Avengers #502 — Nick Peron

Jan 22

Jan 22 Avengers #502

Chaos Part 3

Someone has been attacking the Avengers striking the most damaging blows the team has ever experienced. Ant-Man is dead, the Vision has been destroyed, She-Hulk restrained, while the Wasp and Captain Britain have been hospitalized. The team has been disgraced, and the mansion is in ruins.[1] Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Falcon have returned to the mansion after receiving an alarm at the hospital. Upon their arrival they are shocked to see Nick Fury and a literal army of former Avengers and allies waiting at the front gate.[2]

Fury is unimpressed with the show of numbers, telling the heroes that this is an active crime scene that SHIELD is trying to process and their presence could be contaminating evidence. When Warbird learns that Ant-Man is dead, she hugs Captain America. That’s when more bad news comes in. After Tony Stark’s drunken rant at the United Nations — in which he recommended the other member nations wipe Latveria off the map — has decided to cut ties with the Avengers. Worse, Stark has also been dropped as the US Secretary of State.[3] This angers Hawkeye as they made this decision and made it public without so much as a phone call. As the Avengers squabble with one another over what happened, Fury begins to lose his patience and tells the all to get off his crime scene.

That’s when the mansion is suddenly attacked by an armada of Kree ships that have appeared out of nowhere. Not only was Fury not warned about this, his monitoring team on the helicarrier can’t pick up the invaders on their scanners and have no idea what Fury is talking about.[4] As the heroes scramble, Captain America orders all those who can fly to get into the air and attack the invading ships. As the battle rages in the air, Kree foot soldiers appear on the ground. As the remaining heroes start dealing with this ground threat, Captain America manages to subdue one of the Kree. He demands to know why they are choosing to attack them now. All the Kree will tell him is that they have come to erase the Avengers from existence. That’s when even more enemy soldiers are teleported to the ground.

The numbers are overwhelming but everyone keeps fighting. Hawkeye leaps through the crowd and takes out Kree with his bow and arrow. He then is fatally struck in the back by an enemy weapon, wrecking his quiver. Dying, Clint refuses to go out this way. Grabbing a Kree soldier with a jet pack, he forces it to fly them both into the engine of the Kree mothership causing it to explode and sacrificing his life to save the others.[5] Seeing Clint die, Captain America shouts “Avengers Assemble” as the team pushes harder than ever before. Eventually, the Kree are forced into retreating.

In the aftermath of the battle, Rick Jones — long time Avengers associate — gets a closer look at one of the downed Kree ships. He notices that there is something odd about its composition because it doesn’t feel like metal.

As everyone tries to wrap their heads around this mystery, the astral form of Doctor Strange appears before them. He apologizes for not arriving sooner but he was predisposed with other business as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. He tells the gathered heroes that these attacks are the work of a single individual who has been abusing magic. Hearing this, Captain America knows exactly who Strange is talking about….

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Captain America, Hawkeye, Hercules, Black Panther, Black Knight, Mantis, Wonder Man, Jocasta, Warbird, Falcon, Tigra, Photon, Starfox, Sub-Mariner, Firebird, Moon Knight, Sersi, Crystal, Quasar, Stingray, Rage, US Agent, Living Lightning, Firestar, Justice, Triathlon), SHIELD (Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan), Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing), Spider-Woman, Hellcat, Rick Jones, Demolition Man, Daredevil, Darkhawk, Silverclaw, Jim Rhodes, Doctor Strange

Continuity Notes

A lot of this stuff happened over the last 2 issues, where have you been? Next issue we learn that the Scarlet Witch was responsible for all of this.
If you want to know more about everyone’s past membership in the Avengers, go look at the index entry for last issue, I’m not doing that again.
At the time of this story Stark was the US the Secretary of State as of Iron Man (vol. 3) #79. While you’re here, it should also be mentioned that the Avengers have also been recently designated a sovereign nation in and of themselves back in Avengers (vol. 3) #61.
As explained next issue, these “Kree invaders” were created by the Scarlet Witch to attack the Avengers. The sudden appearance of Quicksilver in the battle here is also a construct created by Wanda.
Although he is absolutely killed here, Hawkeye will get resurrected when Wanda reshapes all reality in House of M #1-8. Although Wanda’s reality warp is undone, Clint will still remain alive.