Lords and Leaders

Justice and Firestar have reunited with their old friends the New Warriors — Night Thrasher, Speedball, Rage, and Nova — to help bust up an illegal arms deal involving high tech weaponry. The Warriors are glad to have the band back together since Justice and Firestar went off to join the Avengers.[1] They incapacitate all the crooks except for one, which Night Thrasher allows to get away as he planted a tracker on him and hopes it’ll lead them to the one supplying the weapons. Firestar notices that Vance is less nervous about working with the Warriors than he has been with the Avengers.

Meanwhile, back at Avengers Mansion, Wonder Man is getting back into being alive, and looks forward to catching up on all the books he missed while he was dead.[2] The Scarlet Witch meanwhile is practicing with her newfound mystical powers but can’t concentrate because of the friction between her and her ex-husband, the Vision. She explains to Simon that the Vision has been hiding his returned emotions from her and has been intentionally pushing her away to spare her feelings.[3] However, she assures Simon that she wants to be with him now, and he doesn’t have to worry about her chasing after the Vision again. They are about to get romantic when the Avengers are suddenly called for a meeting.

At that same moment, Justice and Firestar have returned to the Crash Pad headquarters of the New Warriors. They catch up over reheated pizza, and Firestar tells them that the health risks associated with her mutant microwave powers have been resolved.[4] Justice meanwhile finds himself feeling nostalgic for his time on the New Warriors. They also learn that the team has kind of been hit with hard times with their numbers dwindling with only a handful of mainstays remaining while the rest of the roster has gone off to do their own thing.[5] That’s when their tracker begins giving a signal, prompting the group to head out once again.

Back at the mansion, the Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man report in for their meeting. Present are Thor, the Vision, and Tony Stark via video link as he is still recovering from his injuries.[6] The meeting is being called due to the fact that with Captain America off on a solo mission,[7] and Thor needing to deal with private matters,[8] the Avengers need a deputy leader to fill in until the senior members can return. The Vision points out he is unsuitable for the job, reminding them how he almost took over the world’s computer systems the last time he was given leadership of the Avengers.[9] The Scarlet Witch is also ruling out Justice and Firestar since they are still new to the team. She suddenly realizes, much to her shock and dismay, that they all want her to take on the role.

Meanwhile, the New Warriors have tracked the arms dealer to a warehouse in the Bronx where they discover a front being operated by the terrorist organization known as Advance Idea Mechanics. The Warriors are dealing with the situation with relative ease until another super-human calling himself Templar comes smashing in through the wall. He announces that he has come to confiscate all the weapons. Having never heard of Templar before and unsure if they can trust him, the New Warriors decide to prevent him from doing so. Templar proves more powerful than they can hope to deal with and Night Thrasher finds himself having to decide if he should allow Firestar and Justice call the Avengers in for help.

At that moment, Wanda isn’t sure she is fit to lead the Avengers and tries to get Hank Pym to try and fill the job. Hank declines, telling the group that he and Janet Van Dyne need some time off after getting dragged through time and space in the Destiny War.[10] Everyone thinks that Wanda is best suited to be the leader for the team, pointing out that she did a good job leading both the West Coast Avengers and Force Works.[11] That’s when the Avengers receive a distress call from Firestar asking for the team’s help. Suddenly, all worries of leadership melt away as the Scarlet Witch takes command and leads the team to the Bronx. When they join the New Warriors in battle, Lord Templar surprises them by creating an army of avatars, humanoid constructs all with their own unique powers. As the Avengers and New Warriors deal with these avatars, Thor turns his attention toward Lord Templar himself. In the ensuing clash, Templar claims that he has been sanctioned in secret by the world government.

Over the course of the battle, a contained containing Antarctic Vibranium — also known as Anti-Metal — begins to crack causing it to melt all the metals in the immediate area. This causes the high tech weapons being stored in the warehouse to begin discharging, which could put lives at risk. Thor is then forces to let Lord Templar go while he uses Mjolnir to create a vortex to contain the blast to the immediate area. While the warehouse and the weapons are destroyed, no innocent people are harmed.

Back at the mansion, the rest of the Avengers commend the Scarlet Witch for her leadership skills. Although she was considering leaving the Avengers due to the tensions between herself and the Vision, she decides to stay on as deputy leader after all. Wanda isn’t the only one who has considered leaving, Justice is also contemplating quitting the Avengers to go back to the New Warriors because he seems to be less of a screw up when he’s not working with legends like Captain America and Thor. However, this idea gets quashed when Firestar tells him that she has finally made up her mind and wants them to move in to Avengers Mansion and live there full time.

Meanwhile, Lord Templar reports to his master. Although he lost the battle, he has already planted the seed of conspiracy that he might be backed by the government, setting the stage for their master plan, which has barely begun.[12]

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, Justice, Firestar), New Warriors (Night Thrasher, Nova, Speedball, Rage), Hank Pym, Tony Stark, Lord Templar, (unidentified) Jonathan Tremont, Pagan

Continuity Notes

1. Justice and Firestar were founding members of the New Warriors, as seen in New Warriors #1. They joined up with the Avengers in Avengers (vol. 3) #4.

2. Wonder Man was killed in action in a fight against the Kree in Force Works #1. He just recently got resurrected in Avengers (vol. 3) #11.

3. The Scarlet Witch previously married the Vision. However, a few years later he was disassembled and put back together. This process stripped him of his emotions for a time. More recently, he regained that capacity back but has been intentionally pushing Wanda away. See Giant-Size Avengers #4 (the wedding) West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-45 (Vision’s disassembly), Avengers Spotlight #40/Vision #1-4 (getting his emotions back), Avengers (vol. 3) #4 (Vision pushing Wanda away) and the Vision profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #13 which adds the missing pieces to make all of the above make sense.

4. In New Warriors #63-64, Firestar learned that using her microwave powers at full intensity put her at risk of becoming sterile. Wanting to eventually have children someday this made her reluctant to use her powers. Hank Pym developed a circuity mesh suit for her to wear last issue that will eventually correct this problem and make it a non-issue.

5. The New Warriors have been in decline since the final issue of their own series. At the time the team had 11 members on its roster. They will experience a brief revival following their appearance here, as seen in New Warriors (vol. 3) #0-10.

6. Tony Stark has had a double whammy recently: First he got the shit beat out of him by the Espionage Elite in Iron Man (vol. 3) #8-10, then discovered that his armor was trying to kill him, forcing him to create a new suit as seen in Iron Man (vol. 3) #11-13.

7. At the time of this story, Captain America is assisting Deadpool in preventing the S’met’kth from enslaving all sentient life in the universe. See Deadpool #23-25.

8. Thor has been in an ongoing war against the Dark Gods while also juggling his shared existence with ambulance driver Jake Olsen. See Thor (vol. 2) #1-12.

9. The Vision’s tenure as leader lasted from Avengers #243 to 254. Influenced by ISAAC, the world computer of the Titanian Eternals, he attempted to force peace on the world by taking over all the computers on Earth. The Avengers forced him to rescind his control, pointing out that his actions could lead to war anyway.

10. This story follows the events of Avengers Forever #1-12 wherein Hank and Janet were among a team of time displaced Avengers who were chosen to stop a war between Kang the Conqueror and his future self, Immortus.

11. Wanda was made leader of the West Coast Avengers in Avengers West Coast #98 and ran the group until it disbanded in issue #102. It’s odd that Hank and Tony think she did a good job then, she was actually a terrible leader. She did fare better as leader of Force Works, running the team during its entire run in Force Works #1-22.

12. The man Templar is meeting with is Jonathan Tremont, the leader of the Triune Understanding, as we’ll learn in Avengers (vol. 3) #15. Their entire scheme is preparing the world for an invasion by the Triple-Evil in Avengers (vol. 3) #50.

Topical References

• When Wonder Man talks about catching up on all the books he missed while he was dead, he states that there have been three Richard Stark books that were released in that time. Richard Stark was the pen-name of author Donald E. Westlake, and he indeed published many books between the time Force Works #1 and Avengers (vol. 3) #11 were published. However, references to him publishing new books should be considered topical as Westlake died in 2008. While a handful of his books were published post-humorously, the output of new work has sharply declined.

• Hank Pym tells the Avengers that he is ever ready to help saying he will come in his pager. As seen in Avengers (vol. 3) #1, Hank was depicted as a pager that could convert into a flying ship that he can use while at Ant-Man size. References to this device being a page should be considered topical. While pages were fairly common when this story was originally published, the proliferation of cell phones have made them obsolete now.