#anskar

Vision has to be the one leaving the spaceship with sensor equipment strapped to him because he can breathe in space and his synthezoid body lets him withstand the INTENSE RADIATION of the energy rings. For a few seconds, at least. Even Vision can be destroyed by radiation. Radiation is crazy like that.

Black Knight is here because he's the Avengers' resident scientist. Vision does science stuff too but he's usually not portrayed as the SCIENCE type. He's not a scientist but he does science.

And Black Widow is here because the writers are trying to portray her as the team leader more often. I assume.

Vision gets the readings they need and heads back to the spaceship. Black Knight contacts the ground (ie Crystal) and lets her know that the Quinjet is headed back.

Also, because the energy rings are putting off more light and heat than usual, it is sweltering.

Sersi has turned her bustier into a bikini. Probably with her transmutation powers. I don't know why she chose to wear pants and boots if its so hot. Change into flip flops and short shorts, Sersi!

(For that matter, Eternals are probably less affected by temperature than a normal human but Sersi also chose to create a comfy jacket when the Avengers were cold on Kree homeworld Hala.)

And Crystal just tore the midriff right off her top.

Probably didn't want to ask Sersi to adjust her outfit into something summer appropriate. Things are probably awkward between them. I'd assume.

(Because Crystal likes Black Knight and every time she tries to have a conversation with him, Sersi appears out of nowhere and tries to suck the Knight's tonsils out of his face. She has an amazing sense of timing for interrupting Crystal.)

Oh, but speaking of Crystal's feelings for Dane, Hercules notices how worried Crystal is about Dane (because of the many and varied injuries he keeps getting) and asks if maybe she has Feelings for Black Knight.

Crystal: "Hercules! I -- I'm married to Pietro! You know how important it is to me that he and I work out our problems! We have a daughter. We owe it to her to --"

And then she notices the Supposed Quinjet landing and runs off all excited that Dane is back.

Speaking of Dane, he make a nod towards it being too hot, too. He takes off his chainmail shirt and then wear his tabard? thing like a tank top.

Hercules and Vision aren't affected by the heat. And Black Widow is still wearing her spy catsuit. Good god, she's unflappable! Or maybe its a catsuit with air conditioning!

Anyway. Science has been done. What has science concluded?

Um. It turns out that superheroes messing with natural forces they barely understood... was bad, maybe?

The energy rings are super hot now because they've been overcharged with energy from the two previous times that the Avengers and then the X-Men charged them up with energy.

Maybe it wasn't an apocalyptic end of the world scenario when the rings dimmed previously. Maybe it was just a natural pattern that the Polemachians didn't know.

Or maybe the rings dimming was an end of the world situation but the X-Men charged them up with too much gusto last time. Because per the readings, the rings are emitting 185% more energy than is typical.

Annnnnd. According to math, all life on the planet will die out within the next 72 hours. Because its just too dang hot.

But if science caused this problem, science can probably fix it and will probably definitely maybe not just cause more problems just in time for the next time someone wants to write an Arkon story!

Black Knight and Vision, the science bros, have come up with a plan to siphon the excess energy out of the rings and blast it away from the planet. But they'll need Arkon, Sersi's cosmic power, and Crystal's elemental abilities.

AND EVEN THEN ITS A SLIM CHANCE TO SUCCEED but at this point, what is there to lose? The planet is going to die within 72 hours. Might as well tamper with cosmic forces!

Astra: "Then I will not have to die, Imperion? The gods will have forgiven us?" Arkon: "Child, it is but the glimmer of hope. But one we shall grasp with all our strength before Anskar can carry out that criminal act."

I still think Hercules should try to talk to the gods of Polemachus. If they exist. And there's no reason why they shouldn't. This is a comic book universe.

Just imagine if Hercules calls in a favor and has the gods show up and call Anskar a stupid clown. That would end that man's entire career.

Anyway, speaking of that stupid clown.

He's gathered a desperate mob to sit right under the palace windows and cry for Arkon to save them by doing a human sacrifice.

Anskar: "Listen to your subjects, Arkon! Or have you truly grown so deaf -- so indifferent -- to their pleas? How long must the gods be denied and your people suffer?!"

Hey, clown, 24 hours ain't up yet. Go sit on your thumb.

Less than an hour later (an important thing to specify in a story which now has two separate countdowns), the Avengers are back in their space capable Quinjet which does look like a Quinjet now.

I swear. Its design changed since the opening pages.

Anyway, the Quinjet flies to "2.3 kilometers above the equivalent of the rings' chromosphere." That's important for science reasons.

Black Widow comments that she misses Captain America at times like these.

Black Widow: "He'd know exactly what to say, the eloquence would be inspiring. His words comforting. I don't have his talent... what I can say is simple and plain... but heartfelt... dos vadanya, my friends."

Is 'goodbye' the appropriate sentiment to say right now when some of your friends are going to go out and tamper with dangerous elemental forces??

Sersi: "Well, at least it was to the point. I, for one, found Captain America's speeches a tad tedious at times." Black Knight: "Sersi, I really don't think now's the time for critiques, okay?"

Geez, Sersi. You're mean to Cap behind his back.

The Avengers get ready to saaave the world.

Crystal is a little worried because what's being asked of her is technically feasible but she's never used her powers in such a way. Dane tells her "I haven't been sure since the day I was born" which is a hell of a thing to admit in a life or death situation. But that if he understands her powers correctly, she'll be able to do exactly what they need her to do.

Which is using her elemental powers to cause a massive energy flare.

She has trouble doing it until Dane yells 'don't think, just do!'

Thanks, Yoda.

So with Polemachus' rings blasting off massive quantities of energy, Sersi is able to use her ETERNAL POWAH to condense the flare into a bolt of energy.

Sending it right towards where Hercules and Arkon are waiting. Arkon uses one of his teleport lightning bolts to open a portal to send the energy harmlessly away from Polemachus.

The lightning portal is either operating like a black hole or the other end of it is near a gravity well because there's quite a gravity pull drawing things towards the portal.

The pull snaps Crystal's tether and she starts to fall (drift?) towards the portal. But Sersi puts aside her cattiness (which she definitely has been) to swoop in and save Crystal.

Black Knight checks his doohickey and sees that the right amount of energy has drained from the rings. He tells Arkon and Arkon throws another lightning bolt to close the portal.

Huh! Shows what the cover knows! The Avengers saved the world and one did fall, towards a gravity well, but was saved before bad things.

The Avengers land the Quinjet on a nice and breezy Polemachus. The climate crisis at an end and everything good forever!

Astra runs to greet Arkon, elated that he (helped) saved the day and now she totally doesn't have to be sacrificed.

Astra: "You really did it! I knew you wouldn't fail!" Arkon: "Then you had more faith than I."

And then she dies.

Stabbed in the back.

Right when she thought she was safe. Right in the middle of a conversation. Somehow right in the middle of a bunch of superheroes and in front of a big buff Imperion without them seeing it coming and being able to stop it.

Anskar is just that good at throwing knives.

Yeah, it was Anskar.

I can't figure out whether he's a true fanatic or whether he's just saving face. He's been beating the 'lets sacrifice a woman' drum and he'd look really dumb if the problem he wanted to solve with blood sacrifice could just be solved with superheroes like every time Polemachus has problems with its rings.

So maybe he's saving face.

Because when Black Widow is like 'hey, dick, the fuck? We saved the world within the time limit, ass' Anskar claims that the Avengers only succeeded because the gods willed it.

Anskar: "You were allowed to tame the rings by their grace, and for that they must be thanked. They must have their gift."

Turning the whole save the world thing into a kind of Morton's Fork. Avengers can't save the world? The gods want blood. Avengers can save the world? Sure was nice that the gods allowed that. They must want blood.

Anyway, Sersi decides if the gods want dead bodies she'll just add a few more to the pile.

ITS WHAT YOU WANTED, RIGHT, ANSKAR?

So she EYE BEAMS Anskar and unnamed priest standing next to him into ashes.

Black Widow: "Sersi -- dear god -- do you know what you've done?!" Sersi: "Of course, Natasha. I was an Avenger!"

It's feeling very 90s in here all of a sudden o_o

The Avengers used to court martial or divorce each other over manslaughter but this is a step above that.

But it feels like this was where the Avengers were going to end up with the Supreme Intelligence's execution by Avenger going unexamined. Unpacked. Unprocessed.

We just kind of shrugged and looked the other way for Black Knight lightsabering a giant brain. It made Captain America go away and be sad somewhere but the rest of the Avengers got back to work.

So now we have Sersi lasering priests.

Was she wrong to do so?

Yes, she should have punched him a few times first.

The Avengers should unpack it this time and decide how they feel about it or this is going to keep happening and things are gonna get supes 90s. Teeth will grit. Eyes will squint. Feet will vanish. Do we want that??

Annnnnnd we should make sure with Arkon that he's not going to. Press charges? Or whatever a barbarian emperor guy does. Siege Constantinople? The Avengers don't have one of those but I'm sure he could find something to siege.

Despite the FIN this isn't the FIN because there are two epilogues, dealing with two running subplots. I don't know why they weren't sprinkled throughout the book but maybe there's a pacing reason.

In epilogue 1, Jarvis and Marilla are getting along today and taking Luna on a walk through Central Park. Marilla pushing lil Luna in a hover stroller and Jarvis scanning the park to make sure there are no threats.

I am so curious what exactly that scanner scans for. Given the genre trappings, you could scan for people in silly costumes. Everyone loves silly costumes. Although, this is the 90s. I think we have a couple of trenchcoats flapping around by this point.

Anyway, Jarvis spots Hercules' love interest Taylor Madison sitting on a park bench looking absolutely miserable.

Jarvis immediately goes over to see if she's okay. He's a cool guy like that.

Taylor claims she just had something in her eye.

Jarvis says Hercules will be delighted to hear that they saw her while they were out and about and Taylor asks Jarvis not to say anything about her and then runs off, claiming she's "... er... late for an appointment..."

Jarvis: "Did we upset her?" Marilla: "For a human, ye are dense, aren't ye? That was a woman in deep pain... Such pain as I haven't seen in many a long year."

It makes one wonder whether Taylor Madison has some subplot of her own going on that will inevitably draw in the Avengers. Or... it's been implied that her and Hercules hooking up is Hera's slow-burn revenge plan on Hercules. Does Taylor know that Hera is using her and is beginning to regret working for her?

I suppose we shall see.

Epilogue 2 is about the Gatherers!

Proctor has busted another Gatherer out of storage. Literally storage. A guy called Tabula Rasa who looks like an artist's posing dummy. One can just imagine artist Steve Epting casting around the room in desperation for inspiration and just shrugging and drawing the posing dummy.

Proctor has been keeping Tabula in stasis because Tabula was just too dang curious all the time.

Probably asking questions about things.

But Proctor decided to let Tabula out of forever time-out to help him deal with Swordsman.

Tabula also has some kind of history with Cassandra. Woo hoo, drama.

Cassandra, Magdalene, and Sloth return from their Gather, looking worse for the wear, having retrieved their newest recruit.

The guy that Proctor promised Magdalene would help them rescue Swordsman. But which he secretly really sent them to recruit to help him kill Swordsman.

The draaaaamaaaaa.

Mysterious wrapped-in-sheet new guy fought like the dickens and nearly killed the whole Gather team.

And him being that fighty is why Proctor wants him.

Magdalene spots Tabula Rasa and goes 'who dat?' because whatever draaamaaa he was involved with pre-dated her.

Proctor tells the team to go put New Guy in the transition chamber. Then he gloats to Tabula after they've gone.

(Because Magdalene and Sloth aren't in on the secret plot to kill Swordsman.)

Proctor: "He is a find, Tabula! What we must do must be done quickly. In two days, the Swordsman must be dead... so the endgame with the Avengers can begin!"

GASP! AVENGERS? ENDGAME??

(Anyway, I'm 74% certain that New Guy is a Vision considering they hid his identity and the teaser titles the next issue "ALTERNATE VISIONS!")

Next time, we're swinging back over to Avengers West Coast for a stretch. I gotta cover issues 92-95 and an annual before we hop back over to Avengers.

So you'll just have to wait in antici...

...pation to see how this plays out.