believe in taking out small fry and working up the ladder.

This brings us to the page we started with: Doom walking his uglyass hounds, and deciding to avail himself of his droit de seigneur, or ius primae noctis; several years before Michael Scott or the movie Braveheart. It's not really clear what Doom has planned for Gretchen--look, with the mask, the armor, the robot servants, Doom doesn't seem like the type that craves close contact, does he? But the Shroud calls Doom out before it goes any further.

The Shroud uses more gadgets in the rest of the issue than he would the rest of his publishing history: at this point, he has his mystic sight, but his "mastery over darkness" seems more figurative. Later, he would have actual, darkness-casting powers, but not here. Still, he does pretty well, eventually using a magnesium bomb to force Doom to discard his chestplate, and Doom's luck continues to go south from there:

I do like how Dr. Doom is still up for kicking the Shroud's ass without his armor. Until the wolf attack, of course. Better get some wolfsbane on those scars before the next full moon...

Doom and the hounds and the wolf go over a cliff in a literal dogpile, and the Shroud gives the poor, seemingly mute Gretchen a celebratory kiss on the head in celebration. For his part, Namor is waiting around for that ass Doom to come in, bragging about wasting some punk superhero; and is surprised and appalled to find out the Shroud apparently won...especially since Namor needed Doom for the antidote for himself and his people.

Of course, Doom wasn't really dead, he was rescued/captured by Namorita. Of course. Hey Doom? How well does this issue hold up?

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