Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #2 – “We Were Avengers”! In the previous installment, a mean god named Ex Nihilo, who looks like a viking dipped in gold, is busy terraforming Mars even though his robot companion demands that he destroy worlds instead of build them.

The Avengers team flies to Mars to stop Ex Nihilo, probably because they think he’s actually being mean to Mars instead of being nice to Mars, and Ex Nihilo’s team fucks them up royally. They send Captain America back to Earth like a pile of garbage and keep the rest of the Avengers on Mars. So the rest of the Avengers might be fucked.

In a flashback, Tony Stark has a feeling that they need to grow their team anyway to face a threat that is a great magnitude; a magnitude hitherto unknown to Avengerdom! So Steve “Kenny” Rogers is going to work on that.

So let’s see him do just that. Maybe.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #2 [February, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“We Were Avengers”

This issue also starts with a “Previously on Avengers” page, rehashing a few panels from Issue #1, but the art is all blued-out to show, you know, the past. “We have to get bigger.” Yes yes, that old penis joke! I understand.

Mars! We’re on Mars!

Abyss is talking to her pal Mr. Hulk about the “learning tree” and what the “learning tree” is “teaching her”! The “learning tree” is “teaching her” that “Thor” is “different from the rest”! You see, the Avengers are hanging from the learning tree, except for Hulk — he’s Abyss’ buddy. Hulk says “rrarrrrr” in agreement to Abyss’ learning tree crash-course.

The tree can’t pinpoint Thor’s origins, as if he either doesn’t fully exist or he’s not from this time and place. “I haven’t seen anything this exciting in 100,000 years.” Abyss claims, “I think I found me a god, Ex Nihilo”.

Aphex the Friendly Killing Robot performs a diagnostic, which involves grabbing Thor’s throat and squeezing it for a bit.

Is this where you male humanoid gods keep your testicles?

Ex Nihilo is intrigued! He and Thor start chatting it up god-style about creations and apocalypses, but Thor wants to talk about boring things like Asgard and Odin. Ex Nihilo gets pretty impatient pretty quickly, and lays it down bluntly: “Listen closely, god. This is the true beginning…and this is how it all ends for your world.” Now it’s Ex Nihilo’s turn to be boring! Gods are boring. It’s like, stop godsplaining everything to us.

Ex Nihilo starts talking about the first race, called the Builders, who worshipped their godmother, called the Universe. But worshipping got old, so the Builders started creating their own destinies, and this also entailed creating “aggressive systems” in order to control space and time. How very authoritarian. One of these aggressive systems are these Aleph robots (“Gardeners”) whose purpose was to purge any species designated as unfit to inhabit the universe the Builders were building! Gardeners and Builders, got that?

It sounds like Alephs just destroyed everything for hundreds of millions of years. Finally, one day, at about 11:15am (Greenwich Mean Time), a simply resplendent, immaculate, perfect species was encountered by a single Aleph. Such a beautiful sight! This murder robot cried tears of awe-inspired reverence and delight! A species worthy of not killing, at last! So that Gardener released a Garden, you feel me? No two seeds that a Gardner carries are the same. Keep up.

Shut up, you look like a wrench.

I guess “releasing the Garden” means “taking out these weird black and white eggs I’ve been saving for an eternity”. The white egg had Ex Nihilo. The black egg had Abyss. And this Aleph’s name was…Aleph. They’re all named Aleph. This particular Aleph is their Aleph. I suppose that was obvious, actually. So, anyway, from that day forward this trio travels to inhabited worlds to either destroy them or cultivate them. Sounds like a tedious job. Maybe they should try reading some books or golfing or something.

Ex Nihilo might cultivate Earth some day! I mean, it’s not on his Outlook schedule, but he’ll think about it! But, after what he’s seen from the best that the whole planet has to offer (a guy in a blue chicken-feather suit, a big green dummy, etc.), he’s considering the alternative. And who could blame him? Fuck Earth! What did it ever do for anybody?

Flashback? Steve Rogers and Tony Stark and talking to each other again at the Avengers Mansion Room of Computers and Buttons. Stark suspects, and is probably right, that they’re both approaching this problem at different angles. Take, for example, expansion. Necessary expansion of the Avengers teams. Stark, knowing Rogers as he does, assumes that Rogers is thinking of expansion as a state of mind that other people need to be talked into to get onboard with. And Rogers, knowing Stark as he does, assumes that Stark thinks of expansion as a science problem that needs to be solved with tearing down an old “machine” and building a new one. And they’re both right about each other, those knuckleheads! Then they kiss! It’s cute. I won’t show it here, but just take my word for it, OK?

So they start building the blocks of this foundation. A small starter team. Captain America and Iron Man! And Thor, of course! Hawkeye, maybe, sure. And, yeah, Black Widow. OK. Hulk, really? Yuck. He fucks everything up! Plus, he smells. All right, fine, Hulk can come too.

Man, remember the good old says when Avengers wanted to actually Avenge some shit?

They run through a list on their Super Mega Computer 64. There aren’t many more options. There’s the tiniest air of apprehension in the room, IN THIS READER’S OPINION, but Rogers says they’ll make it work. That guy always says things like that! Classic.

Flashforward! The Avengers have assembled, and just in time for Parcheesi night. It’ll be about fourteen hours before the Quinjet is fully retrofitted to handle…whatever. Space travel? They both stand on a catwalk, observing a bunch of costumed heroes working like slaves to put together an airship, MARVELING, if you will, at the fruits of their own labor (drinking coffee at a computer).

Why do you think I never joined the Young Avengers? No beer. Plus, I’m 190 years old.

However, all these people needed to be bribed in the first place to join! They bribed Wolverine with beer, Spider-Man with money, the Falcon with…birdseed (Steve throws that out there, but Falcon does it anyway).

They get Shang-Chi, that guy with the rings. Some dudes chilling on the beach named Cannonball and Sunspot who would rather be the loved Avengers than the stinky, hated X-Men. They get some guy named Manifold who doesn’t think he’s worthy in the first place.

They get a couple of feisty ladies, Spider-Woman and Captain Marvel, who needed no incentive! They just want to kick some damn ass, son.

Correct answer! I would have also accepted “possibly stoned”.

So that’s everybody. That’s a lot. That’s, like, five names I don’t know. I won’t tell you which ones (what’s a Spider-Man?!?!).

So, remember in Issue #1 when Ex Nihilo launched a plant-thing into space and the Avengers blew it up with the jet laser shooty beam bullets? Well, these weird plant things had been launched to several Earth locations. The plant-things were full of horrible, brain-sucking bugs! They got Kobe, Japan. They got Chhatarpur, India. Split, Croatia. Even Holjanmyar, Norway, with a population of one!

On Mars, a barely-conscious Tony Stark asks Ex Nihilo why he’s doing this, and Ex Nihilo is ALTRUISTIC so watch your pretty little mouth, Tony. This big yellow bastard believes Earth can be saved by his efforts, so all these “origin bombs” that he’s hurtling through space to land on Earth contain genetic code remapping viruses. Each one has been carefully picked and distributed to maximize Earth’s new potential. So, again, stuff it.

Stark calls this genocide. Ex Nihilo tut-tuts that word; he’s creating life, moron! Nimrod! Who let this guy here? HELLLOOO??! PERFECTING WORLDS OVER HERE! Now you’ve gone and done it. Ignorance!

Ex Nihilo is pretty repetitive about his insistence that he creates instead of destroys.

In Avengers Tower, the makeshift team is assessing the damage caused by Ex-Nihlio’s origin bombs. It’s not looking good. Looks like it’s the same thing that happened in Perth and Regina. Captain America is tired of hearing about all this. “I’m taking too long.” he tells himself, ready to KICK SOME ASS AND whatever else he does. Not much of a hobbyist, this Cap’n.

Captain America has the advantage, having been launched from Mars to Earth personally by Ex Nihilo, of knowing who’s been launching origin bombs from Mars (it’s Ex Nihilo). So he wants to get going on fucking his shit up right away. Wolverine reminds him that this new Avengers team has been assembled for all of six hours now, which is about 1/8th of the length of the Avengers: Endgame movie! Captain America says “tough titties”.

Cap summons Manifold, the guy who didn’t think he was worthy enough to be part of the team, and asks him if he can “Take Meta Mars” by the Flaming Lips! Manifold says that taking them to Mars will be simple! He throws a sigil of light in the air to prove it. I’m convinced!

Assemble the crew! We’re going to Motherfucking Mars!

Final Thoughts

This is pretty fun so far. Nice coming from Mark Waid’s Captain America, which has ZERO believable organic dialogue, to this. It’s actually kind of funny, like Joss Whedon’s X-Men.

So yeah. Good stuff. Bye.