#grotesk

Carol's poor taste in men

Pictured: Carol on a date with her therapist.

Oh, I'm sorry. This was supposed to be a date, not a therapy session.

Boo, Mike. It feels weird to call Carol a vulnerable person (and she would be insulted lol), but there is a reason that therapists are not meant to date their patients. At this point in the comic, Carol has recently been forced out of a job that meant a lot to her, had some major health issues and memory problems, and has been experiencing "periods of depression".

Not to mention that based on information we learn about her under Claremont, she almost definitely already suffers from PTSD.

lmao Mike KNOWS she's Ms. M and she still just ditches him "without a word". ("Sure, Mike.")

I actually love this shot of her scaling a cliff and crawling under a fence in her bathing suit. And in the last panel there, Carol giving her qualified opinion as NASA's ex-Chief of Security.

Pictured: Carol kissing her... teacher??

"Colonel Michael Rossi, USAF. Carol had been Air Force, too, in those days. Rossi had been teacher, friend... lover."

Not sure what their professional relationship was, but leading with "teacher" before friend or...... lover is... uh, something. We will see more of Michael Rossi.

Anyway, Carol's apartment burns down. I would be more upset over the manuscripts she said burned; I'd be a puddle. Holy hell.

Side note: Carol has a hard time keeping a home, historically. Off the top of my head: leaving her parents house "without a word", the fire in this issue, in her upcoming Avengers run she suddenly abandons her apartment, Rogue attacks her at home in SF and she never returns, leaving the X-Men mansion, her apartment gets destroyed in Ms Marvel (2006), she gets evicted during the KSD era, she leaves Alpha Flight and has to share a room with Gerry Drew (baby)..... there's probably another instance.

Frank is the most normal, but Carol doesn't actually like him so that doesn't matter. Maybe if you'd been HER boss, Frank. Ha ha. Sorry, Carol.

So close to adding a "punches someone she shouldn't" point to the pinned-post scoreboard, but Frank wisely got the fuck out of there. I liked the flow of this sequence; we transition immediately from a scene with SHIELD to Frank rolling up, then we're interrupted by AIM.

In addition to her date with Mike, we see Carol on another date, with this random guy. It was probably pretty progressive of Carol to be non-exclusively dating multiple men in short order, in 1977.

A lot happens after this scene, so Carol pretty much just leaves this man here and forgets about him. Maybe if you'd been her Doctor or something, Paul. Ha ha. Sorry, Carol. Try dating better men. Or Salia.

Tracy Burke!!

In #8, we meet Tracy Burke, the most relevant of Carol's supporting cast from this series. She returns first in Iron Man (1998), then in Captain Marvel (2012), and then in Captain Marvel (2014).

(I did a quick fact-check to make sure I didn't forget any appearances, and apparently she also makes a cameo in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #21, as Ms. Marvel's hype-man.)

We're introduced to Tracy as a recovering alcoholic...

And her next appearance, after Ms Marvel (1977), is in Iron Man (1998), during Carol's arc where she is struggling with alcoholism. Pictured is issue #11, but she appears before this as well.

Interesting note: Jameson refers to Tracy in these issues as "Miss Burke", indicating she's unmarried, and Carol uses her own preferred "Ms. Burke".

Carol is more correct (being neutral), because, as we learn in Captain Marvel (2014) #15... Tracy was married! (To a woman, named Teddy; we can assume Tracy was not out at work.) It's fun they made Tracy masc. I like her younger design a lot.

So to recap, we learn Tracy was an alcoholic in (1977), that Carol is an alcoholic in (1998). Then we learn Tracy was gay in (2014) and we learn that Carol is-- (oh what she's not out? ok nvm) uhm, completely straight I guess.

Killing and Maiming

OK new analogy: Ms. Marvel represents Carol pretending to be a normal person for the first time in her entire adult life, after a lifetime of violence.

We will learn, under Claremont, that Carol worked closely with Wolverine for many years, a man whose catchphrase is: "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice." (She says something to a similar effect at some point, but I can't remember which issue (in Uncanny X-Men?).)

Really, really fun fight sequence. Carol slips very easily back into her old line of work. She's like a retired badass from an action movie.

The explanation here, of course, is that Ms. Marvel's absorbed Kree training is taking over, but speaking of Carol's own experience, Nick Fury is referenced in issue #8:

Carol has worked with Fury and SHIELD in the past, which is not yet revealed to us, but is probably why she has this connection to SHIELD in the first place.

Tracy watches as Carol singlehandedly takes out 2 very dangerous men, and almost beats one to death. Then Tracy reports for her first day of work, on Monday. 🫡 I bet she had a fun story to tell Teddy when she got home.

Grotesk appears again, and Carol judo-throws him into a laser, exploding him. Grotesk is not seen again for another 10 years in real-world time, after this. Carol, at minimum, believes she killed him, and is upset that it came to that, but the comic's reference to "another universe / dimension" leaves an out for him surviving the encounter.

I may make a tracker at some point for the number of times Carol explicitly kills 1 or more people. Tracking the number of people would be inaccurate and laborious, but instances is doable. Would I count this one? I'd say a death still counts even if a future series retcons them to be alive again (eg the Master), but this is a bit open-ended. Though Carol thinks he's dead, so maybe.

So far, she's almost killed: the Scorpion, a bar thug, MODOK, & Grotesk. Deathbird almost dies, but it's not Carol's fault. She ends issue #10 by threatening to kill MODOK for real this time.

There were a ton of super cool fights in these issues, so I want to pause and appreciate them a little.

Carol says fuck Ms. Marvel (her "cursed Kree alter-ego"), and tries to take out Deathbird on her own. Carol then refers to her OWN "skills, training, value", separate from Ms. M, and that she nearly allowed herself to be "taken like an amateur".

She does manage to impress Deathbird, who calls her "worthy", but Ms. Marvel takes over forcibly, worried Carol will get them killed.

P.S. we see Deathbird again, over the years; she's in Carol's kind of weakly-established rogues gallery. Pictured above is an appearance in the Starjammers (while Carol is on the team as Binary) and in Captain Marvel (2012).

Last note just to capture the parallel: Carol plays dead in issues #8 and #9.

Villains don't underestimate her much these days, but there have been fun moments over the years where she's taken advantage of them doing so; I can't find the cap rn, but there's a good moment in one of the New Avengers runs where a villain blasts her, taunting her for being the one who has to take a painful hit for the team. He's pretty surprised that she's more than fine, afterwards, and she takes him out.

Review: Would recommend for really fun fight scenes!

#8 is my favorite issue so far: Carol kicking ass in the bar & almost beating a man to death in front of a writing inspiration of hers (Tracy!!), scaling a wall in her bathing suit, and yelling at Frank Gianelli is a great combo.

Namor sees some people beating up someone he assumes is a homeless person on the docks owned by Namor's company Oracle Inc. And of Namor's positive qualities is empathy for the plight of the homeless. He was homeless and amnesiac for a while so He Gets It.

It actually turns out that the person he saves is Lord Vashti, from Atlantis. Who came to the surface world looking for Namor because Atlantean intelligence has learned of the Subterranean War.

And Namor has heard of what's going down since he went to Avengers Mansion to treat Vashti's wounds and as a sometimes Avenger, Namor has been invited to join the rest of the Avengers in fighting underground battles.

Guess he hasn't heard that the Avengers have all been captured?

But that's not what Lord Vashti is here about.

The Moloids, Tyrannoids, Lava Men, and Deviants aren't the only underground people. Underground has so many people. I'm slightly surprised the Morlocks aren't involved somehow.

But do you remember long, long, long ago when Hank Pym was stuck as a Giant-Sized Hank Pym? Remember how he went looking for a Dr Anton who might be able to help? And it turned out that Dr Anton had been kidnapped by an underground city Somewhere in South America who worshiped an ever-burning cobalt flame? Avengers #30 through 31?

Well, it turns out later on that the Hidden Land was revealed to be Actually El Dorado. And the caverns and the cobalt flame itself trace back to the Deviants, although the place is populated now by the descendants of Inca people that fled Spanish conquistadors.

It also turns out that these survivors of a genocide are doing a genocide. Taking advantage of all the fighting fit Moloids being in battle with the Deviants, the Doradians are seizing Moloid caverns and killing the young, elderly, and infirm that were left behind.

So not cool.

While Attuma-led Atlantis doesn't give a fuck about any of this, Namor hates genocide.

He also hates explaining himself. So he storms off without telling Jarvis why he's heading in the opposite direction of the Subterranean War so Jarvis asks also Sometimes Avenger Stingray to check up on him.

But Namor hates explaining himself so he just punches Stingray and continues on.

Over in the underworld city of Eurasia, some of the Doradians are talking about how weak and pathetic the Moloids are and how good and right it is to cleanse the caverns of them when Namor makes his entrance by blowing up the Doradian ships.

I guess they have ships. Ships with all their food and other supplies so they're very upset to see them blow up.

While the Doradians are busy trying to put out the fires, Namor breaks open the cell where the Moloids are being kept and tells them to flee.

But they don't understand or are too afraid and Namor gets zapped unconscious from behind and wakes up in flaming chains.

Or perhaps energized chains?

The new Keeper of the Flames (I thought that cobalt flame had been put out?) says that it's okay to kill the Moloids because they're sub-human. And also says that cool humans like the Doradians love being sadistic. That's the human thing. Sadism.

The Doradian peanut gallery also starts implying that they're going to invade Atlantis next.

Namor just wants to know why he only found about a hundred Moloid prisoners given the size of this cavern. And the Keeper of the Flames answers that by picking up a handful of ash from the ground and says you just gotta know where to look.

Yeesh.

The Doradians start torturing Namor, sending energy (electricity?) through the chains and this causes Namor to flashback to World War II and why he hates genocide so much.

It's because Nazi reasons.

He and the other Invaders liberated a concentration camp and the state of the survivors and extent of the dead was so awful that Namor about killed the Nazi prisoners of war he'd help capture. He would have if Captain America hadn't talked him down.

But he left angry.

And what he was angry about especially was that he'd heard the same rumors of Nazi cruelty and the concentration camps before joining the Invaders. But he hadn't joined the Invaders until the war affected Atlantis. He'd ignored the rumors of the atrocities until the war came to his front door. And now, seeing the true horror of what was going on while he stood by, he's ashamed that he hadn't gotten involved sooner.

Namor, in the now times: "NEVER AGAIN! The skin of the victims is different! The uniforms have changed! Only the bile and hatred remain the same! When will your kind learn? Kill one man -- or six million -- there will always be someone to stand against such as you!"

And in his Namor rage, he busts free of two of the chains.

The Doradians try to shoot him dead before he can get all the way free but Stingray shows up, runs interference, and busts the last two chains to drop Namor into the rejuvenating water.

Yes, Stingray followed Namor here even after Namor beat him up unprovoked. That's just what kind of oceanographer slash sometimes hero Stingray is!

Stingray also doesn't really know what's going on here, just that Namor is very emotionally invested. And Namor is vague when asked. Just saying that this is "about stupidity. And ignorance. And cowardice."

So Stingray is just following Namor's lead because he trusts the guy.

Namor tells him they're going to destroy the underwater columns beneath the cavern city to tip the Doradians into the water. The Moloids are all caged in the upper caverns so they'll be safe from that but Namor is putting Stingray on the job of evacuating them.

"Moments ago, they were the brave -- the strong... the "mighty" conquerors." Which was easy when they were exterminating a race of pacifists. But as their kingdom is washed away -- submerged in the raging current of subterranean rivers... the soldiers of El Dorado are revealed as the frightened, scurrying vermin they've always been."

Don't know if it's great to uno reverse the dehumanization back onto them. Dehumanization is bad. And it's especially weird in this situation where saying they were always vermin implies the Conquistadors Were Right? Which is not a great stand to take.

Anyway.

With the city collapsing, the Keeper of the Flame runs towards the one ship that Namor didn't get around to blowing up. And Namor pops out of the water to grab the Keeper by the throat.

Namor: "In my heart, I believed the Nazis were an aberration -- that mankind was incapable of inflicting such pain and suffering and death upon their fellow man! I wanted to believe it would never happen again!"

No Captain America here this time to talk Namor out of popping someone's head off. But there are some Moloid children falling into the river with Stingray too far away to reach.

Namor drops the Keeper (who is promptly buried by a cave-in) and jumps to rescue the children.

This was about learning from the past and not tolerating genocide, Stingray.

Anyway, three issues into Subterranean Wars and its interesting how not much of a story it seems to be. The Terminus Factor used the evolution of the lil mini Terminuses to show progression of the plot.

With Subterranean Wars, we've had the overall plot explained to the Avengers but then they got captured. Then the Hulk and Namor Annuals felt like a tie-in to a main event book. The characters' specific intersection with the larger plot. Except we don't have the larger plot progressing. There's no main event book.

The war is apparently ongoing but in a 'just trust me, bro' sort of way since we haven't seen any of it. Namor's plot isn't even directly about the war but an uninvolved third party taking advantage of it.

Very weird way to do an event.

But now, the Iron Man Annual.

Tony Stark Iron Man is testing his new armor in a wind tunnel and accidentally injuring Rhodey when he gets an alert that there's a really weird old lady intruder in his office demanding to speak with him.

It is Kala, Iron Man's own personal underground menace! Like I said, everyone gets one. That's why Subterranea is so populated with weird warlords.

Helpfully, Kala decides to explain her entire history to Tony Stark. Even the parts he was there for.

She yoinked him down to the Netherworld because she and her right-hand guy General Baxu wanted Stark to build weapons they could use to invade the surface world. Typical underground warlord behavior, really. But then Iron Man "somehow followed" Stark to the Netherworld and wound up taking Kala to the surface. This to show her that the atmosphere on the surface rapidly ages her while the conditions in specifically the Netherworld part of Subterranea keeps her eternally youthful looking.

Being about as vain as Tyrannus, she decided to stick to her own queendom and also married General Baxu because Iron Man suggested it.

But General Baxu died shortly after for reasons so Kala was up to her ol' tricks. She pretended to love Mole Man so they could team up to conquer the surface but then she betrayed Mole Man for the hotter Tyrannus. But then Tyrannus betrayed her and got his own ass beaten by the Fantastic Four.

Later, Mole Man and Kala kidnapped some Winter Olympians to use as sports themed soldiers. I think I mentioned this in the previous post but I had some details mistaken.

As a result of being on the surface world so much, Kala had gotten old again and at the time the Fountain of Youth was unreachable. While Kala bemoaned being old and ugly, Mole Man said he still loved her and wanted her to be a queen to rule at his side. It doesn't matter to him what his queen looks like! Because its dark underground!

That was almost heart-warming, Mr. Man.

But despite Kala returning to Mole Man's kingdom with him, she hasn't been involved in Mole Man activity after that Winter Olympics thing. And the reason is he just got bored of having her around and had her confined to quarters.

You're a bad man, Mr. Man.

But weirdly, Kala developed real feelings of love for him after he asked her to come back to be his queen even though she old.

So even though Mole Man basically shoved her in a closet so he wouldn't have to think about her anymore, she does care for him and wants to help him. So with the Deviant invasion of Subterranea, security became lax enough for Kala to escape house arrest and make her way up to the surface to recruit the only surface person she really knows, Tony Stark, to ask him to send Iron Man to help Mole Man in the Subterranean Wars.

That's why she's here. She wants to get Tony involved in the plot to help Mole Man.

Rhodey is pretty skeptical about this request and so is Tony. The Kala he vaguely knows wouldn't beg for help for someone who wasn't herself! Plus, he hard about the Subterraneans attacking Broadway and hasn't heard about any Subterranean War. And the Avengers chased the Subterraneans back underground so they probably have everything handled.

That's when his temp Ms. Podnik comes in with a message she forgot to give him earlier.

Ms. Podnik: "I, uh, forgot to mention, before -- someone named Javitz called, from Revengers Headwaiters, or somewhere... Anyway, he said nobody'd come back yet from fighting the subway trains, and could you please send armed men to look for them?" Tony Stark: "What?! You mean Jarvis -- from Avengers H.Q. -- they were fighting Subterraneans -- and he wants Iron Man back East!" Ms. Podnik: "Well, I -- I guess that might be what he said! I can't always read my own shorthand so good!" Tony Stark: "Give me that! Jim -- your job's on the line if you forget to remind me -- no more temps!"

Womp womp. It's hard to find good help these days.

And then the ground shakes and a quirky miniboss squad emerges. Every Annual event has to introduce a goofy group that just won't catch on and this time, it's Mole Man's elite soldiers he never mentions, the Outcasts!

Boulder, Digger, Water Witch, and Landslide!

They were the ones who were supposed to be guarding Kala and they've come to bring her back to house arrest.

Rhodey tackles the one called Digger to try to save Kala. Digger confuses himself for Boulder and lambasts Rhodey for starting shit, throwing him across the room.

All the noise summons Stark Enterprise's security forces who immediately get bowled off their feet by Landslide, the lanky Spock looking one with ridiculously long arms.

Tony manages to sneak away in all the distraction to suit up in his armor and think up an excuse for why Tony is now absent.

Iron Man: "He had a previous appointment"

Good job, Tony. Truly nobody will suspect a thing.

Iron Man does a fly by slam on shirtless Boulder. Landslide tries to stop him by kicking up a wall of debris but Iron Man is able to plow right through it and punch the lanky Spock. Digger jumps on Iron Man's back and does some damage with his claws before Iron Man scrapes him off on some low-hanging debris.

And then he's frozen solid by Water Witch.

Who seemingly hasn't been doing anything the whole time but was really gathering up water from broken pipes for her attack with her magic dowsing rod.

And it would have worked too if only she wasn't dealing with an armored dude strong enough to flex through an iceberg and insulated enough to not be bothered by the cold.

Then, probably because of not hitting women reasons, Iron Man beats her by throwing a gizmo in her puddle of water that electrocutes her.

The important thing is that he didn't directly hit her, I assume.

Except, while he was electrocuting someone, Digger and Landslide recovered, re-kidnapped Kala, and got away while the getting was good.

Considering how fast everything went down, they probably did this during the short period of time when Iron Man was frozen. Absolutely zero faith in their pal Water Witch.

Iron Man asks Rhodey to take care of the unconscious Boulder and Water Witch while he chases after Kala's kidnappers.

As Rhodey points out, Tony doesn't even know what side of the underground war he should be supporting, if any. But Tony is a cool enough dude to not leave someone in the lurch after they came and asked him specifically for help.

An admirable quality of that cool exec with a heart of steel.

Meanwhile, below, Kala is alternating between insulting the Outcasts for being idiots and trying to persuade them that she's trying to help Mole Man.

The Outcasts are like Mole Man. People who were ugly or disfigured or handicapped and rejected by surface world society. Instead of finding their way underground like Mole Man did, though, Mole Man just went and kidnapped a bunch of people. Some of the people he kidnapped he also imbued with superpowers to be his elite soldiers.

And they were given orders to keep Kala under guard no matter what. Doesn't matter to them that the area they are supposed to keep her in is now under Deviant control. Because they're not all that smart.

However, Landslide is smart enough to question why Kala didn't go back to her own queendom instead of going to the surface world and she explains that she was disposed and forever banished from the Netherworld. They never really got over the embarrassment of Iron Man kicking all their asses, apparently.

And oddly, she never seemed to try to reconquer her queendom or anything. She begrudgingly accepted the decision and tried to keep her youth by worming into Tyrannus' graces so she could get at the Fountain of Youth.

Kala talking about how the atmosphere of the Netherworld has similar youthening qualities as the Fountain of Youth makes Landslide and Digger start thinking. Wouldn't it be great to live forever as an F-you to the people that mocked them on the surface world?

Forget loyalty to Mole Man, these two want to be forever young!

Kala even realizes that bringing two superpowered enforcers might convince her people to accept her back and then she could add the Netherworld's might to the Subterranean alliance and help Mole Man.

And Landslide is like yes yes helping Mole Man but we'd get to be immortal is the key thing here.

It's just funny how these guys go from diehard loyalty to in it for their own benefit at the drop of a hat.

Anyway, Kala's people aren't happy to see her again and remind her that her exile was of the "leave forever or we kill you" variety. Since she came back, they're going to kill her.

But Iron Man shows up just in time to tank the laser blasts meant for Kala, luckily having been able to track the two Outcasts from the Iron Man traces that stuck to Digger when he clawed the armor.

Digger and Landslide decide they don't need to be protected and start fighting the crowd of Netherworlders. Except Landslide goes a little too far and threatens to cave in the entire Netherworld.

Iron Man has to think fast and technobabble some vaguely sciency sounding nonsense about using his repulsors to create a counter seismic wave that will cancel out Landslide's.

Luckily, it works! Thanks to onboard computers that can calculate the precise wave absurdly quickly!

With the earthquake stopped, Iron Man checks on Kala and discovers that she's become young and hot again thanks to exposure to the Netherworld's atmosphere.

Plus, the Netherworlders hail her queen again. Probably because of Landslide nearly destroying their whole world and feared foe Iron Man showing up to protect Kala. They'd much rather be on her good side.

And, sure, Digger and Landslide have fucked off in fear, but it certainly looks like a good result for Kala.

Except she declares she doesn't want the throne of the Netherworld back. She wants to help Mole Man! And yes, she was talking earlier about how the resources of the Netherworld could definitely help Mole Man! But she's decided she doesn't want to do that anymore!

Because dammit, this is about the principal of the thing! Even though Iron Man would go anyway to investigate the Subterranean War and probably help Mole Man or at least the Avengers who might be near Mole Man, Kala wants to go help Mole Man herself. Or be visibly seen bringing help to him so he knows she helped out!

She even sacrifices her newly regained youth by abandoning the Netherworld to go help Mole Man! That's how much she loves him, I guess!

Don't get me wrong. It's a good character beat. I just think convincing the Netherworld to join the war could probably also be a way to help. Since the Deviants threaten everyone?

But of the two excessively vain characters in Subterranean Wars, she's not the one who licked youth water off the floor like a dog.

This also felt like a tie-in to an event book that doesn't exist. The Subterranean Wars are not getting a lot of focus in this Subterranean Wars event.

But we're at the last part of the event, the Avengers West Coast Annual and this has got to focus on the war. There's nowhere else it could go!

Up until now, each part of the event has mostly been doing its own thing. But this is the end so things have to come together. So now is when having different writers doing their own thing bites the event in the rear, right?

Uh. It seems like it but that's not backed up by the fact that the Thomases wrote the Avengers, Iron Man, and Avengers West Coast Annuals. The only parts that directly link to each other.

But somehow it still feels like they were written by different people?

Things start off with the Avengers (West Coast) being interrupted in their various leisure time activities by an intruder alarm going off.

Hawkeye is practicing upside down archery. Spider-Woman is sharing pictures of her existing kid to an aggressively disinterested Scarlet Witch. Living Lightning is eating. US Agent is in the tub. And Wonder Man is watching a movie.

When the Avengers West Coast Assemble they find that the intruder is actually Iron Man.

Despite the ending of the Iron Man Annual suggesting that he was going to go looking for the Subterranean War right away, he actually took a detour back up to the surface to recruit the Avengers West Coast.

Also adding to the feeling that this was written by people who just weren't on the ball, Spider-Woman is surprised to learn that US Agent worked for the Commission. When he tried to kill her FOR the Commission before she joined the team.

In fairness, this Annual was likely written before the Dr Demonicus stuff played out so the Thomases likely didn't know yet how Spider-Woman would join. But it's still jarring.

Anyway, Iron Man tells the Avengers West Coast that Mole Man and Tyrannus and Grotesk and the East Coast Avengers are all underground fighting the Deviants.

Kala is flabbergasted that the team doesn't know this yet. Captain America and Black Widow were supposed to come and let them know and bring them in.

BUT the West Coast team hasn't heard from Cap and Black Widow! What the hell happened to them? Their absence wouldn't have affected the Hulk or Namor parts of the story but this does explain why Iron Man didn't know what was going on in his Annual.

So Kala has to re-explain the plot to the West Coast team. But despite US Agent being a dick, the whole team agrees to come help based on Iron Man vouching for Kala.

And the benefit of having Iron Man on your specific team of Avengers? All the fabulous toys.

Instead of just walking down a tunnel, the Avengers West Coast go in style, in a giant "Groundhawk" tank borrowed with Tony Stark's blessing.

It is slow though.

And as they're trundling along, Hawkeye spots some rock chips falling from the tunnel wall and gets a hunch that they should search for hidden secrets.

So they stop the Groundhawk tank and have Wonder Man punch the wall to reveal

SURPRISE FRIENDS

Captain America and Black Widow tied up and hidden in a little pocket in the cave wall.

Someone cold cocked them from behind between issues and hid them in the wall.

What. An odd situation. Not just them getting taken out between issues. That's certainly weird. But also the West Coast team just happening to run into them when Hawkeye manages to spot a tiny detail when he happens to roll down the window cover at just the right time.

Why not have the West Coast team run into a gang of Deviants dragging Cap and Widow along as captives? Or something less contrived?

The book tries to justify it. Hawkeye spotted the rock chips falling down because Cap and Black Widow heard the tank rumbling down the passage and started kicking the wall to try to signal for help. But it's still super contrived.

Anyway, Kala gets mixed up because of that brief stop and accidentally directs Iron Man down a passage which drops them right into the main Subterranean rallying point.

Oh, and the Groundhawk has thrusters so it manages to slow its descent and land without crashing.

So good job with the wrong directions, Kala. Got the team to the right place quicker.

The assembled Moloids and Tyrannoids are displeased to be dropped in on and get aggressive at the Avengers, forcing the Avengers to defend themselves but Mole Man quickly shows up and asks the Avengers not to bully them, please.

And the Moloids and Tyrannoids stop fighting when he tells them to. So we're all good.

Despite ditching the Avengers to their fate (not that he mentions that) Mole Man is happy to see Captain America and Black Widow with the reinforcements they promised to gather.

Scarlet Witch clarifies that Cap and Widow were ambushed and never made it up to the surface. Mole Man assumes a dumb, idiot Deviant Mutate ambushed them but wasn't sure what Brutus would want them to do so just stashed the prisoners away and went for further instructions. Wonder Man agrees sure that might be what happened.

Mole Man tells the West Coast team that the other Avengers were captured by the Deviants. He starts making battle plans for dispatching the Avengers to the front line but US Agent grabs him and tells him that he's not the Avengers' boss.

Kala comes to Mole Man's defense, fussing over him but he tells her to fuck off.

Then Mole Man gets right back to expositing.

Between issues, Mole Man's spies have determined what Brutus is up to. Using the Deviant's own technology and the old Deviant tech that the underground warlords have adapted, Brutus has made a doomsday device called the Oscillatron that will destroy all surface civilizations.

Holy shit, stakes.

Good thing the Avengers are already involved. Because now they have to care. They live in a civilization.

Since Grotesk tried to destroy the surface before, he's kind of the expert in doomsday devices and confirms that Brutus' Oscillatron is the real deal.

Scarlet Witch asks the follow-up question. Why did Grotesk stop trying to destroy the world as revenge for his people? And Grotesk gives the same answer as he gave to Vision. He changed his mind, okay?

Next, Mole Man takes the Avengers to see Tyrannus. Remember how he got poisoned in the Hulk Annual? I guess he's poisoned but he's still alive. And his biggest concern isn't the poison its that he's aging at a rate of the normal flow of time.

I guess the Fountain of Youth water didn't work because it was poisoned? And the poison is weirdly a non-factor. It was Hulk Annual's big contribution to the event plot and it just gets brushed over.

Anyway, Mole Man keeps tossing in snide references about how old and ugly Kala is now and Iron Man gets fed up and tells Mole Man to not be a dick.

Iron Man: "Mole, you're an ingrate! Kala gave up her chance to rule her domain and grow young again, just to help you -- and you'd better appreciate it." Mole Man: "Oh, I do, I do... in my own quiet way."

Okay.

But the intruder alarm goes off, signaling that the Deviant attack has come!

Things are pretty bleak. After all the off-panel Subterranean Warring, Mole Man and Grotesk's forces are depleted too drastically to stand up to the Deviants for long. But Mole Man is going to go down swinging, especially if he can get the Avengers killed in the process.

Feels like a spite thing.

Anyway, the Avengers leap into action and engage with the Deviant Mutates.

The general gist of the battle is that the Avengers are more than a match for any given Mutate they wind up facing in terms of strength or skill or weird powers. And even when they run into a Deviant that's a hard counter for their powers - like Living Lightning running into a Mutate that's immune to electricity - the Avengers are watching each other's backs and jump to assist each other.

So even though Mole Man initially judged this a futile last stand, with the Avengers fighting like the dickens, it looks like the battle could go either way.

IF the Avengers don't get overwhelmed by numbers.

Also, Mole Man has been narrating over the fight scene, talking to Grotesk, and when Wonder Man shows up to protect him from Mutates pushing on his position, he asks why Mole Man is talking to himself. Because Grotesk fucked off.

For an event that was supposed to be all the underground villains banding together against the Deviants, Mole Man's contemporaries sure aren't pulling their weight.

Speaking of pulling weight, Brutus has the Mutates wheel in the Oscillatron which apparently has to be operated right here and that's why he's attacking. Has to be used in this exact spot or it won't wipe out the surface world correctly, I guess.

Brutus yells abuse at the Mutates as they bring in his doomsday device, telling them they should die in droves and make a mountain of corpses just as long as they overwhelm the Deviants' enemies in the meantime.

He also tries to psyche out the Avengers by telling them he has the other team buried alive somewhere and they'll run out of oxygen before they could ever be found! Except for Vision! He doesn't need oxygen! I don't think Sandman does either and I'm not sure about Sersi or Hercules! And Quasar made a months long trip through space thanks to his Quantum Bands so he'll probably hold up fine. But Rage and She-Hulk definitely need to breath!

POINT BEING, the East Coast Avengers are going to die. Mostly. Some of them. Will die. Because Brutus had them buried alive.

I definitely thought there would be more to it than just that when he had them taken alive. Since he explicitly said that he wanted to try brainwashing them to fight for him.

I thought were were going to get an excuse plot for an Avengers East vs West fight.

Why aren't we getting that?

Anyway, it occurs to Scarlet Witch that Sersi is telepathic. If she could only get in touch with one of them and simply say where they're buried!

So Wanda concentrates really hard on the idea of Sersi and Sersi has been trying to reach someone, this allows their minds to link.

Scarlet Wanda tells Iron Man to take her to where the East Coast team is buried. He's reluctant to leave the battle but Wanda convinces him that they can go, save the others, and bring them bac as badly needed reinforcements before Iron Man and her absence tips the battle against the Avengers.

When they get to the location, they find some huge rocks are covering the Avengers. Iron Man is able to blast those away but that just reveals that the Avengers are really being held by spherical force fields.

But thankfully, Scarlet Witch's powers are bullshit. She alters the probability that force fields are actually crystal and everyone involved can smash their way out of thin crystal spheres.

Back at the battle, Brutus sends a second wave of Mutates at the Avengers and continues being a dick about it.

Brutus: "Put your backs into it, Mutates! You were bred to conquer and die for the glory of the Deviant Empire -- not for your own loathsome sake!"

Charming.

But the East Coast team plus Scarlet Witch and Iron Man return in time to face the second wave and give the West Coasters plus Captain America and Black Widow some breathing room.

A Deviant Mutate tries sneak attacking Mole Man to death with a spear but Kala dives in and takes the blow for him.

As Brutus continues shouting at the Mutates Sersi decides that she's had enough of this and outs him.

Sersi: "With my Eternal powers, I've learned the secret you've been hiding from Deviant and Mutate alike -- that you're not truly a Deviant at all -- but a Mutate, trying to 'pass'!"

Hoo boy.

The other Deviants who are Deviants and not Mutates, apparently, are like whoa hey yeah this would explain why Brutus is such a dick to the Mutates. Sure, we all use them as a slave race but he's a jerk about it.

And then they decide that they're shamed at having followed a guy who is actually a Mutate guy and tell him not to come back to Lemuria. Then they ditch him just as he's surrounded by a crowd of angry Mutates who beat him to death while the Avengers just watch.

And just like that. On that anticlimactic note. The Subterranean Wars are over. The Mutates aren't interested in continuing this. The Deviants don't want anything to do with anything a Mutate dreamed up, not even that doomsday device.

But you know who does? Grotesk!

Remember the two entire scenes that Grotesk got in this event where he kept insisting that he definitely didn't want to destroy the world anymore?

Well, with four pages left in this entire event, he's decided now is the perfect time to reveal that he was lying and actually he still very much would like revenge on humanity!

Grotesk: "The atomic radiation you humans caused obliterated my race, years ago! Did you truly believe I would have allied myself with humans -- even Tyrannus and the Mole Man -- except to revenge myself upon all of humankind?"

Buddy, you are pulling this way too late in the story. There's no time for stakes.

Grotesk says he's boosted the power so that the Oscillatron will not just destroy surface civilizations but destroy the entire planet! He wants to die as long as he takes Earth with him!

But as he pulls the lever he gets no Earth-shattering kaboom.

Because Living Lightning snuck up on him and drained the power out of the Oscillatron.

I told you, Grotesk, there were no time for stakes or even to build tension.

Anyway, the Avengers kick his ass. Just all hit him at the same time with their respective attacks.

NOW the Subterranean War is over.

Mole Man has Kala carried back to his kingdom to get her medical attention. And also he gives Tyrannus the antidote to the poison.

Yeah, he apparently figured out what the poison was and how to cure it off-panel a while ago but he was going to just let the guy die. They ARE political rivals, after all. And as long as Tyrannus was dying because Brutus poisoned him, the Tyrannoids would happily follow Mole Man into battle to avenge their bossy last Roman emperor.

But Kala's unselfish action in taking a spear for him made Mole Man decide to be unselfish himself.

Now Mole Man is going to make Kala his queen again. Tyrannus is going to try to take over her realm as long as she's not using it because that eternal youth effect is of great interest to him. And the Avengers all want to go home and stop being in Subterranean Wars.

So.

Subterranean Wars.

It's not good.

It had good parts. Hulk's issue was a delight, Namor's issue really dug into his desire to punch people who do genocides. Third example.

But the problem is that this doesn't gel as an event. The Avengers Annual handles all the set-up that there's this war going on underground, here are the players, and oh no the Avengers get captured. Avengers West Coast has to handle all the conclusion. But there's no meat. There's no Wars going on.

We get this one battle in the Avengers West Coast Annual but there's supposed to be so much more warring going on. We barely get to know Brutus, the supposed antagonist of this event. Of the underground warlords, only Mole Man really does much of anything. Tyrannus is at least funny and Grotesk may as well not exist until he suddenly tries to steal the antagonist role last minute.

And despite these being annuals, they have backup stories so each annual's Subterranean Wars story is only slightly longer than a normal issue. That lack of page space does the resolution no favors. The pacing is wildly wonky at the end of this.

Maybe the war should have been more like what we start with in Part 1. Where it's spilling over into the surface world as the Subterraneans flee from the Deviants. Maybe it should have been more like the Hulk and Iron Man parts where an underground important person drags a superhero into the war for a mostly stand-alone adventure.

I don't know.

I just know that the event didn't get the most it could out of the underground war concept. And if the event isn't good then why did we have it instead of the two Avengers teams getting together for baseball and then something interrupts it? Remember that? When we had the Avengers playing baseball against each other?

I should have pre-read this so I'd know I only needed to bother with the Avengers parts. Saved myself some time. But that's liveblogging. Sometimes often frequently I go into it with no clue whatsoever.

Next time, we're back over to regular liveblogging with Avengers West Coast #75.