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thebibliomancer · 5 months

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #306: There is a FIRE Down Below

August, 1989

Can even the SUB-MARINER withstand the brutal attack of the LAVA MEN?

Well, he's got a type advantage?

Attacking him in the ocean was maybe not the best idea.

I don't know why the disembodied Avengers heads are so distraught that Namor is beating up Lava Men. Maybe they're upset because they can't see his abs from where they are...

Anyway.

Last time on Avengers: Captain America unilaterally declared every Avenger is an Avenger and there's only one Avengers team, the one he's in charge of.

Everyone was fairly supportive of this.

Except for the Lava Men who hoisted Avengers Island into the sky and then trapped Captain America, Black Panther, Thor, She-Hulk, and Giglamesh in a lava ball and rolled them into the ocean.

This time: the ocean.

Namor is swimming around in the ocean, just enjoying his life, hanging out with his finny friends, definitely not looking for his dead monster wife's monster babies at all, when some dolphins tell him that there's bad shit going on with the Avengers.

So even though Namor was JUST THERE, he turns around to check things out. Even though the water gets oddly warm. Did someone pee the entire ocean?

No?

It's just the giant column of lava, still glowing cherry hot despite all this ocean around? A flagrant violation of physics? Okay.

The column is made up of just tons of lava men and many break off the column to attack Namor.

He punches them a lot, declaims about how cool he is, smacks some Lava Men with a Lava Man, and swims around really fast to make a whirlpool.

But despite his sea-strengthened limbs, Namor notices what the Avengers noticed last time. There's a lot of the Lava Men and they tend to just reform from damage.

Then the Rock Sphere o' Avengers drops into the ocean. It disrupts the whirpool Namor was working on. And so distracts him that the Lava Men are able to dog pile on and engulf him.

The pile of Lava Men with Namor in the center walks over and starts fusing with the giant stone sphere.

Meanwhile, in the sphere, the Avengers are still hammering away at the insides.

But even though the inner layer is rock and the outer layer is rock, there's a gooey lava middle layer.

Every time the Avengers manage to make a hole, lava oozes in and hardens.

Then a hole opens up by itself and poops out Namor.

He's all pink and dehydrated and unconscious.

I assume the Lava Men pile steamed him before tossing him in with the others.

Thor jams his arm in the Namor hole before it has a chance to close but it just pinches shut on his shoulder.

Then as if it that weren't bad enough, the sphere starts rolling again.

Thor gets mad and breaks his arm free. Which creates a big crack in the prison. Which is immediately sealed shut by lava.

All in all, things aren't going super great for this new Avengers group.

Up in Avengers Island, Jarvis tries to call for help.

The good thing about Captain America declaring all Avengers is Avengers is that you can just call in more help when a giant lava spire lifts your HQ out of the ocean.

The West Coast Avengers are still returning to the west coast from the meeting. They make a big U-turn back towards the East.

Also, various interpersonal dramas make it hard to pin down when in the West Coast Avengers this is set.

Hawkeye already ragequit and took over the Great Lakes Avengers. Tigra is in the Quinjet with the other West Coast Avengers but she doesn't seem taken over by cat instincts. Vision is his traditional red, not all white. Everyone has metal should pads for some reason.

Its weird that the Avengers books can't keep consistent when the same Byrne is writing them both.

Back with Jarvis, the room starts tilting.

He turns on the outside surveillance cameras that can even scan under the base despite it being an idea.

Now that the Lava Men have the Avengers, the ones making up the giant pillar are crumbling away.

Why, Avengers Island is probably going to fall soon!

In the Orb o' Avengers, Gilgamesh goes non-responsive in order to go into an Eternal coma to better withstand the rigors of orb life.

She-Hulk points out that Captain America and Black Panther don't have any powers so how the heck are they doing in the hazardous orb environment?

Cap non-answers by just saying "I'll worry about myself when there's time, She-Hulk."

Since the orb seems to have come to a stop, Cap asks Thor to try to punch an exist if he's up to it.

Thor cautions that it'll probably be wasted effort. But "Thor is ever ready to try anything, Avenger!"

Thor starts punching a hole in the stone, the stone starts sealing over his arm. Same old story. This time, though, She-Hulk joins in.

Thor will punch a hole through the stone. She-Hulk will punch the rock so it can't reform between Thor punches.

And with this strategy, they make progress.

She-Hulk suddenly realizes that if they're still underwater, punching through is going to lead to a rush of seawater into their predicament.

Thor hears her concerns but also proceeds anyway, punching his fist out into free air.

So they're on dry land, if they can only get out to it!

Then Thor gets consumed by the juicy lava filling. Not that its dangerous to him. Remember the Lava Men story this is referencing? Thor just sank into lava with his usual stoic pout.

Thor tells the others not to save him and lets himself be pulled into the lava. And Captain America backs up his decision because Thor is never foolhardy.

OH YEAH

His big plan was just to let himself be drawn to the center of the orb's wall and then go ham.

Meanwhile, some new plot thread.

An old man loses track of his time while reading the newspaper and then old man ambles over to check the science machine he's been working on.

A science machine that could leave a crater where Cresskill is supposed to be if old man messes up.

That's a potent science machine.

Why not get into potato clocks, sir?

Meanwhile, the Avengers find themselves deep within the bowels of the Earth. The Earth has so many bowels and yet does so little digestion.

Captain America points out that as deep as they appear to be, the pressure should turn them into primary colored goo but She-Hulk tells Cap not to sweat the science. She's more worried about how Namor is all burned and dehydrated.

So Thor bonks Mjolnir on the ground and summons a rainstorm.

He can do that. The weather is his friend.

(And really, the only thing that stopped him from doing it sooner was not enough open air.)

Namor instantly rouses because comic book people with water based metabolism rehydrate like sponges. And he instantly flies into a rage based on the last thing he remembers. But Captain America tells him to clam down and Namor instantly listens to his ol' Nazi punching buddy.

The Prince of Abslantis asks where the heck they are and Captain America reiterates his observation that they seem like they're pretty deep into the Earth and yet the pressure hasn't turned them into goo.

Then Jinku, Witchdoctor of the Lava Men shows up and tells them that they're not goo because he chooses for them not to be goo.

That's nice of him. Although he also calls them his prisoners.

(In a funny bit, he tells them not to bother trying to remember if they've met him before because they won't remember him, only for Captain America to instantly go "I remember you." Jinku isn't reading his audience very well.)

Captain America says he thought the Avengers and Lava Men settled their beef but Jinku tells them there's new beef.

WHY, THE AVENGERS HAVE BROUGHT UPON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LAVA MEN!

Captain America is skeptical because the Avengers haven't interacted with Lava Men for... a while.

So Jinku Explains It All.

Before the Lava Men were Lava Men, they were a subterranean human-ish race called the Gortokians who worshipped a demonic looking god called Cha'sa'dra, "most powerful of the underworld pantheon."

One day, their worship of Cha'sa'dra pays off when the dude himself appears. As a reward for their devotion, Cha'sa'dra turns the Gortokians into immortal men made out of molten stone. Lava Men, you might say.

Cha'sa'dra hung around to enjoy being worshipped. Maybe relatedly, the former Gortokian civilization sank into primitive barbarism. It's gotta be him because there's no other suggested factor.

Anyway, the day came when Cha'sa'dra just fucked off with no explanation.

They got an explanation later. That Cha'sa'dra was summoned by another god (N'astirh) to take part in a war against the surface (Inferno).

The important takeaway is that Cha'sa'dra was one of the nameless demons the Avengers mowed down during their Inferno tie-in issues.

Except, he wasn't nameless. His name was Cha'sa'dra. And whoops, his turn men to lava men spell had no ontological inertia. When he died, the Lava Men lost their lava and their immortality.

Hundreds of former Lava Men instantly died of being way too old. The only ones that survived were Jinku and his acolytes. Thanks to manipulating the magic of Cha'sa'dra, they were protected from instantly aging to death.

But instead of aging, Jinku's acolytes turned to stone. Living but unmoving.

"The process of their minds slowed to such a point ten thousand years might pass before they formed a whole thought!"

Dark.

So Jinku is the last guy both alive and not trapped in a living hell.

Jinku: "This is what you brought to my people, you who call yourselves Avengers! You who consider yourselves champions of all that lives! You slaughtered all but a handful, and condemned the rest to an eternal living death! For this, you deserve no better than agonizing death!" Captain America: "I'm not going to pretend we Avengers were not instrumental in the death of your god... But what you have to understand is that Cha'sa'dra lied to you! He was no great god. He was a minor demon. A tiny part of the horde that attacked." Jinku: "SILENCE! INFIDELS! If there were a punishment greater than death, I would now condemn you to it! I would see your souls writhe in torment till the end of time, for your blasphemy!!"

Telling the truth was not the best policy this time, Cap.

Although, the death of his entire race probably made him unwilling to hear any explanation or excuse.

I think maybe you have to kick him in the lava junk until he calms down.

Anyway, Jinku does have a punishment in mind for the Avengers.

DEATH BY LAVA EXPY OF CHA'SA'DRA!

And since the Avengers were all standing in one easily punched row, he punches them all in a row.

You'd think that this would set Captain America and probably Black Panther on fire. Thank god lava doesn't work like lava in fiction.

Follow @essential-avengers for more of the same of this. But, hey, like, reblog, and comment! I'm lonely down here.

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thebibliomancer · 5 months

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #307: METAMORPHOSIS

September, 1989

I don't usually root for Lava Men but nobody seems to want to make Gilgamesh interesting or put him in pants so yeah go ahead and crush him. Let's trade up for a better model.

I do suspect that Gilgamesh is getting the boot. Even though he's in the roster box, his name isn't included with the names above the title. Which I'm guessing are the mainstays despite the run having the premise that all Avengers are Avengers.

Anyway.

Last times on Avengers: Some stuff happened. And then the writer changed. Captain America declared that the Avengers would have a flexible roster of everyone. Also, some Lava Men hoisted Avengers Island and formed a big ball around the Avengers which then rolled into the sea. Namor showed up but got captured too. Then it was revealed that the Avengers had sorta killed the Lava Men's demonic patron and accidentally wiped out like... almost all of the Lava Men? And the Lava Witchdoctor Jinku is the one that summoned a bunch of not-sapient Lava Men and used them to kidnap the Avengers so he could summon a giant lava monster at them about it.

Meanwhile, Avengers Island is still teetering atop a big spire made of cooled Lava Men and those Lava Men are starting to crumble. The island is in danger of falling, wrecking the Avenger's nice, new base that they haven't had a chance to enjoy because they had a stretch of bad writing! Also Jarvis is still on the island! We like Jarvis here!

He uses the radio to issue an emergency priority double-A one, probably the most emergency of priority calls.

The West Coast Avengers West Coast heard the call last time but still haven't arrived. But Reed and Sue were still in New York so were able to respond much sooner.

Sue points out that they didn't bring specialized equipment with them but Reed tells her that she's all the equipment they need.

He always says the most romantic things.

But he tells her to use her invisible force fields to jam an invisible wedge under the island to shore it up.

It's hard though.

I don't know the exact mechanism of how strain on her force fields impacts Sue but she's carrying thousands of tons with only her brain. That's a lot of pressure.

Science brain Reed points out that the triangle is the strongest form in mechanics so she should be able to bear it.

The rock is still crumbling away from the pillar but Reed tells her not to worry about it. Just keep holding up thousands of tons of island.

Meanwhile, down down down below, the Avengers fight Jinku's lava beast.

Sure, he's calling them mean names like infidel and blasphemer, just because they killed his god but on the other hand, they killed his god and that act consequently killed most of his people.

Anger is a reasonable reaction to that.

I don't think I mentioned it last time but this is a very Marvel monster design.

The horns all over his head, the teeth that stick out like gravestones, the chipped nails, the red that looks like pink, the big brow ridge, the blank eyes. If he were introduced in the 60s he'd probably be called Lavva or Moltenn and have a tidy number of appearances over the years.

But he's actually called Avatar of Cha'sa'dra and has such a specific purpose in this book that he doesn't appear beyond this story unless its in a flashback to this story.

Gilgamesh leaps right at the Avatar, despite Cap's warning, and gets molten lava horfed all over him. Which quickly cools into a cocoon of basalt.

You wouldn't think it would cool that quickly but maybe its magic lava. You don't know.

She-Hulk rips up a stalagmite and whacks the Avatar in the ankle while yelling "IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!"

And she's kind of right because the Avatar leans over and clobbers her across the cave.

Cap tries to smash open Gilgamesh's basalt cocoon but can't make a scratch nor dent in the tough stone.

Gilgamesh just OH YEAHs free. Because he's super strong.

Captain America: "Watch it there, big man! Those flying fragments could have hurt somebody!"

It's sad that Gilgamesh and Captain America's dynamic has wholly become "Cap nags Gilgamesh for not considering his actions for even five seconds."

Back in the Inferno tie-ins, Cap was legitimately interested in getting to know Gilgamesh and to figure out if all his name dropping and claims to have been behind so many legendary deeds were bullshit or not.

Anyway, the mention of basalt gets Black Panther thinking.

Lava Men are tough to fight because they're semi-liquid. They can just reform from injury. But Jinku has hardened into basalt, apparently, despite being colored the same pink as the rest of the Lava Men. Instead of the dark gray that Gilgamesh's basalt coating had.

But given that Jinku is apparently solid stone and not gooey lava, Black Panther decides to excuse himself from the giant monster fight to sneak up and ambush Jinku while the guy is distracted controlling the Avatar.

Black Panther grabs Jinku's staff and wrestles for it. He tells him to surrender the staff or Black Panther will rip off his arm to take it.

But Jinku has more than just the strength of his basalt arm at his disposal. While he wrestles with Black Panther, Jinku is also controlling the Avatar. And he has the Avatar throw Namor at Black Panther.

Bonk.

Thor gets fed up with all this and decides to UNLEASH HIS TRUE MIGHT. He stirs up a hurricane, right here in this underground cave.

But Captain America stops him, saying that the storm will collapse the cave on the Avengers before it fells the Avatar.

Thor does stop but points out that they're getting their asses kicked right now anyway.

And then Black Panther notes that the Avatar is raising the heat in the cave and then passes the fuck out from it.

Captain America is holding up better, because super soldier formula. I guess the heart-shaped herb isn't a thing yet?

Feels weird for that to not be a thing.

Meanwhile, the Avengers West Coast arrives just as Invisible Sue is getting overwhelmed by holding up an entire island.

Wonder Man flies up to the teetering Avengers Island and grabs a corner to hold up. Taking some of the burden off of Sue.

In one of those moments that feels like a handwave to cover an error, Mr Reedtastic wonders how Wonder Man's dinky belt rockets have the lift to hold up so much weight.

Reed decides that the rockets are drawing power from Wonder Man's mutated life energy.

Despite that being a bonkers thing to posit.

Presumably, Byrne drew Wonder Man holding up a corner of Avengers Island and only afterward realized that's not how physics works.

Either way, Wonder Man manages to level the island, balancing on top of the rock spire.

Now that its temporarily balanced, Reed tells Sue to drop her force field. Let Atlas over here hold up the entire thing himself.

Wonder Man: "Hey! Do you mind, Richards? I'm already busting my back as it is!"

But Reed is looking at the big picture. Instead of just holding it up, they need to get it down, safely.

So while Wonder Man holds the entire thing himself, Invisible Sueman creates an invisible force field that spirals around the rock column.

Sue assumes this is to reinforce the column but it's still crumbling like this. Which Reed confirms is his plan. He wants the column to crumble.

MEANWHILE, back at the hot plot.

Black Panther, Captain America, and Quasar have passed the hell out from the heat. Namor and She-Hulk are flagging. And Thor and Gilgamesh are still going strong, monster punching.

Thor tells She-Hulk that this isn't just heat, it's magic heat. Which isn't constructive input.

She-Hulk suggests every Avenger still standing combine their strength to take out Avatar.

... Why weren't you combining your strength before?

Jinku: "It will avail you nothing, giantess! You who see yourselves as the noble champions of the surface world! But this time it is you who are the villains! And mine is the right of retribution!"

And then Jinku repeats the entire story about how their god Cha'sa'dra turned the Lava Men into immortal Lava Men, how he got called away from his busy god job to participate in some conflict (Inferno), how Cha'sa'dra got whacked by the Avengers, and how his death caused most of the Lava Men to turn to meat men again and instantly age to death.

She-Hulk: "We know all that! You told us not ten minutes ago..."

Do you get points for lampshading your own writing cliches?

Since we're in recap town for anyone who didn't pick up last issue, She-Hulk reiterates that Cha'sa'dra wasn't a god but an evil demon.

As you might expect, Jinku is no happier to hear this than the first time they told him.

So he recaps at them some more, explaining that the Lava Men that didn't instantly die, instead turned into "mindless stone."

So Jinku is the last Lava Man, he's pissed, and he's making it the Avengers' problem for causing the situation.

Even Thor is feeling the heat at this point. But Gilgamesh is still going strong because of bullshit Eternal resistances.

Gilgamesh EYE BEAMMMMs the ceiling of the cave, collapsing about a mountain worth of rock on top of the Avatar. THUS THE PROBLEM IS DEALT WITH FOREVER.

The Avatar just bursts out from under the rock pile, like he's coming back for one last scare.

Jinku says that since the Avatar isn't really alive, he can't die. Sure.

At this point, Namor has passed out from the heat and She-Hulk has gotten knocked out when the Avatar OH YEAH'd from under the mountain.

Leaving just Thor and Gilgamesh.

Except Gilgamesh decides he's going to solo this.

Thor: "Gilgamesh, no! Thy thoughts are madness!" Gilgamesh: "Then madness is the only way a warrior should think! Hear me, monster, if mind you have to understand... I am the warrior of the thousand names! I am the dragon slayer! I have fought ten thousand-thousand battles, and I have won them all! I am without equal in the annals of the Earth... AND I AM YOUR DOOM!!"

Dammit, Gilgamesh, why did you suddenly decide to be interesting? For irony reasons? Because he really does get smacked down immediately after that speech.

Fuckin' Gilgamesh.

Also, the hit Gilgamesh took was so devastating that he's just dead or something. The other Avengers have regained consciousness in time to observe that Gilgamesh isn't breathing.

Jinku gloats that soon the rest of the Avengers will be as dead as Gilgamesh probably is. And Namor goes Well Actually uh it seems less hellishly hot around here lately. Which Captain America seconds. Does seem less hot for some reason.

Jinku ignores that to direct the Avatar to kill the Avengers but he doesn't do that. He just stands and stares off at nothing.

Jinku: "What sorcery is this? My lava monster does not move... Does not obey me..." Someone: "Nor shall he, Jinku. He is ours now to control."

Dun dun dun.

Hey, remember all those Lava Men who didn't die but did turn into statues?

Yeah. They're fine now. They're good. They're better than good. They're golden.

And they karate chop Jinku so hard that he too becomes golden.

Apparently they all just needed some time to grow into their True Form.

Also, apparently, Jinku was constantly feeling agony every moment which does explain why he was so pissed and unwilling to listen to the Avengers tell him his god was shit. That and the blasphemy. But now that he's golden, the pain is gone. And he is in a better mood.

One of the gold dudes explains : "Free of the influence of Cha'sa'dra, we have evolved into this higher, finer form. And with this form comes greater understanding! Our brothers died because they were too thoroughly corrupted by Cha'sa'dra's evil magicks... But somehow, in our heart of hearts, we remained untouched... And so did you. For though you sought the destruction of the Avengers, it was not hate that drove you, but grief and anguish. You wished only to see right snatched from what you thought a terrible wrong. And so it has been. Set aside your weapon, brother, and let the joy of this beginning fill your soul!"

Well, okay.

This does not work for me.

For one thing, the people that became statues instead of instantly aging to death were said to be the ones who studied and used Cha'sa'dra's magicks for themselves. Why did using more magick mean being less corrupted?

For another, I dunno. I wish the Avengers had any input into the end of this plot. As it stands, they just get bounced around the room for a while and then deus ex rockina, they get saved because the plot clock ran down.

For another, dunno that Jinku is absolved of blame just because he was sad about bad things that happened. He was taking his grief out on Avengers that hadn't even been around to kill his god. She-Hulk, Namor, Black Panther, and Quasar weren't involved in that.

For a fourth thing, geez. You brought up the idea that the Avengers accidentally a genocide of the Lava Men. I don't like how they get absolved of all blame because "oh the ones that died, they all sucked, its good that they died." HOLY SHIT that is a take.

And I know, what kind of satisfying resolution can there be from the Avengers accidentally killing off all the Lava Men because they whacked a demon invading Earth. What moral lesson should they take from that? Don't punch demons? I don't know where I wanted the subplot to go after it was brought up that the Avengers did make an inadvertent fuckup and did real harm to this molten community but I can damn well tell you, never mind all that those guys sucked, actually, is maybe the worst way for it to go!

Anyway anyway anyway.

Jinku apologizes for doing the Avengers harm.

Hah. And Captain America says, half downplaying and half twisting the knife, that they'll all recover except Gilgamesh who is possibly probably dead from being punched too hard.

(I'm sure he's not dead. And not just in the way that almost no comic book character stays dead forever. More in the sense of what kind of shitty Eternal dies of being punched to death by a lava monster?)

Next time on Avengers, I guess we'll find out how dead Gilgamesh is.

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