Avengers Spotlight # 26 (Acts of Vengeance)

By Mark Rodriguez

Back when I started getting into collecting comics, I eventually started checking out the Marvel comics like the Avengers and Spider-Man. I might have bought a Wolverine comic or so, but I remember I didn't get into the X-Men until the 90's cartoon.

Anyway, the Acts of Vengeance story started with the Avengers but spread to almost every Marvel comic at the time. Loki has gathered all the villains together and suggested they switch things up and go after other heroes they normally don't fight against. The point would be the superheroes would be be caught off guard and also unfamiliar with these new foes and be easier to defeat. Let's check out where this all started courtesy of the long boxes at Sci Fi Valley Con.

"Tales from the Vault" Part One begins by introducing the Vault, a prison for super villains, and the guards are bringing in their latest prisoner, The Wizard. He's the leader of the Frightful Four and they already have the other members Hydro Man, Klaw and Titania in custody. The guards wonder why they brought the Wizard since without his fancy weaponry, he's just a regular human. It seems he was brought in as a favor since he keeps breaking out of regular jail. One of the guards, calling himself Guardsman Prime arrives to take the Wizard to his cell.

Once in his cell, the Wizard can't find a way to escape, but his cellmate offers him a way out. The guards watch this on their security monitors, but for some reason are unable to see this stranger. As far as they can see the Wizard is talking to himself. The guard gets his armor on and goes to check it out, but the Wizard is now in his costume and he easily smacks him aside.

The Guardsman fires a repulsor ray at the villain which he manages to bounce back against him. This knocks him up against a cell where Mr. Hyde reaches out to grab, making it easier for the Wizard to punch him. He now demands access to the control panel of the prison. The other guards get the alert on Level 5 and get ready to face them. Not only do they face the Wizard, they also face the other escaped villains that include Mr. Hyde and Electro.

 

The people running the prison see that the other levels have escaping prisoners as well. They're unable to call for outside help. Guardsman Prime manages to radio the Avengers with his helmet.

"Tales from the Vault" Part Two opens with Iron Man showing up to help and Prime mentions how he caused the last break out at the Vault. A villain named Orka socks Iron Man from behind, but Stark soon knocks him out. Iron Man goes to another room after he reconnects the emergency power and finds a lot of knocked out guards. Hawkeye arrives to evacuate some of the scientists and will then help take down the escaped criminals.

Iron Man socks out Whirlwind and said the guards never stood a chance since they were wearing Stane armor. Just then Hawkeye sees Iron Man and blames him for this break out since the last one was caused by his armored wars. Hawkeye fires arrows at Iron Man, and even though Stark tries to convince him that he's just a guy hired by Stark, the Avenger Archer already knows who he is.

Iron Man blasts a bad guy that was behind Hawkeye, and then takes moment he was distracted to aim his palm into his face. Iron Man says he's an Avenger and he's there to help out the guards, and he can help if he wants. Hawkeye still holds him responsible for every criminal that escapes when he's suddenly grabbed at blade point by Scarecrow.

Hawkeye easily flips him over his shoulder and aims an arrow at him. Scarecrow asks what kind of arrow it is. Hawkeye says he ran out of special arrows and is using a good ol fashioned sharp pointy arrow, and the villain decides to lock himself up. Iron Man carries a huge stone slab with all the guards on it and needs the archer to cover him. Once outside, Iron Man remotely shuts down all security doors in the prison but says anyone inside can still undo that. Hawkeye shoots an EMP arrow towards the prison which disables all of the systems inside the building. However this also puts Iron Man's armor out of commission, leaving Hawkeye all alone with any other super villains in the are until back up arrives!

 

My Thoughts-

Pretty interesting issue though it did showcase this random guard guy quite a bit. I heard of the Armored Wars, and I guess between that and the previous prison break it left Iron Man looking bad towards fellow Avengers. 

One thing about Avengers Spotlight is that it usually contains two stories. The first is usually about Hawkeye, and the second is about some other Avenger that doesn't have their own book, like Tigra or Wonder Man. Even though this was a full issue-length story, I guess they didn't want to break the two story format and break up Tales from the Vault into two parts.

I do like all the little references and things that I know now that I didn't know back then. I've seen villains like Klaw and Whirlwind in the classic Captain America and the Avengers arcade game. Thanks to the Iron Man movie I know who they're referring to when they mention that the guards' armor is made by Stane's company, and it's funny how the 'bad guy' armor is so inferior to Iron Man's armor. I also remember Mr. Hyde was in the Agents of SHIELD show in the form of Skye's father. And of course, I recently saw Titania in that recent Spider-Man comic I purchased.

Not much to say about the story itself except we get a decent explanation of the Vault and how it works. I also got to see more Marvel bad guys I haven't seen before though Iron Man and Hawkeye fight each other as much as they try to work together. I also didn't know Marvel had their own version of the Scarecrow.

The comic does show the sign of the times, mostly those classic NES game ads. I did like how the classic game Jordan VS Bird was advertised twice, the real NES version and the handheld Tiger game version. People really wanted to see who was the better between the two back in the 90's, huh?

 

Another interesting this is this annual poll, and considering that this took place back in 1989, it was cool to compare what happened then to what's happening now. These polls were voted for by fans and they're pretty long so I'm only going by the top 5 of each category.

Favorite Avenger that currently has his/her own magazine
1- Captain America
2- Iron Man
3- She-Hulk
4- Thor
5- Hawkeye

Favorite Avenger that does not have his/her own magazine
1- Wonder Man
2- Black Knight
3- Black Panther
4- Vision
5- Beast

Favorite Candidate for Avengers membership
1- Spider-Man
2- Daredevil
3- Ant-Man
4- Dr. Strange
5- Wolverine

The last one has me curious about Ant-Man since he IS an Avenger... unless he left the team and the fanbase wants him back. As for the others on the list.... well, the vast majority of the Marvel good guys actually are or have been Avengers at one time.