Avengers Annual 19 - Acts of Vengeance

Avengers Annual 19 came out the summer after "Acts of Vengeance" and contains the last word on the event. But that's only one of five stories contained within it and so first a look at the others.

Avengers Annual #19
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

"Beat Me in St. Louis..."

Writers: Roy and Dan Thomas
Penciler: Herb Trimpe
Inker: Jeff Albrecht
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colourist: Paul Becton

The lead story is the fifth part of the crossover "The Terminus Factor" which ran through four other annuals. All five are listed on the contents page but out of context this chapter is a story of both Avengers teams plus the unofficial Great Lakes Avengers and various reservists or guest stars all converging on St Louis to fight off a much-enhanced Terminus. Meanwhile Thor has lost his hammer and is floating in space. There's too much unexplained here and way too many characters for this to work on its own and it just becomes a confusing fight. Marvel had just switched from running one single crossover over all annuals to multiple ones where the books naturally overlapped but it still produced complicated stories that are near impossible to understand on their own.

"Media Watch"

Story: Dwayne McDuffie
Pencils: Jim Reddington
Inks: Andy Mushynsky
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colour: Ed Lazellari

This is a short little piece looking at how a part of the media react to events like Terminus. It's presented in the form of "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a satirical opinion piece from the real life 60 Minutes current affairs show. Having never heard of Rooney or his slot and being barely aware of 60 Minutes (to the best of my knowledge it's never been broadcast in my country) most of the intended effect is completely lost on me and the style is very different from This Week's "Take of the Week".

"Clowning Around"

Words: Gruesome Gary Barnum
Pencils: Starving Steve Buccellato
Inks: Mighty Mickey Ritter
Letters: Rowdy Rick Parker

This is a comedic piece as a group of Avengers visit the construction of their new mansion and a string of villains show up to attack them. The construction workers are terrified of the damage that such a battle would bring so work to take out each villain before the heroes even know they're there. As a result the visiting Avengers just assume the workers are being rather silly. It's a good fun little tale of the sort that only an annual back-up strip can do.

"The Day the Strangers Came"

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Richard Howell
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colours: Richard Howell

This is easily the highlight of the annual, telling of a young boy who lives in a Midwestern hotel and is a huge fan of the Avengers. When he spots the Sons of the Serpent are active in the area he duly reports it and soon discovers that the Avengers are in town, enjoying doing the right thing. Then he discovers who the local leader is and what he's planning to do. Written by Kurt Busiek some years before Marvels this does well to show how the heroes impact the world around them and the pain when duty demands doing the wrong thing.

"Acts of Vengeance Epilog"

Words: Mark Gruenwld
Pictures: Vince Mielcarek
Inks: Bob Downs
Letters: Janice Chiang
Colours: Dave Sampson

But this is the reason for this post. Mark Gruenwald was Marvel's keeper of continuity in this period, to the point that he wound up being depicted as the director of the Time Variance Authority which served a similar purpose in the comics, and would often write stories that would untangle major discontinuities. We've already seen Captain America #367 which sorts out the mess of Magneto's participation in the alliance in spectacular fashion and here Gruenwald takes on the central problem of "Acts of Vengeance" - the lack of a clear narrative structure to the crossover. Here we get an order, presented in the form of a debriefing by Captain America, Thor and the Vision making use of reports and testimony from the Wizard.

Questions like just where the rest of the Avengers were when Avengers Island was attacked and sunk, and again where the main team was during Freedom Force's attack, why only some of the androids help captive on the island escaped and how the Red Skull could attend the last few meetings despite having been locked away by Magneto are all explicitly answered here. There are a few additional moments added such as a battle between Captain Marvel and Klaw, or a final encounter with the remains of the villains' alliance. Though it has to be said that the depiction of the Wizard's capture differs significantly from that in Avengers Spotlight #29 which is especially surprising for a story seeking to untangle confused continuity.

This is setting out to sort out confusion first and foremost rather than tell a story in its own right and so the narrative is slightly bogged down through covering many of the individual battle sideshows. It's also over dramatic in suggesting this is the team's biggest setback when only one part-time reserve Avengers (Stingray) has been seriously injured and there have been other attacks that devastated Avengers' bases and left many injured including the referenced capture of the old mansion by the Masters of Evil. And the Vision's suggestion that the Avengers should be more proactive in future isn't taken up. The last panels see Gruenwald give Captain America the last word which is ultimately about how important co-operation is and how the villains' alliance failed because they couldn't do this. Overall this is a good attempt to fix things afterwards, but really the crossover should have been doing things better at the time.

This is a fairly typical annual for the era with the main feature really not something to be ventured into solo, but the back-up features offer a mixture of continuity, comedy, pathos and unusual takes on things around them. The "Acts of Vengeance" epilogue is only a small part of it but shows a dedication to making the big picture clear existed in at least some parts of Marvel at the time.

Avengers Annual #19 has been reprinted in:

• Avengers volume 3 #27 (2000) - "The Day the Strangers Came" only
• Acts of Vengeance Omnibus (2011)