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There’s not a lot to this story, but it’s fun.

Thing, Panther and Voodoo go to Africa to fight some zombie vampires together.

No, it’s a zombie vampire!

Creators: David Anthony Kraft, Ron Wilson
Grade: C

For the complete history of the MU, year by year, go here.

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Bettye LaVette covers Strange Fruit.

New by The Beths.

New Killers.

New IDLES.

New Candi Staton!

And finally, Maceo covers Prince.

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Interesting idea: Almost the whole issue takes place while Punisher jumps from a plane without a parachute and has a mid-air battle with enemies, whose villainy is told in flashbacks.

Creators: Chuck Dixon and Ron Wagner
Grade: C+

For the complete history of the MU, year by year, go here.

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The Surtur saga ended with Odin and Surtur being crushed under an avalanche.  This issue is pretty much a “clean up” issue, with Loki already beginning to scheme about taking over as the next ruler of Asgard.  Hela comes to Asgard, assuming Odin died in the cave-in, and Thor denies that his father his dead and hits her with his hammer.

Also, Fandral goes to Earth and erases everyone’s memories of Don Blake.  This is Walt Simonson’s way of saying that his decision to eliminate a secret identity for Thor is intended to be permanent.

Simonson’s Thor work is really hard to break up.  There are about a dozen different plotlines and nothing is neatly grouped into arcs designed for future trade bound publication.  It’s a great run—just one that’s hard to recapture and summarize.

Creator: Walt Simonson
Grade: B-

For the complete history of the MU, year by year, go here.
And see my Ratings of Runs on comics here.

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It’s Frankenstein!  Are they gonna fight?  Nawwww….

The Thing’s solo book wasn’t selling all that well, but John Byrne’s Fantastic Four was.  I’m sure that’s why Byrne, who was writing both books, had them cross-over.

It’s about Frankenstein, who ended up on Battleworld.  And also Jack Russell.

Also in this issue, the symbiote escapes.

Grade: C

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I love me some Man-Thing.  Can’t explain why.  Most Man-Thing comics are on the average-to-bad scale.  As with many Man-Thing tales, two kids get lost in a swamp.  Man-Thing finds them.  Hulk saves them.

But this issue also has a second Glob, which is cool.  In the end, Rick Jones offers a morality lesson:

This issue is a fill-in.

It’s a fine issue, an average comic, but since it falls during one of the greatest of all Hulk runs, I’m anxious for Peter David to return next issue.

Creators: Tom Field, Gary Barker
Grade: C

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The splash page has Storm joining the Avengers, followed by Colossus—who is introduced to the team by Ronald Reagan.

Then Kang bursts out of Iron Man’s armor, and a gang of other Kangs come grab him up and take him to another dimension, where they kill him.

So, yeah, rad beginning to the story.

This is the one that introduces the concept of many Kangs in many timelines getting together to govern the multiverse—something a bunch of Reed Richardses would do several decades later.  (The Storm/Colossus thing was an alternate timeline, and we also get some great fights between alternate universe characters throughout this story.)  We see that the 616 Kang has been steady killing off all the other Kangs and replacing them with Kangbots.  His main plot is genius: The 616 Kang brings the 616 Avengers to the limbo dimension, where the Kang Council meets, and throws a bunch of fake characters and robot Kangs at them to get them to swing wide and hard…

…so that they will unintentionally kill the one remaining alternate universe Kang.

Space Phantom also lives in the limbo dimension, and he knows what’s going on so Kang kills him before he can talk.

Space Phantom was one of the first enemies the Avengers ever faced, so killing him is “important” in that sense, even though as a villain he’s never really made sense to me.

We also see dire wraiths, who were banished to limbo by ROM, using his neutralizer.

In the end, Kang doesn’t need The Avengers to kill the other Kang—he does it himself, and it’s actually pretty bloody.

Then Immortus arrives and reveals that this was all his own master plan (and he, of course, is yet another version of Kang who diverged from the timestream as a result of Kang’s manipulating time).  It turns out, Immortus is a good guy and he’s been enabling Kang to travel through time as part of his own master plan to stop Kang from.

This is weird, because Kang did a lot of damage for a lot of years.  It seems like Immortus could have found a better way to stop Kang than to let him run amok through the time stream.

Also, Hercules punches the crap out of Growing Man.

Kang escapes at the end, and Immortus sends The Avengers back to their own time.

Not the best Kang story.  Not the worst.

But this was the best part:

Creators: Roger Stern and John Buscema
Grade: B+

For the complete history of the MU, year by year, go here.
And see my Ratings of Runs on comics here.

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