Monday, August 20, 2007

Avengers #239, 1984

Beware! It's Assistant Editor's Month. I guess that basically meant you weren't going to get your typical story and they were just going to do whatever the hell they felt like. This particular issue of Avengers features the first appearance of David Letterman. They could have just stopped right there, but they actually paid someone to come up with a script and do the art, so here's a recap:

As for the story - Simon "Wonder Man" Williams decides his acting career is going into the crapper. Since he's a reserve Avenger, I guess he's got some clout so he books himself an appearance on Letterman. He needs fellow Avengers to join him so he gets Vision to round up anyone he can find and the Vision pulls together Hawkeye, Black Panther, Black Widow and Beast. I guess Quasar was too busy primping his hair, so that's not too bad for last minute notice. Thank goodness the Black Panther was at the Wakanda Consulate because if the government had flown him in from Africa just for a talk show appearance, tax payers would have been pissed.

Good ol' Fabian "Mechano Maruader" Stankowicz is out to start some shit, though. (No one was more surprised than me that he has his own Wikipedia entry.) First he sneaks into the building with the oh-so clever repairman / fake mustache disguise, then gets himself a seat in the audience.

Hawkeye is partially deaf but too cool to wear a hearing aid, so he gets a copy of the questions Letterman is going to ask. Hawkeye just gives an answer once Letterman stops talking, leading him to believe Hawkeye may have psychic abilities. Stankowicz is getting bored by now and decides it's time to unleash the lasers he's put into the TV cameras. The Avengers scramble into action fighting against grenades, missiles, giant rollers and other stuff Stankowicz rigged up. He uses the opportunity to run down to Dave's desk and book himself an appearance. So remember, kids, if you want to get on Letterman just be a reserve Avenger, or attack the Avengers when they're on. Of course, he reveals his villainous motivation for doing all this - just to show what one person can accomplish.

In the end, it's Letterman himself that comes to the rescue of the Avengers and the studio audience. Stankowicz has clearly underestimated Letterman's ass-kicking ablities - while he and Dave are safe under his force field, he never suspects that Dave will knock him out cold - with a huge doorknob! I don't remember a giant doorknob being part of Dave's set but it serves its purpose. Dave swings at him and yells out, "It's clobberin' time!" Okay, not really, but that would have been dope. He gives him a ringer, then takes the battery pack and releases the force field. The Avengers have their shit together by this point and the crowd erupts for Dave's heroics. I'm kind of sad Paul Shaffer didn't get his ass kicked because if anyone deserves it, it's him.

3 comments:

Tyler said...

How did Hawkeye lose his hearing? Was that every mentioned? And Wonder Man's costume from this era was hideous. He should have fought The Shocker in a Retirement match. And in comics, much like wrestling, whoever won could just "unretire" a couple of months down the road. But at least we would have been rid of one of them for a few months.

Chris said...

Lemme see...oh, there's a flashback 'cause Hawkeye is telling Vision how he and Mockingbird fell in love and got hitched.

As for his hearing, apparently he swallowed a hypersonic arrow to resist some sort of "ultrasonic gizmo" (direct quote) created by Crossfire. The asterisk references the Hawkeye limited series, so there ya go.

Tyler said...

Yeah. Ok, then.