It’s time to officially recruit the Sentry into the ranks. And who’s that other guy??? That… is a whole thing, to be discussed at a later date. Art duties for this arc are handled by Steve McNiven, Mark Morales and Morry Hollowell. This trio will have a pretty big impact on comics, but right now they’re quickly rising stars at Marvel.
Bendis came up with the visual concept of this being what Tony feels like inside his armor. It was first depicted in Avengers 501, but I didn’t run that page. This would inspire how he’s shown in the helmet in the movies. Jessica has Luke and Logan with her, so she feels like they can handle whatever they’re about to get into, and that’s good, because Tony has somewhere else to be. Somewhere that will prove extremely consequential to the whole Marvel Universe. Somewhere really, really poorly named.
This… is the Illuminati. Now, you or I might think, “Hey, that term has really negative real world connotations, why would they name a bunch of good guys having a secret club that?” but you or I don’t get to make these decisions. Via retcon, these important figures from around the Marvel U have been meeting in secret to discuss the doings of superpeople since probably the late 60s, timeline-wise. Well, anyway, Strange says the Crusader attacked him outside his home fo being a devil-worshipping pagan, and he took care of him, so that’s one less Raft escapee running around. Then Tony explains how the new team formed (And also the shady business in the Savage Land).
Meanwhile, on Long Island, a Dirk Garthwaite has arrived at a house where a scantily clad young woman is sunbathing to demand “his stuff” back. His brother apparently sold his supervillain kit to this girl’s dad while he was in the Raft, and now he wants it back. The girl has no idea what any of that means as she is made to let him into the house. She takes him to her dad’s weird trophy room, a collection of supervillain gear. Oddly, entirely Spider-Man villains except for ol’ Dirk, here. The Beetle’s first suit, some Vulture wings, half a suit each from Mirage and Shocker, parts of Rhino and Kraven’s suits… but also Dirk’s stuff, the costume and crowbar of the Wrecker.
He’s referring to the classic Avengers story Under Siege, which we may recall seeing Tom DeFalco create an awkward and unnecessary side-plot into in ASM, except that was the Masters of Evil, not the Wrecking Crew. Some or all of the Wrecking Crew was in the Masters of Evil, I forget, but still.
Wrecker smashes Wolverine in the face so hard he goes flying across the yard. People gave Bendis a lot of flack for using Wolverine as a punching bag over and over. It’s not totally unwarranted. Then Cage and Spider-Man go after Wrecker, who bats Cage into the wing of their Quinjet, smashing it before flinging Spider-Man into the air with his own web. The Wrecker is tough, but he’s really making these guys look like jobbers.
Wrecker has now thrown or punched everyone like a mile away during this fight except Jessica. It’s a bit much. As he stares down a solo Spider-Woman, we move our scene to the Nevada Desert, where Maria Hill is meeting with Iron Man and Captain America. Because it’s there that they’ve found the Sentry.
Now there’s a wacky twist. Good thing we looked at most of that Sentry miniseries, huh? Bendis was very eager to use new creations that people had been adding to the Marvel U, to try to elevate them by putting them in the new very successful Avengers comic. The Sentry will not be the last… Rather to this series’ detriment, it must be said. But, as usual, that’s getting ahead of myself.