Welcome back (once more) to Strange Times & Places, where I’m still
How’s It Different?
This is a Royale With Cheese, spinning off from a For Want of a Nail story. It’s part of the MC2 universe, of which Spider-Girl was the flagship character. Many years ago, around the time Spider-Man lost his leg and was forced into retirement, The Avengers went into battle in a parallel reality and won at a heavy cost that broke them up.
What’s The Story?
Kevin Masterson is waylaid by Rock Trolls as he leaves the now decommissioned Avengers Compound with his late father’s Asgardian mace – now a powerless keepsake, so far as he knows. The call goes out from the compound and nearby heroes respond to the crisis at hand, but a stronger force is behind the Trolls’ attack and the heroes might not be able to handle it without more assistance…
Best of Differences
- This issue serves as the origin story for the new Thunderstrike as well as the new Avengers in a fairly seemless way.
- Speedball, Jolt, and Jubilee – who would have been fairly popular teen heroes when this came out – are portrayed as elder statesmen of the superhero community and among the first to try reviving The Avengers (with no success) years prior. It’s a handy way to demonstrate how much time has passed since the “present” AND explain why they don’t stick around.
- The series past, then the present of the Marvel U, is a delightful mixture of both The Crossing (The Avengers being based out of a compound on the site of their original mansion) and Heroes Return (the actual line-up portrayed in issue #7 or so). It’s like the 90s threw up everything Avengers it had, and I like it.
- This title only lasted a year, but several of it’s concepts – Cassie Lang following in her father’s footsteps as the Wasp-esque Stinger, Kevin Masterson becoming the new Thunderstrike, and the much later (like issue #12) addition of Hope Pym – have been adapted into the mainstream comics and even the MCU.
