#amergin

Dres gloats to a trancing Dr. Druid because villains love to hear themselves talk. And also love a captive audience. And aren’t too fussed about active listening.

Dres: “You were a fool, Doctor Druid! You sought to ensure the safety of this world -- but instead you have sealed your own destruction! Who can help you now? The Avengers? They battle my demonic brethren in legendary Avalon, eight centuries gone! The golden one -- in the grip of the hypnotic trance you placed him into? You yourself, who are in a trance that allows you to sustain a mystical path to the past -- through which I came to this time! Why waste breath? He is insensate, and unaware of the danger that overwhelms him! By his death, I will trap the Avengers forever in the past -- and unleash my power on this unsuspecting world!”

I like how he becomes self-aware of how pointless it is to do a villain rant to a guy who can’t hear you and then just keeps going anyway.

Anyway, here’s why you don’t do that, if you’re a villain.

(This is a free tip to any aspiring villains out there)

Thor and She-Hulk just pop into existence randomly just as Bres is finally going to actually do something.

She-Hulk mentions that they were just fighting a one-eyed giant which lets Bres put together that they were fighting Balor and why they’re here now.

Bres: “A giant? My cousin Balor, no doubt, whose glance disrupts all spells -- including that which held you in Avalon!”

And then instead of just killing Dr. Druid when he has the chance (Thor and She-Hulk aren’t even looking at him when they appear), Dres runs over and clocks Thor right in his face.

(Another free tip for aspiring villains here: do not clock Thor in the face)

Sooooooo, I’m of two minds here.

I expected Iron Man being left behind in a hypnotized trance was for this. That he’d come to somehow and stop Dres.

On the other hand, Thor and She-Hulk appearing out of nowhere to fight this guy because Balor inadvertently screwed over his cousin’s plans is pretty hilarious.

Also, pretty lucky that the time-travel spell was disrupted first, snapping Thor back to the future. If Thor had been fighting Balor on his own time, who knows what his malefic stare would have done to the enchantments on Mjolnir.

That’s a fun plot bunny.

Anyway, you wouldn’t think that Bres could stand for long against both Thor and She-Hulk. Thor was kicking Elathan’s ass and Elathan was the boss Fomor.

But Bres blasts She-Hulk away and then uses magic to tear Mjolnir from Thor’s grasp. Without Mjolnir, Bres and Thor are on more equal footing. Also that whole thing where Thor is going to turn into a powerless mortal in sixty seconds, which will put them on very much unequal footing.

She-Hulk decides she’s useless in a god fight, based on how much a glancing blast hurt. So she ducks behind Iron Man and uses her unconscious teammate as cover.

Pretty cold, She-Hulk!

But then she notices that Bres’ magic is splashing off Iron Man like magic water off an iron duck.

So she has a really good idea.

She picks up the unconscious Iron Man and throws him at Bres.

I’ve changed my mind. I’m glad that things shook out exactly this way.

So Iron Man hits Bres in the ass like a missile at about the same time Thor punches him in the shoulder.

Under this synchronized and silly assault, Bres folds like a sack of potatoes, with Iron Man slumped on top of him.

With Bres out cold, his spell keeping Mjolnir away fades, letting Thor retrieve his favorite hammer.

Looking ahead, Iron Man doesn’t show up for the rest of the issue and neither does Bres so I assume they just leave Iron Man laying on top of Bres to keep him out of trouble for the rest of the story.

Iron Man is going to have a bunch of questions when he wakes up.

Despite taking care of Bres, Thor realizes that they can’t go back in time to help the other Avengers because Dr. Druid remains entranced. So they’ve got to sit on their thumbs and hope that the Avengers do okay without their two strongest members.

Well they’re doing.

Not quite okay but not dying either. That’s pretty good against Balor.

Hawkeye has the bright idea to shoot Balor in the one eye with a smoke arrow so he’ll stop shooting death beams at them.

I don’t mean for that to sound sarcastic, it really is a bright idea.

Meanwhile, in the halls of Avalon (considerably less cool than the ones of Justice), Black Knight is ditching the plan to go help the Avengers and Amergin is unhappy.

But Black Knight is like nuts to your happiness, it was Black Knight’s idea to bring in the Avengers so he’s not going to watch them fight alone just because Amergin says so!

He has a flying horse! He can do what he waaaaaaaaaaaants!

And he takes off on the flying horse, which is something he has.

Amergin: “Your chivalry will be the death of us all!”

Hey, that’s no way to talk about a man with a sweet flying horse.

Black Knight and his sweet flying horse arrive in time to see Balor randomly blasting the ground and complaining because the Avengers are no fun.

Balor: “Puny flesh-things annoy Balor! Balor lives for fighting! If you will not fight -- go away!”

Balor is a guy of diminishing returns. He’ll never be cooler than that moment right when he wiped She-Hulk and Thor from existence while barely noticing he did it.

The fact that we’ve seen them pop up unharmed doesn’t help.

Black Knight attacks Balor, assuming he killed the Avengers and he wants to avenge the Avengers because if the Avengers need avenging someone needs to avenge the Avengers.

And Black Knight gets almost instantly slapped off his sweet flying horse because its Black Knight.

The Avengers were fine. They dove into the mud to hide from Balor but now they have to launch into Emergency Rescue Procedure which is something they’ve totally practiced! And its totally a procedure they specifically have for situations where they only have Wasp, Hawkeye, and Captain America.

Because its PRETTY SPECIFIC.

Hawkeye shoots two parachute arrows (Something that he just has, why question it? Its like Batman’s utility belt in his quiver) to slow Black Knight’s fall.

Wasp buzzes around Balor to distract him because being small and vaguely distracting is something she’s practiced around 200 issues for.

And Cap jumps up and catches Black Knight to further slow his fall.

They specifically have this specific emergency rescue procedure in case a man dressed as a medieval knight is falling off a flying horse due to a giant cyclops. For this specific situation.

Anyway, the sweet flying horse is doing fine too. Nobody needed to catch Valinor. He took care of himself.

On Black Knight’s suggestion the Avengers do a strategic retreat, all piling on Valinor and flying away as Balor shakes his fist and wonders who he’ll fight now.

Valinor doesn’t look thrilled at carrying three grown men, to be honest.

He deserves to be a Pet Avenger for his hard work but alas. No respect for Valinor.

Elathan and the rest of the Fomor creep out of wherever they were hiding and Elathan presents Balor with an offer.

Elathan: “Join with us, monster, and you’ll have fights for the picking, as many as you want!”

He tells Balor that there’s a whole new world beyond Avalon that they can raze and that Balor can destroy to his heart’s content.

Mmmmmmmm. I don’t like this. If Elathan can just talk Balor into joining the Fomor then all the build-up about how Balor was too dangerous to friend as well as foe kind of falls flat.

I’d really have preferred something where Balor becomes a third side unto himself plus maybe Cethlann as the Fomor and the Avengers have to sort of work around him.

But we get what we get.

Balor’s much smaller wife Cethlann tries to tell Balor to not trust Elathan but Dulb and Indech threaten to stab her much if she doesn’t shut up.

Poor Cethlann. Sure she’s evil but also she has no friends on team evil and her own husband is barely aware of her.

And of course Elathan is planning to betray both Balor and Cethlann after they win because villains be like that.

This is a whole lot of Fomor interpersonal drama info we’re getting in these two issues.

Meanwhile, within Avalon, Hawkeye is throwing a mini-tantrum about how bad things went.

Hawkeye: “Face it, Avengers! We blew it! Those Fomor clowns have us outnumbered and outpowered!”

Captain America: “We’re not finished yet, Clint -- and I’ve seen more than one apparent loser win the war!”

Geez, Clint. Settle down.

Amergin agrees. Particularly because the Avengers have played their unknowing part in his secret master plan perfectly. I mean, except for the part where Thor and She-Hulk died*.

(*They’re just fine, true believers)

But the plan always was for the Avengers to force the Fomor to release Balor because Amergin’s Evil Eye looking weapon needed a power source to power it and Balor is just the one.

No clue how the Avengers would react to being manipulated like this because the Fomor start attacking again and Amergin plops to the floor and then teleports away to confront them.

Outside the gates of Avalon, Balor’s DEATH BEAMS are making short work of Avalon’s defenses.

Then Amergin shows up standing on top of the walls, waving the Evil Eye, and telling the Fomor to get off his lawn. Well, basically.

Amergin: “Do not seek to taunt me, Elathan! Once I drove you and all your allies before me, and one could resist my might! Do you wish to see that day again?”

Elathan is like ‘yeah well you’re old’ and has Balor strike him down with an EYE BEAM.

Elathan: “Farewell, old enemy! None will mourn your passing!”

Ice cold, Elathan.

But, nah, Amergin isn’t dead so easily. In fact, This Is All According To Plan.

He climbs out of some rubble holding an Evil Eye which now glows with an awesome power.

And when Balor tries to EYE BEAM him again, Amergin absorbs Balor’s power into the Evil Eye.

Amergin: “You have always placed too much stock in your supposed power, Fomor! I too have loved power too much -- but I am wise enough to turn an enemy’s strength against him!”

Balor finally seems aware of Cethlann, asking her to make the pain stop. Cethlann, being Cethlann and not here to be helpful, points at whats happening and starts talking about how screwed they all are.

Elathan tries to jump the distracted Amergin but he is a noun and therefore when he opposes Captain America’s mighty shield, he must yield.

Even if he didn’t know that he was opposing Captain America’s mighty shield. Thems the rules.

Elathan decides ‘hey fuck this human a little bit’ and uses magic to make the Earth start growing up around Cap. As he’s swallowed up, he throws his shield at nothing.

The Avengers end up squaring up against the Fomor. And to Hawkeye’s irritation, he ends up facing Dulb again.

Wasp tries to block the tathlum balls but. Yeah. They’re still magic and dodge around her just to mess with Hawkeye.

Meanwhile, Black Knight realizes how stupid this entire plan was.

Black Knight: “This isn’t working out -- I was stupid to get the Avengers mixed up in this! What happened to Hercules, Iron Man, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch... all the people who were Avengers when I was a member? That’s who I wanted!”

Huh! That’s a good point. Black Knight would have no idea who the current Avengers would be and that line-up would have been a lot stronger for this situation.

(Of course, Iron Man is on the team. He just can’t join because magic reasons)

Black Knight goes to save Captain America but when Captain America throws his mighty shield, all who oppose his shield must yield. Including the Earth.

When he threw his shield at nothing he was really planning a ricochet to free himself.

Good work, Cap.

Meanwhile elsewhere on the battlefield, Amergin is still absorbing Balor. And he’s so totally focused on draining every drop of Balor’s power that he has no defenses against Elathan zaming him in the back from behind. Which is exactly what happens.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Wasp comes up with a plan to turn the tide of the fight. And as a side-benefit, make Hawkeye’s day a little less annoying.

She dzats Dulb in the face to get him pissed at her and throw his tathlum balls.

AND THEN SHE FLIES INTO TETHRA’S MOUTH

Thank god this isn’t the ultimate universe.

Anyway, this makes the tathlum balls hit Tethra right in the face and knock him on his ass.

So, on the one hand. Very effective plan and good thinking, Jan.

On the other hand, that’s gross. That’s gross what you just did.

Black Knight notices Elathan attacking Amergin. Cap tells him to go help the wizard while Cap holds off the other Fomor.

And then Cap immediately runs away.

Because he needs to think of a plan. Unluckily, one presents itself.

Cethlann is lurking around the wall of Avalon and when Cap runs by she grabs his foot.

Cethlann: “Not so fast, human! Cethlann wants to play with you!”

Cap thinks off his foot and flipkicks her into gooey, gooey Indech, gumming both Fomor up. Neither of them are thrilled by this.

Also, Cap, don’t be rude.

Over at Amergin, Elathan decides it will be both hilarious and ironic to leech Amergin’s life, as the wizard was draining Balor.

Black Knight jumps in to save Amergin, his cursed sword reflecting Elathan’s magic. Which is a handy feature. I had thought the Ebony Sword’s curse mostly thirsted for blood and made Black Knight brood. Anti-magic is a significantly nicer feature.

Elathan has a counter-plan though! Black Knight’s arms are going to get tired eventually and when they do, Elathan is gonna git him!

But Amergin realizes that he’s lost the Eye and that Balor has found the Eye. And Balor wants his power back and obviously thinks that the Evil Eye works like one of those Capri Sun drink pouches and just tries to squeeze the power out. Into his mouth.

Even though Amergin tells him not to do this thing!

Anyway, yeah. It explodes.

That’s not how Evil Eyes work and it explodes.

Balor is disintegrated by this (and oof Cethlann in the background looking distraught at her husband’s death).

The Fomor take off for the portal to Crusade Era Earth, telling the Avengers that they stand no chance with Amergin dead, because he’s probably totally dead, forever.

Black Knight finds Amergin (who is dying and not quite dead) while Wasp tells the Avengers to Assemble. To the portal to stop the Fomor.

Hawkeye thinks its a little cold to just leave Amergin to die but Cap points out that they can’t really do anything for him that Black Knight couldn’t.

Although, I’d argue that with Black Knight’s anti-magic cursed sword, he should head to stop the Fomor and someone, probably Hawkeye, should stay behind to do last aid. But it’d be a dick move to suggest that so lets let it be.

Black Knight digs Amergin out of the rubble and the dying druid wizard tells him that he won’t last the hour but that there’s still hope.

As catastrophically dumb it was that Balor tried to squeeze the Balor power out of the Balor sucking device, it did the trick. Balor has been completely converted into energy and is stored in the Eye.

Except its too much power and now whoever uses the Evil Eye will be destroyed.

Black Knight: “I’m just borrowing this body, Amergin -- my real body is stone rubble eight centuries away! Tell me what to do -- I’ll do it!”

.... I’d argue that the fact that you’re not in your own body means you shouldn’t be so quick to sacrifice it! What happened to the original occupant??

Amergin: “Yes, my son. You... must. Though it means your death. Find the Eye! This broken body has one last spell left in it! You will have your sword and horse in the next life, brave knight. Where all things are restored!”

Well, that’s a nice consolation to a heroic sacrifice. Your extremely cursed sword and sweet flying horse are going to heaven with you. Or maybe hell. You did do a Crusade, for fun.

Meanwhile, the three remaining Avengers show up to thwart the Fomor from exiting Avalon.

Ethalan: “Again? You are tenacious fleas!”

Hey, didn’t we just have a whole recruitment story because of the Avengers being shorthanded? Now they’re at three. Stupid magic, excluding Iron Man from the fun.

Hawkeye starts the futile hold the line strong, making me slightly sorry about making fun of him a little earlier.

He fires a sonic arrow because sure the Fomor are beefy sacks of magic beef but high pitched noises still hurt and distract. Maybe more, what with their elf-like ears.

Hawkeye: “If you liked that one, you’ll get a bang out of my patented exploding arrow!” -Elathan explodes the ground at his feet- “Or maybe not.”

Hah.

But maybe next time, shoot first and gloat later.

So Hawkeye is knocked out, leaving just Captain America and Wasp.

Wasp: “This isn’t working out so well, Cap! What do we do now?”

Captain America: “The only thing we can do -- keep going until we can’t go any further!”

Yeah, he can do this all day.

Not very effectively. But at least all day. He tries to wade through Thethra and Indech but he gets caught by gooey gooey Indech. And also Dulb helps.

Elathan is about to step through the portal to Earth when he spots someone on the other side who flings him away from the portal.

THE BLACK KNIGHT!

Amergin used his last bit of life to cast a spell to plop Black Knight over to the other side of the portal so he could stop the Fomor.

The Fomor say that Black Knight won’t strike with the Evil Eye if the Avengers are in the thick of it but Cap tells Black Knight to just go ahead and do it anyway, because that’s what Cap be like.

Black Knight: “I was ready to seal off the gateway at cost of my own life -- but not that of the Avengers! I can’t handle the power of the Eye... I’ll destroy us all! I - I’m sorry... my friends... I’m sorry -- but I don’t even have a choice!”

And then he explodes. Because he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

When the explosion fades, there is but a tranquil field, some Balor residue. And a skeleton where the Black Knight had been.

Welp.

Oh, and the Avengers are fine.

Captain America, Wasp, and Hawkeye pop back to Avengers Mansion. With the spell ended, they rubber-banded back to the future.

So they also get to see that She-Hulk and Thor are fine! They didn’t really have time to mourn them in the heat of the action so now they don’t have to. The superhero life. Always hoping your friends will turn out to be actually alive before you have to grapple with mortality.

Dr. Druid wakes up to Explain Everything now that everything is over with.

Hawkeye mentions hey maybe ask before you fling someone into the past to save the world maybe, huh?!

Dr. Druid: “In other circumstances, I would have asked -- yet your intervention allowed the Black Knight to triumph!”

That doesn’t sound like an apology to me.

Hawkeye asks what happened to Black Knight so Dr. Druid opens up a scry to reveal the skeletonized Black Knight.

Geez.

But before the Avengers can really grapple with mortality, the scry shifts by itself to Garrett Castle and the pile of rubble that is all that was left of the Black Knight statue.

The rubble moves by itself and reassembles into a Black Knight shape AND THEN unstones.

Black Knight: “What?! I - I’m home! That’s what Amergin meant by the next life! His... final... gift!”

Hey, not bad!

Sure, I’d have liked Black Knight do more grappling with him being stranded in the past without a future body to return to but that exceedingly long plot point of Black Knight being turned to stone finally has a happy ending!

Doubly so because Black Knight’s sweet flying horse is with him, as promised.

Hawkeye wants to contact Black Knight to celebrate but Dr. Druid suggests that they give him some space.

Dr. Druid: “The Black Knight has just come back from death. He thinks he has gone against principles and brutally murdered his friends to achieve his ends. Let him know you are alive, but give him time to adjust. When he is ready, he will come to you.”

That’s.... good advice actually.

You don’t just let him think you’re all dead because its easier than picking up the phone (X-MEN) but you let him cope at his own pace.

Maybe Dr. Druid isn’t such the Worst Avenger after all.

And then he leaves because he’s not much for mingling, telling the Avengers “until we meet again, my friends” which I feel is jumping the gun a little bit.

You just met these people and spent maybe two minutes total with them.

So Hawkeye isn’t just being sour when he says “Don’t call us, Curly -- we’ll call you.”

Just slightly sour.

So!

Two-parter fill-in between runs focused on the Black Knight!

It was okay.

Like I’ve said, I like Black Knight out of proportion of actually reading anything with him in it. I think I just like him in concept. High-tech knight cosplayer who falls assbackwards into a cursed magical family heritage when he just wants to be a scientist knight.

I feel like the two-parter doesn’t actually have enough of Black Knight in action? He sort of stays out of things for most of the first issue and doesn’t have a lot of action beats in the second? He gets a heroic sacrifice that also ties off his plot cul-de-sac of being in the past so there can be new Black Knight content in the future, if anyone cares to use him. So that’s good. I just wanted more Black Knight content.

Fomor are okay as antagonists. I feel like we get pretty deep into their interpersonal dynamics despite them not being in a lot of stuff outside of this two-parter. I appreciate that they had individual powers and looks so that they’re more memorable than the Zodiac at least who only have one of those sometimes.

Also its nice? To get Irish mythology in something? Its probably less accurate even than Marvel’s takes on Greek/Roman and Norse mythology but I learned a thing. Mostly about tathlum balls.

Speaking of not being in a lot of stuff, what about Bres? He gets knocked out with an Iron Man to the butt and then just disappears to the off-panel.

Well, the Avengers dumped him on Project PEGASUS which used a machine to keep him depowered. A power failure let him make an escape attempt and he tried to get Super-Skrull disguised as a child to kill Iron Fist but couldn’t even manage that and got locked back up. That was in 1985 so who knows what happened to him after that, what with all the nonsense that happened to Project PEGASUS over the years.

I don’t knows and neither does marvel wiki.

Next time on Essential Avengers, not Avengers. There’s a Spider-Man I need to do to make things make sense.