Avengers (vol. 3) #79
Lionheart of Avalon, Part 3
The Avengers had come to England to capture the Wrecking Crew. In the ensuing battle, a local named Kelsey Lehigh protected an unconscious Captain America from Thunderball. Due to the severity of her injuries, the woman has died, and now Cap, Tony Stark, the Scarlet Witch, Yellowjacket, and the Wasp are trying to make sense of it all. Steve can’t understand why an ordinary person would have gone up against someone strong enough to fight Thor.
That’s when Hawkeye and She-Hulk — unaware of what happened — enter the room with Kelsey’s children, Martin and Jenny. Captain America orders them out of the room but it’s already too late, the children have seen that their mother is dead.
Once outside, She-Hulk tries to calm Jenny down, while Martin is too starstruck by the Avengers (and his hero, Captain America) to really process what he saw. This gets on Jenny’s nerves and eventually she breaks down and begins accusing Martin of being the one responsible for their mother’s death. If Martin wasn’t a big fan of superheroes, none of this would have happened. She-Hulk quickly pulls the girl away from her brother and comforts her. The two bond over the fact that they are both named Jennifer.
Hawkeye then goes outside where the others are loading Kelsey’s body into a Quinjet to transport it later. Captain America scolds Hawkeye for exposing the children to the truth before they were ready. In his own defense, Clint points out that he couldn’t have known that Lehigh was dead and tells him to back off. He says it was an honest mistake because the idea that Kelsey would have died on their watch was not something he would have ever thought about. When Clint decides to go back inside and have a talk with the kids, Steve says he’ll do it instead since it is his fault their mother is dead.
Entering the mansion, Cap sees that Jenny is way too upset to do more than cry. With She-Hulk continuing to watch over the little girl, Steve takes her brother out into the garden to have a talk. However, once they get there, Rogers realizes that he doesn’t really know what to say to a kid who just lost their mother. Martin begins talking about how he has a poster of Cap on his wall back home. Steve finds this a surprise, figuring kids in the UK would be more into Union Jack. This is when Martin reaches his breaking point and begins to cry. Steve tries to comfort the boy, but he is once again out of his depth.
Inside, the Scarlet Witch watches Steve from the window, wishing he knew how to comfort the boy. Yellowjacket on the other hand, tells them all the kids will get over it eventually and be fine. He bases this on the fact that his own mother was killed and he was able to get over it.[1] What Hawkeye can’t get over is why Thunderball kept beating on a powerless woman. The Scarlet Witch figures it might just be sadism, that the villain gets off on hurting people he views as weak. The idea of a man hurting a woman really irks Clint and as he runs his mouth, Wanda suggests he stop talking. When she gives a slight not toward Yellowjacket and the Wasp, Hank doesn’t know what they are talking about. Suddenly, he realizes they are referring to the time he hit Janet, Hank is furious.[2] He immediately turns on Janet and begins demanding to know what exactly she told her teammates. Jan says she didn’t have to say anything after they saw the black eye he gave her. Deciding then need to talk, Hank grabs Janet by the arm to pull her out of the room. Realizing how this looks, Hank tells Clint and Wanda that he isn’t going to hurt her. Clint grimly advising him against doing that as well.
Once the arguing couple are gone, Hawkeye asks Tony where he got the materials to make his arrows. Stark says it was from some stuff that Thor had left behind, explaining how they were able to pierce the Wrecking Crew’s skin. With that mystery out of the way, Clint heads off to the cells where they are holding the crooks prisoner.
By this time, Captain America and Martin have come back inside. Steve has learned from Martin that their only living relative is their grandmother and has decided that this is the best place to take the two children. Jenny, who has bonded with She-Hulk, gets upset by the idea of leaving her side. Jen assures the little girl that she will come along with them, then takes her out to Tony’s garage to see what kind of British sports cars he might have stored there.
In another room, Yellowjacket and Wasp have gotten into an argument. Hank is humiliated and angry that the team is still holding the fact that he once hit Janet, as it happened years ago. Janet points out that Hank has always been unwell, that she married him when he was delusional and held her prisoner for weeks and threatened her with violence.[2] Yellowjacket gets even more upset, saying that he worked through all of that. However, Janet doesn’t think so since Hank never went to get professional help. Instead, his mental health crisis continued, recounting the most recent incidents when Hank broke down during their fight with Ultron, and when Hank’s split personalities became sentient. She then says that Hank’s mental health is why she said no when he proposed to her in Vegas, and why she will never say yes again.[5] Having said her piece, Janet storms out of the room to leave Hank with his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Hawkeye has gone down to the holding cells where the Wrecking Crew have been cooling their heels since their defeat. The Wrecker is fuming because this job was a big mistake. Thunderball stops him from mentioning the name of their employer, reminding him that this must remain a secret at all costs.[6] The Wrecker is tired of Thunderball giving him orders since he is the leader of this Crew. When the Wrecker tries to get physical, Thunderball surprises him by headbutting him in the face and breaking his nose. He then begins pummeling his boss until Hawkeye arrives and shoots an arrow into Thunderball’s arm. When Hawkeye calls him a murderer, Thunderball realizes that the woman who stood between him and Captain America earlier has died. Mocking Clint over the woman’s death Thunderball distracts the hero that he doesn’t notice the villain pulling the arrow out of his shoulder. Thunderball then rams its explosive head into the lock to their cell, freeing himself and the rest of the Wrecking Crew. They quickly swarm Hawkeye and then beat him into unconsciousness.
At that same moment, in the Quinjet’s infirmary, a mysterious man appears and pulls the sheet off Kelsey Lehigh’s body. He calls her a brave woman, but says that Avalon isn’t ready to say goodbye to her just yet.[7]
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk) Wrecking Crew (Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, Piledriver), Black Knight, Martin Lehigh, Jenny Lehigh, Captain Britain, Kelsey Lehigh (corpse)
Continuity Notes
It’s interesting that Hank says that his mother was killed. As of this writing (February, 2023), we still don’t know why or how she got killed. Her only appearance to date has been Age of Ultron #10.AI. While the story focuses on Hank’s childhood, it doesn’t mention his mother dying. It does, however, depict the death of his grandmother — Angela Pym — and that death deeply upset him but, as he claims here with his mother, he did manage to get over it pretty quick.
Yellowjacket and the Wasp had been happily married for years until the day Hank lost his shit and hit Janet in issue #213. She divorced him immediately after. Hank states that this happened “years” ago. Per the Sliding Timescale, about five years had passed between that story and this one.
Around the time they got married, Hank had suffered a mental breakdown and took on a new personality. This persona took on the Yellowjacket identity, a loud mouth braggard who was always spoiling for a fight. He also believed that he had murdered Hank Pym. Unlike the timid Hank Pym, who was always meek around Janet, Yellowjacket was obsessed with her and insisted they got married through threat of violence. Janet agreed, but only because she knew that Yellowjacket was really Hank. Pym snapped out of the Yellowjacket personality when their wedding was crashed by the Circus of Crime and Janet needed help. See Avengers #59-60.
Janet is referring to when Ultron wiped out the entire country of Slorenia in Avengers (vol. 3) #19-22, and Hank’s split into Goliath and Yellowjacket in #28-44 and Annual 2001.
Even after they had gotten divorce, Hank and Janet have had an on-again-off-again relationship. Hank recently tried proposing to Jan but she turned him down. See Avengers (vol. 3) #71.
We’ll discover next issue that Thunderball is possessed by an evil Black Knight who is in league with the sorceress Morgan le Fay.
This mysterious new comer is Brain Braddock, the previous Captain Britain, as we’ll see next issue as well.
