Tag Archives: Avengers Infinity War

May 19, 2018 · 9:18 pm

AVENGERS: THE KREE-SKRULL WAR PART FIVE

FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE 

Avengers 93THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 93 (November 1971)

AVENGERS ROSTER: THOR (Donald Blake, MD), IRON MAN (Tony Stark), CAPTAIN AMERICA (Steve Rogers), ANT-MAN (Hank Pym, PhD), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)

NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.

THIS BEACH-HEAD EARTH

Synopsis: We open at Avengers Mansion. Iron Man has summoned Thor, Captain America, the Wasp and Yellow Jacket in response to an alarming and confusing letter that Tony Stark (Iron Man) received. That letter was from Jarvis, the Avengers’ butler, resigning his position since – as we saw last time around – Thor, Iron Man and Captain America expelled the Scarlet Witch, Goliath, Quicksilver and the Vision from the team.

Iron Man, Cap and Thor make it clear they have no idea what Jarvis was talking about. Obviously some imposters threw out the four expelled Avengers using their apparent complicity in Captain Marvel’s flight from S.H.I.E.L.D. as the excuse.

VisionSuddenly the Vision bursts into the room. He has clearly been in a fight and is badly wounded. Before he can tell Thor, Iron Man and Captain America what happened he collapses into unconsciousness. The Big Three get the Vision to the Avengers’ infirmary and are alarmed to realize that he no longer has a pulse.

Ant-Man (Hank Pym, PhD) arrives from Alaska, where he says his wife the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) is laid up with an illness after the Avengers’ recent battle with Kree forces there. Since Ant-Man created Ultron who in turn created the Vision, Hank’s expertise is called upon to see if the Vision can be repaired.

Ant-Man shrinks himself down the most that he can and enters the Vision’s body through the android’s nostrils. This begins an adventure through the Vision’s body in which Ant-Man will face the android’s dangerous artificial defenses. Obviously the whole setup is an intentional homage to the sci fi movie Fantastic Voyage.   Continue reading →

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May 17, 2018 · 12:02 am

AVENGERS: THE KREE-SKRULL WAR PART FOUR

FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE 

Avengers 92THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 92 (September 1971)

AVENGERS ROSTER: THOR (Donald Blake, MD), IRON MAN (Tony Stark), CAPTAIN AMERICA (Steve Rogers), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)

NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.

In this superhero-crazed world you readers have made it clear you want more Marvel items. 

ALL THINGS MUST END

Captain Marvel 2Synopsis: We pick up several days after the Avengers and their old civilian ally, rock singer Rick Jones, saved the world from Ronan the Accuser. Ronan was the new ruler of the alien Kree Empire after a coup d’état. When his plan was stymied by the Avengers, Ronan was forced to retreat back to Hala, the homeworld of the Kree Empire, because the Kree’s ancient foes the Skrulls had launched attacks on every Kree-held planet in the galaxy.

The Scarlet Witch, Goliath (formerly Hawkeye), Quicksilver, the Vision and Captain Marvel are enjoying down time at Avengers Mansion. Soon their butler Jarvis brings their attention to newscasts stating that the Avengers are being investigated by the U.S. government and the U.N.

Word has leaked from a Senator named H Warren Craddock and from the technicians the Avengers swore to confidentiality following last issue’s action. The entire world now knows about how the alien race called the Kree attempted to destroy the Earth.

Captain Marvel’s status as a renegade Kree captain helps draw attention to the Avengers and his place with them. Not helping the situation is the way Captain Marvel – aka Kree Starfleet Captain Mar-Vell – impersonated Earth scientist Doctor Walter Lawson as part of his original mission to infiltrate NASA at Cape Canaveral.

That circumstance inevitably leads to suspicion about how many other alien Kree may be infiltrating Earth bases, fanning the inevitable Witch Hunt. 

Of course, our heroes know that eventually Mar-Vell sympathized with us primitive Earth creatures and sided with US against his own homeworld. Evidence links Captain Marvel to the frequent hostile alien activity at Cape Canaveral in recent years (in Mar-Vell’s own comic book) but in reality Captain Marvel was fighting that hostile activity, not participating in it. 

Craddock’s fiery public accusations against the Avengers even imply that the reason the Avengers tried to impose a National Security blackout on the Kree attack in northern Alaska was really just to try to protect their member Captain Marvel from suspicion. (Marvel Comics has ret-conned several times if Mar-Vell was officially an Avenger by this point. I’m proceeding with him as a member since the whole story makes more sense if he is.)    Continue reading →

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May 5, 2018 · 6:13 pm

AVENGERS: THE KREE-SKRULL WAR PART TWO

FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE 

Avengers 90THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 90 (July 1971)

AVENGERS ROSTER: THE WASP (Janet Van Dyne), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), YELLOW JACKET (Hank Pym, PhD), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)

NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.

JUDGMENT DAY

Captain MarvelSynopsis: We pick up where we left off, at Cape Canaveral, which in Captain Marvel’s own comic book series by Marvel Comics was depicted as an Area 51 type of base. Sentry 459, one of the Kree Empire’s gigantic, kaiju-sized robots scattered throughout the universe, was being studied by Earth scientists at the Cape.

From Hala, the home planet of the Kree Empire, Sentry 459 was remotely reactivated by Ronan the Accuser. In our previous installment Ronan pulled off a coup d’état, seizing control of the Empire from the Supreme Intelligence, the Artificial Intelligence which had been ruling for thousands of years.

Ronan directed the Sentry to kill Captain Marvel and the Avengers & Rick Jones, who were guarding the Kree Captain’s hospital bed at the Cape following the events from last time around. Ronan wants revenge on Captain Marvel for thwarting his previous attempt to overthrow the Supreme Intelligence, back in Captain Marvel # 16 (September 1969). 

 

Ronan the Accuser

RONAN

The Avengers battle the Sentry, intent on saving the barely conscious Captain Marvel. This Sentry, which had previously clashed with the Fantastic Four years earlier, out-fights the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and the Vision, who himself was much weakened after draining most of his power to save Mar-Vell’s life last time around. (Those three were the only Avengers on hand at the Cape.)

 

Sentry 459 grabs the bed-ridden Captain Marvel and announces to him and the other Avengers that he has received new instructions from Ronan the Accuser, who has teleported to Earth via a Kree Omni-Wave Projector. The Sentry is now to simply bring the captive Captain Marvel TO him. The Sentry does, teleporting itself to Ronan’s secret location. Continue reading →

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April 28, 2018 · 4:00 pm

AVENGERS – THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972)

Avengers 89OKAY- TECH PROBLEMS SOLVED SO LET’S TAKE THIS BLOG POST FROM THE TOP –

At Balladeer’s Blog I’m all about you readers. You can’t seem to get enough Marvel Comics items so here we go!

Last year when the latest Marvel movie came out I did a long, issue by issue look at the Avengers’ 1973-1975 story The Celestial Madonna Saga for some nice escapist fun mixed in with my usual topics.

This year as promised I’ll accompany the new Avengers movie (out this week) with an issue by issue look at an even earlier Marvel Comics epic. Namely, the The Kree-Skrull War (1971-1972). In many ways it’s a prequel since it sets up many storylines that were finalized in The Celestial Madonna Saga.

As always I retain a soft spot for superhero stories because reading them when I was a kid served as a gateway to two of my adult passions: mythology and opera. 

SETTING: The Kree race and the Skrull race are a pair of alien races who have been at war for untold thousands of years. Both races were introduced in the pages of the The Fantastic Four in the 1960s and became staples in the Marvel Comics Universe, which I will once again praise for being as enjoyably detailed as the Star Trek or Doctor Who universes.

Avengers 89THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 89 (June 1971)

The Only Good Alien … Is A Dead Alien

Synopsis: The story opens up in Miami, where a trio of Avengers – the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and the Vision – track down and engage in a battle with the Kree superhero called Captain Marvel.  (THIS IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE IN AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR)  

NOTE: There is often confusion between the Marvel Comics figure called Captain Marvel and the Fawcett Comics figure of the same name. The Fawcett Comics figure dated back to the Golden Age and was one of the victims of DC Comics’ legal attacks on ANY superhero that they felt was too similar to their character Superman. Continue reading →

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