Updates for 12/13/13

     The Marvel Unlimited app featured some old issues featuring the Inhumans for free this month, which featured some older Avengers appearances I had overlooked. I had access to the story from Fantastic Four 150 and could include it in the timeline after Avengers 127 where it belongs. Yee-Gods! I forgot how Iron Man had a nose on his mask already!

     In housekeeping news, after a period of one year, I'll be eliminating old posts that are updates like this one. Since the changes have been incorporated to their appropriate points in the timeline, it's just redundant to have the updates archived as well.

 

Fantastic Four 150
Ultron-7: He'll Rule the World!

September, 1974

Written by Gerry Conway
Art by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott

Lettered by John Costanza

Colored by Linda Lessmann

 

Ultron-7 gloats over the paralyzed bodies of the assembled Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Inhumans. He is so confident that he frees them from their paralysis to see what fruitless actions they will take. Thing attacks him, but it has no effect. Rather than join Thing in further assault, the other heroes try to figure out a plan. Ultron-7 readily reveals to them how Maximus found his robot brain, brought it to Attilan, and attached it to Omega's body. Ultron-7 nearly immediately got rid of Maxiumus and pursued his own schemes to destroy the heroes. He launches a psychic attack to dissolve the psyches of the all his opponents and leave them brainless. This wakes up the comatose Franklin Richards, who returns the mental assault with more force and totally deactivates Ultron-7's robot brain. After this defeat, we see several of the guests preparing for the wedding and speaking of their own romances. Everyone gathers for the ceremony, and Crystal and Quicksilver are wed. They are teleported away by Lockjaw to their honeymoon while the guests look on.

 

Narration: "There are probably a thousand things we could say at a moment like this...but we won't say any of them. We like to think...the moment says it all."

• Although Quicksilver appears on the cover in his green uniform, he wears a silver one in the issue and during his wedding. The rest of the superheroes wear their hero uniforms rather than dress in formal wear.
• Thing calls Ultron-7 "jaundice jaws." Jaundice usually refers to a yellow pigmentation, which Ultron does not have.
• Franklin's powers are described by narration as being enough "to consume an entire planet." Later, he uses the power to create an entire new universe, one that temporarily serves as home to the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and others for over a year of publication.
• Thing says the wedding pageantry resembles a Rose Bowl Parade. The Rose Bowl Parade started in 1890 in Pasadena as a New Year's Day parade and features floats decorated with only flowers and other natural ornamentation such as fruit and grains. It grew in popularity and has been seen on television around in world in over 200 countries.
• Both Quicksilver and Crystal do not have one line of dialogue in the issue that contains their wedding.

for Avengers 3 (as a counterpoint to its story) and 160 (for when it was published)

• What If? (1977) 3 is published this month. The story is "What If the Avengers Had Never Been?" In this alternate universe, later called Earth-776, the team broke up after Avengers 2. When Hulk and Namor team up, as they did in Avengers 3, Iron Man builds powered armor for Ant-Man, Wasp, and Rick Jones to help him, even though they aren't Avengers. They can't use their armor effectively, so Iron Man goes to fights the two enemies alone. The other heroes eventually join Iron Man, but Iron Man is killed in the battle.

For Avengers 14

• Also this month, the Avengers appear in Fantastic Four (1961) 36 as guests at the engagement party for Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Girl.

For Avengers 164

• An Alice appears as a biochemist helping to inspect Wonder Man. Some sources claim this is Alice Nugent, who later becomes Doctor Spectrum in 2006. She does share the first name and a resemblance, so it is a possibility. Alice Nugent owned a technology company, but as Henry Pym has demonstrated, Marvel scientists are often proficient in multiple fields.

For Avengers 170

• The Thor here is still sent by the Collector from another time period. (I got fooled and thought it was the real McCoy, but I was wrong.)

For Avengers 172

• What If? (1977) 9 is published this month. The story is "What If the Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950's?" It does not feature the established Avengers, but instead a new group consisting of  3-D Man, Gorilla-Man, The Human Robot, Marvel Boy, and Venus. Although this story is not part of the official Marvel Universe, the same heroes would be seen as a team in Avengers Forever and then later as the Agents of Atlas group in 2006.

For Avengers 179

• This month features the first appearance of James Rhodes in Iron Man (1968)118. Before becoming Iron Man, War Machine or Iron Patriot, he was Tony Stark's personal aviation mechanic, and that's what he's doing in this appearance.