Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Let the Good Times Roll”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Red Shadow storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Let the Good Times Roll”! In the previous installment, the Avengers successfully stop Red Skull, and by “stop” I mean that let him do all the damage he wants to do in that moment and then lets him get away! Why even have the Avengers around if they’re just going to dick everything up?

Something happened at the end of the issue that was so goddamn stupid that it gave me a heart attack, so don’t expect me to revisit it here. Comics book suck so fucking much, you guys.

Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [May, 2013]
Written by: Rick Remender
“Let the Good Times Roll”

Look at these dopey motherfuckers on the cover. Go get laid.

There’s a two-page exposition on some details that I cannot even begin to understand. Apocalypse twins, Uriel and Eimin. New caretakers of the revolution. They are born from Pestilence in Akkaba City under the North Pole. One is red with black eyes, the other is black with red eyes! And some guy named Kang wants to stop these babies in their apocalypse-causing tracks! And for no one’s benefit but his own, of course! Why would a bad guy do something for the good of other people? Have you even met Rupert Murdock?

Back in New York, Wonder Man and Wasp are discussing rejoining the Avengers team (even though Wonder Man was putting his efforts into disbanding the team for reasons possibly related to low bowling scores or fist fights at the public library). Wonder Man is only doing this because he owes Scarlet Witch his life (and his voluptuous penis, as the case seems to be).

They both fly to Avengers Mansion and are rather hesitant to enter the premises at the moment. Wasp reminds Wonder Man that Scarlet Witch is facing a lot of mistrust from both the mutants and the Avengers. Good thing she still has the Mormons on her side! Wonder Man reminds Wasp that most of the Avengers thinks he sucks and he’s not going to win Scarlet Witch anymore friends. Wasp agrees with this without much argument.

Mostly because Captain America barely knows how to hold a pen.

The two of them expect monumental amounts drama as they finally walk into the building. They find Rogue hanging up a painting of a very serious-looking Charles McNugget Xavier. It’s replacing a picture of some of the Avengers, including but not limited to Iron Man and… ugh, you know the rest.

A smiley Alex Havok comes downstairs to great their new guests! Sorry that things seem to be tense around the house. Heh heh. And you two must be the Avengers’ new public relations team, eh? Good fucking luck, idiots. You have your work cut out for you considering that everyone hates each other now and the press is picking up on it.

Wonder Man advises that everyone in the manor makes nice with each other before they can even think about changing minds outside the manor. M’kay?

Steve Rogers is shirtlessly performing flips and cartwheels in the gym while watching a news report about Red Skull’s influence on the city’s overall distaste of the mutants. Three new dead this week with red skulls painted on their faces! Sounds like a coincidence to me! But I’m also dumb as a brick. And Honest John – the guy who turned Thor into a blubbering pile of anti-mutant goo – has this to say about everything: “You can blame the riots on the Red Skull if you think it helps sell the lies. Since the Skull’s appearance in New York, more and more people are responding to his message and taking matters into their own hands. If humanity fails to defend itself, we are surely doomed.”

The Avengers will have a live press event scheduled later from the mansion, where they will most assuredly all take off their pants and have a furious masturbation session in front of the cameras. It would certainly do less damage.

Scarlet Witch walks into the gym. Steve asks if Simon Wonder Man and Janet Wasp have arrived. Scarlet Witch tells him that not only are they here, but they’re selling Alex Havok on the idea of starting a clothing line based on their stinky uniforms! Madness! Steve thinks it’s a good idea, actually. Let the masses buy some Hulk underpants! It will bring the country together! Trust Alex, he’s been doing a bang-up job so far and he’s roughly 5,000,000,000,000 times better than his brother Scott “Diarrhea Pants” Summers. You can take that to the bank and smoke it!

But right now you really need to help me get this shirt on before it chokes me to death.

We jump suddenly to Tokyo where Shiro “Sunfire” Yoshida is nursing a drink. Once the greatest hero of Japan, he has been surpassed by the game director of Nintendo. Apparently, he is one to serve the newly-born Apocalypse Twins after signing a contract to be a Horseman of the Apocalpyse! Such is life, I guess.

Wolverine is incognito in Tokyo as a man in a cowboy hat. Very inconspicuous, sir. You do good work. He’s got something to say to Shiro. “Sunfire is retired,” Shiro tells Wolverine. “Why do you people continue to invite me into your club no matter how often I express to you my contempt of it?”

Good question, actually! Let Wolverine check his notes really quick to see if he’s got a response to this… ho hum… ah yes. It’s something to the effect of “we want a rude-ass atomic bomb guy on our team again”. *drops mic*

Plus, Xavier thought that Sunfire was something special, so that has to account for something. That bald bastard sure did have an eye for special! So fight for his ideals, if nothing else. They also have a ton of Pizza Rolls in the community kitchen freezer…

Shiro is starting to come around, especially after hearing about the Pizza Rolls.

Back in Avengers Mansion, Captain America holds a meeting in the conference room where papers are scattered across the table for no readily apparent reason. He wants to discuss a few concerns before the big press conference. First of all, Rogue and Scarlet Witch? You’re stinking up the place with your “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” affiliation. Get out.

Alex Havok overrules this, saying that they just helped save New York in a very public fashion! “I want complete transparency. People should always be trusted with the truth.”

Fuck off, Steve. As a side note, your blemishes are oozy and festering. Go see a doctor.

After the meeting, Rogue congratulates Alex on a ballsy display of ballsy balls. Balls right out on the table. “He clearly isn’t a fan of being given orders,” she says of Cap. But he’s just going to have to deal with it. He appointed Alex after all. If wanted submissiveness he would have appointed Ron DeSantis.

Rogue asks Alex if he even knows why he’s doing all this. And, yeah, sure, it’s to prove to Scott how wrong he is about Xavier’s ideals. To give up on the dream. Rogue tells him that Xavier would be proud of him if maggots weren’t eating his flesh as we speak.

Speaking of maggots, the Avengers gather around the dais at the press conference. Captain America yaps about how Red Skull failed to divide the humans and the mutants and announces the “Avengers Unity Division” (pun obviously not intended). He welcomes Havok to the dais where he freezes up and starts getting preoccupied by Cyclops yelling at him about something, I dunno, losing all the pieces to their Clue game when they were kids.

Havok removes his mask and starts talking. Full transparency!

That means you, Nazis and Jews. Time to hug it out!

Alex yaps about how shitty his brother has been to the cause. Alex sees the word “mutant” as divisive, as something that further drives home the idea that they’re not all human at the core. He urges the crowd not to call them mutants anymore. It hurts their feelings!

“Well…” begins a member of the crowd. “If you don’t want to be called ‘mutant’, what should we call you?”

Great question, sir! How about “bunnies”?

“How about Alex?” Alex smiles. Dumb.

IMMEDIATELY, A BAD GUY WITH A THOR-SHAPED HELMET AND A SKULL-AND-CROSSBONES MOTIF NAMED “GRIM REAPER” STANDS UP AND CONDEMNS SCARLET WITCH AND THEN BLASTS PURPLE LIGHT AT HER!

No time to react. But Wonder Man is there and he absorbs the blast. Whew.

Alex calls for the Avengers to assemble, as they are apt to do. They try fighting Grim Reaper while he blowhards around the premises. This douchebag is Wonder Man’s brother, and he’s beaten the Avengers before. He will surely do it again. Like, right now for example. Even Sunfire shows up, but his presence is neither acknowledged nor welcome by any of them.

Grim Reaper blasts his purple light at Wonder Man, who screams. Grim Reaper begins his soliloquy. “You refuse to fight because you know we shouldn’t be alive, Simon. We’re undead – inhuman mockeries! I’ve tried to kill myself, but nothing works. That witch you worship must die to let us return to our eternal rest.”

Take it like a man, bitch!

Oh, is this what this is about? Wanted to be dead again? How about you just put up with life like the rest of us, you sniveling little weasel-face?

Grim Reaper walks over to Scarlet Witch, who lies on the ground looking quite unconscious. Unconscious enough that only an idiot would start talking to her! “It’s mercy I bring you, Wanda,” Grim Reaper says. “Mercy I bring poor and lovelorn Simon. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed having him as your doting admirer, a puppy at your beck and call. Using his desire for you.”

Wonder Simon Man can’t move on account of bad purple energy. Rogue takes some of this purple energy, absorbs Grim Reaper’s powers, then punches him across the mug so hard that he looks fucking dead. “I barely hit him–” she says while everyone stares at her. “I barely hit him–” she says again, looking small.

Bad PR, dude.