On this day (May 11, late) in Sharon Carter history, Sharon appeared in:
Captain America #140 (1971)
Captain America Omnibus Vol 1 HC (Reprint Tales of Suspense #75-#76, #85, #92-#95, #97-#99, Captain America #100-#104, #107-#109, #112-#113) (2011)
Captain America Omnibus Vol 1 HC Variant (Reprint Tales of Suspense #75-#76, #85, #92-#95, #97-#99, Captain America #100-#104, #107-#109, #112-#113) (2011)
Huh! This is a good month for Avengers facing weird threesomes. Uh, three person villain teams.
But Screaming Mimi, Grey Gargoyle, and Yellowjacket are a very different grouping than Quantum, Halflife, and Zzzax!
For one, I imagine that none of these three are going to get beat in like five seconds like Zzzax did. For another, if there’s a theme here its indecipherable.
Anyway.
Pertinent last times in Avengers: the Wasp went on vacation to avoid an awkward conversation with Starfox (mood.) where she met a guy called Paladin and they hit it off. He couldn’t come back to New York to be her boytoy because he had his own career but they made vague plans to get together again.
Namor joined the Avengers, tried to not be angry at everything, partially succeeded. When word got out about him being an Avenger, it caused a public opinion split between those who remember all the times Namor flooded or invaded New York and those who remember him punching Nazis and his stints of grumpy heroism. Then he got sued for property damage. He demanded that the trial should take place as soon as possible but then got dragged off because of Atlantis drama.
Moonstone escaped jail and tried to stir up trouble by pretending to be a widow. She passed up several obvious escape opportunities once shit hit the fan so wound up getting exploded by Black Knight and captured. But the police that took her away were actually Absorbing Man and Titania, with an exciting new opportunity for her.
Also, Hercules has been chafing under Wasp’s leadership. Partially because of sexism. Not a great look.
That brings us to this:
I’m sure Wasp sometimes feels that managing a superhero team is like dealing with extremely muscular, dumb babies.
Black Knight explains the thing from last time with Byrrah coming from Atlantis to tell Namor that Attuma had taken over the city. And Namor rushing off declaring This Is Something He Has To Do Himself.
Wasp: “Oh, fine! I can’t believe Namor would just up and leave like that! What was he thinking of?”
Hercules: “‘Twas nothing wrong with the Sub-Mariner’s thinking! Facing Attuma alone is a point of honor! But then, I shouldn’t expect a woman to understand such things!”
Wasp: “What?!? I’ll have you know I understand honor perfectly well, Hercules -- but that’s not the point! It’ll take Namor days to reach Atlantis under his own power... we could have flown him there in a matter of minutes! Maybe you’d have thought of that, if you had something between your ears besides muscles!”
And she pokes him emphatically in the pecs.
He gets mad at her disrespect, she gets mad at his disrespect and Black Knight yells at Hercules to please not smash the chairwoman.
Hercules gets mad, squishes the rest of his snacking grapes, and stomps off.
Wasp tells Black Knight to let Hercules go cool off because he’s the one who’s out of line.
Black Knight: “But what if he doesn’t cool off? What if he doesn’t come back?!”
Wasp: “Then we’ll deal with it! All right?”
-and she too stomps off-
Black Knight, glumly: “Yeah, sure.”
Dane had to wait all of these years to join the Avengers, he shows up and Vision tries to become the internet and take over the world. But maybe things will settle down after that but NOPE! The government is withdrawing their support, the roster is a powder keg, and two of the stronger dudes have walked off to deal with personal stuff.
The secret though is that the Avengers are always about this level of dramatic. You’ll never not have any drama, Dane. You want a boring team go back in time and join the original the Champions.
Heck, things get soap opera but hard when you take primary focus on the Avengers, apparently.
Plus side, it got you an extended cameo in a movie so its not all bad.
Meanwhile, Hercules.
He’s walking down the streets of New York New York fuming “all my former wives together were not as demanding as the Wasp!” and that he’s considering ditching the Avengers and going home to Olympus because screw mortals and their folly.
When what does he encounter but a situation requiring stupid, brute force.
A MacRay Moving truck trailer has tipped over in the street due to a Subaru cutting it off. Nobody was hurt but the street is blocked.
Enter Hercules who has nothing better to do.
He confirms that the truck isn’t filled with breakables, spits on his hands, and sets the truck upright.
The driver only belatedly realizing that this isn’t just a random guy dressed the same as Hercules, it’s the actual Hercules!
Driver: “Lissen, my boss woulda taken this outta my pay! Lemme at least buy you a drink!”
Hercules: “Well, there be hope for mankind after all! Lead on, my friend!”
How very Hercules of Hercules.
Meanwhile, Wasp. Getting chauffeured and also still fuming about Hercules and Namor.
Wasp: Namor couldn’t have picked a worse time to play the ‘lone Avenger’! Just yesterday, he made such a big deal about going to court to face the insurance consortium that’s suing him for two billion. ‘Shouldn’t expect a woman to understand such things!’ Ohhh!
She’s so irritated that when a silent alarm trips at her Sutton Place apartment, she decides to handle it herself because “right now, I would welcome an excuse to hand somebody his head!”
Annnnnnd it’s Paladin.
Hi, Paladin!
His last job came with a big bonus so he’s decided to treat himself to spending time with Wasp.
So took the liberty of breaking into her home. But he brought champagne so that’s almost like being a good, uninvited guest.
From her angry expression, he deduces she’s angry but she says she’s not angry at him! She’s just got a lot of things going on and even though she’s glad to see him, it’s hard to just switch off that emotion.
He offers to listen to her woes which, hey, that’s like the bare minimum of a relationship but its good for him to hit that bare minimum.
Maybe this relationship can exist outside the carefree vacation mindset.
Wasp: “Believe me, you don’t want to hear about it! Lately things have been so chaotic --!”
Phone: BRR-RING
Wasp: “See what I mean? That’s probably more bad news!”
Oof, you should de-stress, Wasp. That’s a very negative attitude.
But she cheers up after receiving the phone call - evidently good news - and asks Paladin to escort her to a fun trip to Passaic County Jail.
MEANWHILE AGAIN, this book has a number of subplots, doesn’t it?
But meanwhile, the New York FBI offices.
Captain Marvel just comes in to Agent Derek Freeman’s office as a lightbeam because she’s as much a security threat as Kitty Pryde is in terms of just going wherever she feels like.
Anyway, it does him a startle.
And it’s not getting old.
I love when Monica alarms people by just appearing somewhere.
Anyway, Monica has come for information. And since the Avengers are still in the doghouse with their government information sources, Monica decides she’ll ask Agent Freeman. They’ve worked together a few times plus he seems like a cool guy who’ll bend the rules.
Which he agrees is the case.
With the Avengers’ losing their government information sources, Captain Marvel only heard about Moonstone escaping police custody from the radio. Because the Avengers get so much of their information from the news.
Derek confirms that Moonstone escaped custody and that it looks like she had super-powered help. AND - because it doesn’t rain but pours - its part of a recent pattern of other super-criminals breaking out of jail in recent weeks.
Grey Gargoyle, Whirlwind, and Mister Hyde have all been broken out of jail.
Agent Derek feels like this is being masterminded by someone but who and for what purpose escapes him.
It didn’t help that there was a recent string of murders of at-large criminals that confused the issue. Thanks, the Scourge of the Underworld. Ya jerk.
Monica asks Derek to keep her posted if he learns more. Which he’d be glad to. And not in exchange but - he asks her to dinner, basically. Which she’d be glad to, as soon as she has free time.
Captain Marvel: “I’m sort of tied up through next week, though. But after that... maybe you’ll keep me in mind?”
Agent Freeman: “Oh, I surely will!”
Agent Freeman thoughts: It’d be might hard not to keep a woman like that in mind! Gonna be a long time until next week.
Captain Marvel thoughts: What a nice invitation! Derek is so polite... so intelligent... so gorgeous! This could be a very long week!
They both have it bad for each other.
Captain Marvel nyooms back to Avengers Mansion and finds Black Knight shooting his sword with a science gun.
As one does.
Its not just for the hell of it though. Dane is trying to explore that new power his extremely cursed sword demonstrated.
It can slice through most things, it can deflect most energy but if its angled just right, it can absorb energy too.
And Dane can’t figure out whether its because the sword is made of some bullshit space metal or whether its because of all the spells Merlin put on it.
Captain Marvel: “Does that bother you?”
Black Knight: “A little! I’m the only scientist on Earth -- who has a magic sword!”
But since Monica came to him for help with her own powers, Dane puts the sword to the side for now to talk the electromagnetic spectrum.
He doesn’t know how much help he can provide since she seems to have mastered said entire electromagnetic spectrum.
So Monica narrows down her concern.
Sure, she can become x-rays and cosmic rays. And high energy radiation is useful for zipping through things but they’re too dangerous to use around people.
Black Knight: “Ever heard of neutrinos? They’re safer than mother’s milk!”
Captain Marvel: “I’ve heard of neutrons.”
Black Knight: “Neutrinos are different. They’re massless particles that can go through anything and everything! I think that if you learn to ‘tune’ yourself properly, you can become neutrinos. We’ll find out if that’s possible by testing you against the largest close neutrino source... the sun!”
God, I love superhero comics.
‘You should learn about neutrinos by going to... THE SUN.’
Anyway.
Elsewhere, later, in New Jersey.
Wasp and Paladin have gone to Passaic County Jail because they’re holding New Yellowjacket Rita DeMara.
Remember her?
She stole Hank Pym’s Yellowjacket outfit from Avengers Mansion, gave it a makeover, and then made the mistake of trying to rob Hank’s old lab at Janet’s house? And Janet thumped her good and gave her existential fright?
Anyway, Janet doesn’t know about the initial theft so wants to know from Rita where she got her Yellowjacket suit.
Rita snarks that she made it herself and then says she won’t say anything without a lawyer present.
And then her lawyer presents and declares it OUTRAGE that superheroes were interrogating his client without the presence of counsel.
Wasp immediately rips off lawyer’s lawyer goatee.
Not because she hates it when she doesn’t get to violate someone’s civil liberties. But because she recognizes the lawyer.
He’s not a lawyer at all!
He’s Gray Gargoyle! Foreshadowed as being at large earlier in the issue!
Also, Screaming Mimi!
... Uh... She was a superpowered wrestler, I think? But she’s big into supervillainy now.
Mimi says her scream should incapacitate an average person for 15 to 30 minutes so the two villains get to work.
They tear away their tear-away clothes to reveal their costumes. Mimi grabs Rita. And Gray Gargoyle decides that what he definitely should do is stone Paladin just so people go ‘wow the Gray Gargoyle has definitely been here.’
But Paladin jumps up and kicks Gray Gargoyle through the door. His head is fuzzy from Screaming Mimi’s scream but he’s not down.
Paladin decides he should press his advantage against Gray Gargoyle, while cautioning himself that Gray Gargoyle is stronger than he appears.
... Shortly before getting punched through the wall.
Womp womp.
Meanwhile, Mimi tries to rouse Rita and take her away, ha ha, but Wasp also isn’t as incapacitated as advertised either.
As about an ankle-high Wasp, she grabs Screaming Mimi and trips her. But Screaming Mimi screams as she falls.
And this time, the scream knocks Wasp out.
Things aren’t going well.
BUT, NINETY THREE MILLIONS MILES AWAY, Captain Marvel vibes in the Sun’s chromosphere.
She feels something that she thinks might be neutrinos and assumes a form that may be that.
Back at Avengers Mansion, the transmission is breaking up - probably because she’s transmitting RIGHT NEXT TO THE SUN.
Black Knight tries to ask her what’s going on but then realizes a fun science fact.
It takes eight minutes for a message to get to the sun. It would take eight minutes for a message to get back. It’s going to be sixteen minutes before he even knows if she heard him.
And he’s worried that she sounded strange while she was vibing on neutrinos and worried that if anything goes wrong, there’s no way to help her. BECAUSE SHE’S 93 MILLION MILES AWAY AND RIGHT NEXT TO THE SUN.
He gets distracted from that though because it turns out that Wasp managed to activate her emergency beacon, calling for reinforcements.
Since Black Knight is the only one at the mansion right then, he tries to contact the other Avengers.
Hercules doesn’t answer because he accidentally damages his radio transceiver while arm wrestling five sailors at the same time in a bar.
Captain America answers but he’s several hours away, biking around on his motorcycle.
Cap suggests that Black Knight contact Captain Marvel because she’s the fastest. But Black Knight is frustrated because of that eight minute delay each way if he tried to contact her, IF he managed to get through, and IF she isn’t just zoning out by the sun and doesn’t answer.
Black Knight: “No word from Herc, either! And in the meantime, lord knows what sort of trouble the Wasp is in! I may be her only hope! But if Captain Marvel should need help, and I’m not here...!”
Not sure what you’d do even if she did need help. Do you have a spaceship ready to go?
Anyway.
Back at the prison, Wasp regains consciousness after being Mimi’d.
Apparently to keep her out of the way, the villains put a wastebasket on top of her. Then Gray Gargoyle turned it to stone.
She just blasts a hole through it. Her Wasp sting yadda yadda small house.
Paladin is more incapacitated.
Gray Gargoyle pinned him under a filing cabinet and then turned it to stone.
He tells Wasp to go on ahead without him because the villains only have a couple minutes head start.
Wow, she wasn’t knocked out very long at all.
Gray Gargoyle actually complains about it, as the villains are getaway driving.
Gray Gargoyle: “You said they’d be out at least 15 minutes!”
Screaming Mimi: “I said the ‘average person’ ... neither of them was average!”
Fair point, fair point.
Anyway, despite the head start and driving a car, Wasp catches up to them and blows out a tire so they’ll crash into an overpass.
Okay, to be fair, they crash into an overpass because Gray Gargoyle had no confidence in Mimi’s ability to handle a flat, grabbed the wheel, and accidentally swerved into the overpass.
Gray Gargoyle complains that he didn’t just turn her to stone while she was passed out at the jail and y’know that’s a good point.
This firm clutching of the villain ball is on you, dude.
You put a stone trash can over her!
Wasp isn’t sure if she can actually beat Gray Gargoyle by herself when she’s still woozy from getting Mimi’d twice but she does her Waspish best, flying just out of reach and being really distracting.
Inside the overturned van, Rita DeMara wakes up surprised she’s in her Yellowjacket costume. She also is surprised that a radio starts calling for Mimi and Gray Gargoyle.
When she answers the radio, telling radio person that Mimi got knocked unconscious and Gray Gargoyle is chasing the Wasp, the radio person tells her that the important thing is that she ditch the other two and escape.
Back at the fight, Gray Gargoyle rips up a tree to try to swat Wasp with it. For irony reasons, probably.
But Black Knight shows up on his atomic steed, cuts the tree in half and then cuts it in half in a different way when Gray Gargoyle tries to throw it at him.
Gray Gargoyle: “Only one Avenger comes to your aid, Wasp? What a pity... for both of you!”
Black Knight: “If this is the best attack you can muster, Gargoyle, you should save your pity for yourself!”
Burn.
Like a smart guy, Gray Gargoyle decides to grab the Ebony Blade and turn it into stone so he can break it just to be a dick.
The Ebony Blade doesn’t like that too much so it turns Gray Gargoyle into not-stone.
It can do that. It’s incredibly enchanted and alarmingly cursed.
Also, I think the inker changed on this page specifically? Because the inking definitely did. The inks feel heavier than on the preceding or succeeding page.
There’s not an inker listed on the creative credits so I don’t know.
Oh, but here’s something!
This Marvel Unlimited version of the book has an extra page at the end, explaining that some of the stoned people in the prison and unstoned Gray Gargoyle were miscolored in the original printing.
It’s apparently been fixed for this version.
Anyway, as happens whenever Gray Gargoyle suddenly unstones, someone pops him in the jaw and knocks him out. When he’s not stone, man cannot take a punch.
At this point, Paladin shows up, having freed himself from that stone desk and I guess run down the road and found the crashed van. He has Screaming Mimi bound and gagged but reports that Rita DeMara Yellowjacket escaped in the confusion.
Which just confuses Black Knight because he has no idea who Paladin is or that there was a new Yellowjacket.
AND THEN, Captain Marvel shows up.
Black Knight asks if she’s alright but Monica is just confused what he’s talking about.
Wasp catches up Black Knight and Captain Marvel with the plot and introduces Paladin to them.
Which frees Black Knight to be quietly jealous.
Simmer down, Dane.
Sure, Wasp is a great person but you’ll be in a love triangle in a couple years. That’s... something?
Several days later, Black Knight and Captain America are discussing the jailbreak.
Gray Gargoyle and Screaming Mimi have refused to give any information on why they broke Rita Yellowjacket out of jail or whether its connected to the other supervillain jailbreaks.
Captain America: “I don’t like this, Dane. Those escapees are dangerous enough individually -- if they should band together, they’d conceivably have power enough to throw the world into chaos. I’m going to check with some of my friends in the intelligence community and see if we can learn any more about this.”
Black Knight: “While you’re at it, Cap, could you maybe run a check on this Paladin -- ?”
Cap: ‘Dane, I’m trying to foreshadow here. Give it a rest on the jealousy.’
But their conversation is interrupted by an emergency transmission from Namor McKenzie.
TURNS OUT that running off on his own because This Is Something He Has To Do Himself... was a bad idea!
He tried to liberate Atlantis single-handedly and got forced off by Attuma’s men.
Namor: “It pains me to admit this, but I cannot best them alone. I must have the help of the Avengers -- or an innocent woman may die!”
I’m glad you can swallow your pride and ask for help.
But I’m still going to mock you for running off half-cocked.
Do you realize that if you had just accepted Black Knight’s offer of help, this whole thing would have been wrapped up already? Idiot.
Follow @essential-avengers because Namor is lucky he’s handsome because he’s a bit dumb. Like and reblog if you think his head is looking particularly quadrilateral today.
365 Marvel Villain paper cut-outs - one villain, every day, all year.
May 2nd - The Gray Gargoyle
Paul Pierre Duval had been an acclaimed chemist living in France. Working with exotic chemical substances, Duval accidentally spilled a concoction onto his arm and it bestowed him with the ability to turn any substance into stone with a mere touch. Whatever he turned to stone would remain that way for several hours before reverting back to normal. He could also transform himself into stone yet retained his mobility and additionally possess super strength and durability. He dubbed himself The Gray Gargoyle and used these newfound powers to become a super villain, taking whatever he wanted and turning anyone who got in his way into stone. He traveled to America to take on Thor believing he could use Thor’s hammer to grant himself godly powers. He had multiple encounters with Thor, proving a worthy adversary for the Thunder god, yet Thor always managed to prevail. The Gray Gargoyle also battled Captain America, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, The Hulk, The Avengers and The Fantastic Four. He has additionally acted as a member of The Masters of Evil, The Lethal Legion and, more recently, The Hood’s criminal syndicate. The Gray Gargoyle first appeared in Journey Into Mystery #107.
