Avengers Millennium #4

Background

The Avengers are fighting Hydra on a sprawling battle through space-time.

Captain America (lost in the distant past with Hawkeye and Quicksilver) has sent a rescue message down through 10,000+ years of time to Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. For some reason, Captain America decided to accompany it in person -- he has buried himself in a time capsule, adjacent to the excavation that Hydra has buried in the ground for 10,000 years.

Story Details

(In the future) Bruce Banner defrosts Captain America, who has completed his trip through time, past Tony and friends (in WWII) who watched him go by.

Note: Cap also happened to pass through Hydra-controlled space-time. But the Hydra guys left him safely buried and unharmed, supposedly on the theory that Cap was too close to their own excavation and they didn't want to risk ruining their own cross-timer experiment. It's not a very convincing explanation I must say, although it's better than nothing.

When Cap is finally defrosted (in the post-apocalypse future), Banner (in that future) and Stark (in WWII, and both in their respective captured Hydra bases) use "the information gathered from Cap's freeze-pod" to locate all three Avengers teams and (in two pages of purple and white special effects) bring them all together back to the here and now of modern Japan.

So let's just take a moment and recap what the Avengers have achieved in 3.5 issues. They got split up, and they got back together again. And they learned that... "Hydra had buried a giant egg".

Now, hear me out here. I'm going to suggest that this was all a complete waste of time. The Hydra base that they entered in Issue #1 was built on top of the giant egg, and all the equipment and sensors were present. Tony Stark could have found out what was going on just as well without anybody entering the time-stream and risking the destruction of history as we know it. Pretty much everything that has occurred so far is utterly pointless.

"But hey, Jonathan, at least they learned about the egg," you say!

Well, even that little bit of information isn't actually used. Because one of the Hydra goons now turns up through the time portal riding a giant Kakaranatharaian (a winged-dinosaur/dragon/Godzilla type thing). This one was specially bred — firstly by burying for 10,000 years of natural development in the egg, then secondly by placing the egg where it will catch the massive X-Ray backlash from one of the atomic bombs dropped by the Allies on Japan during World War II. Final step three was raising the monster in the far future where Hydra can train and develop it without being disturbed and bring it back to SMASH TEH AVUNGERS!!!

SPOILER ALERT — The Avengers win the fight against the "Kakaranatharaian", and are not smashed.

The good guys achieve this by a complicated gimmick involving the quantum-travelling technology used by the future-Hydra goon, misdirected by Scarlet Witch's hex powers, strapped to the egg (which actually still exists in the present, after it was irradiated, but before it was dug up and raised). They transmit the egg to another random, far-off place and time.

General Comments

Oh, what stupidity. Where to begin?

As I've already said, there was no reason to even enter the time-portal in the first place. The heroes had captured the base and were standing next to the egg. Just... smash the egg, guys!

But even after the heroes entered the time-portal, I have so many questions! Where did Captain America get a handy-dandy freeze-pod? Why did Cap even need to enter the freeze-pod, his presence did nothing useful. If Cap could bury himself near the egg without damaging it, how come Hydra can't carefully dig him up again without damaging the egg? Why didn't Bruce Banner destroy the egg in the future, before Hydra got it? How come Tony didn't just thaw Cap in WWII, destroy the egg, and leave a buried message? How come the heroes needed to play with quantum waves to destroy an egg in the final scene. IT'S AN EGG! THEY HAVE A HULK! JUST SMASH THE DAMN EGG!!!

Overall Rating

Marvel Previous says "fun, light-hearted romp". I say "utterly pointless mess".

One Web.

Footnote

To add insult to injury, both Hawkeye and Spider-Man are portrayed as childish, squabbling idiots throughout the whole series.