EARTH'S MIGHTIEST ANNOTATIONS
by Sean McQuaid

AVENGERS (volume 3) # 11
December, 1998
"...Always an Avenger!"
By Kurt Busiek & George Perez
with Al Vey & Bob Wiaceck (finishers),
Tom Smith (colors),
Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters),
Tom Brevoort (editor)
& Bob Harras (editor-in-chief).

Avengers Assembled: Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Vision [II], Firestar & Justice (as active members); Giant-Man & Wasp (as reserve members); Thing, Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman & Spider-Man (as inactive/former members); and Captain Marvel, Swordsman, Hellcat, Wonder Man, Mockingbird, Doctor Druid & Thunderstrike (as ghostly members of the Avengers; Wonder Man seemingly returns to life indefinitely in this story, but the other ghostly Avengers do not). The Beast also appears briefly in a flashback to Wonder Man's past.

Other Characters: Edwin Jarvis, Grim Reaper, Stunt-Master, Chili Storm, The Fantastic Four (Human Torch [II], Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic & Thing), Daredevil, Megan McLaren, Agatha Harkness & Ebony. Count Nefaria appears in a flashback to his battle with Wonder Man in Avengers (v1) # 165.

EXTERIOR COVER This issue's cover illustration (drawn by George Perez and colored by Tom Smith) features deceased Avengers members Swordsman, Doctor Druid, Thunderstrike, Captain Marvel, Wonder Man & Mockingbird in their current forms as zombie-like servants of the Grim Reaper. Deceased Avengers member Hellcat, in the same condition as the other dead Avengers, is featured in the cover corner box. Wonder Man's dialogue baloons seem an unnecessary addition to the cover (especially since a blurb above the title identifies the team as "Earth's Mightiest Corpses!"), one which detracts from the spookily solemn tone set by the illustration.

INTERIOR COVER This issue's interior cover recaps events from the previous issue and offers short profiles of Wonder Man, Captain Marvel, Doctor Druid, Hellcat, Mockingbird, Swordsman, Thunderstrike, Grim Reaper & Scarlet Witch. It also features a parody of the usual "And there came a day" opening, celebrating the deaths of Avengers rather than the origin of the team. A reproduction of this issue's exterior cover (featuring the dead Avengers) accompanies this parodic text in place of the usual founders picture.

PAGE 1
The Avengers have been depicted as having autombiles at their disposal since Avengers (v1) # 19, but this story is the first to depict the garage shown here (though a small indoor garage facility has also been depicted within the Mansion itself, most notably in Avengers [v1] # 54). This is not the first appearance of the Mansion's underground shuttle system; it has previously been depicted as connecting the Mansion to locations such as the team's submarine pen and Hydrobase (the Avengers formerly used Hydrobase to house and launch their quinjets during a period in which they were banned from launching aircraft inside New York, and later briefly used Hydrobase as their primary headquarters until it was destroyed in Avengers [v1] # 311).

Wanda's thoughts deal with last issue's revelations regarding her powers, that her mutant ability is actually the power to channel mystical energy (the same way her father Magneto channels magnetic energy), most often as "chaos grenades" that draw upon the Chthonic magic she was infused with as a baby. Furthermore, Wanda will eventually be able to wield her mystical power in a more conscious, deliberate manner with practice, as opposed to the relatively random effects of the "hexes" or "chaos grenades" she currently employs.

Note the way Panels 12 & 13 obscure the number of sub-basements under the Avengers Mansion structure. The Mansion was previously depicted as having two sub-basement levels, but current Avengers writer Kurt Busiek and Avengers editor Tom Brevoort decided that two sub-basements wouldn't be enough to house whatever new items Busiek might concoct in the future, so they've more recently opted for a description of the Mansion as having "many" sub-basements, with no specific number forthcoming in the near future.

Wanda is going to the ground-level main floor, which includes the mansion's main entrance (as well as a tradesman's entrance and a side entrance), a foyer (with grand staircase), two closets, a cloak room, the personal quarters of Edwin Jarvis (the Mansion's butler), four bathrooms, a gallery, the main dining hall, the library, two elevators, the kitchen, the pantry and the public conference room. The ground level has also been depicted as having a driveway, parking area and a small three-car garage, but that may no longer be the case since the Avengers now use the warehouse garage facility shown in this issue.

PAGES 2-3
(two-page spread): The undead Avengers from last issue menace Jarvis and the Scarlet Witch. Hellcat refers to herself as Wanda's "old pal" since the two of them served together in Avengers (v1) # 144 & 147-151 when Hellcat first joined the Avengers, though they seldom encountered one another thereafter. The "...Always an Avenger!" logo is done in a style reminiscent of the original Avengers logo.

PAGE 4
Grim Reaper (Eric Williams) has assumed his more traditional human form, having appeared as an energy wraith last issue (the energy form being an indication that Eric was behind Simon's recent revival in a similar form). He wears a black version of his traditional costuming (his second outfit, which has also been depicted as purple or blue in the past).

PAGE 5
We get a somewhat warped and very condensed account of Eric's past from the Grim Reaper himself. As Eric says, he regarded himself as the "bad boy" of the family and became involved with organized crime through the Maggia while Simon inherited the family business, Williams Innovations. The business floundered under Simon's direction, and Simon himself was eventually convicted of embezzlement (though Eric was widely believed to be the true culprit until Simon publicly admitted his own guilt years later in WCA v2 # 4). As Eric says, Simon's crime led to his gaining super-powers as Wonder Man and dying (in Avengers [v1] # 9). Eric became the Grim Reaper to avenge Simon in Avengers (v1) # 52, using high-tech weaponry (the "powers" Eric refers to here) in attacks on the Avengers. As Eric says, Simon embarked on a new life as a hero when he returned from the dead, but Eric returned in assorted monstrous forms after dying himself (in Vision & Scarlet Witch v2 # 2): first as a zombie (Vision & Scarlet Witch v2 # 12), then as a life-siphoning undead serial killer (AWC # 65-68), and finally as a demonic mystic (Avengers [v1] # 352-354).

Now, Eric reveals that when Simon hovered between the realms of life and death after his most recent demise, the undead Eric tapped into that fluctuation and drew on his own hatred to bring himself and other spirits into the realm of the living, beginning with Simon and continuing until the barriers between life and death had weakened enough to bring the Grim Reaper and others through as well. Whether Eric began tapping into Simon after Simon's seeming death in battle with the Kree or Simon's subsequent seeming death in battle with Morgan Le Fay is unclear.

The images on this page include (left to right & top to bottom) the Grim Reaper; Eric & Simon as youngsters; Eric as a Maggia hoodlum; Wonder Man and Grim Reaper in their original costumes, pictured over their respective graves (though the Reaper had abandoned his gaudy original outfit years before his death); the Avengers as they looked shortly after Simon's first revival, including Yellowjacket (now Giant-Man), Thor, Wonder Man (in his third outfit), Iron Man (in his "classic" red and gold armor), Vision, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Beast & Wasp; Grim Reaper in his demonic form from Avengers (v1) # 352-354; Wonder Man in his sixth costume, the one he adopted in WCA Annual 2; and the Grim Reaper monitoring Wonder Man's recent shifts between life and death.

PAGE 6
Panel 1: Reaper's comment about returning to life himself and bringing "at least the essences of others" with him indicates that he is the only person who was meant to truly return to life through this enterprise, while the others would be spirits subject to his will and housed in forms he created.

Panel 3: The Reaper learned that Vision's mind incorporated Simon's brain patterns in Avengers (v1) # 79 and came to regard Vision as a brother of sorts thereafter. This began to change in Avengers (v1) # 160, when Simon's return from the dead as the inhumanly powerful Wonder Man made the Reaper suspect that neither the Vision nor Wonder Man was truly Simon. Much later, in WCA v2 # 1-2 & Vision/Scarlet Witch v2 # 1-2, the Reaper tried to destroy both Vision and Wonder Man after deciding they were inhuman mockeries of his true brother. The Avengers defeated the Reaper, though, and Vision & Wonder Man managed to convince the Reaper that they were both real people, and that they were both his brothers in a sense. Mad with guilt, the Reaper fled in a frenzy of shame and fell to his death. Since returning from his death, the undead Reaper has resumed his hatred for Vision and Wonder Man.

PAGE 7
The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Daredevil try in vain to pierce the Reaper's barrier while Stunt-Master, Chili Storm and Megan McLaren cover the story. All these characters appeared last issue and were described in the annotations for that issue.

PAGE 8
Panels 2-3: Scarlet Witch is said to have known and worked with the six dead Avengers, and to have mourned them when they died. This seems unlikely in at least one case: Druid and Wanda never worked together as Avengers (they'd barely even met), Druid was unpopular with the few Avengers who did know him, and Druid died in disgrace after becoming a ruthless menace. Wanda did, however, work alongside all the other dead Avengers involved in this story (though very little in the case of Thunderstrike) and knew some of them well, doubtless mourning their passing.

Wanda's feelings aside, one wonders why the Reaper chose these particular seven dead Avengers since there are as many as thirteen apparently deceased Avengers to choose from. Perhaps it was random. Regardless, one wonders why Busiek chose these seven dead Avengers for this story. Druid in particular seems an unusual choice for two reasons: he was unpopular with both Avengers readers and his fellow Avengers (so his return means less to the team than other returns might have), and he had become a corrupt and dangerous individual later in life, a power-mad killer who died a pathetic death. As such, the dead Avengers engaging in noble heroism when Wanda frees them from the Reaper later in this story seems a bit unlikely in Druid's case (though Wanda could, perhaps, have purged Druid's spirit of its own evil in addition to dispelling the Reaper's influence). Still, dead Avengers such as Whizzer or Gilgamesh might have made better additions to the undead Avengers roster than Druid.

Panel 4: Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes (v1) # 12. A legendary spacefaring alien hero, Mar-Vell was a Kree soldier who turned against his people's imperialistic military leadership and became a hero to other worlds, beginning with Earth. Appointed Protector of the Universe by the cosmic being Eon, Mar-Vell was celebrated and respected throughout the stars as a champion of life. His own life ended when he died of cancer in Marvel Graphic Novel # 1 (The Death of Captain Marvel). The people of the universe mourned his passing, and his longtime allies the Avengers posthumously declared him an honorary member of their group. Prior to his death, his last Avengers appearance was Avengers (v1) # 181.

Panel 5: The original Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) first appeared in Avengers (v1) # 19-20, when he briefly hoaxed the Avengers into awarding him membership while he was secretly infiltrating their ranks on behalf of the Mandarin. He was a bitter enemy of the team for years thereafter, battling them in Avengers (v1) # 29-30, Avengers Annual 1, and Avengers (v1) # 65 & 78-79. He then fought the forces of Ares & Enchantress alongside the team in Avengers (v1) # 100, having come to miss the life of a hero. He reformed and rejoined the team in Avengers (v1) # 114 before dying in action in Giant-Size Avengers # 2: he was shot dead by Kang while trying to protect his lover, Mantis.

Panel 6: Doctor Druid (Anthony Ludgate Druid) first appeared as Doctor Droom in Amazing Adventures (v1) # 1 and was retroactively renamed Doctor Druid in Werid Wonder Tales # 19. He first encountered the Avengers when he aided them against the Fomor in Avengers (v1) # 225-226, and later helped liberate Avengers Mansion from the Masters of Evil in Avengers (v1) # 276-277 before battling Attuma alongside the Avengers in Avengers (v1) # 278, when he was nominated for Avengers memberhip by the Wasp and accepted. His Avengers career proved brief and traumatic, though, as he fell under the mental influence of Ravonna the Terminatrix and helped her mentally subjugate the Avengers, brainwashing the team into electing Druid their chairman and serving the villainous Ravonna. The Avengers shook off Druid's control, though, and both Druid and the Terminatrix were lost in the timestream during the ensuing conflict. Druid eventually shook off the Terminatrix's influence, returned to Earth and re-established himself as an adventurer, briefly leading the Shock Troop and the Secret Defenders before those groups broke up, but his growing reputation as a small-time failure ultimately prompted him to embark on a quest for increased sorcerous power, killing anyone who got in his way and threatening the stability of all reality. His rampage ended when the undead villainess Nekra murdered him on behalf of rival sorcerer Hellstorm, after which she and Hellstorm burned Druid's body in a garbage can. The tale of the power-mad Druid's decline and death was told in Druid # 1-4. Prior to his death, his last Avengers appearance was in Avengers Annual 21.

Panel 7: Hellcat first appeared as Patsy Walker in Miss America Magazine # 2, and was introduced to official Marvel continuity in Fantastic Four Annual 3, becoming Hellcat in Avengers (v1) # 144 and officially joining the Avengers in Avengers (v1) # 151. She was an infrequently active reservist for years thereafter, due primarily to her conflicting longtime association with the Defenders team. She retired from the Defenders after marrying teammate Daimon Hellstrom (a.k.a. Hellstorm), with whom she established an occult investigations business, but she continued to assist the Avengers as a reservist on occasion. Daimon Hellstrom was the son of a major demon who referred to himself as Satan, and Hellcat had married Hellstorm only after his "darksoul" (the demonic aspect of his being) had been purged from him. When the darksoul was later restored to Daimon, Patsy witnessed this and was driven mad by the evil she saw in him. Reduced to a state of drooling catatonia, Patsy was locked away in a room by her newly demonic husband while he pursued his occult activities and other women. Eventually, Patsy's despair grew so great that the cosmic mercy-killing entity Deathurge came to her and expelled her soul from her body as an act of kindness (so she did not commit suicide per se, though the apparent lack of a cause of death left the authorities baffled). Since then, she has contacted Earth from a spirit realm via radio to say that she will return, though this outing as the Reaper's pawn probably wasn't what she had in mind. The story of Hellcat's decline and death was covered in the Hellstorm ongoing series. Prior to her death, her last Avengers appearance was in Avengers (v1) # 313.

Panel 8: Mockingbird (Barbara Morse "Bobbi" Barton) first appeared as SHIELD agent Bobbi Morse in Astonishing Tales (v1) # 6, became the costumed adventurer known as the Huntress in Marvel Super-Action (v1) # 1 and adopted a new costumed identity as freelance intelligence agent Mockingbird in Marvel Team-Up (v1) # 95. She met, fell in love with and married longtime Avengers member Hawkeye in Hawkeye (v1) # 1-4 (reprinted in the Hawkeye trade paperback), and began working alongside the Avengers as of Avengers (v1) # 239. She officially joined the group as a founding member of its western expansion roster in West Coast Avengers (v1) # 1 and became a mainstay of the western Avengers for some time thereafter, until an ethical dispute with Hawkeye prompted her to separate from him and take an indefinite leave of absence from the team in WCA (v2) # 37. She appeared occasionally as an inactive member thereafter, becoming a mentor to the novice adventurers known as the Great Lakes Avengers in WCA (v2) # 46 during her time away from the official Avengers. She upgraded to reserve status in AWC # 69 and returned to full active status in AWC # 87-88, finally reconciling with Hawkeye in AWC # 89-91. She was even planning to retire and raise children with Hawkeye, but she was killed in action by the demon Mephisto in AWC # 100 while pushing Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye to safety.

Panel 9: Thunderstrike (Eric Kevin Masterson) first appeared as Eric Masterson in Thor (v1) # 391, became a mortal incarnation of Thor on behalf of the Asgardian gods in Thor (v1) # 432 and assumed a new heroic identity of his own as Thunderstrike in Thunderstrike # 1. He served briefly with the Avengers in his identity as Thor II while the original Thor was unavailable (beginning with Avengers [v1] # 343), and later participated in several Avengers missions as Thunderstrike. His heroic career came to an end in Thunderstrike # 24 when he sacrificed his life to contain the evil of the Asgardian Bloodaxe. Prior to his death, his last Avengers appearance was in Avengers (v1) # 383.

Panel 10: Wonder Man (Simon Williams) first appeared in Avengers (v1) # 9, and his history with the Avengers has been described several times over in previous editions of the EMA annotations. He seemingly died (for the second time) in battle with the invading alien forces of the Kree and the Scatter in Force Works # 1 when he was blown to atoms by an explosion. Prior to that death, Simon's last Avengers appearance was in AWC # 102.

PAGE 9
Wanda's memory of Harkness telling her about her power and how she can direct nature comes from last issue.

PAGE 10
Wanda's attempt to restore the undead Avengers to their true heroic selves makes sense in the case of most of the undead Avengers, but one wonders what this process entails for Doctor Druid since he had become a twisted, evil monster of a man just before his death. Perhaps Wanda purges Druid's soul of its own innate evil as well as the Reaper's influence. As various readers have pointed out, this tactic of helping the undead Avengers return to their true selves closely resembles a similar spell Wanda cast in Avengers (v3) # 2 to restore a group of Avengers to their true selves when they were brainwashed by Morgan Le Fay.

Wonder Man reveals that the Reaper was behind his recent resurrections all along, though whether that includes the first such resurrection (in Avengers [v3] # 2) is unclear.

PAGE 14
Thunderstrike, Doctor Druid, Captain Marvel, Swordsman, Hellcat & Mockingbird appear in their true forms, restored to them by Scarlet Witch's spell. Druid, however, sports a physical appearance and costume that had both radically changed well before he died, though this is how he looked when he was active as an Avenger.

PAGE 17
Panel 3: Flashback to a scene from Avengers (v1) # 158 when a plainclothes Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch go shopping.

Panel 4: Flashback to a scene from Avengers (v1) # 165, when Wonder Man (in his tattered second costume) battles Count Nefaria.

Panel 5: Flashback to a scene from Avengers (v3) # 3, when Wonder Man gathered firewood for the Scarlet Witch.

PAGE 18
Panel 3: The late Thunderstrike left behind a young son, Kevin Masterson, when he died.

Panel 4: Hellcat's comment about not realizing how much she'd miss life bodes well for her potential lasting return to life since she died through mystical means hinging on her lack of desire to live. A renewed desire to live may foreshadow her return to true life, especially since she prophesied her own return from the spirit realm some time ago.

Panels 5-6: What Mockingbird was trying to say to Hawkeye is unclear, but if a figure recently seen in Avengers Forever 1 is (as Van Plexico theorizes) the future adult son of Hawkeye and the late Mockingbird, Bobbi might be trying to get word to Hawkeye that he has a child he doesn't know about. It's possible that Mockingbird could have secretly given birth to a child during her extended separation from Hawkeye, though whether that is actually the case remains to be seen.

PAGE 19
Panels 6-7: Wanda's previously unvoiced love for Simon is a new retroactive revelation on the part of current Avengers writer Kurt Busiek, though not an entirely astonishing one since Wanda was deeply in love with the Vision, whose mind was created using Simon's brain patterns. Judging by what is said in these captions and what Wanda sees in earlier flashbacks to Simon's past, she seems to have forgotten (or has opted to overlook) Simon's AWC years, during which he was a rather abrasive fellow whom she consistently rejected, and whom she resented for undermining her marriage to Vision. Wanda seems to recall only the shy, gentle Simon of his early Avengers days and the attentive companion of recent days, not the selfish, boorish Simon who was a mainstay of the western Avengers in more recent years.

PAGE 20
Panels 2-4: Wonder Man finally returns fully to life in the physical form he had when he first returned to life after his original death, with grey hair and glowing red eyes.

PAGE 21
Simon reveals and Eric admits that the Grim Reaper's primary underlying motivation was always a twisted love for Simon, an insight consistent with past portrayals of the characters.

PAGE 22
Panel 1: Doctor Jane Foster is currently acting as personal physician to Tony Stark (Iron Man), as seen in recent issues of the Iron Man ongoing series. She is also a longtime friend, confidant and former love interest of Thor, and worked with him as a nurse when he employed a human identity as Doctor Donald Blake years ago.

Panels 6-9:
Apparently, Wanda has begun a romance with her longtime admirer Simon for the first time, oblivious to the apparent displeasure of her estranged husband and Wonder Man's erstwhile brother, The Vision.

Simon now looks much the way he did for the bulk of his early Avengers career (circa Avengers [v1] # 167-211 & WCA [v1] # 1-4): grey-haired and red-eyed with red sunglasses.

Scarlet Witch apparently isn't the only Avenger who has become insensitive to the Vision's current situation since the team seems so happy for Simon and Wanda. Wasp in particular seems pleased, though that isn't surprising since she'd been rooting for Simon to win Wanda's heart ever since Wanda's marriage to the Vision first began to break down. There may be some surprising grain of truth in John Byrne's long-ago assertion that the Avengers didn't really care about Vision and secretly regarded him as a mere machine, but whether the team will remain indifferent to Vision's current troubles remains to be seen.