Big finish! Yes, really, this story is only 4 issues. Just maximum carnage in minimal space. It opens with a flashback drawn by Olivier Coipel.
Real “pre-2012 depictions of women in comics” times. The way Clint looks like such a meathead in that closeup panel makes me laugh.
So, Wanda, who we’ve spent 3 months guessing is the villain of this story while Bendis has repeatedly said no one has figured it out yet, used to be married to the Vision. And in the 80s, they had kids. Which, you know, seems a bit difficult to pull off, but Vision is a “synthezoid,” more human than just a robot, so whatever, it’s comics. Billy and Tommy. Then, in West Coast Avengers, John Byrne pulled a John Byrne and had her go to the darkside and become bad for a little while (Some of this happened in 2 issues of the book that were in the mythic comic box full of comics I’ve discussed in the past), and by the end of that, Byrne revealed she just used her hex powers to manifest herself some kids and didn’t actually have any, and a villain with the delightful name Master Pandemonium ended up wearing them for hands. Really! Thus, Wanda and Vision were parents no more, and their marriage didn’t really survive, and eventually Vision got messed up and turned into an emotionless robot (Don’t worry, he got better, altho now he is less better). And… and I guess Wands forgot she had kids, and the Avengers must’ve, I don’t know, taken a vow of silence on this issue? And Jan just messed that up in this flashback. Finding out you sort of had kids but now don’t have kids and your friends kept this from you seems like motive to ruin the Avengers! Sooooooo now, in the present, Dr. Strange has arrived, and Carol Danvers asks him what’s going on.
Cap knows. They all know. And so did we, the reading public, and Bendis was straight up gaslighting us for 3 months. Another flashback by Coipel, wherein Wanda went to see Agatha Harkness, witch and babysitter to the stars (First introduced as Reed & Sue Richards’ babysitter, later Wanda’s), and wanted to know why people think she used to have kids. And then demands to know where her children are when Agatha betrays her complicity (This character has nothing to do with the one on Wandavision, for the record. They just used the name). Back in the present…
Very smooth, Spidey. Falcon has been weirdly in the middle of this for a guy who hasn’t been an Avenger much. Wanda & Pietro were introduced as just some guys, and then when Wanda had kids, Magneto showed up and rrrrrrandomly announced they were his grandkids, and thus, he was suddenly their dad. And then in the 2010s, Marvel was beefing with Fox over film rights and the comics started doing petty things like ceasing publication of the FF entirely and revealing Wanda and Pietro aren’t even mutants, let alone Magneto’s kids, which just makes Magneto look insane.
This is a totally out-of-the-blue, unnecessary retcon that will eventually get retconned, itself.
Flashback art here by George Perez and John Byrne. The Pereze piece is far more recent despite being used first.
Art in this collage by Perez, Byrne, Jack Kirby, JG Jones, Copiel, and a couple I’m not sure of.
So, like, half the final issue of this insane event is Dr. Strange just chatting. As with Secret War and Ultimate Six, really bad story structure. Well, Wanda is at Agatha’s house, with her most recent beau, Wonder Man, even tho he was on the previous page, and her recently killed ex-husband, Vision, and she has them all sitting around a dinner table like a family, and also she’s recreated her kids, and they’re one, big dysfunctional family. A lot of the foundation for Wandavision here. Then Cap comes in and asks Wanda to let him help her. He tries to reason with her as she yells at him to go away through her fake kids. Then she manifests the Red Skull and a bunch of Nazis to attack him. She tells the kids no one will ever take them away from her again.
Carol & Rogue have a very ugly history, so naturally, Wanda would throw Rogue at her. Suddenly, everyone’s facing their fears, like a rampaging Hulk, Ultrons, Wolverine trying to kill Beast, and, kind of off in a corner, Spider-Man is facing off with a bunch of clones of himself again. Wanda is flying above them all, working her thing, when someone calls her name.
Ol’ Doc Strange hits her with the Eye of Aggamatto, forcing her to see the truth, and she passes out and falls into Cap’s arms. Strange says “she is gone” and that “her mind was is a delicate state to begin with.” Inside the house, SHIELD finds the long-dead corpse of Agatha Harkness. Then someone else shows up to the party.
Boy, is he gonna have egg on his face in a decade.
Everybody just… leaves. The rest of the book is excerpts from Avengers 16, when Wanda and Pietro first joined the team. And that’s the end! That’s it! The worst thing that ever happened to the Avengers has to be cleaned up by Dr. Strange while they just watch, and then Magneto whisks Wanda away. I mean, this did not go over well. Also, one must assume the mouths talking at the end of #500 were Wanda’s manifestations of Billy and Tommy? That page feels forgotten by this point. The letter page is a disaster area full of Andy Schmidt making fun of people who dared to not like all these characters being executed. Really not great all around! After this, there came a one-shot called Avengers Finale. It’s another “Jam issue” sort of celebrating the Avengers as they shut down the mansion and go their separate ways. Spider-Man’s not in it, but I felt like I should run through it very quickly since it’s the technical end of this story, and the literal end of an era. It looks like this:
Neal Adams cover. I’m not sure Neal’s had any art on this blog, unless you count his infamous, uncredited alterations to Superman Vs. the Amazing Spider-Man. He drew a brief but very well liked and well remembered stint on Avengers in the 60s, so he kicks off the art situation right. That run was part of a long story that came to be called the Kree/Skrull War, one of the first “events” in Marvel comics, written by Roy Thomas. The 2 apparently had many disagreements about it, and Neal left before it was finished. But, be that as it may, the story was a big, big deal, and a frequently cited touchstone for Bendis. This opens with Hank and Jan outside the mansion, looking at the wreckage of it. Inside…
(This page drawn by Steve Epting) Everyone tries to make Jen feel better about destroying Vision. Then Tony announces the world now believes he & Iron Man are different people again (No idea how), and also…
(Still Steve) Once upon a time, they thought it was a totally cool story idea for a villain to impregnate Carol against her will, and then have her decide he’s alright and marry him. Chris Claremont, almost the only writer in the 80s who cared about women, eventually got some justice for her. But, she has a point here. The person defending Wanda is Pietro, who says he’s been incommunicado in a cabin in Greenland this whole time. He tells them Magneto took Wanda to Xavier, who’s trying to repair her mind. Then he’s overcome with emotion and leaves. Someone finally thinks to wonder where Thor is, none of them aware that Ragnarok has come, for real this time, killing Thor and everyone else. Then Carol says it’s over, that they’re done.
(Michael Gaydos) Sam does not retire the Falcon wings. Christopher Priest made it seem like he might have at the end of his canceled Cap & Falcon book just a couple months after this, but then Ed Brubaker made him a mainstay in the next volume of Captain America. Things could get so messy in this period. Captain Britain quits the team next, but like, who cares, she’s not even the real Captain Britain. Then the gang goes around the room talking about their “best moments” from the history of the Avengers as various artists recreate scenes from their illustrious history. Weirdly, not a single prominent former Avengers artist is included. Sam is the last to speak, talking about the instant-classic Busiek/Perez Ultron story he wasn’t actually there for (Several of them picked stories they weren’t in, something Samn comments on). And then, the late, great George Perez, who had a long history with the property, gets the final pages.
For some reason, when Coipel started drawing the book, Carol got a new suit that essentially just looked like football pads on black tights, I never understood it.
Well, that’s it. This insane, messy story is over. And so are the Avengers. But that can’t last, can it? I mean, why would Bendis & Finch come on the book just to end it? Who will pick up the baton? As it happens… we will find out… But not yet.