Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #3 – “Skull & Bones”! In the previous installment, Captain America sorta kinda not really convinces Wolverine that Havok may very well be the best face for the Avengers/X-Men liaison now that Chuck Palahniuk Xavier is dead as a crippled doornail. Meanwhile, Red Skull seduces Scarlet Witch into a plan to genocide around with all the mutants on the planet again. Like an asshole. And now that the brain of Charles Nelson Reilly Xavier has been fused into Red Skull, well, shit’s going to get grim. And now he has all of Xavier’s passwords and sexual fetishes, so thinks are going to get kinky real quick.

Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), Issue #3 [March, 2013]
Written by: Rick Remender
“Skull & Bones”

“Citizens, fellow human beings, I implore you – WAKE UP!” Red Skull stands on a platform and hypnotizes a crowd in the middle of Manhattan. “You walk by this monument of death and it suffocates your hearts. It fills you with a terrible fear. Who among us will be next? There can be no safety living among the creatures that bring down buildings without warning. But what can we do? What is the solution?”

“YOU are the solution,” he continues. “You are the chemotherapy needed to eradicate this cancer growing in our midst!”

*burp*

This Nazi rambles on about mutants being vermin and they’ll keep attack humans until all the humans are dead. You’ve seen Wolverine, right? He’s all like “grrrrrr” and that can’t be good for our people!

“A puddle of water glimmers and flashes to life, transformed into a portal by Dancing Water. Her deceptive beauty standing in stark contrast to the corrosive hatred that has long since encompassed her soul.”

Dancing Water introduces her gaggle of mutant rejects to the people. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, as it were. Scarlet Witch is among them, looking drugged and disoriented. Rogue stands next to her, looking disoriented and drugged! They lazily introduce themselves, monotonously vow to end the threat to humans, and laboriously poop themselves.

Red Skull is like “YES! YES!”

The crowd starts rioting, all riled up and motivated! People who seem suspicious are getting killed on the spot. Mothers of three. Cops, man. Far out.

In come the Avengers to either straighten things out or make things worse! The latter is almost always true, as I’ve come to find out after reading hundreds of comic books.

This attack will teach you that mutants aren’t here to attack anyone!

“We need to find any mutants we can and get them to safety!” says Havok. “Split up – stay in contact. We’ll regroup when more help arrives to–”

“Split?” interrupts Captain America, undermining Havok’s authority like a jerkbag. “Alex, until we know more–”

“You wanted me leading – I’m leading.”

Unrest among the good guys! This surely bodes well! Havok tells him to go be Captain America and shut the fuck up. And he tells Wolvering to go be Wolverine, and I’m surprised that Wolverine doesn’t even argue. He just goes “SNIKT”. Classic.

Red Skull still stands among carnage and fire hollerin’ about Final Solutions and armbands and concentration camps and unfashionable toothbrush mustaches. A crackling in the sky signals the arrival of Thor, He Whom Has Da Hammer, and his mighty bolts of lightning.

“The bolt disrupts the Skull’s electrodes, momentarily removing Xavier’s gifts…”

Scarlet Witch and Rogue snap out of it for a hot second. Hot enough of a second to react by putting up their feeble dukes! Thor throws his hammer at point-blank range and misses Red Skull completely. Whoops! Thor gets tackled by the turtle guy. Mzee, I think he’s called. They smash through the front window of a deli, ruining the owners’ business and sending them back to Sicily penniless.

Mzee is like “YOU’RE NO MUTANT, I DON’T WANT TO FIGHT YOU!” but Thor is like “Fight me anyway, bitch.” So the bitch fights: “I am Mzee! Made inflexible by the gravity of the true soul! I am the impossible strength!” he says before getting a face full of Mjolnir. He bleeds all over it, which is rude. Then Mzee crashes to the ground.

Some dude behind Thor introduces himself as “Honest John”, which is hella suspicious, and welcomes Thor to be his friend and/or show him things in a new light. It’s a weird, unsettling panel, and I think we shall talk no more about Honest John!

Meanwhile, the pressure to be a stinky bigot is too much for Captain America.

While we’re doing what’s best for America, I have a list here of about 900 politicians that could do with a little bit of *click click* assassination. You dig?

Eventually, miraculously, Captain America snaps out of his true subconscious desires for mutant eradication and goes “NO!”

“Skull’s hatred finds no grip on his noble heart,” says the narration even though we just saw Captain America almost easily succumb to his evil thoughts! Say what you will about Captain America, but I think he’s a no-good S.O.B.!

Mutants continue to get cornered and beaten to the death. Some of them don’t get killed. Havok recognizes that most in the crowd are not in the right minds, being hypnotized by Big Xavier Brain and all. Havok saves a woman before getting reprimanded by Cap.

“You are no Avenger! The crowd here is subdued – once this woman is seen to safety, I want you gone, Summers. YOUR SHOWBOATING ALMOST GOT THAT GIRL KILLED! Just another mutant sob story doing things your own haphazard way! Reckless like your brother! Worse still – incompetent!”

This is the coolest that Captain America has ever been, but of course Havok has to literally slap some sense into this guy and remind him that he’s being a jerk because of Red Skull’s mental hold on everyone. *slap slap punch*

“Let’s see some of that famous strength of will because there are people’s lives on the line,” retorts Havok. Also, fuck you Cap. Havok can rip your butthole into teeny tiny pieces.

Wolverine is trying to beat up some sort of bug, but ends up getting a face injection of fatal toxin! The toxin makes Wolverine see that it’s not a good idea to beat up evil mutants and it is instead a good idea to help rid the world of all mutants and also kill himself afterward.

Scarlet Witch enchants a fire hydrant. An outlet pops off and hits the bug. It’s a stupid panel. Just punch him in the face next time. The sound of the outlet hitting the bug goes “TWUNGG” though, which I rather like.

Once Wolverine snaps out of it, Scarlet Witch and Rogue inform him that Red Skull stole Charles Xavier’s brain and chewed on it for a bit to attain its incredible power. Wolverine makes his scary “grrrrrr” face. He even drools a bit, which either enhances or ruins the effect greatly and I’ll let you decide.

Wolverine is so mad he doesn’t even know which direction to go! Both Scarlet Witch and Rogue go “gross”.

RAWR!! SNARL!!

“We’re well past the ‘make a plan’ phase,” Rogue observes as all the men get too emotional. Thor, even. He’s “lost in the syrupy power slogans of Honest John, the Living Propaganda”. And what did I say about talking more about Honest John?! Now I’m getting emotional!!

“You are very simply on the wrong side of the greatest struggle of our time. We fight the darkness that comes for all mankind,” says John of Honesty. From Thor’s point of view he sees his dear old dad Odin. His ideal leader. The guy he’s been trying to unsuccessfully please his whole life. “Odin” tells him that Red Skull must be aided at all cost! “Asgard will stand on the right side of history!”

Red Skull puts a hand on Thor’s shoulder. He likes a nice, blond, blue-eyed, rugged, alpha male! *growls seductively*

Wolverine leaps down silently from the sky. He would have killed Red Skull if it weren’t for Charles Xavier’s ugly brain and its ugly powers.

He cuts off Red Skull’s jerkin’ hand, though. At least that’s something.

Wolverine still means to kill this guy for obvious reasons (he’s being bad), but Red Skull turns Wolverine’s attention to the Goat-Faced Girl. Her gaze negates the X-gene, so as long as Wolverine stares lovingly in its eyes he won’t have the power to SNIKT!

While Wolverine is entranced, Thor smashes his skull in with his hammer.

Hey, I feel personally attacked here!

“To a psychopath, domination is the closest sensation to love. Though it is much greater. Its intensity all-consuming. Five minutes after his arrival, the city lay naked before him. Submissive and adoring. Tonight, for the first time since his return, he was happy. The Red Skull had fallen in love with New York.”

*burp*

Final Thoughts

Boy, those Avengers sure do suck ass at everything, don’t they? Can’t work together without fighting, can’t work individually without getting creamed. Maybe they should just stay out of the way and make room for some real heroes like Batman and Really Really Big Man.