There was a time before I actually got into comics. Yeah, hard to believe, I know. I forgot what exactly got me into them, I remember reading ALF comics and Madballs comics but never any 'serious' ones. When I saw the first Burton Batman movie, it got me curious about a more bad-ass Batman beyond Adam West's shenanigans, and it got me into the Batman comics. And somewhere along the line I decided to also check out Spider-Man as well as the Avengers and their own separate comics. I don't think I got into X-Men until the 90's cartoon.
Anyways, one of the series I read at the time besides the Avengers West Coast, was Avengers Spotlight where it was 2 stories in one. Usually a story about Hawkeye and the other about a random Avenger that didn't already have his own title. There was a story called Acts of Vengeance where several Marvel villains escape from the Vault, a special prison designed for super villains. I don't believe I ever got to read the end of it, but now that I got them all at the Sci Valley Con so I can see how this ended.
The comic begins by introducing the Vault, and the guards are bringing in their latest prisoner, The Wizard. He's the leader of the Frightful Four and they already have the other members Hydro Man, Klaw and Titania in custody. The guards wonder why they brought the Wizard since without his fancy weaponry, he's just a regular human. It seems he was brought in as a favor since he keeps breaking out of regular jail. One of the guards, calling himself Guardsman Prime arrives to take the Wizard to his cell.
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| whoa now, it's not THAT kind of comic there, sir! |
Once in his cell, the Wizard can't find a way to escape, but his cellmate offers him a way out. The guards watch this on their security monitors, but as far as they can see the Wizard is talking to himself. The guard gets his armor on and goes to check it out, but the Wizard is now in his costume and he easily smacks him aside.
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| hmmm guy in green that only the Wizard can see? hmmmm...... |
The people running the prison see that the other levels have escaping prisoners as well. They're unable to call for outside help. Guardsman Prime manages to radio the Avengers with his helmet.
Iron Man soon arrives to help and Prime mentions how he caused the last break out at the Vault. A villain named Orka socks Iron Man from behind, but Stark soon knocks him out. Iron Man goes to another room after he reconnects the emergency power and finds a lot of knocked out guards. Hawkeye arrives to evacuate some of the scientists and will then help take down the escaped criminals.
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| Hawkeye tries his best WolverBaterine impression. Still an awkward pose though. |
Iron Man blasts a bad guy that was behind Hawkeye, and then takes moment he was distracted to aim his palm into his face. Iron Man says he's an Avenger and he's there to help out the guards, and he can help if he wants. Hawkeye still holds him responsible for every criminal that escapes when he's suddenly grabbed at blade point by Scarecrow.
Hawkeye easily flips him over his shoulder and aims an arrow at him. Scarecrow asks what kind of arrow it is. Hawkeye says he ran out of special arrows and is using a good ol fashioned sharp pointy arrow, and the villain decides to lock himself up. Iron Man carries a huge stone slab with all the guards on it and needs the archer to cover him. Once outside, Iron Man remotely shuts down all security doors in the prison but says anyone inside can still undo that. Hawkeye shoots an EMP arrow towards the prison which disables all of the systems inside the building. However this also puts Iron Man's armor out of commission, leaving Hawkeye all alone with any other super villains in the are until back up arrives!
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| way to go Hawkeye.... |
My thoughts-
Pretty interesting issue though it did showcase this random guard guy quite a bit. I heard of the Armored Wars, I guess between that and the previous prison break it left Iron Man looking bad towards fellow Avengers.
I do like all the little references and things that I know now that I didn't know back then. I've seen villains like Klaw and Whirlwind in the Captain America and the Avengers arcade game. Thanks to the Iron Man movie I know who they're referring to when they mention that the guards' armor is made by Stane's company, and it's funny how the 'bad guy' armor is so inferior to Iron Man's armor. Plus we recently saw Mr. Hyde in the Agents of SHIELD show in the form of Skye's father.
Not much to say about the story itself except we get a decent explanation of the Vault and how it works, get to see some of the bad guys and Iron Man and Hawkeye fight each other as much as they try to work together. I didn't know Marvel had their own version of the Scarecrow.
The comic does show the sign of the times, mostly those classic NES game ads. I did like how the classic game Jordan VS Bird was advertised twice, the real NES version and the handheld Tiger game version. People really wanted to see who was the better between the two, huh?
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| maybe if I find a copy I'll review it someday |
Another interesting this is this annual poll, and considering that this took place back in 1989, it was cool to compare what happened then to what's happening now. These polls were voted for by fans and they're pretty long so I'm only going by the top 5 of each category.
Favorite Avenger that currently has his/her own magazine
1- Captain America
2- Iron Man
3- She-Hulk
4- Thor
5- Hawkeye
Favorite Avenger that does not have his/her own magazine
1- Wonder Man
2- Black Knight
3- Black Panther
4- Vision
5- Beast
Favorite Candidate for Avengers membership
1- Spider-Man
2- Daredevil
3- Ant-Man
4- Dr. Strange
5- Wolverine
The last one has me curious about Ant-Man since he IS an Avenger... unless he left the team and the fanbase wants him back. As for the others on the list.... well, the vast majority of the Marvel good guys actually are or have been Avengers at one time.
The last thing I'd like to mention is how odd Hawkeye specifically said his arrow will release an Electro Magnetic Pulse. I don't know.... I guess I'm so used to people just flat out saying EMP. Maybe the expression wasn't used as often back in the late 80's. Anyway, we'll see what happens next.
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