FREEDOM FORCE versus AVENGERS
Has The World Gone Mad?!? (Marvel)
Where: Avengers #312 When: December 1989
Why: John Byrne How: Paul Ryan & Tom Palmer
The Story So Far...
Frustrated with routine defeat at the hands of their heroic enemies: Loki gathers a cabal of powerful masterminds to orchestrate an unexpected and new paradigm!
With the combined resources of Doctor Doom, Red Skull, Magneto, The Mandarin, Wingless Wizard, and The Kingpin -- Loki redistributes villainous forces in successive acts of vengeance to disorient and defeat their adversaries!
The Avengers are still divided and reeling from the destruction of their Hydrobase when Avengers Park receives an unexpected visit from Freedom Force! The crooks turned feds have come to evict The Avengers from their subbasement HQ by any means necessary!
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Blob 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Hank Pym 6 (Genius)
Speed: Wasp 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Blob 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Wasp 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Falcon 4 (Trained)
Energy: Scarlet Witch 7 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Vision 26 (Metahuman)
Freedom Force are: The Blob, Pyro, and Avalanche.
All three were members of Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants before receiving pardons for their crimes in exchange for enlisting as government agents.
Both incarnations of the trio are best known for their run-ins with the X-Men and X-Factor -- which hasn't left them with a particularly spectacular reputation.
In fight card terms you might think of them as the upper mid-card. Reliable opponents with enough cache to match-up against some of the big names, but unlikely to advance. Or are they...? We're about to put that theory to the test!
The Avengers are: Henry Pym, Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Falcon.
So far the immovable Blob is the only member of Freedom Force we have on record. He was with The Brotherhood when they clashed with DC's Teen Titans in Unlimited Access #3. Blob was more than a match for Robin's martial arts.
Fred Dukes is an unfeeling mass of human flesh who is incredibly strong, durable, and able to manipulate his density. Unlike Vision, Blob doesn't exhibit powers of intangibility, but he can similarly increase his mass to become almost impossible to move, and physically powerful.
His teammates are St. John Allerdyce aka; Pyro and Dominikos Petrakis, aka; Avalanche. The frequent pairing are expert range fighters, utilizing Pyro's ability to manipulate fire with animated results, and Avalanche's seismic waves.
Scarlet Witch wields hex magic with relative impunity, but the results aren't always predictable. Early in her career, in X-Men #4, she caused the earth to move under Cyclops' feet. Energy-based hex bolts stalled Magneto in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4, but couldn't topple Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet #4.
Pyro cannot generate fire himself, but is immune to burns, so relies on wrist-fed flame throwers to supply him with ammunition. Avalanche can generate powerful vibrational impulses, but is incapable of directing them through organic matter.
Falcon and Wasp can fly over any earthquakes to deliver smackdown and stinger blasts. Hank Pym isn't changing size so much in these days, but should be able to shrink down any problems that arise -- or find a miniaturized tool to handle the job. Let's see how they handle it...
The Tape: Avengers Ranking: Wasp (#53)
What Went Down...
Touching down in Central Park -- Freedom Force depart their government issued helicopter and start pushing their way through the public. Their search for The Avengers takes them to the team's statue and trips their security monitors.
Vision flies on ahead, passing intangibly through the levels of The Avengers' underground sub-basement headquarters, gliding towards the park above.
He greets Freedom Force with a cordial offer of assistance, but is left perplexed by Blob's colourful and bullish request to evict The Avengers from their base. The synthezoid's confusion leads Blob to an inevitable act of violence!
The powerful punch sends an unprepared Vision hurtling into the stone of Captain America's statue. It shatters at the legs, but Vision quickly recovers and torpedoes towards The Blob -- only to bounce off his ample torso!
The Vision lands at the base of the Avengers statue momentarily stunned.
Blob closes in to grab the front of Vision's cape, but before he can deliver a knock-out blow -- the statue shifts to reveal The Avengers assembling in the park!
Falcon leads the charge to rescue Vision with the miniaturized Wasp flying right behind him, but even the airborne Avengers aren't safe from a counter-strike from Avalanche!
The focused vibrations rip through the ground and kick up a wave of concrete that knocks Falcon out of the air and topples the rest of the Avengers!
The knockdown leaves the team vulnerable to a follow-up assault by Pyro, who sends dancing flame circling around them in the air.
Hank Pym orders the team to spread out, and Wasp takes advantage of the chaos to sneak up on Pyro unnoticed and strike with her stinger blasts!
Pyro quickly whips around, spraying fire from his wrist-mounted flame throwers in an effort to exterminate The Wasp. The diminutive Avenger proves too agile and tiny a target for the hotheaded mutant!
Falcon flies in for the assist -- smacking Pyro across the face with his winged fist!
Falcon is over confident when Pyro calls upon the assistance of Avalanche. He assumes the mutant's shockwaves won't harm him, but Avalanche is more than capable of generating devastating tremors in the inorganic matter of his wings!
Another statue is toppled by the blast as Hank Pym sneaks up behind Avalanche and fires a gas pellet from a previously shrunken gun.
Gas wafts into Avalanche's helmet and he starts choking, but things get even worse for the Freedom Force fighter when Scarlet Witch turns the ground against him -- collapsing it beneath his feet with a hex!
Vision congratulates his wife on neutralizing the threat while grappling with the powerful arms of The Blob! He attempts to break the stalemate by plunging his intangible arm into Blob's chest -- but Blob's shifting mutant density neutralizes the limb and forces it to become trapped!
Another Avengers statue bites the dust as Blob pivots his body -- violently swinging Vision's body like a rag doll through the stone tribute!
Scarlet Witch is overwhelmed by the carnage, unable to direct her hex magic to defend against the toppling of the main Avengers statue. Fortunately, Falcon sees the danger coming -- and flies in to make the save by flying her clear!
Another winged Avenger comes to their teammate's rescue when Hank Pym finds himself struggling to keep ahead of Pyro's flame. Wasp refocuses her attack on Pyro's flame throwers -- severing the fuel line to cut-off half his ammunition!
Pym digs into his miniaturized arsenal to produce a shrunken flame thrower and takes the opportunity to clog Pyro's remaining flame thrower with fire retardant foam! A volley of stinger bolts sends him running!
Vision resorts to energy projectiles as well -- firing laser-like eyebeams -- but still finds himself too evenly matched with the immovable might of The Blob.
Hank Pym calls an audible, ordering Vision clear while he rushes in to try to solve the problem with a liberal dosage of Pym Particles.
They suddenly start to reduce the bulging Blob to a fraction of his ample size -- but such incredible density focused on a small area has the unforeseen consequence of sending him plummeting through the ground to the subway!
Things get more out of hand when Avalanche successfully directs a quaking blast at Falcon -- shattering his wings!
Falcon careens into a nearby vehicle, while Scarlet Witch tumbles onto the road!
Vision glides towards the trouble, summoning Avalanche's attention with a blast of eyebeams over his shoulder. The Freedom Force fighter acts on his curiosity, unleashing a devastating vibrational wave at the synthezoid in an effort to find out how much of his body is resonantly inorganic.
The force rips through Vision's body -- shunting and distorting the mechanical parts at sickening odds with his biological matter!
Vision drops from the ground suffering self-diagonized massive internal damage. For a horrifying instant Scarlet Witch believes her synthezoid husband has once again been destroyed. She brushes Avalanche off and rushes to Vision's side!
It seems as if Scarlet Witch is about to unleash the unshackled power of her hex magic, but before she can -- Falcon rushes in to shove Avalanche and sock him with a hard right hand.
Hank Pym keeps up the pressure by charging Pyro with a large shield -- while Wasp continues zapping him. The double team sends Pyro seeking the unlikely assistance of New York City Police!
Pyro cites his status as a United States Government enlisted agent to order the Avengers' arrest -- but at that moment Captain America drops out of the sky from a helicopter to call Freedom Force's credentials into question!
The revelation sparks a brawl amongst angry New York bystanders who debate the merits of The Avengers and their recent relocation to Central Park!
The ruckus provides enough distraction for Avalanche to unleash another quake that knocks everyone over and covers he and Pyro's escape to their helicopter.
The Hammer...Did that seem like an abrupt and chaotic finish to anyone else?
Just when it seemed like Scarlet Witch was about to go hogwild with hex magic -- the situation turns into a donnybrook, and Captain America literally falls out of the sky just in time to strip Freedom Force of their government-issued bona fides!
It's hard to tell if this is just the chaos of Acts of Vengeance and the frenetic storytelling of the time -- or if it hints at the chaos magic of Scarlet Witch subtly manipulating events around her.
Vision certainly seems to recover awfully quick, stepping in to discourage Scarlet Witch from bringing Freedom Force's escaping helicopter down in proximity to the populated city. Good quality synthezoid self-repair systems, or something else?
Avengers #312 is loosely sandwiched between Avengers West Coast issues that have been telling the story of Wanda Maximoff's gradual unravelling. In fact, she was virtually comatose in the concurrently released Avengers West Coast #53, but rallied to action when Hank Pym told her Vision was in danger (again).
The synthezoid had to be reconstructed after government agents dismantled him in Avengers West Coast #43, introducing the cold, white Vision seen in today's featured fight after he was rebuilt. This was just one in a series of orchestrated life-altering events straining the Scarlet Witch's mental state.
When Master Pandemonium returned to kidnap the couple's children in Avengers West Coast #51: Scarlet Witch was soon confronted with the revelation that the twin boys were never actually real -- and their essence was returned to Mephisto by the swift magical intervention of Agatha Harkness.
The move curtailed the forces of demonic evil, but pushed Scarlet Witch into the waiting arms of Magneto, who was plotting a reunion with his daughter from the nearby shadows. Magneto himself was a pawn in Loki's grand scheme, which brought the Master of Magnetism into a a cabal of masterminds as part of Acts of Vengeance, and ushered Wanda towards a period of dangerous darkness. This too played into over-arching manipulations by the time monitoring Immortus.
It all plays out a bit like a version of John Byrne's Avengers branded Dark Phoenix Saga with the complication of external crossovers. At its core: it is another case of a fiery redhead driven mad by her absolute power. It might sound rote described that way, but it is actually a period I very much enjoy. There's a lot to like.
I get a kick out of the not-quite-ragtag lineup of Avengers who're on call in this issue. It's a West Coast vibe and some of them will be flying back between issues. The logistics are sloppy, but it's too good not to go with it.
As much as I like Giant-Man or Ant-Man, there's a strange appeal to Hank Pym when he's in pulp adventurer mode, his utility belt filled with shrunken gadgets. Falcon is good value, too. It's slightly amusing that he's the only one uncoupled until Captain America shows up. Paul Ryan makes everyone look good.
Acts of Vengeance was always one of my favourite Marvel events and we'll have to make a point of coming back to it. It was an exciting time for villains crossing branded lines at a time when that really meant something. We'll take a closer look at the felonious Freedom Force, too. Maybe in their traditional context.
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Winners: Inconclusive (Draw)
#53 (--) Wasp
#76 (+4) Hank Pym
#141 (--) Vision
#425 (+1) Scarlet Witch
#464 (new) Avalanche
#465 (new) Pyro
#618 (+270) Blob
#984 (-1) Falcon
#7 (--) Captain America [+1 assist]
HERO OF THE WEEK: DOCTOR FATE #155 (DC)
