Christmas in Latveria

 

‘Tis the season! Once again, we near the end of the year, the time of decking halls, panic buying gifts and general chaos. To mark the festive season I wanted to take a look at the time the MC2’s Avengers went to Latveria for Christmas and found…Doom!

 

Our story opens with a prologue set in the ruins of Doomstadt, the former capital of the Balkan nation of Latveria. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents discuss the destruction wrought by the long-ago war between Namor the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom as they search for a lost little girl. The pair are forced to cut their search short when they are attacked by Killer Robot’s. As they flee, they catch a glimpse of a distant figure on a rampart. Has Doctor Doom returned? (A-Next #5)

 

A few days later at the Avengers Headquarters in New York, J2 aka Zane Yama finds Thunderstrike aka Kevin Masterson reviewing old files about his father Eric Masterson, the original Thunderstrike. Meanwhile, a frustrated Stinger (Cassie Lang) brushes off American Dream (Shannon Carter) before confronting Mainframe about the unconfirmed reports of the return of Doctor Doom. While the Fantastic Five have been tasked with investigating, Cassie and her father Scott Lang (the former Ant-Man) convince them to let a team of Avengers go instead. However, Cassie is surprised to learn from Mainframe she’ll be accompanied by the new additions to the team American Dream and her fellow Dream Team members Bluestreak, Freebooter and Crimson Curse (A-Next #5).

 

Attempting to patch things up with her new team mates, Cassie tells them her real reason for wishing to travel to Latveria so much; Kristoff Vernard, a young boy and ward of Doctor Doom who she met and befriended when they all lived in the Baxter Building with the Fantastic Four. The pair grew close over the years until Kristoff returned to his home country Latveria when he heard a war was brewing between Doom and Namor. With Latveria devastated in the ensuing conflict, Doctor Doom was missing in action and believed dead, while Cassie lost all contact with Kristoff Vernard (A-Next #5).

 

As Thunderstrike, Kevin Masterson visits his father Eric’s grave, thinking about how he is trying to make him proud. A nearby awkward J2, unsure of what to do eventually puts his hand on Kevin’s shoulder to show his support before unintentionally reverting back into Zane Yama. Kevin invites Zane to join him for pizza (A-Next #5).

 

Arriving in the city of Doomstadt, the Avengers team plan to search Castle Doom for the missing girl, but are attacked by the Killer Robots. The Avengers make short work of them, especially once Crimson Curse demonstrates her abilities. Uncovering underground tunnels, Stinger ditches the others, shrinking to make her way through a blocked passage (A-Next #5).

 

Back in New York, Zane is impressed by Kevin’s apartment, including his Stunt Master poster. While Kevin feeds his cat Alex, Zane noticed a bunch of unopened letters from Kevin’s stepfather, Bobby Steele. Kevin reveals the two aren’t on the best of terms and that his mother would often have to play peacemaker between them. Zane responds that he dreams about having a father in his life and that Kevin is lucky to have had two and encourages him to call Bobby for Christmas (A-Next #5).

 

Hearing a child’s voice, Stinger eventually finds the missing girl Greta is not alone and appears to be talking with Doctor Doom. Listening to the pair talk, Stinger hears the girl ask Doom about his scary mask but before she can get a look beneath, the rest of the Avengers bust into the room. Stinger flies between them, demanding they stop their attack. With American Dream trusting her, Stinger explains the masked figure isn’t the real Doctor Doom. Cassie removes her helmet as Doom removes his mask to reveal himself as Kristoff Vernard and the pair embrace (A-Next #5).

 

Kristoff reveals that he returned home to ensure that Doctor Doom’s vast arsenal of advanced weapons of mass destruction never fell into the wrong hands. As Doctor Doom’s heir, Kristoff alone was given full access to all of Doom’s creations and ideas and therefore he concealed his own existence to ensure they could not be exploited. Kristoff Vernard bids Cassie a sad farewell and disappears (A-Next #5).

 

Returning to the outer perimeter with young Greta, the Avengers tell S.H.I.E.L.D. they saw no one else within the area just as Castle Doom is destroyed in an enormous flash of green light. As snow begins to fall, Greta tells the disbelieving S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that Father Christmas destroyed the castle as a gift to the world. With the Avengers coming together as a team, American Dream backs up the girl’s story as Stinger wishes her a Merry Christmas (A-Next #5).

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful time over the holidays and lets hope the New Year brings us all something positive.

 

Until I stop believing, I remain

 

frogoat

 

A-Next Ages: Bluestreak

I thought it might be fun to work out the approximate ages of the various members of the MC2’s Avengers. Keep in mind this isn’t definitive unless it’s spelt out on the page and is merely a rough estimate based on in-universe information or where necessary statements from the creative teams involved in the characters creation and development.

For today’s inaugural post, I thought why not continue the Bluestreak love? So, let’s see what we can deduce about the mutant speedster Blue Kelso’s age from references in the comics.

Starting with her first appearances in A-Next, there isn’t a whole lot of specific information given about Blue that we could use to work out how old she is, but what we do get suggests she is a youthful and…*ahem*… exuberant young woman.  

Note she is significantly shorter than all other members of the Dream Team which could suggest she is still young in years and has some growing to do (A-Next #4).

In A-Next #6, the seemingly teen aged hero Argo the Almighty (son of Hercules) notes to himself that Thunderstrike, American Dream and Bluestreak are ‘all around my age’.

Blue also makes a passing reference to current school curriculum in A-Next #10, which could imply she either currently attends or recently attended school. Given her power set and personality, it's very likely Blue finished her schooling rather quickly. Perhaps while still training with the X-People?  

Perhaps the biggest indication for Blue’s actual age also comes from Argo, this time in the pages of Last Hero Standing amid a battle with the Incredible Hulk in issue #4, when the Almighty states ‘Bluestreak’s only a teenager.’

The most prominent character thread for Blue throughout A-Next, J2, Wild Thing and even Avengers Next is her unrequited crush on her fellow Avenger J2 aka Zane Yama. While at first, we only see Miss Kelso show interest in the massively muscular super heroic J2 alter ego, she does appear to later learn of his secret identity as scrawny teenager Zane Yama and still retains her feelings for him (Avengers Next #1-5). Zane will surely be the subject of a later entry in this series at some point, but for now, that point should be kept in mind!  

I’d be remiss not to mention the American Dream mini-series which heavily features flashbacks to the titular character’s origin, including her time training under mentor (and former Avenger Hawkeye) Clint Barton alongside Brandon Cross, Aerika Harkness and, of course, Blue Kelso. What these scenes tell us is that the four members of the Dream Team are roughly around the same age, even if we don’t learn specifics.

Now let’s move onto information not present in the comics. We have a response to a fan-question about both Freebooter and Bluestreak by Tom Defalco from the Alvaro’s Comicboards Spider-Girl Message Board. Here’s the question and response:

‘James Hunter: This one is where the clarification is needed, in your mind, how old are Bluestreak and Freebooter? I ask because a friend and I were discussing how mature Freebooter seems at times (in the end we decided that Freebooter must be about 19 and Bluestreak in the early teens, maybe 15 or so, would that be about right?)

Tom Defalco: Sounds about right.’

Skipping ahead to the recent wonderfully in-depth interview with Ron Frenz on Adam Chapman’s Comic Shenanigans podcast, we have this comment regarding the relationships between the members of the Dream Team:

‘I liked the way they interacted, I liked the way Brandon and Blue came across as brother and sister, harping at each other. And Shannon kind of came across as the oldest sister who was constantly going ‘Bluestreak!’ and telling her to mind herself and all that kind of stuff.’

That’s about all we have, folks. So, in conclusion, I’d be willing to guess that Bluestreak is the youngest of the Dream Team. She’s roughly around the age of Zane Yama, whom she maintains a crush on despite knowing in his youthful civilian form. She’s younger than Freebooter but not significantly so. If I had to be specific, I’d say Blue Kelso is 14-16 years old throughout the publishing history of the MC2.

Until I get a life, I remain

frogoat  

Hawkeye in the MC2

With all the build up for Avengers: Endgame, I've elected to cover the MC2 incarnations of the films main cast. For this entry, we'll be taking a look at Marvel's greatest archer and Avengers mainstay, Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.

Making his first appearance in the MC2 in the A-Next #7 in a flashback to the last days of the original Avengers team, we learn that not only did Clint join the team on their final mission, he was among the few to return alive. However, Hawkeye did not make it out unscathed, returning without his sight.

While Clint makes his first present day appearance in A-Next #10, I'm going to jump around a bit to cover the years after the Avengers final mission. Despite the loss of his eye sight, Clint open's up Barton's Dojo and began teaching martial arts. It's in American Dream #3-#4 that we glimpse Barton's group of special students: later known as the Dream Team consisting of  American Dream, Freebooter, Crimson Curse and Bluestreak.

We first learned of the young heroes mentor via mentions and allusions in the A-Next series, including my personal favourite mention in A-Next #9.

When the new Avengers team venture to the alternate world, Clint Barton visits Avengers Compound seeking his former students, but instead encounters Edwin Jarvis and the long-absent Tony Stark, leading to Clint and Tony arguing about how their last mission ended (A-Next #10).

When the Avengers return, they are immediately captured by the Red Queen and her Revengers and join the already-captured Jarvis, Stark and Barton as captives. However, thanks to a ploy by Stark, the group are freed by Mainframe's reinforcements. Clint's remaining former students inform him of the apparent death of Crimson Curse (A-Next #12).

We don't see Clint again until the events of Last Hero Standing, wherein Barton is kidnapped by Loki in a scheme to turn all the heroes against each other by filling his captives with malice. Notably, Clint returns to his Hawkeye identity here for the first time. It's also worth pointing out that Hawkeye doesn't appear to be vision impaired while under Loki's dark spell, though this may be simply my interpretation. Perhaps it's a side benefit of Asgardian magic? After the spell is broken, Clint returns to his usual self, asking about Captain America's condition as the latter lays dying (Last Hero Standing #2-#5).

With so many members of with injuries or otherwise absent, Stark takes it upon himself to recruits some 'experienced pros' to fill out the Avengers roster. The Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man and Hawkeye are joined by Stark's 'personal bodyguard' (actually Jim Rhodes) on a mission to investigate and apprehend Normie Osborn. Things go awry when Rhodes (now more machine than man) is inadvertently hit by a hex bolt from the Scarlet Witch, triggering a violent rampage. Equipped with special goggles that allow him to see, Hawkeye assists the rest of the team in stopping Rhodes. Ultimately, Hawkeye and the other older heroes decide they can serve better as mentors and advisers to the new generation of heroes (Spider-Girl #93-#95).

Presumably still making use of Stark's fancy goggles, Hawkeye meets with his former students, Freebooter and American Dream for a spar and a pep talk before joining the assembled heroes in combating the threat of Galactus. During the conflict, Hawkeye convinces the Revenger known as Sabreclaw to join in the effort, an act which ultimately leads to the former villain joining the Avengers shortly after (Last Planet Standing #1-5).

While we don't see Hawkeye in the flesh after this point outside of the aforementioned American Dream flashbacks, we do see a magical energy duplicate created when Sylene attempts to recreate Asgard on Earth in Avengers Next #4-#5.

While he may be blind and less powerful than most of the other older heroes in the MC2, I believe Hawkeye has had the most impact on the next generation of heroes. Not only did he train Freebooter, American Dream, Crimson Curse and Bluestreak, his influence also inspired the villainous Sabreclaw to reform and apply for membership on the Avengers. While Tony Stark went into isolation and Captain America was believed dead, Clint Barton kept the spirit of the Avengers alive.

Until I learn how to pull of a trick shot or two or even just loose and arrow with accuracy, I remain

frogoat