Avengers Spotlight # 27 Acts of Vengeance 2

By Mark Rodriguez

When the Wizard was captured and sent to the Vault, a mysterious stranger let him escape and he set loose a lot of captured super villains. Hawkeye and Iron Man arrived on the scene but spent as much time fighting each other as they did the bad guys. Hawkeye used an EMP arrow to lock down the prison but it also affected Iron Man, making his armor useless. What happens now?

The issue starts with Boomerang breaking into Stark Industries. Another villain named The Ghost broke in there earlier and Boomerang wants the security video, as requested by his boss Justin Hammer. One of the cops try to pull an alarm but the villain tosses a boomerang through it. The cops tell him that this will send a signal out anyway and Iron Man is soon to come. Boomerang is eager to to take him down.

Boomerang is just itching to fight someone when a stranger in white appears, phasing through a wall. He says Iron Man has defeated Boomerang before even when his friends were helping him out, but if he wants to fight someone so badly, he has 'just the Avenger for him'.

Hawkeye is one having a bladder exam (um...?) as Mockingbird waits for him. Both are relieved that it was nothing serious and Mockingbird leaves. Iron Man is out to find out who blew up Avengers Island, when he is suddenly attack by explosive boomerangs. He gets ready to attack and sees Boomerang.

Hawkeye is surprised since he has never fought him before (I do believe he is usually one of Spider-Man's bad guys) and mentions that since the Vault break out, all the bad guys have been attacking heroes at random, but not necessarily their own rivals. Boomerangs tosses burning boomerangs he calls Flamerangs that the archer dodges. The boomerangs cause serious damage and innocent people are in trouble. Hawkeye uses glue arrows to jam up Boomerang's rocket boots. As the villain falls to the ground, Hawkeye heads out to tend to the civilians.

There are so many people in danger, the hero doesn't know where to start. Hawkeye sees a woman stuck in a burning building and heads up there to help. As he swings down with the woman in tow, Boomerang tosses a Razorang to slice the rope. Luckily they both fall on an inflatable rescue mat and Hawkeye tosses a net arrow to capture Boomerang before he gets away. The cops take him away but surprisingly the woman he just saves slaps him across the face.

no respect I tell ya!

She points to all the destruction caused and says that superheroes really are a menace. Hawkeye walks off feeling horrible.

C-C-CRAWLING IN MY SKIN....

The next story 'Some Assembly Required' starts with the Stingray helping salvage what he could of the now sunken Avengers island. Stingray checks out the sunken island and finds a room that stores deadly and he is suddenly attacked. On the surface, Firebird gets his distress signal and dives into the water to help. She is soon knocked back out and tells them that the Mad Thinker's Awesome Android is on the loose, and he has Stingray in his grasp. Yeah.... these villain names....

The Mad Thinker is bad enough but... Awesome.... Android...... Awesome Friggin' Android!!!!

The Black Widow is on the scene and shoots the android with her Widow Sting. The robot sets Stingray down but now develops a more powerful version of the Widow Sting and fires it back to the Black Widow herself. Widow signals for the other Avengers to come and help.

However at this time, all of the other heroes are facing other bad guys, Thor is fighting the Juggernaut, Iron Man is facing the Wrecker, Captain America is fighting the Sub Mariner, Quasar is fighting against The Absorbing Man and the Avenger West Coast are fighting against the U-Foes. Luckily Captain Marvel does hear the call and flies off to help.

Wanna find out what happens? Read Thor comics! And Captain America comics! In the meantime enjoy a comic about Black Widow and a group of unknowns fight a literal blockhead.

The Awesome Android.... takes down Hellcat and Moondragon tries to telepathically put it to sleep. Hellcat reminds her that the android has no brain to put to sleep, and Firebird swoops in to save them before the robot can attack them. Firebird then tosses flames at the machine before Black Widow can stop her.

The android gets back up and now has Firebird's fire powers, but luckily she can create a forcefield to deflect her own flames. Suddenly Captain Marvel flies in dives into the sea. Underwater, she finds the Stasis Field Projector that keeps the robot in line. After speaking telepathically between Moondragon and the others, they are able to power up the Stasis device and take the robot down.

OMG..... his head.... opens up like a briefcase.... I can't.... I just can't......

Everyone is happy but Captain Marvel warns the others that when she went underwater she noticed that the other killer robots like the Super Adaptoid and Kree Sentry have now escaped. Black Widow also points out that when she called the Avengers, only Captain Marvel answered the call.. so she wonders what has happened to the rest of the team?

My Opinions

Wow, it's always cool to dive into the past and see the heroes of yesteryear. I do wonder whatever happened to characters like Firebird and Hellcat, and I kinda doubt we're gonna see Moondragon or Stingray in a Marvel movie any time soon. But hey, at least the Black Widow is here! It does make me wonder when the movies will finally give her the wrist mounted guns instead of just have her shoot regular guns.

Pretty fancy shooting, but lets hope they give you the Widow's Bite soon, maybe Captain America 3?

Also I guess this is a big crossover that spans issues of other comics... so I guess I didn't get the full story after all. After checking online, Acts of Vengeance spreads throughout several issues of Avengers, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Quasar and Amazing Spider-Man. Basically a big group of bad guys teamed up and decided they' have better chances going after each others' enemies instead of their own. That's why we saw Juggernaut go after Thor instead of the X-Men, and Boomerang messing with Hawkeye instead of Spider-Man.

Unfortunately I only got the issues associated with Avengers Spotlight. Maybe I'll find the rest someday at another con. But it does really suck to not find out what happened after Hawkeye accidentally knocked Iron Man out with the EMP arrow when he needed him most. I guess the Iron Man comics would follow up on that?

As for the issue itself, it was a decent read but wow to the lame villain names... especially when they're meant to be taken seriously. I mean the Mad Thinker was bad enough but the... Awesome Android.... and the thing looks like a muscle dude with a brick for a head. And then said brick opens up like a briefcase to shoot out whirlwinds? What was the Mad Thinker thinking when he came up with that one? But yeah, hard to get over the overly ridiculous name and take him seriously especially when he's a super robot that can copy any super power it comes in contact with.

This comic also came with a commercial for the classic TMNT cereal. I remember that, it actually did taste good, unlike most cereals that were based on a cartoon or movie and were out for a limited time. It's actually kinda coincidental in a way that they have a TMNT ad seeing that a name as Awesome Android sounds like something they would name one of the action figures.... I mean it ranks up there with Mondo Gecko and Merdude.

Anyways I can't really promise what will happen next but the comic did say the next issue will involve Wonder Man, the Wasp and the Mad Thinker as the Acts of Vengeance continue. Let's see how that goes.