Avengers / Invaders #3: Review

Jul 2008

Jim Krueger, Steve Sadowski

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::

Story Name:

Book Three: Homefront

Review & Comments

Rating:

Avengers / Invaders #3 Review by Peter Silvestro (October 3, 2013)

Review: Spider-Woman shows up to help the New Avengers raid the Helicarrier—and then she vanishes until issue #7; wonder if she’s the master manipulator behind all this?...Old Paul Anselm must be really lonely, he pours out his whole life story to his younger self, the last person he should be telling this to; why doesn’t he just write a book for his grandchildren like everyone else?…young Subby hunts down old Subby, who is wearing that blue-and-gold King of Atlantis costume—and for some reason has a face like a pig on his first appearance; not to worry, both Subbys’ faces change from panel to panel, must be some weird underwater effect…Hey, last issue it was Tony beating himself up metaphorically; here Namor beats himself up literally—because the young one is a jerk—not to worry, old Subby let himself be beaten up, to teach his earlier self a lesson in humility. And the cat planned to run into the glass door….Aaaand the Human Torch learns that robots are people too, with feelings that get hurt…Bucky gets the last word this time, shooting Tony Stark and asking questions, er, really not at all

Comments: No inkers are credited for the series. Tony Stark does not appear in his Iron Man armor in this issue.

Avengers / Invaders #3 Review by Rob Johnson (October 3, 2013)

Atlantis is destroyed because of the Sub-Mariner: Revolution mini-series. And recently the current SM surrendered to the Order in their #6-7 (and was given over to the custody of the Fantastic Four). But that gets totally forgotten about, as does the diaspora of the Atlanteans to the surface world from SM:R.

Spider-Woman kept out of the fight last issue where the Mighty Avengers captured most of the Invaders. As far as the New Avengers are concerned she traitorously switched sides when she took the corpse of the Skrull that had been impersonating Elecktra to Tony Stark in NAv#33 and MAv#6. But she says she's just doing what she believes is right, and she's come to give them info to help them rescue the Invaders. She'll keep out of the actual conflict again to preserve her cover, but when she resurfaces in #7 the MAv seem to know what she did.

But we'll soon discover that this Spider-Woman has secretly been the Skrull Queen Veranke since before the start of New Avengers. So who knows what her real motives are.

Apart from Iron Man the Mighty Avengers skip this issue, as does Toro.

Back in #1 I said I'd see where the Invaders fit in their Timely WWII sequence.

The Official Index and Marvel Chronology Project take into consideration that monthly Timely comics were published 3 months ahead of their cover date. They use these 3-month-ahead dates as the 'real' dates for the stories within. This governs the insertion of modern comics set in WWII which have actual dates quoted within them. Unless there's a good reason to do so they put modern intrusions after all Timely comics for that month. Ie they're really only locating events by month. Eg both authorities have elements of Captain America Annual #9 and CA 65th Anniversary Special dated April 1944 between CA Comics #40 (cover date 07/44) and CAC#41 (08/44).

The OI doesn't mention Avengers/Invaders in its sequencing of Timely Captain America apps, but the MCP does - it's added things since the OI was published. It has Cap and Bucky taken from between CAC#36 and #37. The date given here is 12/43, and the CAC issues are dated 03/44 and 04/44.

The actual MCP sequence for Cap is:- CAC#36/5 USA COMICS #12/1 ALL SELECT COMICS #3/1 ALL WINNERS COMICS #12/2 CA #600/2 (p31:1) fb This series CAC#37/1 Bucky is the same as Cap without CA#600/2.

The MCP guys worked out all of Cap's history because they help with the OI's. Human Torch has a regular strip in CAC, so they worked out his chronology in detail too. And they've inserted this series into that.

HT's sequence is:- CAC#36/2 ASC#3/2 AWC#12/1 This series MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #54/1 CAC#37/5 Toro misses out AWC#12/1 and MMC#54/1. Note that MMC#54 is dated April with CAC#37.

MCP haven't detailed Sub-Mariner's WWII apps this far (because he wasn't a regular in CAC). But an old version of the Marvel Universe Wiki used to have a detailed chronology for Captain America organised in the same 'real' months as the OI and MCP. They also had 1 for Sub-Mariner which followed the same rules. (It is that sequence that the detailed history of Subby in the Marvel Mystery Handbook follows.) And I took a copy of these before they disappeared.

The SM file also doesn't mention Avengers/Invaders, but I can extract the relevant section and insert it:- MMC#53/2 ASC#3/4 AWC#12/3 This series MMC#54/2

The expanded histories for these characters in the Marvel Wiki broadly follow the same scheme, but seem to shuffle the issues that occur in the same month. Maybe this means they've thought about it in a bit more detail than the MCP have.

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers / Invaders #3 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

The only Invader to escape capture by the Avengers, Namor the Sub-Mariner heads to his city of Atlantis to recruit his people in a rescue effort. Instead he finds the city destroyed, the people gone….

The New Avengers arrive at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington for a meeting with Spider-Woman. Though a part of Tony Stark’s Mighty Avengers, she considers herself on the side of what’s right first of all and so wants to aid them in rescuing Captain America and his allies. She tells them that the SHIELD Helicarrier will be over Washington in two hours. Dr. Strange creates a mystic wall to keep the time paradox from changing the present while his comrades locate the Invaders and return them to the past….

In New York, the young and the old Paul Anselm talk, with the current elderly one filling in his younger self on his future—his marriage, family, and other details. Then he drops the bombshell: Paul was the only one of his company to make it through the war….

Namor arrives at the sunken hulk of the Titanic where his modern counterpart, now King Namor waits with his subjects. The younger Subby demands that Atlantis attack in force to free the Invaders; King Namor declines, citing a fragile peace between the ocean and surface worlds. The hot-headed youngster fights the veteran warrior and emerges victorious. He then calls on the people of Atlantis to follow him against the surface….

Aboard the Helicarrier, Human Torch has discovered that the SHIELD agent he overpowered was a Life Model Decoy, and feels a kinship to it. Bucky releases Cap from his cell and they head to the deck where they are shocked to find the craft floating, not on the sea but high in the air. They are attacked by an army of LMD agents; Cap holds them off while he sends Bucky to find the others. Below deck, Bucky encounters Tony Stark who is holding Cap’s shield and wants to explain the situation. The hot-headed young soldier fires point blank at he shield and knocks Tony back, so that he hits his head on the bulkhead, losing consciousness. Bucky reclaims the shield….