The Unspoken, Part 2

A Few Years Ago…[1]

In the Tibetan Mountains, two young boys are exploring when they come upon a cave with strange markings outside. One of them bravely decides to go exploring inside. There he finds the deposed Inhuman ruler known as the Unspoken. He has spent the convening years cultivating Xerogenesis Crystals in a bid to create the Slave Engine he refused to produce for his people and win back their favor.[2]

When the boy begins to breath in the mist from the crystals he begins to change and collapses to the ground. That’s when the entire cave begins to shake. The Unspoken goes outside to see what the cause is, scaring away the other little boy in the process. He looks up in the sky and sees that the Inhumans city of Attilan is being relocated to the moon.

He realizes that Black Bolt is using Agon’s contingency, which was a failsafe plan if his people were at threat from the human race. This makes the Unspoken realize that he is far too late and that he is now all alone….

Now

The Unsoken had been discovered in China by the People’s Defense Force who had come to kick him out. He took them down with a single blast of his cosmic energy. This convinces him that his salvation cannot wait another day and moves onward with his band of loyal Alpha Primitives. This has been observed by the Avengers known as Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) and US Agent (John Walker), who are working with GRAMPA’s Ban-Luck. Pietro remembers the legends about the Unspoken and realizes that they are in deep trouble and will need everyone on deck to stop whatever he is planning.

Quicksilver sends a distress call to the Mighty Avengers’ headquarters, the Infinite Mansion. The call is picked up by Loki, who has been posing as the Scarlet Witch.[3] Seeing Pietro as a threat to her plans and closes communications in the hopes that he will die in battle. She is caught in the act by Stature (Cassie Lang) who knew that the Witch was evil.[4] She tries to warn Jocasta — the Infinite Mansion’s robotic assistant — but Loki casts a spell that makes her unable to tell any of her teammates about what she saw.[5] Retreating back to Asgard, Loki is losing her patience with Cassie Lang, who is only being kept around to pacify the Vision.[6] Since this isn’t working out, she is now decides to eliminate her.

Stature goes down to the dining room where the team is having a mission. The Vision asks why they are still together after they defeated Chthon, and Hank says that this team is staying together as the world needs real Avengers and they’re it.[7] Cassie tries to warn them about the Scarlet Witch, but the spell put on her continues to prevent her from doing so. That’s when the Witch appears in the room and reminds Hank how Cassie betrayed them during their recent clash with the Fantastic Four.[8] Hank is pretty forgiving and still wants her on the team and since Cassie is trying to say something important asks her what’s up. She decides to change tactics and asks to return to New York so she can see her friends and family and tell them what’s going on. Hank admits that they have been going non-stop since their first mission and gives everyone a subatomic keys that will allow them to access all of the dimensional doorways to the Infinite Mansion so they can come and go as they please. However, he tells them to be careful because he hasn’t fully set up the security systems and anyone can follow them in. Hank then tells Jarvis that when US Agent and Quicksilver get back from their mission to get them to see him for keys of their own.

Jarvis figures that they will be back from an uneventful mission, but his would be wrong. At that moment, the surviving members of the People’s Defense Force — Collective Man, Radioactive Man (Chen Lu), Scientific Beast, and Lady of Ten Suns — have recovered from the Unspoken’s cosmic blast and are now attack them. Radioactive Man accuses them of being agents of Norman Osborn and are helping the Unspoken invade China.[9][10] As the group fights, Collective Man strikes US Agent’s shield with the strength of the entire population of China, cracking the near indestructible weapon.[11] Eventually, Ban-Luck gets them to stop fighting and explains that they have come to help stop the Unspoken and that they should work together.

Meanwhile, the Young Avengers — Patriot (Eli Bradley), Wiccan (Billy Kaplan), Hulkling (Teddy Altman), Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) and Speed (Tommy Shepherd) — are meeting in the ruins of Avengers Mansion.[12] They are discussing finding a new meeting place after Stature and Vision left the group unaware that they are being spied on by two HAMMER agents. However, before they can attack, someone comes out of the shadows and silently knocks them out. They are met by Stature who asks them to follow her into the portal to the Infinite Mansion. As the door beings to close, the man who knocked out the HAMMER agents uses a shuriken to prevent it from completely closing so he can follow them.

Inside, Cassie tells the group that she has information about the Scarlet Witch, the woman believed to be the mother of Wiccan and Speed.[13] However, she explains that a spell is preventing her from talking about it and asks Wiccan to use his magic to reverse it. As Billy gets to work, Loki senses that someone is messing with her spell and appears before the Young Avengers as the Scarlet Witch once more. She strikes the youths down with a mystical bolt, but before she can finish them off, Ronin (Clint Barton) arrives to stop her!

Continuity Notes

Mighty Avengers (Wasp, Quicksilver, Hercules, Jocasta, US Agent, Stature, Vision, Amadeus Cho), the Unspoken, Ban-Luck, “Scarlet Witch”, Young Avengers (Patriot, Wiccan, Hulkling, Hawkeye, Speed), Ronin, People’s Defense Force (Collective Man, Radioactive Man, Scientific Beast, Lady of Ten Suns), Edwin Jarvis, Alpha Primitives, HAMMER

Continuity Notes

1. As this flashback takes place while the Inhumans are relocating from the Himalayan Mountains to the Moon, this could have only taken place during the events of Fantastic Four #240. That issue was published in March, 1982 while this issue was published in October, 2009. Per the Sliding Timescale, this places them as occurring in “year six” and “year twelve” respectively, making this flashback occur roughly six years prior to the main story. That’s more than a few years ago, but the narrative is being vague so who cares?

2. As we saw last issue, the Unspoken was deposed by Black Bolt and his cousins years earlier and he has been living in exile ever since.

3. As revealed in Mighty Avengers #23, Loki has been posing as the Scarlet Witch since issue #21 in order to manipulate this new team of Avengers to suit her own ends.

4. Cassie’s mistrust the Scarlet Witch stems from the fact that the real Wanda Maximoff seemingly killed her father, Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man), in Avengers #500. In reality, Cassie’s future self will have pulled him forward in time to save his life, as seen in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #5.

5. Sharp eyed readers will probably recognize this silence spell as the same one Baron Mordo once used on Stephen Strange before he became a sorcerer as seen in Strange Tales #115.

6. Here, Loki appears in female form, this has been his status quo since Thor (vol. 3) #5.This gender swap happened after the recent Ragnarok cycle of death and rebirth (Thor (vol. 2) #80-85 and Thor (vol. 3) #1), it’s later revealed in Thor (vol. 3) #8 and 12 that Loki has stolen the body of Sif. This situation will be undone in Thor #602.

7. This team of Avengers were gathered to fight Chthon in Mighty Avengers #21-23.

8. The group recently fought the Fantastic Four in order to get a device that was needed to finish the Infinite Mansion in Mighty Avengers #25-26. Cassie snitched on their plans because her father was once a member of the FF from Fantastic Four #384-408.

9. Radioactive Man states here that he is well aware of Osborn’s ways. This is because Chen was forced to work with Osborn during his tenure on the Thunderbolts while he was on loan to the US from the Chinese government. Osborn then used his position to send Lu home to better control the group. See Thunderbolts #110-126.

10. Here, US Agent reminds everyone that if it wasn’t for Osborn, everyone would be speaking Skrull. This is in reference to a recent invasion of Earth that took place in Secret Invasion #1-8. In the final battle Osborn was the one who killed the Skrull Queen, which put him in the position of America’s top cop thereafter, a position he will hold until Siege #1-4.

11. US Agent’s shield is said to be less durable than that of the real Captain America’s. Cap’s shield was made of a fusion of Adamantium and Vibranium making it nearly indestructible as explained in Captain America #303. The one US Agent uses is made out of Adamantium, making it durable but not as much as Cap’s, it is based on designs created by Tony Stark in Captain America #339.

12. Avengers Mansion was wrecked by the Scarlet Witch in Avengers #500-503. It has severed as a meeting place for the Young Avengers since they first formed in Young Avengers #1-5. It will remain in a state of disrepair until New Avengers (vol. 2) #1.

13. The relationship between the Scarlet Witch, Wiccan and Speed is complicated. The details:

    • Years earlier, the Scarlet Witch used her magic to make herself pregnant in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3. She gave birth to two twin boys in issue #12 of that series and named them Billy and Tommy. Tragically, the infants were erased from existence by Master Pandemonium in Avengers West Coast #52.

    • After the Young Avengers were gathered, the Vision told Billy and Tommy that they were somehow related to the Scarlet Witch, as seen in Young Avengers #11. They will later discover that they are the reincarnations of the original Billy and Tommy in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #1-9.

Topical References

• Amadeus jokingly suggests that Hank’s “side project” is something called “Avengers Gone Wild”. This is a reference to the Girls Gone Wild series of videos. Created in 1997, this absolutely cringeworthy adult films featured creator Joe Francis going to massive parties (such as Mardis Gras) and coercing women to flash their breasts on camera. It was a highly popular series but ended in 2011 due to a series of lawsuits from women who were on camera and the business eventually went bankrupt in 2013. Good riddance. Its reference here should be considered topical. I’m sure you can come up with an equally gross contemporary example to use in its place here, there is no shortage of problematic pornography out there.

• Collective Man states that he is 1 billion people strong as his powers draw collective strength from the entire population of China. This should be considered topical as this was the population of that country roughly around the time this comic was published in 2009 and will constantly be subject to change. For example, census data from 2023 numbers the population at about 1.4 billion people.