In the Beginning Was… The World Within!

With her brother still missing, the Scarlet Witch refuses to leave the communications room in Avengers Mansion until he is found. This deeply concerns both Hawkeye and Iron Man, but they are unable to get through to her. Heading upstairs, the two Avengers are offered to join Thor’s allies on a night on the town, an offer they politely decline.[1] As the their guests leave, the Black Panther arrives for a visit after working a case with Daredevil.[2][3]

As the Panther is catching up with his allies, when Wanda comes racing out of the communications room. She has just received a report about a group of Chilean scientists who have gone missing and hopes that it might tie in with Pietro’s disappearance. When the cry of “Avengers Assembled” is called, they are joined by Thor, his lover Sif, and the Vision.[4]

They take a Quinjet down to Tierra Del Fuego, the southern most tip of Chile. There they meet with the team of scientists who sent the distress call about their missing colleagues. They point to a nearby cavern that has been saved in. Using his newly upgraded repulsor rays, Iron Man blasts through the rubble allowing them access to the tunnel.[5] The tunnel takes them to a lush pre-historic jungle, which the Black Panther recognizes as the Savage Land from the stories told to him by Daredevil and his ally Ka-Zar.[6] They are soon attacked by an army of barbarians led by a four-armed man named Barbarus. Out numbered, Thor uses Mjolnir to summon a storm that sends them running away. Again, the Panther recognizes Barbarus from stories he heard about the so-called Beast-Brood, a group of Mutates that were created by Magneto who fought the X-Men.[7]

Soon, they come upon the ruins of Magneto’s former citadel, leading them to wonder what happened to the Master of Magnetism.[8] Among the rubble they come upon the Angel’s former costume also making them wonder what happened to the X-Men.[9] It’s then they are ambushed by the Barbarus and the rest of the Beast-Brood: the blind telepath Gaza, the hairsute Lupo, the dizzying Equilibrius, Amphibious the frog-man, and the infantile genius Brainchild. At first, the Mutates have the upper-hand against the Avengers, but the tide of battle quickly turns. With his allies losing the battle, Equilibrius goes and fetches the final member of their group, Lorelie. As her name implies she is able to enthrall all the male members of the Avengers with her siren’s song. When the Scarlet Witch and Sif prepare to deal with her, the Vision surprises them by revealing he is immune to Lorelie’s music. After knocking her out, Vision is deeply upset as this convincest him that he is unworthy of Wanda because he is incapable of love.

This leads to an awkward flight home, where the Avengers try to search for more clues to Quicksilver’s whereabouts. When Wanda checks the news, she hears about the disappearance of a number of locals near Avenue C in Alphabet City and rallies her fellow Avengers.[10] The Vision opts not to go because he is brooding over his recently discovery. After the others are gone he begins contemplating using the communicator given to him by the Grim Reaper to take him up on the offer of his humanity.

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, the Vision), Sif, Beast Brood (Barbarus, Lupo, Gaza, Equilibrius, Amphibious, Brainchild, Lorelei), Hildegard, Fandral, Hogun, Tana Nile, Silas Grant, Edwin Jarvis

Continuity Notes

1. Thor’s allies — Fandral, Hogun, Hildegard, Tana Nile, and Silas Grant — have been living at Avengers Mansion after they were all banished to Earth by Odin in Thor #204.

2. The Black Panther assisted Daredevil against Damon Dran in Daredevil #92.

3. Hawkeye quips about if they should call T’Challa the Black Panther or the Black Leopard. Later in the story, he reaffirms that he has gone back to calling himself the Black Panther. T’Challa briefly changed his name in Fantastic Four #119. See below for more info on this.

4. The Vision mentions here that he is coming back from his battle with the Puppet Master. This happened in Marvel Team-Up #5.

5. Mention is made of Iron Man’s recent battle with the Cyborg-Sinister. That happened in Iron Man #51.

6. Daredevil had his encounter with Ka-Zar and the Savage Land in Daredevil #12-14.

7. The X-Men’s battle with the Savage Land Mutates happened in X-Men #62-63.

8. Magneto seemingly perished in the above mentioned issues of X-Men. However, he survived and his next chronological appearances will be in X-Men: The Hidden Years #2-12, as well as Fantastic Four #102-104/X-Men: Hidden Years #20-21, Amazing Adventures (vol. 2) #9-10. The Avengers will encounter him later in Avengers #110-111.

9. Angel’s costume seen here was the one he wore as the Avenging Angel early on in his career, as seen in the back-up story told in X-Men #55. He started wearing the costume again in X-Men #60. The reason why it was discarded here is because Angel was given a new variant of that costume by the Benefactor (who turned out to be Magneto), as detailed in Avengers #111.

10. It is mentioned here that Thor had to take off for personal business. A footnote states that Thor is meeting with his landlord as Don Blake. This happened in Thor #204, which per the Chronology Project, happened before this issue. This fact was only mentioned in the footnote and the issues were published a month apart, so one could assume that it’s reference here is merely a plug for a recent issue of Thor.

Topical References

• The reason for the Black Panther’s brief name change was that Marvel did not want their character to be associated with the Black Panthers, a far-left political party that was focused on empowering Black communities, civila rights, and many other worthy causes. White people in the 60s and 70s were frightened about the Black Panthers because they also staunchly defended the 2nd amendment, and nothing was scarier to white people than black people with guns. In fact, the NRA was even in support of gun control laws that would keep guns out of the hands of African-Americans. The decision to change T’Challa’s name back was because he didn’t want to be “a stereotype” or let his name be co-opted for another cause. Marvel is usually pretty progressive but this is one of those few times where I think they were on the wrong side of history by changing the Black Panther’s name for uninformed reasons and then walking it back with some bullshit like this.