The Old Ball and Chain

Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, is running lat for work and is racing to the District Attorney’s office.[1] That’s when she happens to notice her old foe Titania rushing into City Hall in a wedding dress. Ignoring the obvious, she assumes that Titania is up to no good and follows her inside. There she is shocked to see a massive gathering of super-villains which includes the Wrecking Crew, Mister Hyde, Klaw, the Wizard, Screaming Mimi, Angar the Screamer, Dreadknight, Stilt-Man, Hydro-Man, the Molecule Man, Volcana, and Mentallo.

They don’t take kindly on a superhero intruding on their event and pummel She-Hulk and kick her out. Realizing that she is in over her head, Jen decides that this situation calls for reinforcements and heads off to get the rest of the Avengers.

If you haven’t guessed it already, Titania is going to marry her long time boyfriend, the Absorbing Man.[2] After She-Hulk is kicked out, Volcana decides to go upstairs and check and make sure that Titania is still ok as she gets ready for her big day.[3] While the Absorbing Man, aka Carl “Crusher” Creel, waits for his blushing bride, the Wrecker asks if he’s making the right decision. Creel is certain that this is what he wants to do, noting that he and Titania split up for a bit when he promised to go straight, but now that the friend he promised that to is dead he wants to push forward with their relationship.[4]

Meanwhile, Volcana goes upstairs where she catches the Avenger known as Crystal snooping around. The two get into a fight, which is interrupted by the arrival of Hydro-Man who unintentionally douses Volcana’s flames. Luckily, Marsha’s estranged boyfriend the Molecule Man comes to her rescue using his powers to encase Crystal in plastic. When Volcana thanks him, he tells her to cover up since her powers burned away her dress, making Marsha realize that their separation is still hitting him pretty hard.[5]

After learning that there was a second Avenger sniffing around, Dreadknight decides that the smart thing to do is depart as where there is one Avenger, others are bound to turn up.

He's prediction is correct as soon a Quinjet carrying the rest of the team arrives. Hercules leaps from the cockpit and takes out Bulldozer who is standing guard outside City Hall. However, Bulldozer’s teammate Piledriver soon join the fight. As Deathcry tries to find a place to land, she is bombarded by a triple-sonic attack from Klaw, Screaming Mimi, and Angar the Screamer. This causes her to see an audio hallucination of the Mephitisoid of Shi’ar legend.[6] Seeing that the Quinjet is about to crash, Hercules races off to catch it but is tripped up by Thunderball’s trademark wrecking ball weapon. Luckily, Deathcry’s Shi’ar physiology allows her to withstand the worst of the sonic attack and she is able to keep the Quinjet in the air long enough for it to be caught by her teammate Giant-Man.

However, before he can safely place it on the ground he is attacked by Stilt-Man. The Black Widow comes to his aid and tries to wrap her swinging cable around his legs in order to trip him up. Unfortunately, Stilt-Man has been defeated this way too many times and his new suit of armor now has a brand new gyroscope system that makes him almost impossible to topple over. Getting the Quinjet to safety, Giant-Man tries putting Stilt-Man’s gyros to the test when he is ambushed by Mister Hyde, who leaps onto Hank’s head and starts pummeling him in the back of the skull. The Widow tries to help, but the Wizard shows up and attaches one of his anti-gravity discs onto her, causing Natasha to rapidly levitate into the sky.[7] The battle continues until the villains hear the heavy metal soundtrack that signals the beginning of the wedding ceremony and all rush back inside.

Inside, the Vision phased up through the floor as the criminals are all taking their seats. The other villains try to stop him. Annoyed at the constant interruptions, the Absorbing Man absorbs the properties of the diamond on his wedding ring and hits the Vision in the face with his ball-and-chain with enough force to send him crashing out of the building. This also shatters the ball, causing a number of the guests to scramble to pick up the diamond fragments. When Thunderball laughs at Creel for breaking his trademark weapon, Crusher takes Thunderball’s similar weapon, calling it a wedding gift.

That’s when the Avengers smash their way into the wedding hall. It’s then that Deathcry realizes what’s going on and once the other Avengers figure out that they are crashing a wedding, they realize their mistake and embarrassingly take a hike. The rest of the wedding goes off without a hitch and soon Absorbing Man and Titania are officially married. Seeing a grim look on her new husband’s face, Titania asks if he has any sudden second thoughts. Carl tells her that he does, but not about their marriage, but rather the idea of going straight, pointing out how its affected the Avengers.

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Giant-Man, Vision, Hercules, Black Widow, Crystal, Deathcry), She-Hulk, Titania, Absorbing Man, Brothers Grimm, Wrecking Crew (Wrecker, Thunderball, Piledriver, Bulldozer), the Brothers Grimm, Mister Hyde, Klaw, Wizard, Screaming Mimi, Angar the Screamer, Dreadknight, Stilt-Man, Hydro-Man, Molecule Man, Volcana, Mentallo

Continuity Notes

1. At the time of this story, She-Hulk was the Assistant District Attorney to Blake Tower, starting in Sensational She-Hulk #1 until she was let go from this position in She-Hulk #1.

2. Carl and Mary started hitting it off in Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #3. By Thor #436, they were a couple.

3. She-Hulk is of concern to everyone because she and Titania have had a rivalry since Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8.

4. Absorbing Man is referring to when Eric Masterson — who was Thor at the time — convinced Creel to and Titania to go straight in Thor #436. While Crusher stuck with it, Titania didn’t find it so easy as we saw in Thor #447-448. Masterson later went on to become Thunderstrike and died in battle after being cursed by the Bloodaxe, see Thunderstrike #22-24.

5. Molecule Man and Volcana were another super-villain couple that came out of the Secret Wars. They tried to live a life of anonymity since then but frequently got themselves sucked into cosmic scale conflicts. Eventually, Marsha got sick of it and ended their relationship in Fantastic Four Annual #24. As of this writing (January, 2023), the couple remains apart.

6. The Avengers fought the Mephitisoid in Avengers #378-379, and stopped it from trying to take over the Earth on behalf of the Kree Lunatic Legion.

7. Here, the Wizard states that he has applied some of the Trapster’s Adhesive X onto the back end of the disc in order to make it stick to the Black Widow. The Wizard and the Trapster have been long time allies since Strange Tales #110. However, Adhesive X is not one of the Trapster’s creations. The adhesive was actually created by Baron Zemo during World War II as revealed in Avengers #6. The confusion here might be because in that same issue, the Trapster was able to create a solvent that could dissolve Adhesive X. That all said, one could assume that the Wizard is attributing the creation of Adhesive X to his partner in error. It wouldn’t surprise me if old Paste-Pot Peter took credit for something he didn’t actually invent TBH.

Topical References

• Both Crystal and Volcana make quips about fried chicken, using the phrases “extra crispy” and “finger-licking good”. These are two catch phrases that were regularly used by the Kentucky Friend Chicken fast food chain (or KFC for short). This should be considered a topical reference as that is a real world brand.

• When Black Widow tries to trip Stilt-Man by tying up his legs he quips that this move went out of style with The Empire Strikes Back. The second film in the original Star Wars trilogy it features a scene where the Rebels clash with the Empire on the winter planet of Hoth. It has a memorable scene where Imperial AT-AT Walkers (massive tanks that walk on four legs) are tripped up by Rebel fighters that use cables to tie up their legs. A reference like this would usually be considered topical but now that Disney owns both Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm’s properties (including Star Wars), this is no longer the case as the company utilizes brand synergy to cross promote their various properties.

• Rather than playing traditional Bridal Chorus, Klaw chooses “More Human Than a Human” a song performed by the heavy metal group White Zombie. The group was at the height of their popularity when this comic came out and “More Human Than a Human” was one of their biggest hits of that time. This should be considered a topical reference as White Zombie broke up in 1998.

• The priest has a statistics book for the year 1995 on his pew so he can legally record the marriage of Carl and Mary. The year on the book should be considered topical.