Wind From the East

The Avengers are still working on the construction of their new headquarters, since their old one at Hydrobase was sunk into the Atlantic.[1] While Thor and Sersi pounds a new “A” shaped ornament for the front gate out of the girders of the old mansion, a new meeting table has been constructed out of the core of Hydrobase. Sersi takes this opportunity to present Captain America with a gift, a recreation of the Avengers old scrap book. Looking through its pages, Iron Man reminisces over an old photo of the original team fighting the Masters of Evil,[2] then has to quickly back track since he has convinced the general public that he’s not the original Iron Man, but a successor that has taken over the identity.[3]

That’s when the buzzer goes off at the front gate, prompting the Avengers butler Jarvis to go and see who is calling.[4] He is greeted by a massive black man wearing a leather outfit and a luchador mask. Introducing himself as Rage, the young man explains that he has come to join the Avengers. Jarvis tries to explain that the team doesn’t just hire anybody, Rage feels like he is getting the runaround and pushes his way onto the construction site. Captain America soon arrives to find out what all the commotion is and learns why Rage has come to visit them.

Meanwhile, across town, a Russian operative named Illaron Ramskov — the victim of a nuclear accident — has been transported to the Metropolitan Hospital in an effort to cure him of extreme radiation exposure. The man is contained in a suit of armor that shields others from the deadly rays. The operation is overseen by Nikolaevna Zhukova a Russian protocol officer, and Raymond Sikorski of the American National Security Agency. Sikorski is there to ensure that everything is done to the satisfaction of the Russian government, rankling Doctor Deidre Estevez, the surgeon who will be working on Ramskov, who just wants what’s best for her new patient. Illaron is being admitted under a cover story with Zhukova saying that Ramskov was irradiated while on the job for the Russian space agency. In reality, Illaron was the victim of a recent incident at a nuclear power plant, something the Russians wish to keep secret.

Back at Avengers Mansion, Rage is convinced that the Avengers are turning him down because he’s black and they are racist. Captain America points out that the Avenges have had black members in the past, pointing to the Black Panther and Falcon as examples. Rage counters this by pointing out that the Panther has been away from the Avengers for a while and is wealthy to boot, while the Falcon was forced into joining so the team could meet an equal opportunity quota.[5] This rankles Cap, who wants to know what qualifies Rage for the Avengers. The young man then shows off that he is incredibly strong and indestructible, but more importantly he believes in truth, justice, and dignity of man.

As this is going on, Doctor Estivez begins examining the armor that contains Ramskov and discovers that his handlers have been keeping him heavily sedated. She can’t perform any surgery with her patient doped up and cuts off his drug supply. Illaron suddenly wakes up and begins glowing with so much radiation that he melts through the floor. With the situation growing dangerous, Sikorski decides to call in the Avengers.

By this time, Rage is losing his patience with Captain America, just as the other members of the team are arriving to see what’s going on. Sersi takes Rage’s aggressive posture as an attack and comes to Cap’s defense. Rage is about to come to blows with Thor when Captain America gets between them and calms things down. Having had his fill with the Avengers, Rage decides he doesn’t want to join after all and storms off, figuring the group is too concerned with fighting cosmic menaces to care about the little guy. This causes the group to stop and ponder his words when Iron Man receives Raymond Sikorski’s call for help.

When they arrive at the hospital, Sikorski warns the Avengers that this is a very sensitive diplomatic situation. Suddenly, the room is shaken by a tremor, prompting the Avengers to head down the hole in the floor to search for the rogue Russian operative. Both Doctor Estivez and Nikolaevna Zhukova insist on accompanying the Avengers.

The hole in the floor leads down into the sewers where the Avengers search for Illarion Ramskov. As they search Zhukova tries to explain the situation with Ramskov and Iron Man correctly deduces that she is actually a member of Russian intelligence. Not far away, Ramskov is shambling around the sewers reliving the nuclear accident that left him in his current condition. He remembers heading down into the nuclear reactor to try and stop a meltdown and discovered two men intentionally trying to sabotage it. He gave the two men chase, but they eventually turned around and started attacking him. In his confused state, Illarion runs into the Avengers and, confusing them from the saboteurs, begins attacking them. He manages to take down both Thor and She-Hulk, but his containment suit is ruptured and begins leaking radiation. As Iron Man shields Doctor Estivez and Zhukova, they are horrified by the sight and wonder just what the Russians did to Illarion.

Meanwhile, Rage returns to his neighborhood in Brooklyn and runs into some local kids and learning that they are going to the local crack house to buy some drugs. This enrages the young hero and he decides to confront the dealers. The two crooks pull their guns and try to shoot Rage, but their bullets bounce harmlessly off him, prompting the two drug dealers to flee. They go to warn the leader of their gang, a verbose crook named L.D. 50. As they are telling him of their encounter, Rage is using his phenominal strength to tear down the crack house.

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, She-Hulk, Sersi, Vision), Rage, Edwin Jarvis, Raymond Sikorski, Illarion Ramskov, L.D. 50, Nikolaevna Zhukova, Deidre Estevez

Continuity Notes

1. Avengers Mansion was relocated to Hydrobase after the siege on Avengers Mansion in Avengers #273-277, arriving at its new location in the following issue. Hydrobase was later sunk by Doctor Doom in issue #311. The new headquarters under construction here will open to the public in Avengers #329.

2. The battle in question happened back in Avengers #6.

3. At the time of this story, the general public was unaware that Tony Stark and Iron Man were the same person and only few of the Avengers knew the truth. When Tony learned that his Iron Man technology had been stolen and sold to others he went on a mission to deactivate all the unauthorized suits of armor. This became very unpopular and Tony was forced to fake Iron Man’s death and trick the public into thinking that there was now a new person wearing the suit. See Iron Man #225-232 and Captain America #340. Tony will drop this pretense among his teammates starting in Avengers West Coast #72.

4. Here, Jarvis makes a mention of how his doctor has asked him to take off his eye patch for a few hours a day to strengthen his injured eye. Jarvis suffered damage to his right eye during the aforementioned siege on Avengers Mansion. He had been wearing an eye patch since issue #280. He has been wearing it more intermittently since issue #317.

Topical References

• Russia is referred to as the Soviet Union in this story. This should be considered topical as the USSR dissolved in 1991.

• When hearing how much the Avengers new meeting table cost to produce, she quips that it must have been bought at Tiffany’s. This should be considered topical as that is a real-world business.

• Illarion Ramskov’s origin is rooted in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Although I don’t find any reference otherwise, this could be considered topical. Modern readers could assume that Illarion was involved in a completely fictional nuclear disaster. On the other hand, one could argue that his exposure to radiation at Chernobyl caused him to age slower so issues with the Sliding Timescale would not arise. Stranger things have been done in the past TBH.