Avengers: Children’s Crusade #5 (2011)
by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung
Continuing the effort to repair the damaged caused by Avengers: Disassembled.
We ended last issue with both the Avengers and the Young Avengers in Latveria.
And we have Doctor Doom fighting Magneto, something I would have loved to see as the focus.
How weird is it that these two have had so few comics together? They’re arguably the most famous Marvel villains, you’d think they would cross paths more often.
But last time also saw the return of Iron Lad…
…who is both a younger version of Kang and a much more powerful version of Kang.
Seriously, I rather like Kang but… let’s get serious, he wouldn’t be able to take out either Doom or Magneto individually. Let alone together.
I’m only joking partially, because Doom cares so little for Young Kang that he just leaves the battlefield to deal with Wiccan instead.
Thanks to Magneto distracting Doom, Iron Lad is able to take everyone else into a different time.
Which is not exactly what the Avengers were hoping for.
The Young Avengers go back in time BEFORE the whole Disassembled thing, and they get to meet Ant-Man (Scott Lang) before he died in that storyline.
This is not related to Doom’s portion of the story but it will be important later.
Because since they’re re-living the events of Disassembled, Jack Of Hearts still dies (that’s why he’s on the cover) but Ant-Man is now alive…
…thanks to Scarlet Witch, who now has her powers AND her memory AND her costume back.
Avengers: Children’s Crusade #6 (2011)
by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung
Doom doesn’t appear in this issue.
Scarlet Witch initially goes nuts like she did in Disassembled…
…but she regains her sanity because this time we have a writer who actually knows what he’s doing her son is here to help.
And at the end she decides she’s going to un-do what happened after House Of M, giving back powers to all the mutants who lost them.
Avengers: Children’s Crusade #7 (2011)
by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung
I’m glad they rescued Wanda from the whole “Evil Scarlet Witch” thing, but if she had to stay as a bad guy I would’ve liked to see her with Doctor Doom.
As I said last time, this miniseries is trying to prevent most of the damaged done by Disassembled at it mostly succeeds… but we still have both Avengers and X-Men hostile to each other for little reason.
In case you’re wondering at which point we are in X-Men history, we’re when Magneto is more reasonable than Cyclops.
Which admittedly doesn’t narrow it down by a lot, it’s been that for what, twenty years now?
Is it any wonder that Wanda decides to go back to Doom?
But don’t worry, she’s not evil. She’s here because DOCTOR DOOM is going to fully undo her character derailment.
This is going to be THE retcon of the storyline, so take notes.
We learn that Wanda went to Doctor Doom to get some help in controlling her powers, after she learned of the death of her sons.
Exactly WHEN this happened is interesting.
The knowledge of the death of her sons was removed from her mind right after it happened, during the John Byrne era of West Coast Avengers.
She eventually recovered her memories later, during the Roy Thomas run on the same book.
Bendis was the one to screw things up with Disassembled, where he completely ignored the Roy Thomas run and had Wanda recall the deaths a second time.
So the scene with Wanda going to Doom is either happening:
A) in 1993, after the Thomas run
B) in 2004, after Avengers: Disassembled
While I would’ve preferred to set that moment in 1993 since it would’ve redeemed Wanda completely (more on that later), it’s probably 2004 for multiple reasons:
1) There is no way Doctor Doom would be Wanda’s first or second option for something like this. But if it’s after 2004 then Dr. Strange has shown himself to be hostile to Wanda, and Agatha Harkness is considered dead.
2) The following scene takes place the scene “months earlier” than the present, and there is absolutely no way to squeeze everything that happened to Wanda from 1993 to 2011 in months
3) She didn’t look like this in 1993
So what DID this odd couple do to try keeping Wanda’s powers in check?
Something tied to her being a “Nexus Being”, something that goes waaaaay back to her 90s miniseries.
I absolutely love that the origin of a key aspect of the universe is revealed in a crappy 1994 miniseries that nobody read.
Which I know sounds sarcastic, but honestly, I love digging for this stuff.
See why the flashback can’t be in 1993? Because THIS is what Wanda looked like at the time.
No wonder she went insane.
Back to the story: Wanda and Doom’s work is what transformed Scarlet Witch from a regular magic user to a reality-shaping goddess.
So the retcon of this series is basically that Wanda wasn’t entirely responsible for causing House Of M and de-powering most mutants… she was influenced by a Doctor Doom experiment.
I think this is a good retcon, but I wish it had gone further: because if the flashback is in 2004, it still means Wanda is responsible for what she did in Disassembled.
I would’ve preferred to set the flashback in 1993, which would’ve made Doom at least partially responsible for EVERYTHING.
Still, the fact that Doom was partially responsible for House Of M makes his utter failure in that reality even more ironic than it already was. He truly is his own worst enemy.
As a testament to his charisma, Doom STILL has Wanda wrapped around his fingers.
I like how things are left vague: was Doom genuinely concerned for Wanda’s well-being?
Or is he just playing a role and he’s interested ONLY in getting her powers?
And the Young Avengers are like “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????”.
But Wanda is not completely insane… not anymore at least… because she’s not just giving Doom her godlike powers. She and Wiccan will be part of a spell that will just remove her powers and restore the powers of mutants.
Although considering how easily Wiccan was tricked by Doom, she might be overestimating her son.
It is important that the whole reason we’re doing this, why we have to reach for DOCTOR FREAKING DOOM to get any help, is that both the Avengers and the X-Men are complete morons in this period.
The rest of the Young Avengers are not okay with this plan, but what are they going to do?
This is what happens when your team has a guy who can rewrite reality and a couple of people who can shoot arrows or punch really well.
This results in Doctor Doom getting ALL the powers of Scarlet Witch, with the first order of business being healing his own face.
Seems eerily familiar.
Doom significance: 8/10
You would think the fact that Doom was behind House Of M, at least in part, would come up more often. But this retcon seems to be often forgotten.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Some of the magic is wacky enough to almost qualify.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Much like last time: if this was a quality score it wouldn’t be this high, but you can VERY easily do this story at any other time. As much as I don’t like the way Bendis wrote the Avengers, it’s not like heroes fighting each other for little reason is a rare thing at Marvel.
Also the artwork continues to be a masterpiece and I really enjoy the attempt to give characters a reason for everything they’re doing. Even something as absurd as relying on Doctor Doom makes perfect sense in-context.
It was a Doombot all along
The one fighting Magneto could be one, but once he reunites with Wanda it’s definitely the real Doom.
Times Doctor Doom has gained ultimate power: 12
Twelfth time’s the charm!
Crazy tech
He might be using magic as well, but in the middle of all the chaos of issue 5 there is Doctor Doom fighting Magneto all on his own!
The artwork on this series is simply phenomenal, and led me to read the book even though the characters held little personal interest. But I found Allan Heinberg’s writing and characterization to be completely absorbing. I liked how the youngsters’ perspective greatly magnified the stature of the established heroes and villains.
Jim Cheung delivers a powerful version of Doom—menacing, noble, and inscrutable—in the classic tradition of Romita Sr. and Byrne, with some Mignola stirred into the mix.
I too would approve of a genuine marital union between Doc and the Scarlet Witch; it would be a natural advancement of both of their character arcs, and place many of the old hero-villain relationships on a new footing (imagine Magneto as the father-in-law). But the Dooms would inevitably come to dominate the entire Marvel universe; and who wants to read about unemployed heroes and villains?
That era of comics was full of Marvel & DC hiring writers from other mediums in some misguided attempt to boost comics’ prestige, but screenwriter Heinberg was pretty much the only one who was a damn bit of good – pretty great, actually. (Sure, Straczynski has his supporters, but anyone who came up with Superman: Grounded or Gwen Stacy making a double-backed goblin with Norman Osborn cannot with a clear conscience be considered a good comics writer – or not a consistently good one, anyway.)
It wasn’t surprising that Heinberg went on to co-write that rarest of phenomena, a watchable DCEU movie. There were only three of those damn things – Wonder Woman, Shazam and Suicide Squad (no The) – and Heinberg’s Wonder Woman is generally considered the best of the lot. (He had no input in the second WW movie, and look how that turned out.)
Oh – and I guess Birds of Prey was mostly okay, so four watchable DCEU movies.