Avengers #102
What to Do Till the Sentinels Comes!
The Vision is on the Lower East Side on a personal mission. So wrapped up in his thoughts, he ignores a pair of muggers. Entering a meat packing facility, the Vision he meets with the Grim Reaper who requested this meeting.[1] He considers the Vision his brother because his mind was built on the brain patterns of his deceased brother, Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man.[2] He has asked the Vision to help him destroy the Avengers, promising to transfer his mind into the lifeless body of Wonder Man, making him a real human. The Vision flat out rejects this offer, but the Grim Reaper gives him a medallion to contact him should the Vision change his mind. When the Vision leaves the Grim Reaper’s hideout, he runs into the two muggers again. This time he takes out his rage, by knocking them out with his phasing powers.
Back at Avengers Mansion, the Scarlet Witch finds herself dealing with her conflicting emotions over the Vision. As she leaves her room she is stopped by Hawkeye who tries to make another advance on her. He forces a kiss just as the Vision comes back. Seeing this, the hurt android walks away as nothing happened. Wanda pulls herself away from Clint and tells him, flat out , that nothing can ever happen between them because she has feelings for the Vision. This admission stuns Clint but for once he keeps his mouth shut and walks away.
Meanwhile, the scientists aboard the Star-Core space station are working hard to monitor Earth’s sun. They suddenly begin detecting strange objects coming from the massive star and are shocked to discover that they are the remnants of the mutant-hunting Sentinels and that they are heading back to Earth.[3] The head of Star-Core, Doctor Peter Corbeau, contacts General Thaddeus Ross on Earth and he decides to try and put a lid on things before panic starts.[4] Unfortunately, someone leaks the news to the media and the Avengers hear about it on a nightly news broadcast. Hearing the story and seeing the photo of the unidentified objects leaving the sun’s orbit causes Quicksilver to think about how he and his sister were once captured by Larry Trask and his Sentinels. However, he doesn’t make the connection and instead wonders what became of the X-Men instead.[5][6]
That’s when Wanda enters the room all dressed up to go out for a walk in Central Park. The male Avengers are concerned that her provocative outfit could make her easy prey being in a park after dark, but she assures them that she can handle herself against muggers. The other Avengers decide to start their monthly meeting, leaving the Vision to ponder his own humanity and his feelings for the Scarlet Witch. Watching Wanda walk into Central Park, the Vision spots something massive in the sky flying toward her. He tells Jarvis to get the other Avengers and heads off to help Wanda. When he arrives in the park, he finds a Sentinel has nabbed Wanda.[7] Unfortunately, the Sentinel quickly adapts defenses against the Vision’s powers.
That’s when the other Avengers arrive but they do not fare any better. Suddenly, the Sentinel takes off and teleports away in mid-air. Quicksilver can hardly believe it because this is not a power the mutant-hunting robots had in the past. His surprise turns to anger as he blames his teammates for not being able to save his sister. When Captain America tries to console him, Pietro lashes out, telling his teammates that he’ll find his sister without their help.
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, the Vision), Grim Reaper, the Sentinels (Numbers 2, A3, 8, C7 and 5), Wonder Man (corpse — sorta), Peter Corbeau, General Ross, Edwin Jarvis
Continuity Notes
What’s not apparent here is that the Grim Reaper is working with the Space Phantom, as detailed in Avengers #106-107. It’s later revealed in Avengers Forever #8 that this was part of a long con by Immortus to manipulate the Avengers to suit his whims. In particular, he was manipulating events so the Vision and Scarlet Witch would follow through on their budding romance. The idea is that since Wanda is a nexus she couldn’t get knocked up by fucking an android. Things don’t work out that way, but that’s a long story.
When Ultron created the Vision he used the brain patterns of Simon Williams, per Avengers #58. Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, seemingly died due to the fatal nature of the ionic process that gave him his powers in Avengers #9. What nobody knows at this time is that Wonder Man is actually in a death-like trance and will turn up alive again in Avengers #151.
The Sentinels literally went to try and destroy the sun when it was pointed out to them that radiation from the star was the likely culprit for spawning the mutant race. It went about as well as you expect. See X-Men #57-59.
A footnote here reminds readers that Star-Core and Corbeau were first seen in Incredible Hulk #148.
At the time of this story, the X-Men’s own book went from original stories to publishing reprints and was on the verge of cancelation. As such the X-Men kind of disappeared for a time appearing here and there in other titles. Here are some in-universe facts:
The last original X-Men story of the era was told in X-Men #66, the title would go into reprints until a new team is introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1 with new X-Men stories appearing in its own book starting in X-Men #94.
Pietro wonders if there is any connection between the X-Men’s Beast, the hirsute crime-fighter of the same name that appeared recently. Hank McCoy drank a potion that turned him into the furry Beast we all know and love. At the time of this story, he was appearing in solo tales from Amazing Adventures (vol. 2) #11-17.
The Avengers will eventually cross paths with the X-Men in Avengers #110-111, however, the team will have many adventures in-between, some told around the time of publication, others later. They include Spider-Man and the X-Men #1, the 2nd story of X-Men (vol. 2) #94, X-Men: The Hidden Years #1-22, and Marvel Team-Up #4, and (if you consider it part of continuity) X-Men: First Class (vol. 2) #1-16 and X-Men: First Class - Finals #1-4.
It should be pointed out that although Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are referred to as mutants multiple times in this story, they actually aren’t. It’s revealed years later, in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4, that the pair were actually experimented upon by the High Evolutionary while they were infants. To cover up his work, the Evolutionary made it so genetic tests had the twins register as mutants.
The Sentinel scans the Vision and finds vintage hardware inside him. This is alluding to the fact that the Vision’s body was created from the body of the original android Human Torch of the 1940s. This will be revealed in Avengers #134-135.
Topical References
Dated pop-culture references: Jack Anderson
This story states that the events of X-Men #57-59 took place in the year 1969. This should be considered a topical reference. Per the Sliding Timescale, those events took place during year two of the Modern Age, roughly about a year prior to the events of this story.
When the Sentinel scans the Vision it specifically states that some of his internal components are over 30 years old. This should be considered a topical reference as it denotes the length of time between World War II and when this story was published.
