Ms. Marvel Teams up with the Avengers: Avengers Vol 1 #171 – May, 1978
Avengers Vol 1 #171: "...Where Angels Fear to Tread"
For the first time Ms. Marvel meets all of the Avengers. This meeting goes much better than the one in which she meet only Beast and Scarlet Witch.
From the first page we see that the Avengers are after a lady robot, Jocasta. This robot escaped from their mansion and is probably going straight to Ultron. On their way, they are slowed down by a mob of fans, it’s very amusing.
In the meantime we see that Jocasta has a car driver. Ultron has sent a nun, sister Eucalypta, to bring Jocasta to him.
During the chaos we see a saleswoman who remembers that she left a costumer in the dressing room. This angry costumer is actually Carol Danvers. When she hears that there is a problem outside she switches to Ms. Marvel.
She makes her escape while leaving a very confused worker behind her, who wonders why would anyone go outside naked. Also Ms. Marvel looks like she’s clamming the celling and not just flying. A comical, Spider-Man effect.
Ms. Marvel flies outside, meets the Avengers and offers them her help. Beast isn’t happy to see her – as you can remember, their introduction to each other was not a friendly one. But Scarlet Witch likes her, because women always have to bond together apparently.
Yellowjacket and the WASP bring in some transportation from the mansion, so that everyone can join the hunt.
WASP tells Ms. Marvel that it is nice it is to have another girl in the group. To that Ms. Marvel replays that she is no longer a “girl,” because she stopped being one a long time ago. She’s probably referring to being transformed into part Kree, but she should be referring to the fact that she is a woman, not a girl.
The Avengers fly off to search for Jocasta. Ms. Marvel joins them even though she said a few panels ago that she should go back to work. But being a superheroine comes first and she thinks about the fact that she will probably get fired - this is not her first time being absent from work.
Wonder Man asks Ms. Marvel if she loves danger, because she doesn’t look afraid, but rather, she seems eager for a fight. She tells him that she is afraid, but she decides to ask herself what she would do if she wasn’t afraid and do that. She sees herself as a warrior.
The Avengers reach a monastery where they meet sister Eucalypta, who lies that there is no one else there, but she lets them in to have a look around. Then as they walk around, Wanda is suspicious and then she and the nun simply disappear.
The Avengers and Ms. Marvel meet Ultron. The Oedipus complex is strong with this exchange. Ultron sees Yellowjacket as his father, who he wants to kill, and the WASP as his mother, who he wants to marry. Freud would have approved of this exchange. Ultron tried to put the WASP’s life force inside of Jocasta, and he failed because of Iron Man. But something from the WASP has remained in Jocasta, so Ultron feels that that is good enough. He also feels that he completed this part of his mission, as he is going to marry Jocasta. He also wants to take over the world, classic villain style, but still more interesting than most.
Apparently, the Avengers have come prepared and Yellowjacket made them all immune to Ultron’s deadliest weapon – the beams he shoots from his eyes.
Ms. Marvel decides that now is the time to search for Wanda as she is the key to victory and Iron Man agrees. Especially since Ms. Marvel is not immune to Ultron’s beam. While she leaves, the Avengers attack Ultron, which is really useless, because he is made out of adamantium. But Wonder Man manages to strike him as he is very strong and fast.
Then we switch to Wanda who is trapped in a mirror room. The mirrors keep moving in order to disorient her. Then she falls through darkness and into water. When she almost dies, she returns to the same mirror room and doesn’t dare move from fear. The rest of the Avengers battle Ultron.
In the meantime, Ms Marvel searches for Wanda. She had a seventh sense vision about Wanda and saw her going crazy. While she is flying, someone tries to shoot her, but she avoids the shoot at the last moment. We find out that sister Eucalypta is the shooter.
In a hilarious exchange, sister Eucalypta tells Ms. Marvel: “You shall not pass.” Yes, Gandalf. Ms. Marvel fights against sister Eucalypta and while defeating her, she realizes that sister Eucalypta is actually a robot.
We switch back to Ultron who has locked the Avenger inside a force field while he is going to get married. Because robots care about such things apparently. Ultron wakes Jocasta up. She realizes that she was created just to love him, which doesn’t suit her at all, so she decides to kill him. She has more of the WASP in her than Ultron bargained for, because she wants to kill him to “end [his] evil.” In the middle of the fight Scarlet Witch and Ms. Marvel show up. And Scarlet Witch is looking for revenge. He should have just killed her. Using her powers, she changes his structure and along with Thor, they destroy him.
The happy moment ends when they realize that Jocasta is gone and so is Captain America.
Ms. Marvel has a few moments to shine in this issue, but she wasn’t actually needed here. Her only role was to free Wanda, the more powerful Avenger. It was nice to see all three ladies together though. This is more like a cool cameo. And perhaps the issue also foreshadows of her future career.
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