We now come to the first main issue of the crossover.
Avengers Spotlight was originally launched under the more explicit title of
Solo Avengers and consisted of two stories each issue - a regular feature with Hawkeye and a rotating featuring starring just about any Avenger going. The series was retitled a few issues before this one as part of a drive to have all three
Avengers books placed side by side on shelves, boosting the franchise mentality. Structuring the year's mega crossover around the Avengers was clearly another part of this drive.
Avengers Spotlight #26
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie (all)
Penciler: Dwayne Turner (all)
Inker: Chris Ivy (all)
Letterer: Richard Starkings (first)
Letterer: Jack Morelli (second)
Colourist: Paul Becton (all)
Editor: Mark Gruenwald (all)
Managing Editor: Gregory Wight (second only)
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco (all)
This issue is a slight deviation from the norm for the title. Both slots have been given over to the same story "Tales from the Vault", presented in two chapters with only the letterer changing between the two. The first chapter doesn't actually feature any Avengers and instead focuses on the Guardsmen, an elite armoured unit who patrol the Vault, a special prison for super powered criminals, as they put away the Wizard only for him to initiate a mass jailbreak. The second chapter sees Iron Man and Hawkeye enter the Vault to mop up the criminals inside, amidst a tense relationship.
There's some good use of continuity here, building on the
Iron Man story "Armor Wars" where Iron Man set out to destroy all the other armour using his technology, including the Guardsmen's and caused chaos in the Vault. Subsequently Tony Stark claimed that Iron Man had gone rogue and died, with a new Iron Man appointed to replace him but many Avengers including Hawkeye never accepted this story as they know his identity. As Iron Man has only recently returned to the Avengers it's natural that the tensions continue, making Hawkeye's suspicions feel realistic rather than tensions for the sake of it. There's also a reminder of just what a minor player the Wizard has become in the Marvel universe. Back in the 1960s he was the archenemy of the Human Torch in
the latter's solo strips in Strange Tales and also headed up a team of existing villains against the Fantastic Four, a task usually handled by a major league foe. But now he's sunk into irrelevance and the guards either treat him as a joke or have never heard of him. As we'll see, his use in the storyline has almost certainly been determined by his 1960s role and is one of a number of signs of throwbacks to that era.
Otherwise the formal start to the saga is actually quite low key with the mysterious stranger's conversation with the Wizard mostly taking place out of earshot. It's a reminder of how the structure of a crossover can be distorted by the order in which the titles come out in a particular month, though the alternative can be some very bizarre issues featuring none of the regular cast (or even former cast) simply because of which chapter comes.
Avengers Spotlight #26 has been reprinted in:
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