Avengers #330
In a Strange Land
Wrongly accused of freeing the demon Ngh from the Dimension of Exile, the Avengers —Captain America, Thor, Vision, the Black Widow, She-Hulk, Sersi, and Quasar — find themselves banished to that same dimension by the Tetrarchs of Entropy. In order to prevent the heroes escape, both Sersi and Thor’s hammer Mjolnir have been trapped in containers made out of crystal. When the Vision’s phasing powers fails to work, he examines the crystal and determines their weak point. He then has Quasar create a chisel with his Quantum Bands at the weak spot and has She-Hulk strike it as hard as possible as he phases through the object. This succeeds in freeing Mjolnir, but leaves Vision considerably weakened. Despite this, the Vision insists that they continue in order to free Sersi.
When they free Sersi, the Tetrarch of Entropy return to re-establish control over the situation, explaining to the Avengers that they are overseers of cosmic laws and to prevent them from falling into chaos. Thor believes that they are talking out their asses and he, Sersi, and Captain America charge at the pyramid shaped Yod. However, when they get within striking distance of her structure, Yod’s surface opens to a portal that sucks the three Avengers into another dimension. The remaining Avengers still refuse to give up without a fight, prompting the serpentine Hafga to coil around them and use its own power to banish them to an yawning void of darkness.
Meanwhile, Captain America and his group find themselves on a different physical plain, but wonder if they are still in the Dimension of Exile or somewhere else entirely. They are suddenly attacked by more alien prisoners of the Tetrarch of Entropy. While Quasar and his group end up in a misty rocky domain where they are attacked by mythical creatures and sorcerers who are also prisoners.
Back in New York City, the reserve Avengers — Captain Marvel, Black Knight, Hercules, the Falcon, Spider-Man, Sandman, and Rage — are having an emergency meeting in response to the abduction of the primary team. Captain Marvel decides to split the team in two, with one group on guard in case any super-villains try to take advantage of the situation, while the other tries to find a way to return their friends home. That’s when Jarvis interrupts and tells Rage and Sandman that they still need to be run through background checks before they are accepted as official probationary Avengers. Taken down to the central database, Peggy Carter explains that the Avengers computers will look up their personal records and determine if they qualify for Avengers membership, but assures them that this information gathering is only seen by the individual and deleted immediately afterwards in order to guarantee privacy. Rage goes into the private chamber first and after a pre-recorded introduction by Tony Stark himself, he enters his real name — Elvin Holiday — social insurance number and address and then waits impatiently while the computer pulls up his information.
Back in the Dimension of Exile, Captain America realizes that there is something familiar about their combatants and asks Sersi to project the illusion of their true appearances in the minds of those they are fighting. This breaks the true illusion that the Tetrarch’s created in order to make the two teams of Avengers fight each other. That’s when the Tetrarch of Entropy return and reveal that this was actually all a test and they have determined that the Avengers are a force for good, where as Ngh and his followers are forces for evil. Now believing that the Avengers did not intentionally free Ngh, the Tetrarch are now willing to talk.
At that same moment, Rage’s records have finally been pulled up on the computer database for his review. Shockingly, Elvin’s records show that he is actually 14 years old! The only other record on his file is for his lone dependent, his grandmother Edina “Granny” Staples. Despite his young age, there are no red flags to disqualify him as an Avenger and after the records are destroyed, a recording of Stark congratulates Rage for his successfully entry into the Avengers. When Rage emerges from the private chamber, Peggy Carter confirms all the data pulled up on him has been erased. She then hands him and Sandman their official Avengers ID card and explains how they work.
A short while later, Rage calls his grandmother to tell her that he is now officially an Avenger. Little does he know that she is being held prisoner by Ngh and his minions on behalf of local drug dealer, L.D. 50. Ngh answers the phone and tells Rage him to come home and rescue her. Seeing the shocked look on Rage’s face as he hang up the phone, Spider-Man and Falcon ask if everything is ok. Rage tells them everything is fine. However, before he can leave the alarm goes off. The reserve Avengers then rush up to the roof of the building just as Captain America and the primary team are returned home. As they prepare to deal with Ngh and the other exiles, Thor and Captain America begin to suspect that the Tetrarchs of Entropy are not telling the whole truth about themselves. Cap suggests that they watch their new allies very carefully moving forward. As they are saying this, the Tetrarchs are having a private council of their own. Yod tells the others that once the Avengers have helped them track down Ngh and his followers they are to banish the entire planet Earth to the Dimension of Exiles.
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Black Widow, Captain America, Quasar, Sersi, She-Hulk, Thor, Vision), Tetrarchs of Entropy (Yod, Vug, Heml, Hafga), Ngh, Orm, Ffurg, Xa, Black Knight, Captain Marvel, Falcon, Hercules, Rage, Sandman, Spider-Man, Edwin Jarvis, John Jameson, Peggy Carter, Michael O’Brien, Fabian Stankowicz, Granddy Staples, Tony Stark
Topical References
For some odd reason the computer system pulling up Elvin’s information has hold music and plays a muzak version of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High”. This should be considered a wildly inaccurate topical reference since computers don’t typically put you on hold and play music, let alone play John Denver.
Rage’s records state here that he was born on November 20, 1977 while Granny Staples is stated as being born on April 17, 1918. The specific years of these birthdates should be topical. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that Rage is 14 years old while his grandmother is 73, rather than ascribing a particular year. Per the Sliding Timescale, this story takes place during “Year Eight” of the Modern Age. Based on this figure, Elvin was born 6 years prior to the start of the Modern Age, while Granny was born about 59 years prior.
