Crystal is delighting in her baby while they shower together—then axe-wielding barbarian Mongu and his master the mystic Maha Yogi crash through the wall looking for Dr. Druid. Crystal fights back, soon joined by Marilla and Lockjaw but Yogi hypnotizes Marilla into holding a knife to the baby’s throat….
Downstairs, Hercules is flirting with Taylor Madison when the intruder alert sounds. Herc dashes upstairs to encounter LeSabre on a winged gargoyle as a steed. The villain wants to know where to find the Black Knight. Herc punches out the steed but LeSabre holds a knife to Taylor’s throat, demanding to know where he can find the Ebony Sword….
Vision is sitting in his quarters when the sorcerer Chandu appears and causes Vision’s plastic body to melt and reform but the Synthezoid is able to press an alert calling for help….
At Whitman Castle, Dane (Black Knight) Whitman is training his squire Sean Dolan in the finer points of sword fighting. He shows Sean the Ebony Blade, embedded in a meteorite, in hopes of evading the blood curse on the sword. Victoria Bentley enters with a warning that the return of Sir Percy’s spirit to the sword bodes ill. Then Dane receives the Avengers Priority Alert, mounts Valinor and heads out, Victoria confessing her love for him behind his back….
Black Widow scales the outside of the building to enter Vision’s quarters through a window. She finds his ID card but not him. She hears the tussle in Crystal’s room and enters to free Crystal from Mongu’s clutch; Natasha fights the big guy while Crystal snaps Marilla out of the spell. Natasha stings Maha Yogi into unconsciousness. The nanny, angered, hurls Mongu through a portal where he is followed by Lockjaw….
Nearby, Hercules is bound with the melted and extruded Vision. Sersi enters and reforms Vision into a multitude of tiny Visions which defeat Chandu. She then puts Vision back to normal and Herc is freed. This leaves only LeSabre. But Black Knight, arriving on Valinor, has encountered the villain on his steed outside and overpowered him. But LeSabre informs Dane that he is one of a convocation of wizards seeking artifacts, including the Ebony Blade—and that another team has been dispatched to his castle to take it….
The other team is two guys, Achmed the leader, who break into the castle, only to be met by the butler Catherwood with Black Knight’s power lance but they quickly subdue him. The bad guys are unable to extract the sword from the meteor. Sean Dolan arrives and takes on the two baddies in a sword battle; when he reveals himself to be formidable, the baddie shoots him. Then Victoria enters and is taken prisoner. The villains don’t believe her when she says they can’t get the sword. Hearing Victoria in danger, Sean easily pulls the sword from the stone and is transformed into Bloodwraith. He uses the Blade to kill the two villains and absorb their souls. The blood curse is on him and he threatens Victoria and Catherwood. But Black Knight arrives to stop him and they fight. The other Avengers arrive and Bloodwraith grabs Crystal, telling Victoria about her relationship with Dane; he then pushes her at Dane so she is impaled by his laser sword, temporarily paralyzing her. Hercules punches BW through a wall but he is cut by the Blade, showing he is vulnerable to it. The Blade seeks souls so Vision, who doesn’t have one, attacks BW and is clobbered, the Blade still absorbing energy. Sersi tries to transmute the Blade but she has no power over it. Black Widow disarms BW with a cord and Dane tries to pick up the sword but BW pierces his hand, vowing Dane will never touch the sword again. Dane tells the others to stand back while he duels his squire. The fight ends with Black Knight at Bloodwraith’s mercy but the Avengers refuse to allow Dane to die. Bloodwraith accepts their offer to leave. He mounts Valinor and takes off into the night….
Give that special marvelite a timely gift
Story #2A Gamble with Time
Writer:
Roy Thomas.
Penciler:
Al Milgrom.
Inker:
Mark Stegbauer.
Colorist:
Chris Matthys.
Letterer:
Rick Parker.
Synopsis
In Chronopoplis, the Anachronauts are having a free-for-all, testing their battle readiness. Suddenly, Sir Raston’s Ebony Blade glows, bringing Terminatrix to investigate. All the scanners have gone crazy, temportals opening at random. Since it is a magic artifact, the Ebony Blade can’t be scanned so they must all go to Camelot. Terminatrix and the Anachronauts head to the appropriate street and walk through into old Camelot, just in time to see the Starstone, from which the Ebony Blade was forged, fall from the sky. Then the anomaly presents itself: a small cottage suddenly appears from nowhere, the door opens and a huge horde of robots chanting, “Incinerate!” march out, seize the Starstone, then reenter the tiny cottage, the door closing behind them. Terminatrix and the Anachronauts enter the cottage and discover a high tech setting much bigger on the inside than on the outside and an imprisoned eccentrically dressed man asking for their help. They destroy a couple of Incinerators and free the man. He introduces himself as Professor Justin Alphonse Gamble, an adventurer in time and space. He reveals that the Incinerators were created by the Time Variance Authority to clear cosmic debris from the time stream but something went wrong and now they are bent on incinerating the entire time/space continuum. Now the Incinerators are reproducing themselves at a fantastic rate and have captured Gamble to scan his brain; they have learned that the Starstone will power TVA technology to destroy time itself. As the Incinerators pour out of the Replicator, the heroes fight them but the endless horde threatens to overwhelm them. But Gamble recovers the device that allows him control over his ship again and presses the button that reconfigures its walls, with the robots on the outside. The heroes say farewell to the Professor and he delivers the Starstone to Merlin and suggests he use it to make a sword….
Characters
Good (or All)
Anachronauts, Merlin the Magician, Prof Gamble (Justin Alphonse Gamble), Terminatrix (Ravonna).