SUPERHERO WEDDINGS FROM MARVEL

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at several weddings for Marvel characters.

INVISIBLE WOMAN & MR. FANTASTIC 

It’s June, the traditional month for weddings and since summertime is also the season for superhero movies I figured why not take a look at a superhero wedding. And since the movie reboot of the Fantastic Four will be coming out soon I’m going with the wedding of Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) and Sue Storm (Invisible Girl then, Invisible Woman now).

The actual comic book in question was the October of 1965 issue of Fantastic Four Annual # 3 and it featured virtually all the superheroes and supervillains in the then-young Marvel Comics Universe.

The heroes were guests invited to the wedding, Nick Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were providing security for the event and the Fantastic Four’s arch-enemy Doctor Doom was mentally controlling the various supervillains into crashing the ceremony and trying to kill the heroes. Bedlam at the Baxter Building was the title.

The Story:

Nick Fury and his agents prevent a guest being controlled by the Puppet Master from poisoning the Thing with a chemical that would kill even him.

Before the Thing has a chance to let his teammates know that the Puppet Master might be mounting an attack the Mole Man and his subterranean race of Moloids invade the Baxter Building. The original X-Men (Cyclops, Ice Man, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast) arrive at the ceremony and help Ben fight off the invaders.

Elsewhere Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl and the Human Torch are attacked by the Red Ghost and his original Super-Apes (Mikhlo, Piotr and Igor). The arriving Doctor Strange helps the trio defeat their foes.

While enroute to the Baxter Building, Thor is assaulted by the Super-Skrull and in the running battle that follows the Human Torch joins the thunder god in defeating the villain.

Daredevil stumbles across a group of Hydra agents planning a missile attack on the wedding ceremony and wades in swinging. The then-current line-up of Avengers (Captain America, Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) reach the Baxter Building with Spider-Man just in time to take on the Enchantress, the Executioner, Cobra, the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android.

Meanwhile Daredevil and the X-Men join forces to battle the Mandarin, Electro, Unicorn, the Melter and the original villainous Black Knight. Quicksilver clashes with Whirlwind (then known as the Human Top). 

Next a virtual Armageddon gets going with the arrival of new heroes and villains. The heroes: Iron Man, the Wasp, Ant-Man and the Hulk. The villains: Kang the Conqueror, Dragon Man, Mr. Hyde, the Red Skull, Sub-Mariner, the Wizard, Medusa, the Beetle, the Grey Gargoyle, the Eel, Attuma, the Leader, Sandman, Trapster and Diablo. 

At the height of the furious battle Uatu the Watcher transports Mr. Fantastic to his City of Ruins headquarters on the Blue Area of Earth’s moon. As usual violating his vow of non-interference, the Watcher gives Reed Richards a device that will undo the effects of Dr. Doom’s mind-control weapon.

Mr. Fantastic is transported back to the Baxter Building where he uses the device on the army of villains. The gizmo not only frees the supervillains from Dr. Doom’s control but causes them to vacate the area.

With all the danger now over, Reed and Sue’s wedding ceremony is held and all the guests party at a peaceful reception.

THE WASP & YELLOWJACKET 

AVENGERS Vol 1 #60 (January 1969)

Title: ‘Til Death Do Us Part

Villains: The Circus of Crime

NOTE: Wedding stories at Marvel Comics were always a big deal and often featured many superheroes guest-starring. The media in this fictional universe always made the weddings an event with massive coverage, adding to the fun.

Synopsis: Captain America arrives at Avengers Mansion for the wedding of the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) to Dr. Hank Pym (now using Yellow Jacket as his nom de guerre). After signing autographs and working his way through the crowds thronging the street, Cap enters and hangs out with the Black Panther, Hawkeye and the Vision while Invisible Woman and Crystal from the Fantastic Four, serving as bridesmaids for the Wasp, are tucked away with her helping her get into her wedding dress.

Meanwhile, members of the Circus of Crime (circus-themed supervillains) infiltrate the catering staff and other personnel to set themselves up inside Avengers Mansion. The Circus of Crime plans to blow up the mansion when it is full of superhero guests, in one blow killing off many of the figures who have defeated and jailed them over the years. (The Avengers did it in issue #22.)

Eventually, Avengers Mansion is full of guests, and in a massive bit of fan service, readers are shown several heroes interacting, like the aforementioned Cap, Vision, Black Panther & Hawkeye. Invisible Woman and Crystal continue prepping the Wasp.

Other guests are Iron Man, Nick Fury, his love interest Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Dum Dum Dugan, Dr. Strange, the newly reunited X-Men (Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Woman, Angel, Beast and new female member Polaris), the Thing, his blind girlfriend Alicia Masters, Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch and the new, heroic Black Knight.

(Thor was off on a solo adventure, Hercules was back on Mount Olympus, Hulk was a fugitive and the Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver had moved back to their homeland. The Black Widow was on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. that would cross over with Captain Marvel and the Avengers within a few issues.)

The time for the ceremony arrives, and the clergyman marries the Wasp and Yellow Jacket in the mansion. The reception begins and is running for a while when the Circus of Crime idiotically tips its hand prematurely. A battle erupts and the villains are defeated for the happy ending.

CRYSTAL & QUICKSILVER

AVENGERS Vol 1 #127 (September 1974)  

AVENGERS ROSTER (Friends of the Groom): Thor (Donald Blake, MD), Iron Man (Tony Stark), The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Frank), The Vision (not applicable), The Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) and Mantis (Mantis Brandt)

FANTASTIC FOUR ROSTER (Friends of the Bride): Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards, PhD), Invisible Woman (Sue Storm Richards), The Thing (Ben Grimm), The Human Torch 2 (Johnny Storm), Medusa (not applicable), Franklin Richards and Agatha Harkness 

INHUMANS ROYAL FAMILY (Family of the Bride): Black Bolt (King), Medusa (Royal Consort temporarily serving in the Fantastic Four), Gorgon, Triton, Karnak and Maximus the Mad

Title: BRIDE AND DOOM

Synopsis: At Avengers Mansion the six current team members are at the dinner table for a turkey meal prepared by Jarvis, their butler. Suddenly, Gorgon, a member of the Inhumans and Lockjaw the car-sized teleporting dog appear in the room.

Gorgon had Lockjaw teleport the two of them to Avengers Mansion to pick up the team and bring them to the Inhumans’ hidden futuristic city the Great Refuge. He is surprised to find that Quicksilver (Pietro Frank), their former member and Wanda’s brother, did NOT tell them about the impending wedding of Pietro to Crystal, one of the Inhumans.

Quicksilver, in spite of the hatred he and the Scarlet Witch had always endured for being mutants, harbored such intense bigotry over Wanda’s romance with the android Vision that he had cut off all ties with her months earlier. The Scarlet Witch is driven to tears at the realization that he didn’t even invite her to his upcoming wedding.

Gorgon expresses his own outrage, making it clear that Pietro’s usual jerkish attitude has already alienated him (Gorgon) and the rest of the Royal Family and that they only tolerate Quicksilver for their cousin Crystal’s sake. Mantis calms the Inhuman down and the Scarlet Witch announces that the Avengers will happily accompany Gorgon back to the Great Refuge in the Himalayas.

To give tempers on all sides time to cool down the Avengers decide to fly to the Great Refuge in one of their Quin-Jets rather than just teleport with Gorgon and Lockjaw. First they set up a remote satellite television link with the Great Refuge so that the elderly Whizzer (Bob Frank) can watch his son Pietro’s wedding from his hospital bed in the Avengers’ Infirmary.

While the Avengers, Gorgon and Lockjaw fly to the Great Refuge we are shown a scene of Maximus the Mad, Black Bolt’s villainous brother and would-be usurper, puttering in his prison cell.

Maximus has used the cover of his harmless tinkering to create some unseen menace that he addresses as if it will help him overthrow Black Bolt and help him become King of the Great Refuge. That still-unseen figure has its own plans and blasts Maximus unconscious from off-panel.

Eventually the Avengers’ Quin-Jet lands in Attilan, the official name of the Great Refuge.

NOTE: The highly advanced technology of Attilan comes from the alien race called the Kree (originators of the Priests of Pama who taught Mantis). Hundreds of thousands of years ago the alien Kree had experimented on prehistoric humans, creating the super-powered race of Inhumans.

The Kree plan was to eventually use the Inhumans as mere cannon-fodder in the Kree Empire’s endless wars of conquest. Over the years the Fantastic Four and the Avengers had helped the Inhumans fight off their Kree creators to avoid that fate.     

Back to the story – the Avengers, Gorgon and Lockjaw exit the Quin-Jet and are greeted by the other wedding guests: the Fantastic Four. Crystal had replaced Invisible Woman on the team during Sue’s pregnancy years earlier. Crystal’s sister Medusa was currently a temporary replacement for Sue.

NOTE: When Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman’s son, Franklin, was very young he had displayed mutant mind powers so powerful they were a threat to all life on Earth. To save the world from his infant son’s potential threat Reed Richards (Mr. F) had zapped Franklin into a coma.

That action resulted in tension and eventually a separation between Reed and Sue, which was when Medusa replaced Sue on the Fantastic Four just as Crystal had previously done. Sue took things all the way to filing for a divorce, but just recently Reed and Sue had reconciled.

Medusa was still serving as Sue’s replacement while a cure was being sought for Franklin’s condition. Sue and the sorceress Agatha Harkness took care of Franklin in the meantime, so both Sue and Agatha were on hand for the wedding as was the comatose Franklin.    

Anyway, also greeting the new arrivals were the Royal Family of the Inhumans, the rulers of this hidden land of thousands. The bride Crystal warmly converses with the Scarlet Witch, a conversation which turns awkward when it becomes clear that Quicksilver refused to even be on hand to greet his sister.

Mr. Fantastic tries to break the tension by introducing Agatha Harkness to the Avengers. Before long Mantis asks the Inhumans about the giant robot Omega, which the Royal Family has left standing as a monument in the city.

Omega was created by Maximus the Mad and was powered by the hostility between the mainline Inhumans and the Alpha Primitives, their genetically engineered race of sexless manual laborers. After the FF helped the Inhumans defeat Omega, Black Bolt decreed that the inert robot serve as a reminder of the ugly treatment of the Alpha Primitives to avoid such atrocities in the future.  

Meanwhile the mysterious entity who blasted Maximus earlier has a secret meeting with RN-62, leader of renegade Alpha Primitives who want to launch another war against their former masters. The still-unseen figure convinces RN-62 that he is Maximus’ go-between in the plot that the mad one and RN-62 had hatched.

The mysterious one indicates that now that the Avengers have arrived that plot will be put into action. The next day various members of the Avengers and Fantastic Four entertain the Royal Family and the citizens of Attilan with stunts and synchronized flyovers, etc.

Black Bolt, Medusa, Triton, Gorgon, Karnak and Crystal look on, enjoying the festivities despite Quicksilver’s obviously empty seat next to his intended bride. Suddenly, our unseen villain telepathically causes Iron Man and Medusa to attack some of the peaceful Alpha Primitives in attendance.

Thor and the Thing subdue Iron Man while Invisible Woman captures Medusa to stop the violence. Iron Man and Medusa then collapse with no memory of their recent actions.

RN-62 and his co-conspirators try to convince the peaceful Alphas that Medusa and Iron Man’s attack is proof that the Royal Family and their allies still harbor hostility toward them. The festivities continue under a cloud while Black Bolt confers in private with the leaders of the two super-teams – Thor and Mr Fantastic.

That meeting of the minds goes on into the night, while elsewhere in Attilan, Crystal tries to talk Quicksilver into reconciling with his sister before the wedding ceremony the next day. Pietro heatedly refuses and this argument is interrupted by the sudden arrival of the Scarlet Witch.

At this point Crystal leaves to let the brother and sister sort it out between themselves. Pietro continues to insist he wants nothing to do with Wanda as long as she is involved with an android.

For her part Crystal runs into the Human Torch, who was her boyfriend for years, even before she replaced Sue during her pregnancy. The heart-broken Johnny Storm puts on a brave front and wishes Crystal all the best before flaming on and flying off before his sadness gets the better of him.

More soap opera antics are going on in the room where MANTIS and her romantic partner the Swordsman are quartered. The Swordsman wants to know if Mantis still loves him or if she now loves the Vision more. Mantis replies that she is torn and that she is no longer even sure of her own memories or her real past following the revelations unleashed by her long-lost father Libra.

Eventually the two Avengers see Crystal in the street below getting seized and carried off by the suddenly reawakened Omega. That giant robot takes Crystal to the part of Attilan where the Alpha Primitives live.

Black Bolt feels that – given the violence at the festivities earlier in the day – the Alphas may resent it if the Royal Family or their friends the Fantastic Four search their neighborhoods for Omega. The Avengers agree to go instead. Quicksilver, worried about his intended bride, asks to come along and Thor okays it, saying once an Avenger always an Avenger.

Meanwhile the Fantastic Four and the Inhuman Royal Family go to interrogate Maximus the Mad in his lavish cell. Once there they are shocked to see Maximus lying unconscious.

Over in the Alpha Primitives’ section of the Great Refuge, Mantis is reeling at the tension of the scene. RN-62 is convincing his fellow Alphas that it is an insult that the Avengers want to search THEIR neighborhoods for Omega and the kidnapped Crystal. Quicksilver loses patience and attacks the Alphas.

Mantis alone manages to stop the speedy Quicksilver, then she lapses unconscious like Iron Man and Medusa earlier. The Alphas attack the Avengers, who fight a defensive battle since they know the Alphas aren’t really to blame for what’s going on.   

The Avengers, carrying the unconscious Mantis and Quicksilver, emerge from the Alpha Primitives’ part of the city and run into the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans carrying the zonked-out Maximus. Mr. Fantastic notes that Maximus, Mantis and Quicksilver seem to be in the same state as Iron Man and Medusa.

Maximus suddenly bolts upright and attacks the pursuing mob of Alpha Primitives with a ray-gun grabbed from one of them. He is ruthlessly mowing them down when the Human Torch tries to stop him only to be shot down by Maximus. The Swordsman then blasts Maximus down with his high-tech sword’s concussive power blast.

Now a free-for-all breaks out as the Alpha Primitives battle the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the Inhuman Royal Family. The gigantic robot Omega shows up and joins the Alphas against our heroes.

The Vision begins to contemplate solutions to the burgeoning mysteries but is sidetracked by fears of his android brain possibly malfunctioning. He thinks again about his panic attacks in Dormammu’s quicksand and Taurus’ pool.

Suddenly the Vision and everyone else in Attilan feel paralyzed. The formerly silent Omega speaks, observing that the Vision has belatedly figured out who is behind all this. The towering robot pulls off Omega’s mask to reveal a giant version of the villainous Ultron’s head on the Omega body.

This was back when Ultron was still numbering his iterations and he announces himself as Ultron-7, the mysterious figure who struck down Maximus and took over his plan. +++

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1, #150 (September 1974)  

Just like during the Avengers/ Defenders War this crossover story alternated between the Avengers’ comic book and in this case the Fantastic Four’s comic book. In fact it was the 150th Anniversary Issue for the F.F, an appropriate setting for the momentous events in this story.

NOTE: This was back when Ultron was still numbering his iterations, hence him going by “Ultron-7” here. For instance, Ultron-6 was the first time the android villain used adamantium for his body and Ultron-5 was when he created the Vision to use against his archenemies the Avengers.

Ironically, though today Marvel’s fictional metal adamantium is mostly associated with Wolverine’s claws and skeleton it was actually introduced as a new discovery in the pages of The Avengers in the 1960s. In fact it was introduced in the very story in which Ultron stole some of the indestructible metal to make himself even more dangerous.

After this current Ultron-7 story, when Ultron returned for the long-running Bride of Ultron storyline he was no longer numbering his versions.

Title: ULTRON-7: HE’LL RULE THE WORLD

Synopsis: We pick up where we left off in our previous installment, in Attilan aka The Great Refuge, hidden Himalayan Mountains home of the Inhumans. It’s the night before the former Avenger Quicksilver and the Inhuman named Crystal are to be married.

Crystal has been kidnapped by the gigantic robot called Omega, but after a battle with the Inhumans plus the wedding guests – the Avengers and Fantastic Four – the enormous figure pulled off its mask to reveal that it was really Ultron-7. (Nicely, this was early enough in Marvel’s history that Ultron had previously never fought the Fantastic Four OR the Inhumans, just the Avengers.)

Ultron-7 taunts the assembled heroes plus the thousands of terrified citizens of Attilan about how they gathered for a wedding but instead of that joyous occasion have found only horror, defeat and death.

He revives the heroes he had put into comas last time around – Mantis, Iron Man, Medusa, Quicksilver and the Swordsman. Meanwhile the Thing rushes forward to attack Ultron-7 but is easily defeated as the villain reminds him that the Omega body now has all of HIS (Ultron’s) powers, not the lesser powers it used to have.

Before the Thing or any other heroes can renew the attack, Thor, Mister Fantastic and Triton remind everyone that only Ultron-7 knows where the kidnapped Crystal is being held. The villain has the edge until they can learn if she is even still alive.      

Nearby, the sorceress Agatha Harkness, elderly nurse for Franklin Richards, tries to stay out of sight with the boy. As I covered last time around Franklin – the son of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman – is still in the coma that Mr. F zapped him into to keep the world safe from Franklin’s mutant mind powers.

Those powers are so potent that every mind on Earth could be destroyed by them, so the boy was put into that coma while Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) sought a cure.

Back with our heroes, Mr. F wants to know how Ultron-7 came to get his brand-new, huge head and how that head came to be attached to the robot Omega’s body. Ultron-7 obliges, since the answers will not help the assembled heroes in any way. 

The android villain explains how Maximus the Mad, Black Bolt’s insane brother and the arch-enemy of the Inhumans, amused himself in his luxurious prison cell with what looked like harmless, mad tinkering. In truth, Maximus was mixing in a few REAL experiments with the pointless, deranged playing.

The madman’s monitoring of the outside world enabled him to find the decapitated head of Ultron-6, which was never recovered after the Avengers defeated him. Using the futuristic Kree technology of the Great Refuge Maximus made a larger version of the head, then transferred Ultron’s artificially intelligent mind into it.

He then secretly attached it to the giant body of the defeated Omega robot, expecting to use Ultron-7 as a weapon to overthrow Black Bolt and take over the Great Refuge. Naturally, Ultron-7 struck down Maximus the Mad and proceeded to pursue his own ambitions.

The arrival of the Avengers as wedding guests would enable him to get revenge on them, too, along the way. Ultron-7 plans to destroy all the assembled heroes, then obliterate the thousands of inhabitants of the Great Refuge and then use the city’s  advanced technology to complete his eternal quest to wipe out all human life on Earth. 

With Attilan’s scientific resources at his disposal, he might even take to the stars when he’s done, intent on obliterating the humanoid “disease” on every inhabited planet he finds.

All of this blows Mr. Fantastic’s faint hope that it wasn’t really Ultron but just a hoax engineered by Maximus. Ultron-7 taunts the heroes that no, it really IS him, and then he attacks the heroes and every other person in the Great Refuge.

Ultron-7 is using his deadliest weapon, his encephalo-ray, which will invade every one of their minds, driving them insane and reducing them to gibbering idiots – the easier to kill them all.

Since this is the Fantastic Four’s anniversary issue, the deus ex machina that saves the world also serves to resolve the long-running FF storyline about little Franklin’s plight. Ultron-7’s psychic attack even penetrates the little boy’s coma and causes him to wake up, feeling agony like the others are suffering.

In typical childlike fashion the little boy instinctively lashes out at the source of the pain – in this case Ultron-7 – and in the best “let’s have a happy ending” storytelling tradition Franklin’s traumatic unleashing of his powers not only destroys Ultron-7 but completely drains his own psychic abilities. The little boy is now out of his coma AND harmless to the world around him.

Ultron-7’s giant form collapses in the streets of Attilan and our heroes begin to shake off the agony of the android’s attack. They gather around the fallen villain’s motionless body and Agatha Harkness comes out of hiding, holding little Franklin’s hand as she explains what just happened. 

Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman are overjoyed to have their son safely restored to them as the Swordsman, the Human Torch and the Thing make with a few gruff, macho-but-tearing-up remarks about what a happy day it looks like it’s going to be after all. And yes, the sun is just then rising over the city in a scene that would be cinematically perfect.

NOW, to further increase the resell value of the anniversary issue to wrap it all up we get to see the actual wedding of Quicksilver and the recovered Crystal. It may be later the same day or the next day, but the wreckage from the battle with Ultron-7 and before that the Alpha Primitives has been all cleaned up.

In addition, the Thing (Ben Grimm) had time to send for his blind sculptress girlfriend Alicia Masters. We aren’t told but I guess Gorgon and Lockjaw could have teleported to go get her and teleport back to make it faster. For a character bit Alicia – who is being dressed up as a bridesmaid – wistfully ponders if she and Ben will ever get married like Pietro and Crystal.

Winged Inhuman heralds are flying throughout the city, blowing their horns to summon all the guests and citizens to the site of the wedding ceremony. Reed and Sue Richards (Mr. F and Invisible Woman) reminisce about their own wedding day and the trouble they had from Dr. Doom’s plot to kill them. He stretches his arm a loooong distance to pick some flowers for her as a cutesy romantic bit. 

Elsewhere in Attilan, Thor and Iron Man, the two closest friends on the Avengers, have been hanging out together to pass the time. As the heralds fly by blasting on their horns the pair sadly contemplate their own romantic difficulties – Iron Man is still pining for Pepper Potts, who married his chauffer Happy Hogan, and is still mourning the dead Janice Cord.

Thor commiserates over his difficulties with Jane Foster and with his Asgardian romantic interest Sif. (Sif is actually Thor’s WIFE in Norse myths. Her very NAME means “wife” in fact.) The two regret that not everyone can be as lucky as Quicksilver and Crystal and begin to make their way to the ceremony.

Meanwhile, Medusa consoles the Human Torch, whom Crystal dumped awhile back, telling him that her sister Crystal really DID love him, despite his doubts, but that people change. She promises to juggle her duties as Maid of Honor AND friend to Johnny by trying to keep him cheered up during the festivities.

The ceremony takes place in a lavish hall with all the heroes in attendance. A minister from among the Inhumans performs the ceremony, following which Black Bolt gives his kingly blessing to the union. Back at Avengers Mansion, Pietro and Wanda’s father Bob Frank (the Whizzer) watches the ceremony from his hospital bed on the satellite hookup Tony Stark set up for him and Jarvis the butler.

The time comes for the bride and groom to depart, so Crystal’s pet Lockjaw teleports himself, Quicksilver and Crystal off to a secret location for their honeymoon. Johnny Storm assures Medusa that he truly has made peace with the situation as the story comes to an end. +++

DOUBLE RING CEREMONY: SCARLET WITCH & VISION, PLUS MANTIS & HER COTATI HUSBAND

GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 4 (June, 1975)  

Avengers Roster: Thor (Donald Blake, MD), Iron Man (Tony Stark), The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Frank), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), The Vision (not applicable), Mantis (Mantis Brandt) and Moon Dragon (Heather Douglas) 

Title: … LET ALL MEN BRING TOGETHER

Synopsis: First, an explanation of the title of this final chapter of the Celestial Madonna Saga. You’ll note this concluding installment was featured in Giant-Size Avengers #4, with the Giant-Size issues being the ones published quarterly.

The title to the story in Giant-Size Avengers #3, the previous one, as our heroes fought Kang’s Legion of the Unliving, was What Time Hath Put Asunder …  So, even though three parts of this continuing story came between THAT Giant-Size issue and this one, the combined title is a play on the marriage ceremony’s words “Whom God hath joined together … Let no man put asunder.”

Here, it becomes “What time hath put asunder … Let all men bring together” referring to the Double Wedding in this final chapter as well as the “Timey-Wimey” convolutions the story has taken on its way here. (Especially Immortus’ effort to put right some of the chaos his younger self Kang caused in the space-time continuum.)

We join the Vision where we left him: in the center of the Earth in a mystical cave created as an artificial “womb” for the re-birthing Dormammu. As Uatu the Watcher told the Avengers and Defenders when Dormammu was seemingly destroyed by the Evil Eye of Avalon, Dormammu is a god.

He is a Dark God, but still a god, and the worship accorded him by all the lesser inhabitants of the Dark Dimension (Dormammu’s home universe) would gradually restore him. The Dread Dormammu is not yet back to full strength but he was sufficiently reborn to move from merely controlling the Scarlet Witch to capturing her and the sorceress Agatha Harkness, her tutor.

Meanwhile, at the Pama Temple Garden in Vietnam, Mantis, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye and Moon Dragon (the bald woman below) have learned the answers to many of the mysteries surrounding the Celestial Madonna.

Those answers were provided by Immortus (Kang the Conqueror’s future, reformed self), by the mysterious glowing, shimmering being disguised as an all-green version of the slain Avenger called the Swordsman and by Mantis’ criminal father – Libra, now wearing the robes of the supposedly extinct Priests of Pama.

Moon Dragon, Mantis and the Scarlet Witch, almost since birth had been candidates to become the Celestial Madonna, completely unknown to themselves. The Scarlet Witch was the candidate put forward by the High Evolutionary, Moon Dragon was the candidate put forward by the Eternals of Titan and Mantis was the candidate put forward by the Priests of Pama.

Mantis emerged as the most qualified, after all three ladies were secretly studied their entire lives and subjected to multiple similar stimuli. 

The final step in her maturation process came as her hubris was turned to humility when the Vision (finally) rejected Mantis’ attempt to steal him from his true love, the Scarlet Witch. Having her (Mantis’) ego put in check like that after her cruel treatment of her lover the Swordsman was the final necessary life-experience for the Eurasian beauty.

That is why the Madonna Star immediately began shining over Avengers Mansion right after Mantis was rejected by the Vision. 

*** The Scarlet Witch’s tutoring by the sorceress Agatha Harkness led to Wanda (the Scarlet Witch) inadvertently catching the attention of the reviving Dormammu, who slowly possessed her, causing her odd behavior over the past few chapters.

*** Dormammu wants revenge on the Scarlet Witch for her prime role in defeating him when he was merging the Dark Dimension with our dimension during the Avengers-Defenders War. He holds her captive now with plans to kill her, then destroy the Avengers and the Earth in the fury of his return to full godly status.

*** Immortus still refuses to explain the purpose of the coffin-shaped stone box he brought with him from Limbo, his realm which exists outside of the time-stream. Thus there is fear in the air that – like the Swordsman – yet another Avenger may die in the multiple conflicts unfolding in this finale.    

*** The Titanic Three (Radioactive Man, the Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man) invade the Temple Garden. They’ve been searching for – and itching for a rematch with – the Avengers ever since the very public disappearance of our heroes when Kang abducted them to Limbo. 

*** Kang the Conqueror makes his final, desperate attempt to seize the Celestial Madonna. In his absence he has deduced that Immortus – like Rama Tut II – is another of his future selves and became even more infuriated at the thought that he himself will some day come back in time to thwart his own ambition to rule all time and space through the offspring he plans to have with the Celestial Madonna.

*** The tableau of two older versions of himself ultimately being his most potent enemies in his campaign to possess Mantis gave Kang an idea: multiple versions of himself could also be his most potent ALLIES in this final gambit.

*** To that end Kang went back in time roughly an hour to pair up with his hour-younger self, then those two Kangs went back in time an hour to recruit that still-younger Kang and those three went back in time an hour to recruit a fourth Kang.

*** OR, as it would have seemed in linear time, one Kang – from his point of view – would suddenly be visited and recruited by three of his future selves. One of those three would recount how he was visited and recruited by TWO of his future selves and another would say how he was visited and recruited by just one, hour-older version of himself.

      That older version would be the Kang who got the idea to recruit some of his own recent past-selves in the first place. I will say again, to me this examination of so many aspects of time travel is part of the enjoyment of this long-running story. 

*** So our heroes – Thor, Iron Man, The Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, The Vision, Mantis and Moon Dragon – now have to contend with FOUR evil Kangs instead of just one. 

*** One of those Kangs thoroughly trounces the Titanic Three – an excellent story-telling decision since it helps preserve Kang’s credibility as a menace.

*** The Crimson Dynamo, the villain Iron Man blames for his beloved Janice Cord’s death, has had his armor so damaged by Kang that he’s in danger of dying. Iron Man grapples with his conscience, but in appropriate Good Guy fashion he does the right thing and fixes the Crimson Dynamo’s armor just enough so that he’ll live.

*** The green duplicate of the Swordsman is really an unnamed member of the plant-like Cotati race disguised to mislead Kang if he saw him, since this Cotati member is to be the Celestial Madonna’s mate. The records must NEVER show her mate’s name. (Back in Bid Tomorrow Goodbye you may remember Kang referring to the way that “no surviving records” say who her husband will be.) 

*** This Cotati member was selected from the other Cotati candidates in the garden the same way the Celestial Madonna was: a lifetime of testing. This Cotati, like Mantis herself, transcends his own race and species in control of mind and body. He is, for instance, the first Cotati in untold thousands of years to WALK, instead of remaining permanently rooted to the soil. 

*** The violent, bloody history of the Kree Empire was used by Immortus as a microcosm of the tragic path of ALL humanoid or animal life-forms. It also educated Mantis and the others about the history of the Cotati people and the Priests of Pama. The Celestial Madonna and her mate will produce what will – over the course of millions of years – become THE intelligent life-forms in the universe.

     Their combination of active animal principles with the passive plant principles and mind abilities of the Cotati will enable them to accomplish greatness that we mere humans cannot even comprehend.   

     The union of the Celestial Madonna and her mate is as pivotal a turning point in the universe as was the moment when the first forms of life on Earth emerged from the Primordial Soup. It was not that immediate moment which was the most significant, but WHAT WOULD COME OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS.

     Without the multiple new species that will be produced from their union the future would end only in destruction. The animal and the plant, male and female, the yin and the yang, or the active and the passive must be transcended so simplistic dualism can no longer limit future life-forms.

     So, for a fun comparison, think of the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled All Good Things Must Come To An End. Just as Picard had to fight across time and space to ensure that humanity’s existence did NOT get negated through the prevention of life emerging from the Primordial Soup, so Immortus and the Avengers were fighting to prevent Kang from negating the existence of the new life forms to come from the Celestial Madonna and her mate.

*** Mantis’ descendants WILL literally “inherit the universe” and their “gifts/ technology” will give them mastery over time and space but NOT in the way Kang the Conqueror mistakenly thought.

*** In his characteristic military-mindedness Kang took the poetic references to the Celestial Madonna too LITERALLY, and believed her offspring – beginning with a first-born son – would be the most powerful in the universe and would control all time and space the only way he himself could conceive: through conquest and domination. As we’ve seen, the opposite is true.

*** Dormammu, luckily still not back to full strength, is defeated. Just like last time around the Scarlet Witch is the Avenger most responsible for that defeat, adding to Dormammu’s hatred of her.

*** Our heroes defeat three of the multiple Kangs.

*** The “last Kang standing” of the four Kangs on hand succeeds at taking Mantis from the Avengers and Immortus and returns to the 40th Century with her. Only then does Kang – and us readers – learn that at the last minute before Kang grabbed Mantis, Immortus had his servant the Space Phantom assume Mantis’ form, thus banishing her temporarily to Limbo.

*** Back at the Temple Garden in Vietnam Immortus at last reveals the purpose of the coffin-sized stone box he brought with him last chapter. It is a portal to his realm of Limbo, and Mantis is now released from it, rejoining her friends in the Garden.

*** With Mantis out, the Space Phantom reverts to his usual form. An infuriated Kang realizes he’s been tricked out of his last chance to seize the Celestial Madonna. With Mantis out of Limbo the Space Phantom automatically returns there. (Since Limbo exists outside the time-stream it makes no difference that the Space Phantom returns there from the 40th Century instead of the 20th.)

NOTE: The Space Phantom was a foe of the Avengers beginning with their 2nd issue in 1963. As mentioned above, he could take the form of any other being but by doing so, it caused the being that was getting impersonated to be stuck in Limbo while the Space Phantom wreaked havoc in their form.

Over the years the Space Phantom fought the Avengers again, but the references to “Limbo” were never elaborated on. This may be a story element which ONLY hardcore Marvel fans would find cool but this story is apparently the very first time it was established that the Space Phantom’s “Limbo” is the Limbo that Immortus rules.

It’s a retcon with purely Meta appeal, just like the way the creative team revived Immortus from his lone previous appearance in The Avengers # 10 back in 1964 and made him turn out to be Kang’s future self. 

*** The Avengers are surprised but delighted at this revelation that the Space Phantom’s Limbo and Immortus’ realm are one and the same.

*** In a rare quiet moment amid all this chaos the Vision at last gets his chance to tell the Scarlet Witch what he was trying to tell her the night Agatha Harkness first started tutoring her. He discusses his deep love for her and ONLY her and the two decide to marry.

*** Agatha Harkness, as we now know, wasn’t being a jerk the night that she prevented the Vision from telling the Scarlet Witch the truth about his feelings. Per the prompting she had secretly received from Immortus, Agatha knew that the emotional impact of the Vision baring his soul about his feelings for Wanda would be needed at just the right moment to help her break free from Dormammu’s control.

*** It turns out Immortus was the one who recruited Agatha Harkness and briefed her EVEN BEFORE the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal at the Great Refuge. The ruler of Limbo held a certain claim on Agatha’s loyalties as a descendant of the Reed Richards family line (Nathaniel Richards aka Kang aka Immortus is descended from both Victor Von Doom’s AND Reed Richards’ bloodlines).

*** Immortus, both a monarch and clergyman of sorts, performs a double ceremony, joining Mantis to her Cotati mate and joining the Scarlet Witch to the Vision. Libra is on hand both because he is Mantis’ father AND because he is standing in for the extinct Priests of Pama on Earth, all slain by Mantis’ uncle on her mother’s side months ago.

*** After the ceremony the Celestial Madonna Mantis and her mate use their total bodily control to transcend the physical plane and transport themselves off into space. It’s like the way Ilea and Decker teleport away at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but obviously this 1975 comic book story came first.

*** Agatha Harkness, Libra and the remaining Avengers – Thor, Iron Man, the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, the Vision and Moon Dragon – continue gazing up at the stars long after the Celestial Madonna and her mate have left, soaking in some of the wonders they’ve witnessed and experienced in this complex adventure.

*** Immortus returns to Limbo. And hell, even if you were inclined to sympathize with Kang, there’s no need to, since he himself ultimately repents and becomes Immortus. He even PERFORMS THE CEREMONY MARRYING THE CELESTIAL MADONNA TO HER MATE!

And given his various selves’ role in the creation of the Original Human (android) Torch and thus the Vision, it’s appropriate that he presided over the Vision’s wedding, too.

*** For obvious reasons this was a landmark Marvel saga and it’s easy to remember when it happened in their history: immediately before Chris Claremont’s X-Men run at Marvel Comics began.

Right after the Celestial Madonna story in The Avengers, the Beast left the X-Men to become an Avenger because at around the same time in 1975 Giant-Size X-Men #1 launched the NEW X-Men lineup of Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Banshee, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Thunderbird and Sunfire. 

Sorry to go O. Henry on you with a twist here at the end but the sad thing is, I agreed to reader suggestions for the bullet points synopsis this time because much of the writing and art for this finale issue was WAY below average for 1970s Marvel.

And much of what happened had to be gleaned from answers in the letters pages as writers and editors clarified certain aspects of the story and what it all meant. Hell, the only reason I know about them is from buying the actual back-issues, and not from archived collections, since those archived collections don’t reprint the letters pages.

NOTE: The archived editions also don’t reproduce the COLOR of the actual back-issues which is why I buy them… plus the period advertisements, which always make me laugh!  

I also had to do what I normally avoid – added info from sequel stories done years later. In this case the way the original Human Torch was created with anachronistic tech that Kang accidentally left behind after his defeat as Professor Timely. And the X-Men story where they save the future Shi’Ar Empire from Kang.