Will Of The Serpent!

 

We've come to Part Two of the PPC's review of the seven-issue Avengers tale which preceded the closing months of writer Steve Englehart's 1972-76 run on the book. Here, with artist George Perez, he brings back the Squadron Supreme, heroes of a parallel Earth who are now hired guns of not only the Federal government but corporate figures who at one time or another have all fallen under the sway of their world's Serpent Crown. Currently, the Avengers remain trapped on the Squadron's Earth which is under the insidious control of a cadre of industry executives who, under the Crown's guidance and in tandem with the U.S. President, are all on the same page, even as the Crown begins the same takeover plan for us!

As is apparent, the members of the Squadron are oblivious to what's been happening right under their noses, as they once again begin to track down the Avengers who have become separated on the streets of the capital city. And if we're to believe the symbolic penultimate issue cover of this issue as well as the symbolic splash page, their moments of freedom are numbered!

Take heart, however--Thor, who has been on a separate mission all this time, hasn't and won't become involved in any battle against the Squadron; and as for the Squadron having strewn the bodies of the defeated Avengers in front of President Rockefeller, we'll just have to take that image with a grain of salt. As we've already witnessed in Part One, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch had successfully taken down Hyperion, the Golden Archer, and Lady Lark in their own battle, so the home team for this Earth isn't off to a great start--but in these next encounters where the Avengers have split up to search for Wanda and the Vision, we'll see the Squadron tap three other members of their team for duty as they strive to recover Rockefeller's Serpent Crown (now in the Avengers' custody).

(Gee, Mr. Perez, what's with the rendering of that kiddie space station in orbit? Did that thing come out of a cereal box?)

It's Amphibion, Tom Thumb, and Cap'n Hawk who will face the two-person team of the Beast and his old acquaintance, Patsy Walker, who has found and adopted the suit of the heroine briefly known as the Cat and rechristened herself as the Hellcat. Patsy had pressed the Beast to help her become a super-hero--but will her enthusiasm and the power of her suit be a substitute for experience?

Beats me where Cap'n Hawk was storing those weapons he was using. (For all the good they did him. Marvel's winged characters make for great visuals, but their effectiveness in battle situations often doesn't bear scrutiny.)

The next Squadron pair, the Whizzer and Dr. Spectrum, fare somewhat better against their foes (if rashly considering their victory a foregone conclusion)--yet we also unfortunately see how they've rationalized their role in following the directives of the cartel that signs their checks.

With their opposition effectively dealt with, at least for the time being, the Avengers regroup and make plans for returning to their own Earth. But while it's only the Squadron members who assemble in the oval office of the White House, the Avengers are present in more ways than one.

How disturbing to find how strongly the closing words of Rockefeller/the Beast resonate, even forty-five years later. You can only wonder if Englehart (all of 74 years young at this writing) has reread this story recently and had similar feelings.

His jig up, the Beast makes tracks for the room which holds the machine for transporting himself and the rest of his team home. Whether his arguments to the Squadron will sink in with its members remains to be seen--but there are at least ripples of dissent present, which implies that some of them have not been entirely comfortable with towing the line, something that even the stalwart of the status quo, Hyperion, may come to recognize.

As for the Avengers, they return to their own Earth and the environs of the Brand Corporation, where Hugh Jones, the president of Roxxon Oil and a former wearer of the Serpent Crown himself, hurls his company's private army against them, which makes for quite the donnybrook--while on the Squadron's world, the situation is no less chaotic for a society which has finally begun to strip away the wool that had been pulled over its collective eyes.

Meanwhile, the Avengers show no signs of giving ground, even against such odds--but since we've overheard the term "secret weapon," and since we know that Jones isn't given to hyperbole, it's a safe bet to assume that something is waiting in the wings to be unleashed. Given what subsequently happens to the Avengers, that's putting it mildly.

We've already learned the nature of Jones's secret weapon in a previous post, as Thor and Moondragon turn to face it in a heated battle. But the rest of the Avengers aren't out of the woods, as Jones and Buzz Baxter (Patsy's ex-husband, now working at Brand) secure them for execution pending the outcome of Thor's struggle. But once that outcome is certain, Jones finally faces a comeuppance which even his resources at Roxxon will be hard-pressed to help him with, thanks in no small part to the Hellcat.

Whatever repercussions Jones and Baxter might have suffered from this affair are left up in the air at story's end. We do know that, shortly afterward, the Serpent Crown brought back by the Avengers from the Squadron's Earth was retrieved by the Living Laser in a scheme which involved a renegade brigadier general as well as the mutant known as Nuklo.

But Jones, an "apostle" of the Crown, isn't the type to relinquish such power easily--and, four years later, presumably having received only a slap on the wrist by a court of law, he made use of (you guessed it) the Serpent Squad to retrieve the Crown from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where the Vision had disposed of it. And what, you may ask, is this guy going to do with two Serpent Crowns? Well, the Crown still wants to extend its will to influential figures of power, but Jones has his own dramatic way of putting it:

If you're curious, you can read the three-part story which takes place in Marvel Two-In-One #s 64-66, "The Serpent Crown Affair," to find out how it all turns out.