It's the fall of 2000, and Marvel has pulled itself out of its nose dive from the late '90s and making great stories again. And it doesn't get better than artist George Pérez closing out a nearly three-year run on The Avengers in a story scripted by Kurt Busiek. The story's centerpiece turns out to be Whitney Frost, the former Maggia leader who came to be known as Madame Masque when her face was disfigured in a plane crash (where she was rescued by the wealth-obsessed man we know as Midas). Whitney would go on to be involved romantically with Tony Stark, only to break with him following an incident involving her father--and now, the Avengers find that she has resurfaced following reports of her death. Numerous reports, as it turns out, considering that on four separate occasions, four bodies were each identified as the deceased Madame Masque. We readers, however, learn that the bona fide Whitney has been holing up in a hollowed-out butte in the Nevada desert all this time, and gripped in a state of uncharacteristic paranoia.
But then, what accounts for the four "duplicate" Madame Masques? A good word to use, as they were "bio-duplicates" created by the real Whitney so that she could sequester herself in safety and still conduct her operations--the latest of which, "Masque," is even now making an attempt to pierce Whitney's distrust and fear with perceptions and feelings which Whitney herself has repressed.
Ordinarily, we might view Whitney's anxiety and fear here as yet another manifestation of her paranoia. But in this case she happens to be right, as the Grim Reaper, also one of those after Madame Masque, arrives with a strike force to personify her worst fear--an enemy discovering her whereabouts and intending to presumably kill her on sight. Fortunately for Masque, there are others who have been able to track her whereabouts, though their presence wouldn't necessarily put her mind at ease.
As we'd expect, the Avengers do well enough against the Reaper and his goons. But their headway is blunted by the unexpected arrival of another who has unfinished business with Whitney, someone far more dangerous and undeniably powerful--Whitney's not-so-dead father, who has apparently conscripted two powerful heroes who share his goals as well as his own ionic-infused body chemistry.
All of which sets up a crossover with the Thunderbolts title, as both teams are confronted by one of the Avengers' most deadly, near-invincible foes who nearly destroyed them once before and who now schemes to inflict death on a massive scale on the entire planet!
With Masque sending in her own robotic forces to add to the pandemonium, the Avengers have their hands full, still battling the Reaper and his men while both Wonder Man and Atlas attack as Nefaria's proxies. How the team's leader, the Wasp, can be understood (or even overheard) amid all the firepower being unleashed is hard to swallow, as no microphone/receivers appear to be in play (and in the midst of a battle situation it would be difficult for her to constantly have to flit around to within earshot of those she's directing)--but swallow we must, since Pérez's battle scenes in this story (with artist Paul Ryan providing finished pencils for ten of this issue's 22 pages) warrant our full attention. Eventually, however, Nefaria makes use of his pawns to cause catastrophic damage to Masque's base, after which he subsequently attempts to kidnap her but fails.
I may be out of touch with Nefaria's abilities, but I didn't think he was capable of soaring off in flight (thereby conveniently avoiding pursuit by any of the Avengers' fliers)--only of prodigious leaps. At any rate, the Avengers return to their mansion with the Reaper and Masque in tow, having the Reaper confined even as Tony Stark attempts to convince Whitney to trust and help the Avengers.
Meanwhile, attempts to locate Nefaria come up empty (and shockingly so)--even as the Black Widow, conferring with the Thunderbolts, reports what she and Hawkeye believe is Nefaria's deadly plan.
Which brings us to work of Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley in the Thunderbolts book, who take the opportunity to showcase the two teams when the T-Bolts are called to Avengers Mansion* to be briefed on the situation. And with the added input from Karl Malus, they learn that Nefaria's enslavement of Atlas and Wonder Man was key to embarking on his plan for deploying an "ion emission device."**
*Unnecessarily in a practical sense, instead likely done to benefit sales of the Thunderbolts title. Aside from their respective video (and, as it turns out, holographic) capabilities which would make long-distance conferencing between the two teams a breeze, consider how impractical an in-person meeting turns out to be for the Colorado-based T-Bolts--having to first travel to the East coast, only to have to then travel back northwest to Alberta, Canada (which would have been only a northbound trip from Colorado) to face their foe.
**Scaled back from the more dramatic announcement made by Hawkeye of an ionic "bomb" in the Avengers issue, which appears to have stolen the thunder of the scene Nicieza had put in place for the device's dramatic reveal in the T-Bolts issue. More on that in a moment.
In the meantime, Madame Masque has agreed to activate the so-called Nefaria Protocols, the running theme of this storyline but which actually boils down to a single protocol--an "ionic lock" dampening weapon, which will first be used against Wonder Man and Atlas before being deployed against Nefaria. To that end, the two teams agree to divide their forces once they reach Nefaria's stronghold in Alberta--one to initially deal with Atlas and Wonder Man and, hopefully, draw Nefaria's attention as well, while another group heads into Nefaria's relocated castle to locate the bomb ionic device.
More buildup for whatever this device is that Nefaria will be using, obviously impressive enough to give even our heroes pause.
Meanwhile, outside, even though Nefaria remains a no-show, his powerful pawns are successfully taken off the field. Yet that only serves to anger the man in question, who has a few targets of his own to offer in response--and when the heroes' last card has been played, to no avail, it appears that nothing and no one can prevent the imminent doom of all who live on Earth.
While you may enjoy the Maximum Security series (which crossed over to five other titles) as much as I did, I'm sure that Nefaria would be the first to chafe at his own story's upcoming conclusion being given such a paltry plug by comparison. Fortunately, the PPC has got his back.
No comments:
Post a Comment