Bear in mind, this issue came out 4 months before Mighty Avengers 7, which will soon seem disgraceful. Strange cover. If there’s an explanation inside, I’ve forgotten it. We pick up a second after the end of NA 33, with the Hood shooting up Wolverine.
Parker clearly doesn’t know who he’s dealing with…
…but sometimes, the thing inside the Hood comes out. That buys him a chance to smash through the window and escape, leaving Wolverine to sit and heal and drink free booze in the wreckage of the bar. Next morning, we learn Dr. Strange and the Night Nurse are in a relationship. Maybe I woulda already known that if I’d read some Dr. Strange comic, but I have not historically read some Dr. Strange comic. Strange is worrying about who will or won’t show up tonight to rejoin the team. Night Nurse leaves, but Strange asks her to come back for the meeting. As she goes, we see Clint is still in Strange’s house, and apparently so is Echo, who accidentally walks in on him taking a shower. The Avengers comics always used to be full of relationships and maybe-relationships and stuff. These days they’re strictly fight comics, and have been for years. No one bothers with the people in the costumes anymore. I am very disgruntled with the state of comics in 2024, as I write this. Maybe it’ll be better by the time this post goes up in 2026. Then Danny Rand is shown hanging out later, asking Strange if he can help prevent anyone from weakening his iron fist by tapping into the same power. In the Brubaker/Fraction/Aja instant classic Iron Fist run happening during this, Danny has learned the last person to hold the mantle of Iron Fist is still alive, and might not be the only one, even. It’s a great book! Strange says he can’t do anything, and then an unseen person arrives yelling “I’m a Skrull!” and you can probably guess who that is.
Hey, they finally give us Danielle Cage’s name. And now that she has a name, people can start doing possible futures where she becomes Captain America and stuff, which they do!
I mean, that would’ve maybe been better if it wasn’t on the cover, but there we go. Everyone seems to be who they say they are. Also, one of Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriends/ex-enemies is going to become a Daredevil, but it’s not Maya. Logan is here to tell them about the Hood, and Spider-Man says he knows that guy. I had to look that up. They met in a miniseries called Beyond! Written by the great Dwayne McDuffie that I didn’t buy because it was drawn by the not-great Scott Kolins. Maybe I should go back and get it. One skips something like that assuming the author won’t die tragically young and he’ll have plenty of material to look forward to. One can be wrong. Logan tells the gang that the Hood is planning to send Deathlok to attack Avengers Tower.
Well, whaddaya know, it’s the Mighty Avengers flying out of their tower in a heroic pose, like at the end of MA 7. And you know what that means:
Echo infecto! Now imagine reading this months before MA 7. Why are there symbiotes everywhere? Who knows? I mean, you don’t exactly know in Mighty, either, but at least a full-scale alien invasion isn’t already in progress in that book.