The cover does not in the least bit fuck about as we see Iron Man, The Hulk, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and Thor squaring off against some dude in a jester's outfit who, based on the subtle clues provided, can only be "Loki, god of evil." Despite being clad in actual metal, Iron Man is still way less Metal than Thor, who is swinging his hammer in an arc that would give Escher a headache. And, of course, the cover, despite featuring The Wasp, does not actually mention her in either the line up or the wee portrait panel in the corner
THE COMING OF THE AVENGERS*
The splash page shows us a profile that can only belong to a villain, this being the age when male villains were apparently not allowed to be handsome (he really is no Tom Hiddleston). And a big announcement blares that this is bur the first in a series of "book-length super epics featuring some of Earth's greatest super-heroes!" I find it quite endearing, in this age of massive cross-over events, that "epic" can be applied to a single, one issue story. At least the The Wasp is actually acknowledged by name here.IT'S A KIND OF MAGIC
Standing atop a mist enshrouded peak Loki screams his rage at the uncaring sky. Thor has imprisoned him on the Isle of Silence (not fucking silent enough if he can shout) in Asgard, but though frustrated at his physical captivity, Loki is still able to project his thoughts along the rainbow bridge to Earth and work his evil influence.Unnoticed by either staff or patient, a giant pair of eyes appears in the corner of Dr. Don Blake's surgery for Loki is fully aware of Thor's secret identity as the mild-mannered GP... but although Loki could squash Dr. Blake like a fucking bug he wants a victory that means something; so after hours of searching he turns his attention to the ever-lovin' Hulk (Hulk! Hulk!).
As the Hulk leaps across the landscape Loki places some illusory dynamite on a railway bridge, and the Hulk leaps towards it because clearly jumping on the bridge with the dynamite will do less damage than the dynamite... the Hulk crashes headlong into the bridge because, apparently, had the dynamite been real he would have daintily plucked it away or something (I have no fucking idea. It's a plot hole, I have a cold, it's making my brain hurt.)
Further down the track a speeding train spots the collapsed bridge and (because I'm sad enough to have checked the maths) has less than a minute before it will hit the ravine! They can't stop in time, but the Hulk using a boulder and his own strength is able to support the track long enough for the train to make it over. Despite this he is still blamed for the disaster and the next morning's headlines blaze with accusation.
Rick Jones, one time careless rebel and now leader of a gang of ham radio enthusiasts (obviously), knows that the Hulk is actually innocent so gathers his merry band of nerds to call upon the Fantastic Four. Loki, still lurking around the place, is having none of that shit so redirects the radio transmission to the office of one Dr. Blake, who with a tap of his cane assumes the mantle of the most trve kvlt of all heros... THOR!
RADIO GA GA
But! It seems Loki isn't as good at redirecting radio transmissions as he thought, because it was also picked up by Ant-Man, accompanied by The Wasp who, because when it's 1963 progressiveness and equality can go fuck itself, is running late due to needing to powder her nose. As they bicker they climb into the now DOUBLE catapult and are twanged onto the backs of waiting ants. Stan Lee, actually managing to spot a potential plot hole for once, ensures The Wasp asks why she's being twanged onto the back of flying ants when she has her own wings and Ant-Man points out that they have a really fucking long way to fly so there's no sense in her exhausting herself before they get there. However, because there still always has to be a plot hole, no mention is made of what they do all the times of year there aren't any flying ants.Tony Stark, clad as ever in his manky as fuck Iron Vest, also happens to hear the transmission due to being coincidentally tuned to the right frequency and even more coincidentally he's always wandered whether he could beat up the Hulk, so he dons his golden suit and takes to the skies, using his solar battery to conserve the power in his transistors (which makes you wonder why he doesn't just use the solar battery to give his transistors a constant top up. Come the fuck on Tony!)
Meanwhile Rick Jones' Teen Brigade are getting a bit fucked off with the Fantastic Four not having responded to their message, making them a kind of precursor to modern teenage boys getting shitty because a girl hasn't responded to them immediately on Messenger**... but wait, the FF did get the transmission having, thanks to yet more narrative causality, happened to tune in to the wave-length Loki had changed it to (which, really is a better explanation than the pictoral one we got a couple of pages ago where Loki was literally sending the transmission somewhere else). Alas the FF can't come and help because they're busy doing... something... but Reed, because he's SO FUCKING CLEVER, knows that other people have picked up the transmission so everything will be fine, while the Human Torch offers some top bantz in the background.
ASSEMBLING THE AVENGERS... KIND OF
At the very moment Reed cuts the transmission Thor turns up, looking kvlt as fvck, and before the Teen Brigade even have time to recover from their surprise he is joined by Ant-Man, The Wasp and Iron Man! The Wasp, never one to bother with all this pesky women's lib nonsense, immediately asks her companion how she can get the gorgeous Thor to notice her (presumably by this point she's got bored with Pym's emo brooding) and they climb into a handy projector so they can be more visible to everyone else (because fuck actually making yourself bigger for practical purposes).Loki, observing from his island prison on Asgard, is a bit miffed by this development, as he's only interested in Thor, so he creates an illusion of the Hulk to lure the hirsuite hero outside. Thor, deciding not to bother telling anyone else, as you do, moves to follow the pretend Hulk and quickly discovers the deception and works out who is behind it. So still not telling anyone he then fucks off to Asgard to deal with Loki, leaving the others wondering where he's gone and still leaving the Hulk at large.
Speaking of which, we now discover what the Hulk has been doing... he is with the circus, disguised as a giant clown robot that juggles animals.
I COULDN'T THINK OF A GOOD CIRCUS PUN
Giant clown robot. That juggles animals. I mean, the Hulk just wants to be left alone, away from the accusing eyes of the humans who fear him. So he does this by joining a fucking circus... and not just that, but less than 24 hours after he was all over the news for trying to wreck a train. Did nobody at the circus stop and think to themselves "holy shit, this green dude in purple pants might be the Hulk..." because, really, unless he had a fucktonne (Imperial) of greasepaint an a clown costume stashed away somewhere just in case, he would have rocked up to that circus looking pretty much like your regular Hulk.
Anyway, Ant-Man's Ant Friends have been checking out the circus, which is conveniently local, where they spotted the giant clown robot and Ant-Man concludes that it may well be the Hulk. He and Wasp zoom on ahead to give the ants their orders (because apparently the whole "long distance thought transmission" thing has a range which is determined by the plot requirements) and Iron Man follows behind. Never one to miss an opportunity to show off her super-powered vapidity Wasp complains about how hideous Iron Man is and wishes the "dreamy" Thor was still around (although to be honest I'm starting to wonder if this is just a tactic to make Pym jealous... which doesn't actually make it any better...). As they approach Ant-Man tells his vespoid pals to undermine the area the Hulk is standing on to cause a cave in and trap the monster.
Not that the Hulk gives the tiniest of fucks about being trapped in a crevice (snrrk) and he soon SMASHes his way free while Ant-Man does a fly by to check if it really is him. It strikes me that a lot of time and effort could have been saved by just doing the fly past in the first place. Ant-Man makes use of the circus' tannoy system to appeal to the Hulk, offering to help prove his innocence, while a load of ants carry a section of steel pipe up the tent pole (because ants can fucking do that)... the Hulk refuses the offer and with a somewhat villainous cry of "release the steel cylinder, my tiny warriors!" the ants drop the pipe neatly over the Hulk with the intention of trapping him.
The circus crowd, who are apparently all as dumb as a bag of fucking spanners, cheer and whoop this unusual act while the Hulk bursts free of his brief confinement (not so fucking smug now are you, Pym?) and removes the make up, revealing his true self. And then the penny drops and the audience panic... Christ...
Ant-Man and The Wasp hatch a plan that has truly Baldrician levels of cunning: Wasp will lead the Hulk to under the trapeze net and Ant-Man (plus his Ant Friends) will drop it on the beast... because if rock and steel won't stop the Hulk clearly a fucking net will! Wasp buzzes about being a nuisance but is quickly incapacitated by a gust of air from a bellows that the Hulk found lying around, because obviously bellows are things you find in circuses.
Then suddenly Iron Man turns up just in time to save Wasp from a damn good squishing (the fact he's fucking late doesn't seem to be an issue; I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he couldn't keep up with flying fucking ants) and using his amazing transistor powered strength chucks the Hulk into the centre of the ring, so he'll leap out through the top of the tent into Ant-Man's waiting net! I mean, he vital flaw in this plan is that it's reliant on the Hulk doing a really specific thing from a really specific place... but luckily narrative causality kicks in again and the Hulk does indeed refrain from SMASHing Iron Man and jumps straight up thru the canvas into the waiting nylon nets.
Which of course don't trap him. WHO KNEW? In fact he takes the whole damn big top with him and leaves it snagged on a mountain peak while Iron Man pursues. Iron Man, apparently unable to predict the point where a leaping Hulk will land, overshoots and the Hulk immediately jumps on the opportunity and punches Iron Man right in the propulsion battery, leaving him stranded.
METAL GODS
We cut to Asgard, where Thor is asking Odin (who is even more fucking Metal) for permission to go and visit Loki and ask what the hell he's up to. Odin, being an even handed sort, won't interfere because Loki's his son too, which of course opens up a whole bunch of ways Loki can fuck Thor over without anybody being around to stop it. THANKS, DAD.Upon his boat to the Isle of Silence Thor is first beset by tangle roots, but they are no match for his mighty spinning hammer. Then a volcano of purple gas globe things suddenly erupts from the waves, but Thor can hold his breath for quite a long time, rendering that trap useless as well. As Loki watches the empty boat drift to the shore Thor bursts forth in a waterspout created by his whirling tool. Landing on the beach he hurls the hammer at Loki who retaliates by conjuring a wall of ice. Thor smashes the ice and confronts Loki, but the God of Evil has another trick up his sleeve.... TROLLS...
Well, a troll, which grabs Thor while Loki provides a brief lesson on Earth mythology. So Thor calls down a storm to dazzle the orange beast and then turns on Loki again only to find himself swinging the hammer at an illusion... undeterred Thor has another twirl, which blows the Lokis off a cliff, leaving the real one hanging from a tree. Thor then rubs his hammer on the ground (not a euphemism!) to attract the magnetic force and use it to pull Loki onto the weapon (also not a euphemism)
KICK OUT THE JAMS
Our gaze shifts away from Asgard in time to see the Hulk jumping high enough that the zenith of the leap is at a level with a flying aeroplane. In case we hadn't worked out how high he'd jumped both the narrative text and the pilot's speech bubble reiterate that the Hulk has, indeed, jumped really fucking high. Moments later Iron Man appears next to the plane and asks if they've seen the Hulk, because apparently he's lost the ability to spot giant green jumping dudes by himself, and is informed that the Hulk is heading towards Detroit.We find the Hulk in a car factory (because Detroit, obvs) with Iron Man not far behind. Complying with the narrative's requirement that attempts to stop the Hulk get ever more ineffective Iron Man starts throwing tyres around, while the Hulk uses the drive belt from some bit of machinery to catapult a steel driveshaft into Iron Man's midriff.
"All right Hulk!" Says Iron Man. "I tried to reason with you, but now..."
No you fucking didn't, you gilded dickhead. You chased him into a trap, pursued him across America, and then threw car tyres at him. And now you're making a giant grappling hook thing out of car parts to throw at him. If this were happening on the internet Tony would be following the Hulk around political comment threads calling him a libtard, but then acting like the wounded party when the Hulk finally bites and calls him a cunt.
So yeah, Iron Bellend throws the grappling hook thing at Hulk, sending him through the factory wall, but then as they're about to get really fighty Thor appears, danging Loki from his hammer (still not a euphemism). Thor explains that actually it's Loki who's the arsehole in all this, but just as the Hulk is gearing up to punch him in the face he makes himself radioactive, rendering the others unable to approach!
DEUS EX VESPOIDEA
Luckily it turns out Loki is standing on a trapdoor and Ant-Man's Ant Friends are on hand (claw?) to throw the switch and send Loki into a highly convenient lead lined tank... I guess because 60s car factories on Earth-616 need to be able to store radioactive materials onsite... And actually yes, in the next panel Thor tells us that this is where radioactive waste is stored before being dumped in the ocean. No fucking wonder Earth-616 has so many super-heroes if they take such a slapdash approach to nuclear storage...And so Loki is trapped, and once he's no longer radioactive they'll be able to take him out of the tank so Thor can send him back to Asgard... but wait! Ant-Man and The Wasp have had an idea! They all have different powers, so why not team up? Even the Hulk, somewhat fed up with being persecuted, decides he'd like to join, but points out that they'll need a name. Wasp, for once not talking about her fucking make-up, suggests The Avengers! Hurrah! Iron Man covers all the bases by pointing out that they can fight together or as individuals, Hulk pities the foo' who fights them, Thor declares that they'll never ever be beaten! The Avengers are born!
Next time it's going to get a bit psychedelic as the Sorcerer Supreme finds himself pitted against Eternity in Doctor Strange #10.
*Snrrk
**Later on, Rick Jones would complain to all his pals that he got sidekickzoned but it's okay because he didn't really want to hang around with stuck up heroes like the FF anyway.
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