Acts of Vengeance

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The "Acts of Vengeance" logo which appeared above the title of each comic book which participated in the crossover
The "Acts of Vengeance" logo which appeared above the title of each comic book which participated in the crossover

Acts of Vengeance is a crossover in the comic book medium that ran through various Marvel Comics publications from December 1989 to February 1990. Although almost every Marvel Universe series published during that time was involved, the main plot ran through the Avengers comics and was only occasionally referenced elsewhere.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The crossover's primary plot revolved around a group of supervillains (Doctor Doom (revealed to be a Doombot built in the likeness of him, though the real Doom may have attended on occasion), Kingpin, Magneto, Mandarin, Red Skull I, and the Wizard) who were convinced by a mysterious stranger (actually Loki) to join forces in a conspiracy to convince lesser villains to attack superheroes who were not their normal adversaries. This was facilitated by Loki engineering a jailbreak in the Vault, the United States' prison for superhuman criminals. This massive outbreak of supervillains was manipulated by the major villains into ambushing various superheroes, with varying degrees of success. In the end, the circle of villains collapsed thanks to a combination of infighting and defeats of the villains and their pawns by various heroes, primarily the Avengers. It turned out Loki had always been rankled that it was his actions that caused the Avengers to form in the first place and he was attempting to wipe them out. However, the victory would be flawed, as Doctor Doom destroyed the Avengers headquarters known as the Hydro-Base while the West Coast Avengers team suffered the double loss of Vision (who was shuttled off to the main Avengers book) and Scarlet Witch, who was kidnapped by Magneto and brainwashed into reforming the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

[edit] Notable Events

Notable events in the Acts of Vengeance included:

Separate from the hero vs. different villain plotline, Magneto took revenge on the Red Skull, burying him underground as punishment for his involvement with the Holocaust (of which Magneto was a survivor) while Mr. Fantastic went before Congress and single-handedly convinced Congress to vote against forced super-hero registration in the form of the controversial "Mutant Registration Act". Ironically, Mr. Fantastic would reverse his stand in favor of super-hero registration in Marvel's Civil War crossover.

[edit] Magneto Controversy

One of the more controversial aspects of the storyline was the schizophrenic behavior of Magneto; this was the result of internal strife between John Byrne and the rest of the writers at Marvel. Byrne was dead-set on using the "Acts of Vengeance" to revert Magneto back to his one-dimensional villain roots, complete with him exploiting his daughter, the Scarlet Witch's, emotional trauma from having her husband vivisected and mind erased, to revert her to the side of evil. Several other writers opposed this, most notably Mark Gruenwald; Gruenwald responded to Byrne's demands by using his tie-in issues to defiantly contradict Byrne's work by doing a storyline where Magneto reveals to Red Skull that he only joined up with Loki in order to be able to get close enough to the Red Skull so he could take revenge against Skull for his involvement in the Holocaust, which included burying Skull alive.

Chris Claremont, who also championed the notion of Magneto as being a multi-dimensional figure who was capable of good as well as evil, further defied Byrne by having Magneto, right before the storyline, inform Banshee that he was going to pretend to resume his villainous behavior to try and distract negative media attention away from mutant groups like the X-Men and X-Factor.

[edit] Aftermath

After the failure of the Acts of Vengeance, Loki tried one last attempt to cause harm to much of the greater New York area and its heroes by creating the Tri-Sentinel. This plan was thwarted by Spider-Man, after he was able to fully realize his possession by the Enigma Force/Uni-Power, the essence of Captain Universe.

[edit] Cast of Characters

[edit] Heroes

Among the featured heroes in this storyline are:

[edit] Prime Movers

The Prime Movers of this event are:

[edit] Villain Participants

Among the villains hired, mind-controlled, or tricked into participating in this event are:

[edit] Villains that declined membership

Other villains that Loki tried to get involved as members of the inner circle of major villains, but who turned him down, are Apocalypse, Cobra, and the Mad Thinker.

[edit] Issues Involved In Acts of Vengeance

These are the issues that the Acts of Vengeance revolved around.

[edit] Prologue

  • Iron Man #250
  • Thor #410
  • Cloak & Dagger #8

[edit] Main Storyline

  • Alpha Flight #79-80
  • Amazing Spider-Man #326-328
  • Avengers #311-313
  • Avengers Spotlight #26-29
  • Avengers West Coast #53-55
  • Captain America #365-367
  • Cloak & Dagger #9
  • Damage Control vol. 2, #1-4
  • Daredevil #275-276
  • Dr. Strange #11-13
  • Fantastic Four #334-336
  • Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #363
  • Iron Man #251-252
  • Marc Spector: Moon Knight #8-10
  • New Mutants #84-86
  • Power Pack #53
  • The Punisher vol. 2, #28-29
  • The Punisher War Journal #12-13
  • Quasar #5-6
  • Spectacular Spider-Man #158-160
  • Thor #411-412
  • Uncanny X-Men #256-258
  • Web of Spider-Man #59-61
  • Wolverine vol. 2, #19-20
  • X-Factor #50

[edit] Aftermath

  • Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #329
  • Web of Spider-Man #64-65

[edit] Epilogue

  • Avengers (vol. 1) Annual #19
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