OMU: Black Panther -- Year Five

The Black Panther stars in his first solo feature in Jungle Action, which debuted in the summer of 1973. The initial two years of the series chronicle T’Challa’s battles against an insurrection in Wakanda led by the enigmatic Erik Killmonger under the title “Panther’s Rage,” which amounts to a 209-page graphic novel by writer Don McGregor and artist Billy Graham. (The first four issues are handled by artists Rich Buckler and Gil Kane before Graham takes over for the remaining nine.) Wakanda is explored in detail for the first time in this series, and we are introduced to a variety of Wakandan characters, though the country’s not depicted as the Afrofuturist utopia it would eventually evolve into. While McGregor’s often gruesome purple prose has been deservedly mocked (even by his contemporaries), his storytelling instincts are strong and he provides an emotionally engrossing and nuanced tale quite atypical for Marvel. It’s safe to say that “Panther’s Rage” was ahead of its time. The events are described below from the Black Panther’s point of view.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale). Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Now continuing… The True History of the Black Panther!


January 1967 – At his royal palace in Wakanda, King T’Challa spends the month attending to routine matters of state which he has neglected due to his 15-month sojourn in the United States of America as a member of the Avengers. Released from his duties as regent, N’Gassi decides to retire from public life, leading T’Challa to rely more heavily on Taku, Zatama, and younger advisors. W’Kabi, now the senior security advisor, warns T’Challa repeatedly about a shadowy malcontent called Erik Killmonger who’s been stirring up trouble. T’Challa is not overly concerned, though, since there have been rumors of unrest among the villages in the western hill country for years now and nothing has come of it. He’s more frustrated by the fact that his subjects have been less than welcoming to his American girlfriend, Monica Lynne. In an attempt to help Monica fit in better, T’Challa assigns to her one of the court handmaidens, Tanzika, who worked briefly with the Falcon’s headstrong girlfriend Leila Taylor several weeks ago. He also arranges for a tutor to start teaching Monica the Wakandan language. He hopes that after the inevitable period of culture shock passes, Monica will be accepted by his people as their future queen.

February 1967 – Needing a break, T’Challa suits up as the Black Panther and goes to spend some time alone in the jungle to the north of the palace. There, he discovers an old man being tortured by two younger men, Kazibe and Tayete, one of whom is brandishing an illegal submachine gun. Black Panther beats up the two thugs and drives them off. Unfortunately, the old man dies of his injuries, insisting that he never lost faith in his king during his long absence, no matter what anybody else said. After carrying the old man’s body back to the palace, T’Challa orders a contingent of soldiers into the northern hills to retrieve the submachine gun and find out how it was smuggled into the country. The next morning, W’Kabi reports that there was a terrible massacre during the night at a settlement on Black Warrior Creek. He, Taku, and a small contingent of soldiers accompany the Black Panther there to investigate, where they confirm that the raid on the village was led by Killmonger. Taku explains that Wakanda’s social fabric has been fraying as the population fragments into isolated enclaves, pointing out to T’Challa how long it’s been since he visited any of the small mountain villages. The resulting power vacuum has allowed Killmonger to challenge the king’s authority.

Receiving a report that Killmonger and his followers are advancing toward the palace, Black Panther races to Warrior Falls to intercept them. There, he comes across Kazibe and Tayete again, and while he’s interrogating them, he’s attacked by Killmonger. Wielding a heavy, spiked belt, Killmonger notes that they’ve met before, though T’Challa doesn’t recognize him. The rebel sics his white leopard, Preyy, on the king, and the massive cat knocks the Black Panther into the river at the top of the waterfall. As they struggle, Black Panther nearly breaks Preyy’s neck, forcing Killmonger to intervene. He beats on the Black Panther with his belt as the injured leopard slinks away. Then, filled with rage and bitterness, Killmonger lifts the Black Panther above his head and throws him over the falls. Black Panther does what he can to keep from getting his brains dashed out on the jutting rocks but loses consciousness when he hits the pool of water at the bottom and drifts down the River of Grace and Wisdom toward the palace. When he comes to, T’Challa finds himself in the hospital, seriously wounded, and learns he was found by Monica while she was bathing in the river.

A week later, T’Challa has recovered sufficiently for a meeting with Taku, W’Kabi, Zatama, Monica, and Tanzika, at which he tells them what he has learned about Killmonger since their fight. The rebel was originally called N’Jadaka and was among those young men kidnapped by Ulysses Klaw when he tried to seize control of the vibranium mound fourteen years ago. Klaw’s men took their captives to the United States, but once there, N’Jadaka escaped from them. However, with no Wakandan embassy to turn to, N’Jadaka had no means of returning home until the Black Panther joined the Avengers. Learning of N’Jadaka’s plight, T’Challa brought him back to Wakanda, and somehow, in just two and a half years, N’Jadaka has built up a formidable power base under the name Erik Killmonger. Zatama suggests they negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict, but W’Kabi scoffs at such an idea. Taku then receives a report of an army assembling at Warrior Falls, lead by a fearsome apparition—some kind of animated corpse with live snakes coiled around its body. Ignoring Monica’s objections, T’Challa immediately suits up as the Black Panther and heads out to confront the rebel force.

Black Panther soon comes upon Kazibe and Tayete and beats them up yet again while mocking how ineffectual they are. The hapless pair insists that T’Challa will be no match for Killmonger’s Death Regiment, but he is undeterred. He soon locates the Death Regiment and follows them into a cave behind the waterfall, where he discovers an illicit mining operation that’s stealing vibranium ore right out of the earth. Before he can react, Black Panther is attacked by the weird figure Taku described, though he turns out to be merely a disfigured American man calling himself Venomm. Though he nearly falls into a chasm while evading the vipers coiling around his foe’s limbs, Black Panther manages to beat Venomm into submission. Soldiers from the palace soon arrive, drive off the Death Regiment, and dismantle the mining operation. Venomm is taken into custody and locked in a holding cell in the palace.

Over the course of the following week, T’Challa sends a new model of aero-car to the Fantastic Four, requesting that they give it a thorough test run. Mister Fantastic recruits his teammates the Human Torch and Medusa to assist him and later submits a positive assessment, suggesting only a few minor tweaks. T’Challa is grateful for the feedback and glad to have a nice distraction from Wakanda’s internal strife.

Towards the end of the month, T’Challa takes the royal herbalist, Mendinao, into Torment Forest for the sacred ritual involving the heart-shaped herb that gives the Black Panther his superhuman abilities. Citing the threat posed by Killmonger, W’Kabi insists on accompanying them. Unfortunately, Monica disrupts the ceremony, mistakenly believing that W’Kabi is in league with Killmonger and is trying to assassinate T’Challa. W’Kabi and Monica get into a scuffle, but T’Challa intervenes. He rebukes W’Kabi for treating Monica so roughly, then escorts her back to the palace. When they arrive, they find that a woman calling herself Malice has broken Venomm out of his cell after overcoming Taku and Zatama. She throws a triple-bladed spear at them, which, to T’Challa’s surprise, slices through a marble column before lacerating his shoulder. A second later, Malice has crossed the room and is battering T’Challa with a bo staff. Taking into account his foe’s superhuman strength and speed, T’Challa flips Malice into Venomm, forcing him to release his grip on Taku’s throat. W’Kabi charges into the room, followed by Mendinao, and recaptures Venomm. W’Kabi nearly strangles the prisoner with the shaft of his spear, but T’Challa reminds him that that’s not how they do things. Malice dives through a window and escapes into the jungle.

March–May 1967 – As the weeks pass relatively quietly, T’Challa comes to believe that Killmonger’s plans have been scuttled by the dismantling of his vibranium-smuggling operation and his failure to liberate Venomm. Taku spends much of his free time chatting with Venomm, and they gradually develop a friendly rapport, though Venomm is careful not to reveal anything useful about Killmonger. The hotheaded W’Kabi continually advocates the use of torture to extract the information from the prisoner, much to the disgust of Zatama, whose pacifist philosophy has made him rather unpopular around the court. T’Challa has faith in Taku, though, and is willing to be patient. Monica, however, grows increasingly frustrated that the Wakandans persist in rejecting her. She is convinced that they see her as a symbol of encroaching modernity, though she believes it’s really just xenophobia. When she tries to share her concerns with T’Challa, he habitually lapses into high-minded pontificating.

June 1967 – Black Panther saves a nine-year-old boy named Kantu from an angry rhinoceros while out and about with Monica. The boy’s parents, M’Jumbak and Karota, are grateful, though they give Monica the cold shoulder. Over antelope shish kebobs at dinner that night, T’Challa tries to reassure Monica that his people will eventually accept her. Afterwards, a desperate Karota turns up and says that M’Jumbak disappeared while on his customary evening walk, which takes him past a burial ground said to haunted by an evil spirit. T’Challa agrees to look into the matter and once again suits up as the Black Panther. In the cemetery, he discovers that M’Jumbak has been strangled to death. Suddenly, several zombies burst out of the graves around him, led by a seven-foot-tall, emaciated figure who calls himself Baron Macabre and shoots death-rays out of his hands. Despite battling fiercely, Black Panther is badly outnumbered by his eerie foes and forced to retreat to the palace. There, he is shocked to find W’Kabi arresting Monica for the murder of Zatama. The murder weapon, a thin blade that pierced Zatama’s heart, has Monica’s fingerprints all over it. Under the circumstances, the best T’Challa can do is have Monica confined to her opulent quarters rather than a holding cell. Convinced of his lover’s innocence, T’Challa vows to clear her name.

The next day, T’Challa visits Monica and shows her the odd-looking murder weapon, which is nevertheless somehow familiar. He is intrigued by a greasy substance coating much of it and wonders how the killer got Monica’s fingerprints on it. She admits to being frightened, saying she’s seen too many movies where suspicious locals pin a crime on an innocent stranger. He does his best to reassure her. A little later, T’Challa takes his dinner in the throne room while discussing the previous night’s events with W’Kabi. Tanzika brings him more antelope shish kebobs, but T’Challa is annoyed to be served leftovers. Karota returns, hoping for an update on her husband’s disappearance, and T’Challa informs her of his death. Feeling guilty that he let himself be distracted by personal problems, T’Challa returns to the cemetery to continue his investigation into M’Jumbak’s murder. He is again attacked by Baron Macabre’s zombies but is able to confirm his suspicion that they are merely men in ghoulish disguises. Beating them into submission, Black Panther forces one of the men to reveal that the graves lead down to the hidden lair of Baron Macabre and his superior, King Cadaver. Undaunted, Black Panther stalks his foes through their network of tunnels until he finds them in a brightly lit hall of mirrors.

Black Panther is shocked by King Cadaver’s repulsive appearance: his macrocephalic head is covered with pustules, bristly hairs, and bulging veins. His bloodshot eyes are inhumanly large and seem to bore into T’Challa’s brain from the multiple reflections surrounding him, due to his low-level psychic assault. Smashing through the glass partition separating them, Black Panther knocks out Baron Macabre, revealing the villain’s skull-like visage to be merely a mask, but he is then horrified to discover that King Cadaver’s face is all too real. Taking advantage of T’Challa’s astonishment, King Cadaver slips past his mental defenses and intensifies the telepathic torture. In desperation, Black Panther seizes Baron Macabre’s fringed headdress and uses it to blindfold King Cadaver, breaking the psychic link. He then hurls the villain through the mirrored wall behind his throne, revealing another chamber beyond it. Curious, Black Panther steps through the broken mirror and finds himself in a remote section of his “technological jungle,” surrounded by weapons looted from Wakanda’s arsenals. Investigating further, he finds that Baron Macabre’s death-rays are adapted from a wrist-mounted laser device meant for industrial purposes, but there is no explanation for King Cadaver’s bizarre mutations. He calls in a contingent of soldiers to secure the technological jungle complex, but both Baron Macabre and King Cadaver manage to escape before they can be apprehended.

Returning to the palace, T’Challa checks in with Monica. When Tanzika brings the prisoner her dinner, T’Challa suddenly realizes that the blade that killed Zatama is just a shish kebob skewer—the very skewer that Monica ate her dinner off of the night of the murder. He announces confidently that he has solved the crime and will soon have the evidence to prove it. A few hours later, Black Panther is lurking in the treetops outside the palace when W’Kabi nearly blows his cover. He tells W’Kabi to keep quiet and sets off after a shadowy figure that emerges from the palace and heads toward the River of Grace and Wisdom. On the riverbank he finds that, as he suspected, Tanzika is attempting to dispose of some incriminating evidence—scandalous photographs of her and Zatama enjoying a romantic tryst. Tanzika admits that she killed Zatama in a jealous rage after he abruptly ended their affair. She grabs the skewer and throws it at the Black Panther, but he snatches it out of the air and shames her for trying to frame Monica. W’Kabi soon arrives and takes Tanzika into custody. Completely exonerated, Monica is immediately released from confinement and receives a formal apology. T’Challa is satisfied that justice has been served.

July 1967 – Venomm finally lets it slip that Killmonger’s Death Regiment is hiding out in the rebel’s home village in the western hill country, which he has renamed N’Jadaka in his own honor. Taku reports this information at once, though he feels guilty for betraying his new friend’s confidence. Black Panther then leads Taku, W’Kabi, and a large contingent of soldiers there to capture them. Finding Kazibe and Tayete on guard duty, Black Panther gives them a beating for old times’ sake. One of Killmonger’s lieutenants, whom he has named Lord Karnaj, produces a pair of sonic-blaster pistols and kills one of T’Challa’s men. Black Panther orders his forces to move in, and the battle begins. Malice and Baron Macabre join Lord Karnaj at the forefront of the fighting. At one point, Malice throws one of her triple-bladed spears at W’Kabi, but he manages to dodge it. The spear goes all the way through a thatched hut and lands in the dirt near Taku on the other side. Lord Karnaj then blasts the hut to smithereens with his sonic pistols, killing a child. Horrified, Taku charges at Lord Karnaj and beats him nearly to death before the Black Panther stops him, not wanting him to become as warlike as W’Kabi. As Taku carries the child’s body away for burial, Black Panther’s forces win the day. Malice, Baron Macabre, Lord Karnaj, Kazibe, Tayete, and the other rebels are taken into custody. T’Challa is confident they’ve dealt a severe blow to Killmonger’s insurrection.

T’Challa and his advisors are baffled by unseasonable weather throughout Wakanda as well as around the globe. The bizarre phenomenon soon passes, but the cause remains a mystery. Not long after, T’Challa receives word from the Avengers that the Scarlet Witch and the Vision have gotten married. He sends the happy couple a gift in care of Avengers Mansion. The team also informs him of the strange fate of the Swordsman and Mantis, who have also gotten married, in a manner of speaking, and left Earth to seek their destiny among the stars. Later, T’Challa becomes concerned when everyone in Manhattan is rendered unconscious for two days. Efforts to investigate the situation are hampered when it is found that anyone who goes to the island likewise passes out. After everyone finally revives, reports of odd occurrences start coming in from around the world, but then the Fantastic Four announce that it was all part of an alien invasion plot that they’ve foiled. T’Challa is relieved to know he’ll be able to continue focusing on domestic affairs.

August 1967 – Under interrogation, Tayete reveals that Killmonger has a hidden base he calls the Resurrection Altar in the largely unexplored domain of the white gorillas in the northwestern part of the country. To Monica’s dismay, T’Challa is determined to take Tayete and Kazibe into the mountainous wilderness alone, since W’Kabi has his hands full with all the captured insurrectionists. She and Taku accompany the Black Panther and the two prisoners to the Chasm of Chilling Mist, a deep gorge that separates the white gorillas’ domain from the rest of Wakanda. Black Panther then marches Kazibe and Tayete across the centuries-old wooden bridge that spans the chasm and follows them up a mountain, where the air temperature drops dramatically. After an arduous trek, they find the Resurrection Altar in a cavern near the mountain’s peak—a square chamber with polished metal walls, in the center of which is a circular pit containing a large meteorite that’s emitting mutagenic radiation. King Cadaver is strapped naked to a platform that’s being lowered into the pit as Killmonger watches alongside Sombre, a sort of high priest wearing a ceremonial mask. Black Panther realizes that this is the source of Killmonger’s lieutenants’ superhuman abilities and that they are probably attempting to increase King Cadaver’s telepathic powers. Leaping down from his vantage point, Black Panther tackles Killmonger, but the villain proves to have super-strength and tosses him into the pit. Black Panther saves himself with his gymnastic skill, only to be rendered unconscious by a single touch of Sombre’s hand. When he comes to, Black Panther finds himself lying alone in the snow somewhere on the mountainside with only a spear to protect himself from the ravenous wolves that stalk the night.

Despite being badly wounded while fighting off the wolves, Black Panther finds his way back to the Resurrection Altar, only to learn that Killmonger and King Cadaver have already left. However, he is able to track Sombre quite some distance and finds him whipping a group of white gorillas into a frenzy. A 12-foot-tall gorilla attacks the Black Panther while Sombre mocks him, reminding him that the creatures are considered gods by Wakanda’s second major religion, which has long been officially repressed. Although he takes a savage beating, Black Panther manages to overcome the monstrous gorilla by clawing at its eyes. Blinded, the creature tumbles off an icy overhang and is impaled on the rib bone of some great, long-dead beast. The rest of the white gorillas go into paroxysms of grief over their fallen leader, prompting Sombre to make a strategic retreat. Over the next three days, Black Panther follows him down through the mountains to the perpetually mist-shrouded Serpent Valley, which remains largely unexplored. On the edge of a marsh, the two men get into a fight, though as before, Sombre’s mere touch causes the Black Panther intense agony. Luckily, the villain is distracted by a strange voice from the tree canopy, enabling the Black Panther to kick him into a quagmire. Sombre makes no effort to save himself and quickly sinks into the muck and drowns.

Having made only a half-hearted attempt to rescue Sombre, Black Panther takes to the trees to investigate the source of the strange voice. He soon finds a jovial little man perched on a branch who peppers him with elliptical questions. Though he always answers T’Challa’s questions with another question, the pygmy does intimate that he is called Mokadi. Deciding that Mokadi seems harmless enough, Black Panther sets off in search of Killmonger. Mokadi follows him, and they soon come upon a river badly polluted with an oily sludge. Mokadi reveals that Killmonger is responsible, directing his men to dump barrels of sludge into the water to help them capture some dinosaurs wading there. T’Challa is shocked to see these Brachiosaurus-like creatures and wonders what Killmonger wants them for. He climbs down a sheer cliff to confront his foe, but Killmonger releases a captive Tyrannosaurus to cover his retreat. With Mokadi’s help, Black Panther kills the Tyrannosaurus by turning a palm tree into a makeshift catapult and hitting it between the eyes with a large rock. However, the pygmy then vanishes without a trace. Suddenly remembering that “mokadi” is a Bomitaba word for “spirit,” T’Challa wonders if his little companion was even real. He then limps off into the jungle in search of herbs to salve his wounds.

Sometime later, Black Panther stops at a small pool alongside a thorny forest of cactus and brambles to apply fresh poultices to his wounds. Unfortunately, he is ambushed by three of Killmonger’s henchmen. He dispatches the first two with little effort, but the third is armed with a bow and a quiver of exploding arrows. The arrogant archer introduces himself as Salamander K’Ruel, and T’Challa is repulsed by the large boils that cover his flesh. Nevertheless, he pounces on K’Ruel, only to discover that his body is also covered with thousands of needle-like quills. Recoiling in agony, T’Challa passes out, and when he comes to, he finds himself caught in a diabolical trap: he’s been securely bound between two large cactus plants, the slightest movement causing their spines to pierce his flesh. The excruciating pain prevents him from doing anything but snarl as K’Ruel stands before him triumphantly. Before leaving to fetch Killmonger, K’Ruel boasts of being one of the few to survive exposure to the Resurrection Altar’s radiation. T’Challa then sits limply as the afternoon passes, lost in delirious visions of carefree childhood days spent with his father. A curious newt brings him back to reality as dusk approaches. His torment is brought to an abrupt end when a hungry pterosaur swoops down on him, its talons splitting apart the cactus on T’Challa’s left. He struggles to untie himself as the creature wheels around for another pass. The pterosaur then smashes the cactus on T’Challa’s right, grabs his arms, and yanks him into the sky. Instinctively fighting to save himself, T’Challa manages to clamber onto the pterosaur’s back, out of reach of its jaws and talons. He then directs the flying reptile to the edge of Serpent Valley, where he dive-bombs Salamander K’Ruel. Startled, K’Ruel lets fly an explosive arrow that kills the pterosaur, but T’Challa leaps off in the nick of time and viciously beats K’Ruel unconscious with his own bow. Exhausted, T’Challa finally pulls all the little quills and cactus spines out of his skin, washes his wounds, and applies fresh poultices. He then drags K’Ruel back to his palace, an arduous two-day trek.

T'Challa is delirious when he finally collapses on the front steps of the palace. Monica comes running out, calling to W’Kabi to fetch Mendinao at once. With his head in her lap, T’Challa tries to say something to Monica but passes out instead. When he comes to later, T’Challa finds himself in the intensive care ward of the hospital, his treatment being overseen by his cousin Joshua Itobo, a skilled practitioner of western medicine. Monica assures him that Salamander K’Ruel has been imprisoned along with Killmonger’s other lieutenants. Over the next several weeks, T’Challa slowly recovers from his ordeal.

October 1967 – T’Challa and Monica enjoy a day at Twisted Visions Lake, frolicking in the waves and riding on giant sea turtles. She’s happy that he’s finally been released from the hospital, though she’s been enjoying getting to know Taku better. They discuss T’Challa’s new insights into the downsides of his modernization efforts, which he’s had a lot of time to think about during his convalescence. After some hot sex on the beach, they return to the palace to find that Venomm has escaped from his cell after knocking out Taku and seriously injuring W’Kabi. Certain that Venomm will return to the village of N’Jadaka where he kept his pet snakes, Black Panther sets off in an aero-car to recapture him. En route, he spots a young boy sitting alone on the edge of the lake and decides to check on him. It turns out to be Kantu, whose father was murdered by Killmonger’s henchmen back in June. Kantu says he blames Killmonger for his father’s death and hates him so much that he would kill him if he could. T’Challa tries to comfort the boy but worries about the future of Wakanda amidst such strife. After starting Kantu on his way home, Black Panther continues on to his confrontation with Venomm, arriving in the remote village shortly after nightfall.

At Venomm’s command, a large snake nearly strangles the Black Panther before he manages to beat it to death. He then sees dozens more snakes slithering towards him, but luckily Taku arrives and talks Venomm down. Unwilling to kill Taku, whom he considers a friend, Venomm calls off his snakes and retreats into the jungle. Black Panther is forced to let him go, knowing he’s no match for an army of deadly snakes. Returning home in defeat, T’Challa visits W’Kabi in the hospital and tries to cheer him up by talking about his deepening relationship with Monica, but his friend is clearly not in the mood. Feeling frustrated, T’Challa finally goes back to the palace to get some sleep.

Black Panther is up at dawn the next morning when Killmonger finally makes his move, attacking the palace with a formidable number of troops and the dinosaurs captured in Serpent Valley. A couple of Brachiosaurs crash through the front of the building with pairs of gunmen astride their backs, though the Black Panther takes them out with ease. He then sees his security forces moving in to engage with Killmonger’s troops. Spotting Monica, T’Challa races to her side to make sure she’s okay. Though frightened, she’s managed to keep a cool head. Several Tyrannosaurs are close behind the Brachiosaurs, and together they demolish the palace. Some aero-cars swoop down and fire on the dinosaurs with lasers, decapitating one Tyrannosaurus. Its head nearly lands on Monica, but the Black Panther is able to pull her to safety. He knows the laser guns have only recently been installed on the aero-cars and their pilots still need more training. Taku comes running up and informs the Black Panther that more dinosaurs are being directed toward the hospital. Black Panther orders that a squadron of aero-cars intercept the creatures. He then tries to fight his way across the battlefield to confront Killmonger, leaping over the cringing Kazibe and Tayete as he goes. Seeing him approaching, Killmonger calls out to the Black Panther, congratulating him on managing to survive his previous brushes with death. Killmonger says his impending victory would have felt anticlimactic if T’Challa were already dead. Then, challenging T’Challa to meet him in single combat atop Warrior Falls, Killmonger withdraws, leaving his forces to continue their assault without him.

Black Panther is ready to chase his enemy down but then sees that Malice, Baron Macabre, and Lord Karnaj have escaped from the demolished prison. He decides to go after them first and, when he catches up to them, vents his rage on them. Within minutes, both Baron Macabre and Lord Karnaj have been beaten into unconsciousness, though Malice has slipped off into the melee. Not wanting to delay his showdown with Killmonger any longer, Black Panther then heads out to Warrior Falls. There, he finds Killmonger on a cliff overlooking the falls and pounces on him. A savage battle ensues with each man taking a beating, until Killmonger finally laughs and hauls the Black Panther up over his head. T’Challa instantly realizes that he’s been fooled—Killmonger could have overpowered him at any time, thanks to his superhuman strength. The villain announces that this time, rather than relying on the waterfall to do the job for him, he’s just going to break T’Challa’s back and then watch him die. Unexpectedly, Kantu comes running up from behind Killmonger and crashes into his knees, knocking him off balance. Black Panther drops to the edge of the cliff and grabs onto the barren rock with his claws as Killmonger pitches over and plummets to his death in the river below.

As they hike down from the falls, Kantu tells the Black Panther that he was woken up shortly before dawn when the dinosaurs passed his farm. Seeing that Killmonger was leading them, Kantu followed and was horrified when the rebel army marched right over the graveyard where his father is buried, desecrating it. He ran towards the palace to raise the alarm, but by the time he got there, the battle was well underway. He heard Killmonger shout his challenge to the Black Panther and followed him to Warrior Falls. When it looked like the Black Panther had lost the fight, Kantu was overwhelmed with rage and attacked Killmonger without thinking. When the boy states that he’s glad Killmonger is dead, T’Challa is saddened to see such lost innocence. They soon arrive at the wrecked palace and find that the revolution has failed. Taku reports that King Cadaver had attacked him with his enhanced telepathy, but Venomm came to the rescue. Using a bullwhip, Venomm forced King Cadaver into the path of a Brachiosaurus, whereupon the evil telepath was trampled to death. Malice then tried to kill Venomm, but Monica bludgeoned her in the head, knocking her out. Even so, Venomm has been taken into custody. Salamander K’Ruel was killed by falling debris when the prison was breached. T’Challa is sad to hear that a Brachiosaurus crashed into the hospital, further injuring W’Kabi, and as a result, his left arm will need to be amputated. Deprived of their leaders, the rebels gave up the fight shortly before the Black Panther returned. Though he assures his followers that the threat of Killmonger is ended, T’Challa is somewhat vague about the manner of his demise, and Kantu goes along with it.

November 1967 – Malice, Baron Macabre, and Lord Karnaj are put on trial for treason, found guilty, and executed. Venomm, a.k.a. Horatio Walters, not being a citizen of Wakanda and having switched sides in the battle, is sentenced to be deported back to the United States. Kazibe and Tayete, along with many other rank-and-file rebel soldiers, are sentenced to several years of probation in hopes of reintegrating them into Wakandan society. T’Challa then has the cavern containing the Resurrection Altar blown up with dynamite, burying the radioactive meteorite beneath countless tons of rock and ice. The surviving dinosaurs are returned to their natural habitat in Serpent Valley.

December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Black Panther finds himself trapped within a force-field bubble. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. He then learns that while he was trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.

As preparations begin for the rebuilding of the royal palace, T’Challa takes delivery of a new grand piano, since his previous one was destroyed. Monica tries the instrument out, playing a romantic ballad. T’Challa is pleased, since Monica hasn’t really pursued her music since coming to Wakanda. He admits he’s partial to the piano, even though it’s not used in traditional Wakandan music. Monica worries that the traditionalists will say she’s corrupting him with foreign influences, but T’Challa hopes that music might provide Monica with a way into his people’s hearts and minds.

Two days later, Black Panther and W’Kabi head into the jungle to investigate a sighting of two dead men reported by a shepherd. Seeming unusually morose, W’Kabi finally admits that his wife, Chandra, has left him, taking their two sons with her. T’Challa is sympathetic as his friend talks about how his relationship with his wife slowly fell apart. To make matters worse, W’Kabi’s having a difficult time adjusting to his new prosthetic arm. When they come upon the two corpses, they’re shocked to see they’ve been strung up to a tree branch and left to rot in the sun. W’Kabi uses the laser gun incorporated into his robotic arm to drive off the hyenas that have been drawn to the site. While they’re looking for clues, they are ambushed by a very tall, muscular man and quickly rendered unconscious. They soon revive in a cave and find themselves the prisoners of Madam Slay, Killmonger’s lover. Surrounded by half a dozen leopards, she admits to killing the two men in the jungle, claiming they were poachers. Now, she wants revenge on the Black Panther for the death of her man. As such, T’Challa’s wrists have been lashed to the collars of two leopards, one of which is Killmonger’s beloved Preyy. Madam Slay then sends the two leopards charging out of the cave, dragging the Black Panther behind them across the hardscrabble terrain. Only his enhanced strength and agility enables him to stay alive until he can pounce onto the leopards’ backs and ride them back to the cave. Madam Slay is astonished that he’s survived her death-trap. Black Panther vaults off the leopards, slams into her muscular henchman, and pins him to the ground. Madam Slay manages to stab the Black Panther in the back with one of the metal spikes she wears on her forearms, but then W’Kabi frees himself and fires his laser gun at her. She tries to jump out of the way but lands on her head, knocking herself out and giving herself a concussion. The mute henchman immediately surrenders, whereupon T’Challa forces him to carry Madam Slay back to the palace to face justice. W’Kabi observes with great relief that the war against Killmonger is finally over, but T’Challa wonders if the threat of insurrection will ever really go away.


Notes:

February 1967 – The Black Panther’s solo series launches in Jungle Action #6 after reprinting an earlier adventure in the previous issue. He remains behind the scenes while the Fantastic Four are testing his new aero-car in Giant-Size Super-Stars #1.

July 1967 – The bizarre weather phenomena result from Dormammu imprisoning Gaea in Doctor Strange v.2 #8–9. The Avengers contact the Black Panther behind the scenes early in Avengers #137, following the double wedding in Giant-Size Avengers #4. The Fantastic Four fight off an invasion by the extraterrestrial Axi-Tun race in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3.

August 1967 – The meteorite in the Resurrection Altar likely contains significant amounts of vibranium, which is known to have mutagenic properties. It may have broken off from the larger vibranium meteorite that landed in central Wakanda 10,000 years ago and went undiscovered due to its inaccessible location. The white gorillas are so large and aggressive because they’ve been mutated by exposure to the unrefined vibranium in the cavern.

October 1967 – In a surprise twist, T’Challa never manages to defeat Killmonger, with the rebel actually being killed semi-accidentally by a nine-year-old boy. However, the Wakandans assume that the Black Panther has scored a decisive victory, and T’Challa is content to let them believe that. As revealed in Iron Man Annual #5, Killmonger’s body is soon found by his lover, Madam Slay. She fishes it out of the River of Grace and Wisdom and takes it back to her hidden lair in the wilderness. There, she lays the body on a stone bier and uses some local herbs to preserve it from decay. Neither T’Challa nor W’Kabi see the body while they’re there, though.

December 1967 – Black Panther is among the superheroes seen trapped in Loki’s magic spheres in Thor #233. Madam Slay’s capture brings us up to Jungle Action #18, the conclusion of the “Panther’s Rage” storyline. With the exception of Venomm, all of Killmonger’s lieutenants are Wakandan and speak the Wakandan language. However, the code names given to them by Killmonger—King Cadaver, Baron Macabre, Lord Karnaj, Salamander K’Ruel, Malice, and Madam Slay—use the English words rather than the Wakandan equivalents. This is due to the decade Killmonger spent living in America. Given the events in Iron Man Annual #5, it would appear that Madam Slay receives a relatively light sentence at the conclusion of her trial, likely due to her peripheral involvement in the revolution.


Jump Back: The Black Panther – Year Four

Next Issue: The Amulet or the Sword!

OMU: Black Widow -- Part Two

When I started blogging about the Original Marvel Universe twenty years ago, the first chronology I posted featured the Black Widow, due to the intriguing complexity of her early timeline. To mark the anniversary, I decided it was time to revisit her adventures again and bring her up to date with the other characters I’ve been covering. As before, I found an extended period where she operates primarily behind the scenes, leaving us with more “untold tales” of superspy Natasha Romanoff. This part of her life is chronicled mainly by writer Steve Gerber, working with a rotating stable of artists, in Daredevil.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Now, at long last, we continue… The True History of the Black Widow!


January 1966 – Natasha Romanoff gets annoyed when her live-in lover, Matt Murdock, resumes his crime-fighting crusade as Daredevil even though they’re both still recovering from the injuries they sustained while battling the Man-Bull a couple months ago. She’s frustrated that her convalescence is taking longer than his, and she’s worried about her dear friend and father-figure Ivan Petrovich, who’s clearly suffering from a severe concussion but refuses to see a doctor. Despite all the networking she’s been doing in the local fashion industry, Natasha has not made much headway in establishing herself as a designer. She resents her growing dependence on the money Matt brings in from his law firm—Broderick, Sloan, and Murdock—and spending her days lounging around their leased mansion on San Francisco’s north shore is making her feel like a kept woman. Thus, she’s a bit overeager to get back into action as the Black Widow.

When a gang of super-villains calling themselves the Dark Messiah and his Disciples of Doom escape from Daredevil after breaking hundreds of criminals out of prison, Natasha insists on helping him track them down. She finally suits up as the Black Widow again, but after finding their foes menacing the hapless passengers of a wrecked trolley car, she aggravates her injury and passes out from the pain. As Daredevil continues the fight, Black Widow struggles to get to her feet, cursing her weakness, only to black out again. She soon comes to and is helped up by Lt. Paul Carson of the San Francisco Police Department. Daredevil is battling the Dark Messiah in a drugstore across the street, but the villain suddenly explodes, demolishing the building. Natasha fears Daredevil has been killed, but he soon digs himself out of the rubble. Shaken up, Daredevil admits he’s not sure what happened. The Disciples of Doom have lost their powers and are taken into police custody. Carson volunteers to drive the Black Widow and Daredevil home.

They are shocked to find Hawkeye waiting for them when they arrive. The former Avenger is determined to win Natasha back, much to her annoyance. Ivan apologizes for failing to get rid of Natasha’s old beau, who is obviously very jealous of Daredevil. The feeling is mutual, and within minutes, the two men are brawling on the front lawn. Natasha is disgusted, especially after Hawkeye takes off and Daredevil elects to go after him. A little while later, Thor, the Black Panther, and the Vision show up, saying the Avengers need their help to fight Magneto. Natasha is noncommittal, and when her two suitors return after beating the stuffing out of each other, Hawkeye flat out refuses to have anything to do with the Avengers. Daredevil isn’t too sure about working with a large group, but the Black Panther calls in the favor he did for him during the Blue Talon affair last year. Once Daredevil agrees to go, Natasha decides to go too. Soon, Black Widow, Daredevil, Thor, Black Panther, and Vision are heading to New York City in a Quinjet. En route, Natasha learns that Hawkeye apparently came running back to her after being jilted by the Scarlet Witch, who’s fallen in love with the Vision for some reason. Despite Hawkeye’s boorish behavior, Natasha feels bad that she didn’t give him a chance to explain himself.

At Avengers Mansion, Daredevil, Thor, Black Panther, and Vision discuss the Magneto situation, but Natasha wanders off through the stately manor, soon finding herself in Hawkeye’s former quarters brooding about their failed love affair. Black Panther finds her there and informs her that Magneto defeated the X-Men and took them prisoner before coming after the Avengers. He then captured Iron Man, Captain America, and the Scarlet Witch and made good his escape. Daredevil has suggested they check out a special meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission, thinking it seems a likely target for Magneto due to his interest in radiation-induced mutations, and they are ready to depart. When they arrive at the conference, which is being held at a large estate outside the city, they are unable to stop Magneto from kidnapping the commissioners, as he has Iron Man, Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Iceman under some form of mind control. In the aftermath, Black Widow and Daredevil are both frustrated that they weren’t more help in the fight. They then head to the X-Men’s headquarters in Westchester County to search the area. Daredevil’s radar sense detects a large cavern beneath the woods surrounding the estate, and when Thor smashes a tunnel down to it, they find Magneto and his prisoners. The heroes are again forced to battle the villain’s mind-controlled minions until the Vision phases inside Magneto’s henchman Piper in order to get close enough to knock Magneto out with a karate chop to the back of the neck. The X-Men’s leader, Professor X, then appears, having also been held prisoner, and puts Magneto into a telepathically induced coma. Taking charge of the defeated villains, the X-Men return to their nearby headquarters, intent on searching for a missing teammate. Captain America conveys the Avengers’ thanks to the Black Widow and Daredevil and offers them full membership on the team. Daredevil is appreciative but declines. Irritated that her partner didn’t even consult her, Black Widow accepts Cap’s offer, much to Daredevil’s surprise. This leads to a lovers’ quarrel and Daredevil’s abrupt departure. Natasha keeps her cool and accompanies her new teammates back to their headquarters.

No sooner have they arrived than Iron Man starts hitting on Natasha, though she’s in no mood to be flirty. Scarlet Witch intervenes and shows Natasha to the room that’s been prepared for her by the team’s butler, Edwin Jarvis. Suddenly, a mob of African-American militants pounds on the front door, demanding that the Black Panther come outside. Before the Avengers can react, the mob breaks down the door and opens fire with rifles. Iron Man and Scarlet Witch drive them back, but they continue to chant that the Black Panther must return to Africa, where his people need him. As the situation escalates, a man in a trenchcoat emerges from the crowd and forces the Black Panther to worship him. The man suddenly transforms into a gigantic armored demon who calls himself the “Lion God,” then teleports away with the Black Panther, leaving the mob disoriented and confused. As the crowd disperses, the frustrated Avengers realize the people had been entranced by the Lion God just as the Black Panther was. As Captain America leaves to consult with S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man leads the other Avengers to their conference room for a strategy session. However, it’s not long before the Lion God appears, with the Black Panther his helpless prisoner, and attacks them. After quickly taking out Thor and the Vision, the Lion God causes two lions to materialize and sets them on the rest of the team. Black Widow is about to deal with the animals when Iron Man leaps to her defense, leaving himself open to a blast of energy from the Lion God’s totem-stick that takes him out of the fight. Black Widow and Scarlet Witch are similarly knocked unconscious a moment later. When she comes to, Black Widow finds that Thor managed to defeat the Lion God by blowing up his totem-stick with a lightning strike, which caused their foe to vanish in a burst of blinding light. Thor assumes the Lion God has been destroyed, but Iron Man isn’t convinced. However, Iron Man gives lavish praise to the Black Widow for her performance in the battle. Seeing through his flattery, she merely announces her decision to return to California to work with Daredevil, preferring her independence to operating as part of a big group.

Back in San Francisco, Natasha’s reunion with Matt is interrupted by a deranged hippie calling himself Angar the Screamer, whose voice somehow alters people’s perceptions as though they were having a bad acid trip. After making Natasha and Ivan briefly see Matt as a monster, Angar issues a challenge to Daredevil, laughs maniacally, and drives off in his convertible. Rather than pursue the villain, though, Natasha and Matt decide to call it a night and retire to have make-up sex. The next day, Lt. Carson phones Natasha to tell her that Angar has kidnapped Matt. They work together to track Angar’s convertible to a nondescript house in Berkeley, which the police cordon off. However, Daredevil turns up and assures the police that Matt has been released. Unfortunately, Angar then turns his mind-altering scream on the police, causing them to start shooting at each other. Daredevil tries to beat Angar senseless but is overwhelmed by the sonic assault. Finally, Black Widow jumps Angar and threatens to shoot him in the head with her “widow’s bite” stinger at point-blank range, which would likely prove fatal. Believing she means business, Angar surrenders but still manages to escape while the Black Widow and Daredevil are arguing about how dangerous he is. Though frustrated that Daredevil is at all sympathetic toward a bloodthirsty maniac, Black Widow assures him that they’ll track Angar down and bring him to justice.

February 1966 – Black Widow and Daredevil head to the San Francisco Public Library for some after-hours research after he stumbles upon his old foe Wilbur Day, better known as the Stilt-Man, engaged in a smuggling operation on the waterfront. They discover that Day’s former employer, Carl Kaxton, and his daughter Barbara vanished about three weeks ago. Daredevil surmises that Day must be trying to force Kaxton to turn his molecular condenser into a powerful weapon, and Black Widow worries that turning a shrinking ray on San Francisco could trigger the San Andreas Fault and destroy much of California. Thus, they split up, with the Black Widow hunting down Stilt-Man while Daredevil searches the city for the Kaxtons. Several hours later, Black Widow finds Stilt-Man carrying Barbara Kaxton some 20 stories above the ground. She rescues the terrified girl and forces the villain to drop his shrinking ray into a garbage-strewn alley. Furious, Stilt-Man retaliates, and the Black Widow dislocates her shoulder in the ensuing fracas. Luckily, Daredevil shows up at that moment and disables Stilt-Man’s gyroscopic controls, sending him tumbling into an automobile showroom. After Daredevil sets the Black Widow’s shoulder back into place, the two heroes reunite the Kaxtons and take them out to breakfast while the police take Stilt-Man into custody.

March 1966 – Black Widow and Daredevil take a file of papers for safekeeping from a reporter friend of his. The papers relate to an exposé on San Francisco’s biggest crime boss that the reporter’s newspaper is putting together. While Daredevil is locking the papers in the wall safe in their mansion, Natasha greets a young photojournalist named Peter Parker, who’s on assignment for the New York City newspaper The Daily Bugle. When Daredevil comes back downstairs, he seems to recognize Parker for a moment, but Natasha doesn’t think anything of it. The interview is interrupted by a muscle-bound bruiser with an armored head and shoulders who smashes into the house, rips open the safe, and steals the file. Black Widow and Daredevil pursue the thief, who calls himself “Ramrod,” into the city and soon find him battling Spider-Man. At Daredevil’s suggestion, Spider-Man takes the document box and swings off across the city, but in the ensuing fight, Ramrod nearly kills the Black Widow when he knocks her out and throws her off a roof. Daredevil manages to save her, though, and after catching their breath, they find Spider-Man and Ramrod battling atop a skyscraper in the Financial District. Startled to see that the Black Widow is still alive, Ramrod loses his footing and falls off the building, crashing into the sidewalk far below. Spider-Man returns the files to Daredevil and swings off. Peter Parker turns up a few minutes later as the comatose Ramrod is taken to a nearby hospital. Black Widow and Daredevil give Parker an exclusive interview about their crime-fighting adventures while they stroll along the Embarcadero.

May 1966 – Following a global wave of violence, Black Widow and Daredevil are shocked when people around them inexplicably start changing into hideous, demonic monsters as San Francisco transforms into a weird, alien landscape. They try desperately to contain the rampaging creatures until, less than an hour after the phenomenon began, the city and its people suddenly revert to their normal forms. A couple minutes later, all the damage is abruptly undone, as if by magic, leaving the Black Widow and Daredevil baffled. Later, the Avengers report that it was all a mass hallucination created by a super-villain whom they’ve defeated.

June–August 1966 – Black Widow and Daredevil focus on fighting crime on the streets of San Francisco, disrupting the city’s various rackets and frustrating its crime bosses, who are unused to dealing with superheroes. Ivan occasionally assists them with basic detective work. Meanwhile, Matt grows increasingly frustrated with the bizarre dictates handed down by his reclusive senior partner, Kerwin J. Broderick, whom he has yet to meet. His other partner, Jason Sloan, continually makes excuses for Broderick’s behavior, crediting him with the firm’s success. Natasha does her best to be supportive. Despite the heroes’ efforts to hunt him down, there is no sign of Angar the Screamer. Ramrod remains hospitalized in a coma.

September 1966 – When the one-year lease on their mansion expires, Natasha is able to convert it to a month-to-month contract while they figure out what to do. With her career as a fashion designer going nowhere, she is forced to deplete her savings. Although Matt is happy to pay the bills from his salary at the law firm, Natasha worries that their relationship is eroding the fierce sense of independence she has come to rely on.

October 1966 – While Matt is at work, Natasha is attacked at home by Spider-Man’s old enemy Kraven the Hunter. A fierce battle ensues that wrecks the place. Ivan tries to help out, but Kraven is too fast for him. Finally, Kraven uses poisoned claws to render both Natasha and Ivan unconscious. When she comes to, Natasha finds herself staked to the ground, spread-eagled, in the elephant enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo. She struggles against the leather thongs holding her down but soon realizes she’s helpless. After nightfall, she hears the sounds of fighting nearby and realizes Daredevil has come to rescue her. She calls out to him, but Kraven blows an ancient horn that drives the elephants into a frenzy. Though Daredevil is able to get Natasha to safety, Kraven escapes. Natasha feels humiliated by the way she was used as bait to lure Daredevil into a fight and is eager to get back at Kraven, though she’s reluctant to go after the villain on her own. Despite their best efforts, the couple is unable to track down their foe.

About a week later, Natasha and Matt attend a cocktail party hosted by Kerwin Broderick, giving them the opportunity to finally meet Matt’s boss. Broderick is a gracious host and seems unconcerned that Matt has been ignoring his directives lately. Natasha and Matt try to enjoy the party but feel rather out of place among the more conservative members of the city’s elite. Suddenly, Kraven the Hunter crashes through the window and attacks Natasha and Matt, convinced that this will draw out Daredevil. Natasha holds him off while Matt flees with the other guests, only to return as Daredevil moments later. After smashing up Broderick’s living room, the fight moves into the trees outside. Annoyed by the Black Widow’s stings, Kraven produces a blowgun and hits her with a poison dart, causing her to immediately black out. When she comes to, Natasha is horrified to see that Kraven has defeated Daredevil and is about to throw him off the fifty-foot cliff behind Broderick’s home. Despite the numbing poison in her system, Black Widow pushes through the gawking party guests but is too late to stop Kraven. Peering over the edge of the cliff, she sees Daredevil vanish into thin air just as he hits the rocks below. She can hardly trust her senses, but Kraven also seems confused as to what just happened. Just then, Lt. Carson arrives on the scene with several police officers, and with the Black Widow’s help, they manage to apprehend Kraven.

Suddenly, a huge, golem-like monster made of mud and clay erupts from the ground and announces that he is called Terrex. He demonstrates his ability to manipulate plant life by causing Broderick’s garden to transform into a dense jungle, then shocks everyone by making one of the policemen rapidly age until his body crumbles to dust. Terrex claims to be neither good nor evil, though his behavior, he admits, is influenced by whoever brought him to life. Neither Natasha nor Carson is quite sure how to respond to such a threat, so they stand idly by as Terrex walks off into the neighborhood, leaving a trail of dying vegetation in his wake. Natasha realizes the monster must be absorbing life-energy from his surroundings in order to make himself more powerful. She and Carson are frustrated to discover that Kraven took advantage of the distraction provided by Terrex and has escaped. Broderick, too, is nowhere to be found, but Natasha is more concerned with discovering what happened to Daredevil.

Minutes later, Daredevil materializes alongside a statuesque bald woman in a skimpy green costume who calls herself Moondragon. To Natasha’s surprise, Daredevil has somehow regained his sight and is clearly captivated by his lover’s beauty, though he seems equally fascinated by Moondragon. He’s intent on reaching downtown San Francisco before Terrex does, so Carson volunteers to drive the three costumed adventurers there in his squad car. En route, Daredevil explains that Moondragon, though native to Earth, was raised in a kung fu monastery on one of the moons of Saturn and has returned to stop an interplanetary conquistador named Thanos. She initially allied herself with Kerwin Broderick, thinking him an upstanding citizen, but he proved to be totally corrupt and tried to manipulate her into setting him up as the absolute monarch of central California. Broderick convinced Moondragon that Daredevil and the Black Widow were agents of Thanos, prompting her to use her extraterrestrial technology to create the Dark Messiah, Angar the Screamer, Ramrod, and Terrex to destroy them. Even now, the Dark Messiah and Ramrod have been restored to full power and are helping Terrex menace the city. However, Broderick just double-crossed Moondragon and tried to kill her, so she has elected to switch sides.

Entering the city, the squad car gets stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic as frightened citizens try to flee the chaos. Since the effects of Kraven’s poison dart have worn off, Black Widow joins Daredevil in racing across the tops of the vehicles. Now away from Carson, who’s not supposed to know that Daredevil was blind, she asks Matt how his sight was restored, but before he can explain, they run into the Dark Messiah and Ramrod. Daredevil fares poorly in the ensuing fight since he’s not used to operating as a sighted person, and they are soon separated, with the Black Widow battling Ramrod in an alley. After a few minutes, Daredevil turns up, blind again, and trips Ramrod with his billy-club cable. Natasha realizes at once that Matt has sacrificed his vision to regain his fighting ability. Unfortunately, Terrex strides up, holding Broderick in his gigantic hand. Broderick brags that he and Terrex will soon merge, giving him the power to destroy San Francisco if he isn’t crowned king. As Lt. Carson and Moondragon join them, Black Widow and Daredevil wonder if there’s any way Broderick can be stopped.

The megalomaniac then merges with his monster, becoming a single being with the power to drain the life-force from every living thing in the Bay Area. Daredevil tries to attack him, only to have his legs temporarily paralyzed. The heroes retreat to police headquarters, where they confer with Commissioner Robert “Ironguts” O’Hara, but he is distraught over news that his younger brother has been murdered in Africa. When they receive word that the alien superhero Captain Marvel is battling Ramrod in Golden Gate Park, Carson takes the Black Widow, Daredevil, and Moondragon to the scene in a police helicopter. By the time they arrive, Ramrod has been defeated. Captain Marvel confirms Moondragon’s story and warns that Thanos has already arrived on Earth to obtain the Cosmic Cube, which will make him invincible. He and Moondragon concoct a plan to defeat Terrex, though the Black Widow and Daredevil don’t really understand it. As such, Daredevil confronts Terrex as Matt Murdock, whose defiance sends Broderick into a paroxysm of rage, as Moondragon suspected it would. However, Natasha worries that the plan will be derailed when Angar the Screamer arrives on the scene, but he turns his sonic powers on Terrex, accusing the monster of killing his girlfriend. While Natasha, Matt, and Captain Marvel keep Terrex busy, Moondragon uses her telepathy to control the nature of the illusions Angar is generating and uses them to destroy Broderick’s mind. He dies as Terrex dissolves, but neither Moondragon nor Captain Marvel are willing to explain exactly what happened. Natasha is rather in awe of Captain Marvel as he flies off and decides to play it up in order to make Matt jealous, as he seems pretty smitten with Moondragon.

Since Broderick wrecked her base of operations, Moondragon comes to stay at Matt and Natasha’s mansion, where she meets Ivan. Natasha is not happy about it, though Matt is clearly thrilled and even Ivan seems to find their guest irresistibly attractive. Following Kerwin Broderick’s death, Matt’s law firm falls apart, and he is left to oversee closing it down. He assures Natasha that he has enough money saved so as to not need to find a new job immediately. When Commissioner O’Hara takes a leave of absence to go to Africa to bury his brother, Paul Carson is appointed acting commissioner until he returns. Swamped with his new duties, Carson has no time for the Black Widow or Daredevil, though he is more tolerant of their vigilante activities than his predecessor.

November 1966 – Black Widow and Daredevil continue their crime-fighting crusade, something Moondragon has no interest in, although she is willing to tutor them in the martial arts. Natasha is only dimly aware that she is getting increasingly vicious during fights, dismissing it as merely a side-effect of her growing estrangement from Matt since Moondragon started hanging around. While on patrol one night, Black Widow and Daredevil suddenly pass through an interdimensional portal, finding themselves in a large, domed structure filled with hundreds of rowdy men. Near a central conference table, a scantily clad teenage girl is tied to a telephone pole, about to be executed by firing squad. Black Widow kicks several of the executioners as she swings by, throwing everything into disarray. Before they can do anything else, the two heroes find themselves back in San Francisco as if nothing had happened. Alighting on a nearby rooftop, they discuss whether the incident was real or an illusion, but there’s no evidence either way.

December 1966 – Moondragon goes off with Captain Marvel for a while, and when she returns, she reports that they joined forces with the Avengers to defeat Thanos and his army of alien mercenaries. Natasha and Matt are relieved to know that the threat to Earth has ended.

While swinging high above the gaily decorated city streets on Christmas Eve, Black Widow and Daredevil discuss their relationship. Natasha confronts him about his obvious attraction to Moondragon and demands to know where they stand, but Matt can give only vague, noncommittal answers. Their talk is interrupted by a mugging in a nearby alley, which the two superheroes swing down to stop. Seeing that the victim is an elderly woman, Black Widow goes berserk and nearly beats one of the muggers to death. Attempting to bring Natasha back to her senses, Daredevil slaps her. Two policemen arrive on the scene then, and while Daredevil is talking to them, Black Widow slips away without a word, seething with rage. Returning to their mansion, Natasha finds Ivan and Moondragon decorating the Christmas tree and decides to wait for Matt in his bedroom. When he finally arrives, Matt has the gall to ask her if she regrets her behavior, but she berates him for slapping her as if she were the criminal. He insists he was merely trying to prevent her from accidentally killing the mugger. She retorts that the scumbag deserved to die. Since they’re clearly talking past each other, Matt suggests they discuss it later, after they’ve both had a chance to cool down. He goes downstairs, leaving Natasha boiling with anger.

After collecting herself, Natasha goes down to the living room and finds Matt, Ivan, and Moondragon watching a TV news report about an assassination attempt on New York District Attorney Franklin P. Nelson, who is currently hospitalized in critical condition. Matt is making arrangements to fly there immediately to be with his former law partner, but Natasha refuses to go, owing to Nelson prosecuting her on a false murder charge last year. Matt is disgusted by her attitude, suggesting that she’s just using this as a way to get back at him. Natasha is stung by the accusation and is frustrated when Moondragon intercedes, offering to fly Matt to New York in her spaceship. He accepts and goes to pack a bag. A few minutes later, Natasha and Matt part without a kiss or even an embrace, still angry with each other. Ivan immediately gives Natasha a hug and tries to cheer her up, suggesting that some time apart will make Matt appreciate her more when he returns. However, Natasha is convinced that she’s lost Matt to Moondragon and their love affair is over. Struggling to hold back her tears, Natasha complains that it’s humiliating for the Black Widow to be crying over a man. Despite Ivan’s attempts to comfort her, though, Natasha is utterly heartbroken. She sinks into a deep depression and finds she can’t even drag herself out of bed on Christmas Day. After talking to Matt on the phone, Ivan reports that Moondragon merely dropped him off in Manhattan and flew off into outer space.

January–April 1967 – Over the next four months, Natasha gradually recovers her emotional equilibrium and halfheartedly returns to crime-fighting. Throughout, she hears reports of the outrageous pranks carried out by a subversive organization called Black Spectre, such as engineering a race riot at the Statue of Liberty, installing a wreathed swastika atop the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., draping Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in black shrouds, and even somehow carving Adolf Hitler’s face into Mount Rushmore overnight. S.H.I.E.L.D. assists the National Park Service with cleaning up all the vandalism. Natasha wonders what the pranksters are trying to accomplish.

May 1967 – After watching the sunrise from the dome of Temple Emanu-El near the Presidio, Black Widow is ambushed by a scantily clad woman looking like a refugee from a vampire movie. Natasha is incredulous when the super-strong woman insists that she join Black Spectre and help them kill Daredevil. Despite her best efforts, Black Widow proves to be no match for the woman and is soon knocked unconscious. When she comes to, she finds herself aboard Black Spectre’s jet aircraft, which is disguised as a dirigible. The woman who kidnapped her, a mutant called Nekra, introduces her to the subversive organization’s leader, the Mandrill, a man with the face of a monkey. Natasha is horrified to discover that the Mandrill’s mutant power renders women unable to resist his commands. In fact, all of Black Spectre’s agents are women, mostly from Africa, some of whom have large mandrill-like tattoos on their faces. The sole exception is an imposing Japanese swordsman calling himself the Silver Samurai. Against her will, Black Widow accompanies one such agent to a theater in New York’s Greenwich Village, where the actors are hypnotized into murdering each other on stage. The audience stampedes out of the theater in a panic, but Daredevil turns up and tries to capture the Black Spectre agent in the alley behind the building. Black Widow drops Daredevil with a karate chop to the neck, then returns to the airship, where the Mandrill and Nekra congratulate her on her successful mission.

A little while later, Daredevil catches up to them, having enlisted aid from the Thing of the Fantastic Four. The pair smashes through the airship’s electrified hull, and the Black Widow joins the rest of the terrorists in trying to repel them. The Thing proves to be an unstoppable juggernaut, so the women leave the Mandrill to deal with him and focus instead on Daredevil. Tearfully, Natasha helps Nekra beat Daredevil into unconsciousness. Once the Mandrill has put a hypnotic whammy on the Thing, the heroes are loaded into the Fantasti-Car and dumped overboard. To Natasha’s great relief, the two men come to in time to make an emergency landing on the New Jersey Palisades while Black Spectre’s airship retreats. Frustrated, the Mandrill interrogates the Black Widow, and she is unable to stop herself from revealing Daredevil’s secret identity and explaining how his “radar sense” allows him to navigate his environment despite being blind. When she reveals that Matt is currently staying at the New York Hilton Hotel, the Mandrill decides to pay him a visit. The villain returns an hour or so later, gloating about giving Daredevil a humiliating public drubbing.

In the morning, Natasha looks on impassively as Nekra, the Silver Samurai, and a couple of their agents return from kidnapping a woman in a leopard-skin bikini, Shanna O’Hara, who’s been a thorn in the Mandrill’s side for some time. The Mandrill is intent on dissecting Shanna’s brain to find out why she’s immune to his influence, but he’s preoccupied for the rest of the day with his plans to cripple the country’s telecommunications network. That evening, Black Spectre destroys the 200-foot TV transmission tower atop the Empire State Building and captures Daredevil when he attempts to stop them. The Mandrill decides to dissect Daredevil’s brain as well, curious about his radar sense, but opts to wait until after he’s seized control of the United States government. Leaving the Black Widow to guard the prisoners, the Mandrill and Nekra turn to carrying out their coup. Daredevil pleads with Natasha to set him free, but she refuses. When Shanna comes to, she suggests that an emotional shock might overcome the Mandrill’s influence, so Daredevil reminds Natasha of their contentious parting last Christmas Eve. The gambit succeeds and Natasha releases Daredevil and Shanna, leading them to where the terrorists store all their jetpacks. After Natasha has rigged the jetpacks’ fuel source to explode, she, Daredevil, and Shanna fly out of the ship, discovering that it is now hovering above the White House in Washington, D.C. Black Widow sees the Mandrill’s large simian-shaped idol on the lawn with a blazing cauldron in its lap. Numerous Black Spectre agents have shed their bulky uniforms and are dancing around the idol. A contingent of soldiers have them surrounded but aren’t taking any action for some reason.

The three heroes crash into the Oval Office, where they find the Mandrill seated at the President’s desk. Daredevil attacks him immediately while the Black Widow takes on Nekra and Shanna deals with some of their agents. When the Mandrill makes a break for the roof, Daredevil goes after him. Black Widow keeps hitting Nekra with her “widow’s bite” stings until the villains’ airship suddenly explodes and crashes to the ground in flames. The conflagration breaks Nekra’s concentration, and she abruptly loses her invulnerability, enabling the Black Widow to finally knock her out. Daredevil returns and reports that the Mandrill is dead, having fallen off the roof, but since he didn’t examine the body, Shanna refuses to take his word for it. Outside, Shanna is furious when no trace of the Mandrill’s body can be found, and she castigates Daredevil for allowing her father’s killer to escape. Natasha comforts Shanna as best she can as the soldiers finally move in and take the remaining Black Spectre agents into custody. Due to her dangerous mutant powers, Nekra is remanded into the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D. Natasha sees that Daredevil, who clearly feels terrible, becomes further dispirited when the Army general overseeing the mopping-up operation suggests that the proper response to the incident is further mistrust and oppression of those who are different—the very attitude that drove the Mandrill and Nekra to a life of crime in the first place. Natasha then accompanies Daredevil and Shanna back to New York City, where Matt informs the still-hospitalized District Attorney Nelson of the conclusion to the Black Spectre case. It was Black Spectre, Natasha learns, that tried to assassinate Nelson last December. She’s also surprised to discover that Shanna is the niece of San Francisco Police Commissioner O’Hara—it was her father that he went to Africa to bury, and he’s currently in New York as well.

A few days later, Matt takes Natasha, Shanna, and Commissioner O’Hara to the airport for their flight back to California. At the gate, Matt suggests that he may move back to San Franciso eventually, after he helps Nelson get the D.A.’s office back on track. Natasha is dubious, though, given that Matt has been officially reinstated as Assistant District Attorney. After the O’Haras have boarded the plane, Natasha and Matt bid each other an awkward farewell, as neither can quite find the words to express their feelings. Finally, Natasha just kisses Matt, then turns and boards the plane without another word, reeling with conflicting emotions.

June 1967 – On the first of the month, Natasha and Ivan are evicted from their north-shore mansion for having fallen too far behind on the rent. Feeling like an utter failure, Natasha decides they’ll have to live out of their Rolls-Royce until they can figure out what to do. She wonders if all the other costumed crime-fighters have lucrative day jobs like Matt. Ivan starts reading the classified ads in the newspaper, hoping to find gainful employment, but despite his engineering skills, he doesn’t have any luck. After about a week, Natasha finally works up the nerve to call Matt for help and finds a public phone booth. Unable to reach Matt at the New York Hilton Hotel, she swallows her pride and phones District Attorney Nelson, who’s finally been released from the hospital. Nelson informs her that his sister, Candace Nelson, has been kidnapped and Matt has gone to Florida as part of their investigation. Natasha declines to leave a message, merely asking Nelson to have Matt call her when he can. After she hangs up, though, Ivan points out that Matt can’t very well call them if they don’t have a phone. Berating herself, Natasha decides to prowl the rooftops for a while to clear her mind. Later, she meets up with Ivan again in Golden Gate Park. In the wee hours of the morning, Natasha breaks into an unoccupied penthouse apartment to use their phone to try Matt again. He answers this time but quickly cuts her off, saying he’s right in the middle of something. When she hears a woman’s voice asking Matt if it’s the Black Widow on the phone, Natasha becomes angry, assuming that Matt has brought a date back to his room for sex, and hangs up on him.

The following evening, Black Widow is patrolling a busy entertainment district when she hears gunshots. Going to investigate, she is startled to see that Daredevil is back in San Francisco. After taking out the gunmen and freeing their hostage, Black Widow and Daredevil kiss with surprising passion, much to the delight of the gawking bystanders. Unfortunately, one of the crooks manages to escape while the heroes are thus distracted. When they are unable to track him down, the couple pauses on a rooftop to discuss Natasha’s dire circumstances. Matt is flabbergasted that a woman of Natasha’s many talents is basically unemployable since all her training is in espionage. Without warning, they are attacked by the Owl, who’s brought along two henchmen in a helicopter with a machine gun. As it turns out, the Owl has been running a protection racket in San Francisco lately, and the two gunmen from earlier were shaking down business owners in the neighborhood. The Owl manages to inject Daredevil with a fast-acting poison, defeating him, and the Black Widow is knocked out when a bullet from the helicopter grazes her forehead. She comes to later in the villain’s lair, finding herself strapped down to an examination table in a laboratory. Daredevil, still unconscious, is similarly bound next to her, his head in a helmet that’s wired to a sinister-looking machine. Learning that the machine will read Daredevil’s mind, destroying his brain in the process, Black Widow breaks free of her restraints and battles the Owl and his henchmen. During the fracas, she severely damages the Owl’s machine with her “widow’s bite” sting. However, the villain forces her to surrender by holding a gun to Daredevil’s head.

The Owl offers to exchange Daredevil’s life for that of a woman who’s living in a particular apartment, so the Black Widow agrees to kidnap her, hoping some means of foiling the diabolical scheme will present itself. When she arrives at the penthouse, Natasha is shocked to discover that the intended victim is Shanna O’Hara. Together, they work out a plan to rescue Daredevil and defeat the Owl. After Shanna has changed into her leopard-skin bikini, Natasha takes her to the warehouse where the Owl has set up his laboratory. Shanna pretends to be unconscious as the Black Widow carries her inside and demands that the Owl keep his side of the bargain. As expected, the Owl attempts to double-cross the Black Widow, whereupon Shanna springs into action, overcomes one of the henchmen, and frees Daredevil from his bonds. The Owl is shocked, having thought Shanna was just an ordinary veterinarian. Daredevil punches his old foe in the face, knocking him into his mind-tap machine and completely wrecking it. Intent on escaping, the Owl leaps out a window, but Daredevil pursues him. Black Widow and Shanna fight with the henchmen until Ivan comes charging in moments later alongside Lt. Paul Carson of the SFPD. A few minutes after that, Daredevil returns, carrying the unconscious Owl. The heroes then assist Carson with taking all the crooks into custody.

A few days later, Black Widow and Daredevil say goodbye to each other atop the Golden Gate Bridge. Natasha has declined Matt’s offer to rent an apartment for her and Ivan, though she’s allowed him to put them up temporarily at an inexpensive hotel. To return the favor, Ivan has built Daredevil a new billy club to replace the one he lost, and Matt is impressed with the grizzled old Russian’s technical skills. He asks Natasha one more time to come back to New York with him, but she doesn’t want to be financially dependent on him, fearing the effect it would have on their relationship. She knows she’s too proud to be with him as anything other than an equal. Accepting this, Matt kisses her and says he’s left plane tickets for them if she should change her mind. He then heads off to the airport to catch his flight home. It’s a painful parting for both of them, and Natasha remains on the bridge, brooding, for much of the day. She knows what she has to do, though she had hoped to leave that part of her life behind forever.

July 1967 – Having run out of options, Natasha contacts S.H.I.E.L.D. and tells Nick Fury that she’d be willing to accept some freelance assignments. Nick is happy to welcome the Black Widow back into the fold and advances her enough money to rent an appropriate apartment for her and Ivan to live in. Soon after, Nick comes through with an assignment that is right up the Black Widow’s alley. Though she finds returning to the world of international espionage distasteful, Natasha throws herself into it and is devastatingly effective. After having been defeated in combat by the Man-Bull, the Disciples of Doom, Magneto, the Lion God, Stilt-Man, Ramrod, Kraven the Hunter, Nekra, Mandrill, and the Owl, Natasha’s success as a spy helps her rebuild her self-confidence. When bizarre weather phenomena sweep the globe, pelting San Francisco with snow, sleet, and hail, Natasha and Ivan are baffled. Despite a thorough investigation by S.H.I.E.L.D., the cause remains a mystery.

August–November 1967 – Natasha sends Matt a telegram informing him that she’s planning to return to New York before the end of the year. She says she just needs a few months to straighten out her finances and settle her debts in San Francisco. She then works a series of lucrative cases for S.H.I.E.L.D., undermining a resurgent HYDRA and other threats to world security. She hopes to replenish her savings before having to face Matt again so she can afford to give up espionage and return to being a full-time superheroine.

December 1967 – Hearing that the Hulk is rampaging though San Francisco, Black Widow heads to the scene to see if she can help the authorities contain the green-skinned brute. On the way, though, she suddenly finds herself trapped within a force-field bubble. Try as she might, she is unable to escape. After about 18 hours, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. She then learns that, while she was trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army. The Hulk, who was similarly imprisoned, leaves the city of his own accord before Natasha can encounter him.

On New Year’s Eve, Natasha and Ivan fly to New York City. Matt comes out to LaGuardia Airport to greet them. However, while in baggage claim, they must go into action as the Black Widow and Daredevil to deal with a gang of machine gun-toting terrorist hijackers. They take out all but one gunman, who has them pinned down behind the baggage carousel until Ivan gets the drop on him and beats him senseless. Leaving Ivan to deal with the luggage, Black Widow and Daredevil take off. As they swing across the Queensboro Bridge, Natasha is thrilled by the falling snow, something she hasn’t seen for a couple of years. When they arrive at Matt’s new brownstone in the Lenox Hill neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, he makes it clear he wants to talk about their relationship. Somewhat reluctantly, Natasha admits to feeling like Daredevil’s sidekick when they’re fighting crime together, which she fears is eroding her sense of self. Clearly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, Matt changes the subject, pulling out his tuxedo and saying they’ve got a swanky party to get ready for. As soon as Ivan arrives with their suitcases, Natasha changes into a daring evening gown with a fur wrap. Ivan grumbles about changing into a tuxedo as well but complies when Natasha insists. Matt seems unusually nervous about something.

Arriving at a Midtown apartment building, Natasha is infuriated when it turns out that Franklin Nelson and his fiancée, Debbie Harris, are hosting the party. She nearly storms out, but Matt and Ivan urge her to let bygones be bygones. Matt insists that Nelson deeply regrets prosecuting her on a false murder charge and that he was manipulated into doing it by Mister Kline, the time-traveling robot, and nearly resigned as D.A. in the wake of it. A few minutes later, Nelson approaches her sheepishly and tries to apologize but is interrupted when a horde of HYDRA agents crash into the apartment, spraying a sedative gas. Ivan loses consciousness immediately, along with some of the other guests. Matt bolts into a bedroom, pursued by a couple of enemy agents. Natasha is impressed with how fiercely Nelson is fighting off two HYDRA agents trying to restrain him. She pulls one of her “widow’s bite” weapons from her handbag and slips it on her wrist, only to get kicked in the head and knocked out.

When she comes to, Natasha sees that Nick Fury and over a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have arrived on the scene and are taking the HYDRA agents into custody. However, their leader, who calls himself the Jaguar, has escaped, prompting a bitter argument between Nick and Daredevil. Contessa Valentina Allegra de La Fontaine soon enters and reports that the Jaguar slipped through the S.H.I.E.L.D. security perimeter, as they were not prepared for his superhuman speed. Daredevil is irate that Nick’s agents let their foe get away. Nelson and Harris are confused as to why they would be targeted by HYDRA, so Nick explains that S.H.I.E.L.D. is considering Nelson for its new board of directors. The agency is being reorganized, he tells them, and will no longer be under the direct command of the President of the United States. Several candidates for the new board of directors are being considered, chosen from various sectors of public service. Nelson is honored but says he’ll need to think it over. Harris is worried about HYDRA attacking them again, but Nick insists S.H.I.E.L.D. can protect them. When Ivan wonders aloud where Matt has gotten to, Daredevil takes the hint and swings off, wishing Nelson good luck. Matt then emerges from the bedroom a moment later, claiming to have been knocked out during the fight. Nick and his agents take Nelson to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters to debrief him for a few hours, leaving a small detachment to guard Harris. Natasha, Matt, and Ivan say goodnight and head back to Matt’s townhouse. After dropping off the two lovers, Ivan drives back to keep an eye on Nelson’s apartment building. Happy to be reunited at last, Natasha and Matt ring in the new year with a joyful, if chaste, celebration.


Notes:

January 1966 – The Black Widow’s adventures continue in Daredevil #97 and following. She and Daredevil help the Avengers defeat Magneto in Avengers #111, whereupon the Black Widow officially becomes a member of the team. However, she resigns at the conclusion of the following issue after the defeat of the Lion God. The Lion God is most likely the Nubian god Apedemak, who is related to the Egyptian pantheon.

February 1966 – In Daredevil #102, we finally learn Natasha’s full name as writer Chris Claremont introduces her patronymic, Alianovna. Also in this issue, Carl Kaxton is misidentified as “William Klaxton.”

March 1966 – Though Daredevil would certainly recognize Peter Parker as Spider-Man, whom he’s encountered several times, he apparently feels it would be unethical to reveal the web-slinger’s secret identity to the Black Widow and feigns ignorance on the subject.

May 1966 – The global wave of violence is caused by the invading demons of Sominus, as seen in Adventure into Fear #14–15. Almost immediately afterwards, Dormammu tries to annex the earth into his Dark Dimension in Avengers #118. The Black Widow and Daredevil remain behind the scenes in a sequence depicting various characters battling the monsters.

November 1966 – Black Widow and Daredevil make a brief cameo appearance in Man-Thing #1, just long enough to save Jennifer Kale from the firing squad.

December 1966 – Moondragon and Captain Marvel team up with the Avengers to defeat Thanos in Captain Marvel #31–33. It seems likely that telepathic manipulation by Moondragon is at least partly responsible for Matt and Natasha’s break-up, by amplifying Natasha’s anger as well as Matt’s sexual desire. Moondragon may not even be aware that she’s doing it, if it were the result of the subtle influence of the Dragon of the Moon on her psyche, a situation revealed in Defenders #138.

May 1967 – The Black Spectre storyline crosses over into Marvel Two-in-One #3. Shanna O’Hara’s immunity to the Mandrill’s influence is probably due to the inhabiting spirit known as the Queen of the Pride that she inherited from her mother (as revealed in Marvel Fanfare #59). In addition to destroying the TV transmission tower atop the Empire State Building, Black Spectre agents also sabotage similar media infrastructure across the country, disrupting television broadcasts nationwide, as well as cutting long-distance telephone lines and jamming shortwave radio frequencies. Furthermore, the Mandrill tells the U.S. military, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four that he has an atomic bomb ready to destroy New York City should they interfere with his plans to overthrow the federal government—a claim eventually revealed to be a hoax. The Mandrill does indeed escape at the end and flees with some of his thralls to South America. The disposition of the unconscious Nekra is revealed in the flashback in Spider-Woman #16.

June 1967 – The woman in Matt’s hotel room in Daredevil #116 is actually Candace Nelson. She’s just staying with Matt while he and her brother try to sort out her complex legal situation, but Natasha has no way of knowing this.

July 1967 – Black Widow’s return to the life of a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative is essentially an Untold Tale of the Original Marvel Universe, as it was never explained how she got back on a firm financial footing. She will be seen working for the agency later on, so this seemed like the most common-sense solution. The bizarre weather disruptions are the result of Dormammu kidnapping Gaea in Doctor Strange v.2 #8–9.

December 1967 – Black Widow is behind the scenes during the Asgardian invasion depicted in Thor #233. Nick Fury’s attempt to recruit Foggy Nelson brings us up to Daredevil #121. The reorganization of S.H.I.E.L.D. is likely in response to last year’s Secret Empire plot, which involved their leader becoming President of the United States, as detailed in OMU: POTUS – Part Three.


Jump Back: The Black Widow – Part One

Next Issue: The Black Panther – Year Five

OMU: Scarlet Witch -- Part Six

The Scarlet Witch reaches a major milestone when she and the Vision get married. This is followed by an extended period of self-reflection during which Wanda Maximoff finally comes to grips with the downward spiral she’s been trapped in for several years. In the run-up to her rather outré wedding, Wanda is sinking under the weight of an intense romantic rivalry, a bitter estrangement from the people she considers her family, and her deep-seated fears and insecurities as both a mutant and a superhero. Before her life can come completely unglued, though, she finds a mentor in the kindly old witch Agatha Harkness, who will eventually grow into a much-needed mother-figure to her. By taking up the study of witchcraft, Wanda discovers a road to recovery.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Here, then, is the sixth installment of… The True History of the Scarlet Witch!


January 1967 – The Scarlet Witch is proud when the Vision once again steps up to serve a term as Avengers chairman. However, Wanda continues to feel intense jealousy toward Mantis, who makes little secret of her attraction to their synthezoid teammate. Mantis has clearly written off her lover, the Swordsman, as a weakling, despite the rigorous training regimen he maintains in a pathetic attempt to impress her. Wanda worries that the naïve Vision will eventually be ensnared by Mantis’s exotic charms. Vision repeatedly insists that there’s nothing going on between him and Mantis and that Wanda’s suspicions are unfounded. This merely triggers a series of arguments that leave the couple feeling increasingly estranged. To make matters worse, Vision retreats into his role as team leader, leaving Wanda feeling anxious and lonely.

As a result, Wanda spends much of her free time with Robert Frank, a.k.a. the Whizzer, the heroic super-speedster of World War II, whose convalescence at Avengers Mansion continues. Dr. Donald Blake pays periodic visits to the mansion to check in on Frank, who is slowly regaining his strength after undergoing open-heart surgery last month. Wanda enjoys listening to the Whizzer’s tales of his adventures in the 1940s as a member of the Liberty Legion, the Invaders, and the postwar All-Winners Squad, fighting alongside the love of his life, Madeline Joyce Frank, a.k.a. Miss America. Having accepted that the Whizzer and Miss America are her long-lost parents, Wanda considers using the surname Frank rather than Maximoff. She has left messages for her twin brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, regarding the matter, but he has refused to respond owing to his objections to her relationship with the Vision.

March 1967 – Wanda celebrates her 17th birthday. Whereas before she’d always claimed to have lost track of how old she is, not wanting the Avengers to treat her as a junior member, her history with the Whizzer has enabled her teammates to figure it out, and they are astonished to realize she was just 13 when she joined the team. Nevertheless, Wanda feels that she’s now old enough that it doesn’t matter as much. Her feelings are hurt when Pietro again makes no attempt to contact her on their birthday, but the Vision tries his best to cheer her up.

April 1967 – When his term as team chairman ends, Vision attempts to convince the Scarlet Witch to assume the role. Wanda declines, though, coming up with a series of excuses that the Vision dismisses out of hand. This leads to a fierce argument between them that leaves Wanda seething. Finally, Vision turns to his other teammates. Captain America flatly refuses to serve, and Iron Man says he’s too busy at Stark Industries right now. Vision is relieved when Thor agrees to take it on again. As a prince of Asgard, Thor seems to enjoy being in charge of the team, though he clearly finds many of the routine administrative duties rather tedious.

The Avengers discuss the ongoing problem of Black Spectre, a subversive organization that keeps getting away with offensive pranks and outrageous sabotage, such as inciting a race riot at the Statue of Liberty, installing a swastika atop the Washington Monument, draping Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in black shrouds, and carving Adolf Hitler’s face into Mount Rushmore. S.H.I.E.L.D., which assists the government with repairing all the damage, assures the Avengers that it’s doing all it can to stop Black Spectre. Vision doesn’t consider the group to be an Avengers-level threat, and Thor concurs.

May 1967 – The Avengers receive a message from Black Spectre claiming that they have an atomic bomb hidden somewhere under Manhattan, which they threaten to detonate if the Avengers interfere with their overthrow of the U.S. government. Soon after, the terrorist group invades Washington, D.C. and storms the White House, only to be defeated by the Black Widow and Daredevil. Wanda is relieved when the bomb threat turns out to be a hoax, but she soon becomes infuriated when the government reveals the two co-leaders of Black Spectre to be mutants, triggering a wave of anti-mutant hysteria.

June 1967 – Wanda returns from an evening out at the theater to learn that Steve Rogers has decided he can no longer continue serving as Captain America, a decision he’s wrestled with for months, ever since his battle with the Secret Empire at the White House. Although the Vision, Thor, Iron Man, and others tried to talk him out of it, Steve has resigned from the team and locked his Captain America costume and shield in a vault underneath the mansion. Wanda is somewhat surprised but knows this isn’t the first time Steve has tried to give up his costumed identity.

Scarlet Witch and Vision are sitting down to dinner at Avengers Mansion with Thor, Iron Man, the Swordsman, and Mantis when the Inhumans Gorgon and Lockjaw suddenly materialize in the room. Gorgon is annoyed that the Avengers are not ready to leave for the Great Refuge to attend the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver, but this is the first the team has heard of it. Wanda is very upset to learn that Pietro has neglected to invite them but decides that they will attend in any case. Iron Man sets up a video link to the Inhumans’ royal palace so the Whizzer will be able to watch the ceremony, since he now believes Quicksilver to be his son. The Avengers then fly around the world to the Himalayas in a Quinjet while Gorgon and Lockjaw teleport home. When they arrive, they are greeted by the rest of the royal family—Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Karnak, and Triton—as well as the Thing, the Human Torch, Mister Fantastic, and Susan Richards. Mister Fantastic introduces the Avengers to Agatha Harkness, an elderly woman who helps take care of his comatose two-year-old son, Franklin Richards. When Mantis asks about what appears to be a huge, grotesque statue in the center of the city, Medusa explains that it is actually a giant android called Omega, which Black Bolt’s brother, Maximus the Mad, created in order to weaponize the Inhumans’ prejudice against their servant class, the Alpha Primitives. After being deactivated, the android was left in a public square as a memorial. Triton insists that Black Bolt has instituted many reforms since that fateful day.

Several hours later, Scarlet Witch and Vision join the others for a royal banquet in a large stadium, from which Quicksilver is conspicuously absent. To cheer up Crystal and entertain the crowds, Thor, Iron Man, the Thing, the Human Torch, and Medusa put on an impromptu exhibition of their superhuman powers. However, Iron Man and Medusa fall under some form of mind control and attack the section of the stands where the Alpha Primitives are seated. The pair is quickly subdued and then lapses into unconsciousness. The Alpha Primitives start yelling accusations at Black Bolt, only to be shouted down by the Inhumans around them. The Alpha Primitives then leave the stadium in protest, and the festivities are quickly brought to a close. Wanda realizes the situation in the Great Refuge is less rosy than the royal family made it seem. Later, she finally finds Pietro complaining about her to Crystal and is annoyed by his sexist attitude. Not wanting to get in the middle of the siblings’ argument, Crystal goes for a walk. Wanda and Pietro rehash their disagreement about the Vision until they are interrupted by the Swordsman and Mantis, who are raising the alarm that Omega has come to life and kidnapped Crystal.

Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Quicksilver rejoin the others, whereupon Black Bolt suggests, through Triton, that the Avengers, being impartial observers, may have better luck questioning the Alpha Primitives about Omega’s reactivation. Thor concurs, so Quicksilver leads his former teammates into the caverns where the Alpha Primitives live, only to lose his temper and attack the brutes, demanding that they hand over Crystal at once. Mantis forces Quicksilver to stand down, but they both suddenly fall unconscious. Thor quickly determines that their symptoms match those of Iron Man and Medusa and calls for the Avengers to retreat to the surface. The Alpha Primitives become a rampaging mob, but Thor keeps them at bay with bolts of lightning from his hammer. Outside, the Avengers find the other heroes carrying Maximus on a stretcher. Though he appears to be unconscious as well, Maximus leaps up as soon as the Alpha Primitives emerge from the caverns, grabs a blaster, and opens fire on them. In the ensuing melee, Maximus, Gorgon, Karnak, Triton, the Swordsman, and the Human Torch abruptly fall unconscious as well. Finally, Omega strides across the plaza to the remaining heroes and reveals himself to be Ultron-7 in disguise. The murderous robot explains that Maximus brought the severed head of Ultron-6 to the Great Refuge after the Vision defeated him a few years ago and eventually fused his circuits with the Omega android, giving him Omega’s psychic abilities, which he has used to incapacitate the unconscious heroes. Ultron-7 then turns those abilities against all his enemies, intent on destroying their minds. His scheme backfires, though, as his psychic energies inadvertently awaken Franklin Richards from his coma. The boy lashes out at the source of the attack with his mysterious mutant powers, obliterating Ultron-7’s computerized brain. Scarlet Witch and the others then look on happily as the Richards family is at last reunited.

The next day, as heralds fly over the Great Refuge blowing their horns to summon the guests to the wedding ceremony, Scarlet Witch nervously meets up with the other Avengers. She worries that Pietro will make an unpleasant scene and spoil the day. Vision suggests they remain in the back of the venue so as not to draw attention to themselves, and Wanda agrees. She is filled with conflicting emotions as she watches Pietro and Crystal joined in matrimony according to Inhuman custom—hope and pride but also a deep sense of loss. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Lockjaw teleports the newlyweds off to their honeymoon. At no point did Pietro even acknowledge Wanda’s presence. A huge celebration follows, though Wanda’s heart is not in it and she retires early to her guest quarters. Vision follows and does what he can to be supportive.

The Avengers then return to New York, arriving at the mansion shortly before midnight. The Fantastic Four stop by on their way home to say goodnight. However, a sudden storm forms overhead, unleashing a series of deadly lightning bolts that strike the roof. Thor immediately launches himself into the sky and tries to dispel the storm, without success. Wanda is startled when Agatha Harkness reveals herself to be a powerful sorceress by dissipating the storm with a magical incantation. Agatha then informs the Fantastic Four that she will no longer be serving as Franklin’s nanny, for the time has come for her to take on a new charge—the Scarlet Witch. Like the rest of the Avengers, Wanda is shocked but admits that she has long wanted to study true witchcraft and accepts Agatha as her tutor. As the Fantastic Four depart and the Avengers enter the building, Thor authorizes Agatha to take up residence there. Wanda escorts her to an unoccupied room, where they are joined by Agatha’s black cat, Ebony. Vision appears in the doorway and asks for a moment of Wanda’s time to discuss an important matter, but Agatha insists it can wait until morning. Wanda defers to her new mentor, and the Vision, betraying no hint of how he feels about it, turns and walks away.

Agatha immediately closes the door and casts a spell to seal the room, which merely adds to Wanda’s growing apprehension. Ebony hisses loudly as an ugly, hunchbacked little man teleports into the room and introduces himself as Necrodamus, saying he’s come to steal Agatha’s soul. Telling Wanda to keep back, Agatha counters Necrodamus’s initial attack, but he just uses her eldritch energies to transform himself into a larger, more muscular form. Ebony likewise transforms into a panther of monstrous proportions and pounces on the wizard, only to be quickly defeated. Scoffing at Agatha’s bravado, Necrodamus strikes her down, leaving Wanda to face him alone. Wanda tries to use her mutant hex power against him, but he shrugs off its effects and pummels her into unconsciousness. However, she comes to a moment later and finds Ebony staring at her with a strange light in his eyes. Realizing that Necrodamus is kneeling over her holding a small metal box covered with occult engravings, Wanda focuses her hex power on the box, shattering it. Necrodamus screams in horror as all the souls trapped in the box break free and carry him off into another dimension. Wanda is nearly swept away with them, but Ebony holds onto her by the cape until the dimensional portal closes. Seeing that Agatha has fully recovered, Wanda accuses her of setting the whole thing up as a test of her abilities. Agatha denies it with a sly smile. Emerging from the bedroom, Wanda and Agatha are drawn outside by a commotion in the street. Meeting up with the other Avengers, they find an intensely bright light shining down on the mansion from what appears to be a new star in the sky. Suddenly, their old foe, Kang the Conqueror, materializes and announces that the star is a signal indicating that the 20th century is ripe for conquest.

Using 41st-century robots called “Macrobots,” Kang easily defeats the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Thor, Iron Man, the Swordsman, Mantis, and Agatha Harkness and takes them prisoner. The time-traveling despot then explains that the “newborn star” heralds the appearance of the legendary Celestial Madonna, who is to mate with the most powerful man in the world and produce a child who will conquer the universe. Kang is determined to be that man and to rule the heavens through the child. Due to strange disturbances in the timestream in the late 20th century, he was unable to determine the exact date the star would manifest itself, so he left a temporal monitor behind during his first incursion four and a half years ago. And although the historical records of the 20th century that have survived to Kang’s era are fragmentary at best, the positioning of the star above Avengers Mansion suggests that the Celestial Madonna is either the Scarlet Witch, Mantis, or Agatha Harkness. In order to solve that riddle, Kang teleports his prisoners to a laboratory hidden inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid, derisively leaving the Swordsman behind. He then conducts a battery of medical tests on the women while the Vision, Thor, and Iron Man are held by a paralysis beam that renders them helpless. Wanda assumes that she must be the Celestial Madonna, since Agatha is too old and Mantis could never be worthy of such an honor.

Fortunately, the Swordsman immediately mounts a rescue mission, apparently led to the pyramid by Agatha’s telepathy. Kang dismisses the threat of the Swordsman, though, revealing that he designed the pyramid himself while ruling Egypt as the pharaoh Rama-Tut and left a vampire named Amenhotep behind to guard it. Upon entering, the Swordsman inadvertently releases the vampire, though it soon stumbles out into the sunlight and is disintegrated. Unconcerned, Kang seals the Vision, Thor, and Iron Man inside Macrobot exoskeletons, revealing his plan to send them out to kill key government personnel in the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China, after which a strategically placed neutron bomb will set off a global nuclear war. With that, Kang loads all his captives into his time-capsule and flies to the United Nations building in New York City. With the time-capsule rendered invisible by a cloaking device, Kang dispatches the Macrobot containing the Vision, only to watch him be defeated by the Swordsman, who has been joined by Hawkeye and a mysterious stranger. Deciding to cut his losses, Kang pilots the time-capsule to Peking, China, where he sends out the Macrobot containing Iron Man. Again, his scheme is foiled by the Swordsman, Hawkeye, and their unknown companion, now joined by the Vision. Kang is distracted momentarily when the Scarlet Witch and Mantis start arguing over which of them deserves the Vision’s love. Mantis accuses Wanda of being emotionally abusive and neglectful, but Wanda throws it right back in her face, given her own treatment of the Swordsman. Enraged, Kang tells both women to shut up and decides to abandon his plan to go to Moscow. Instead, he sends the Macrobot containing Thor out to recapture the Vision and Iron Man. As the cloaking device is deactivated, Vision is able to phase inside and free Kang’s trio of captives. Scarlet Witch and Mantis immediately join the battle, though they bicker constantly.

Scarlet Witch slows down Thor’s Macrobot by casting a hex that causes the ground beneath it to erupt with molten lava, allowing her teammates to hit it with a coordinated attack. However, while Mantis is perched on the Macrobot’s shoulders, Wanda casts another hex that draws a meteor out of orbit and brings it crashing down on their foe. Leaping to safety at the last second, Mantis accuses the Scarlet Witch of recklessly endangering her life, but Wanda ignores her. The mystery man is able to open the damaged Macrobot, releasing the thunder god. The enigmatic stranger then confronts Kang, who reveals him to be his own future self, living once again as Pharaoh Rama-Tut. As the two men start fighting each other, a strange wave of hallucinatory images wash over the Avengers—dreamlike images of the past, present, and future. Suddenly, Kang realizes that Mantis is the Celestial Madonna and announces that if he can’t have her, no one will. He fires his ray gun at Mantis, but the Swordsman leaps in front of her and is mortally wounded. Rama-Tut tackles Kang, and as they struggle, they inadvertently activate the time-capsule, which dematerializes. The Avengers are shocked and horrified by this sudden turn of events. The Swordsman dies in Mantis’s arms, cursing himself as a failure. The sorrowful Avengers honor their fallen teammate, then take his body back to New York. When they arrive at the mansion, the butler, Edwin Jarvis, informs them that the Whizzer has moved on, showing them a morose farewell note he left behind. Wanda is very upset by it, feeling completely abandoned by her family. Thor encourages everyone to get some much-needed rest.

July 1967 – Over the next few days, Thor agrees to serve another term as Avengers chairman and Hawkeye continues to hang around, though he won’t commit to formally rejoining the team. He’s not shy, though, about claiming credit for convincing Steve Rogers to adopt a new costumed identity. Mantis requests permission to take the Swordsman’s body to Vietnam for burial, since she has decided to return home rather than remain with the Avengers. Thor grants her request, offering to have the team accompany her and try to unravel some of the secrets of her past. Mantis is touched by such generosity. Scarlet Witch begs off, saying that Agatha is insistent that she continue her education in witchcraft without delay. Vision is also reluctant to go, concerned that he has had panic attacks in the heat of battle a few times now—most recently against Kang—but Thor and Iron Man assure him that they will look out for him. Hawkeye agrees to go along, so the five heroes are soon aboard a Quinjet on their way to South Vietnam. Wanda is worried about the Vision and Mantis being off on a mission together without her, but Agatha tells her they have a great deal of work to do.

Wanda and Agatha again sequester themselves in one of the mansion’s large bedrooms, leaving strict orders with Jarvis that they are not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Under Ebony’s watchful eyes, Agatha spends the following several days tutoring Wanda in the basics of witchcraft and sorcery. Though she gets off to a shaky start, Wanda proves an apt pupil and soon manages to cast a spell, augmented by her mutant hex power, that causes a chair to walk around the room as if it were humanoid. Excited by her success, Wanda loses focus, causing the chair to turn and attack her. Agatha easily breaks the spell animating the chair and admonishes Wanda never to lose control of the forces she summons through magic. The elderly witch is clearly irritated when Wanda reveals that she’s eager to show off her new abilities to her teammates. Agatha mentions cryptically that the Avengers’ investigation into Mantis’s origins has apparently taken them away from Earth, but this only makes Wanda more anxious. Worried that her mentor is finding her to be a disappointment, Wanda redoubles her efforts, though the temptation to use her mutant powers as a shortcut is hard to resist.

As time passes, the tension between the two women grows. Wanda struggles to maintain the intense concentration that Agatha demands, as she frets constantly about Mantis seducing the Vision. Her spellcasting frequently fails due to negative thoughts encroaching on her mind, such as feelings of resentment toward Quicksilver; jealousy of Crystal, who has clearly replaced Wanda in Pietro’s affections; and bitterness toward the Whizzer, the father who has now abandoned her twice. The deeper Wanda digs into her psyche to push away these thoughts, the louder a malevolent voice at the back of her mind becomes. She fumes about the suicide bombers who tried to kill the Vision last year after their romance went public, noting that the Avengers never conducted a thorough investigation into who they were or where they came from. She seethes at the thought of how sexist her teammates are, how excited they are to have Mantis or the Black Widow around while treating her like a pariah, despite her saving them all from Dormammu’s plot to enslave the human race and annex Earth into his Dark Dimension. Even the much-ballyhooed Doctor Strange was no match for Dormammu, but Wanda blew the demon to smithereens without half trying. Strange barely acknowledged Wanda’s victory—perhaps he felt humiliated to be shown up by a woman in front of all his male colleagues. Perhaps, she thinks, when she has mastered the arts of sorcery, she will need to humble Doctor Strange again, to make him pay for his effrontery. But now, her efforts to achieve that mastery are being stifled by a sour-faced old witch, who despite her magical skill, is no Homo superior after all, merely a poor, doomed member of that evolutionary dead end, Homo sapiens. Feeling her face burning with righteous rage, Wanda unleashes a devastating sorcerous attack on Agatha, catching her completely off guard. Within seconds, Agatha has been subdued and Ebony has retreated under the bed. Wanda is about to deal with Agatha’s feline familiar when Jarvis knocks on the door and asks to have a word with her. Wanda roars at the butler to get away from there if he values his wretched life. She is shocked by the strange, demonic quality her voice has taken on but revels in the feeling of utter invincibility washing over her.

Hearing an aircraft landing on the roof, Wanda leaves the bedroom to see if the Avengers have returned. She compels Agatha to follow along in a trance, and in the team’s communications room, she finds Jarvis talking about her with Captain Marvel’s friend Moondragon, whom she met late last year. Wanda castigates the cretinous servant for discussing her affairs with outsiders and threatens to fire him. Moondragon intervenes, suggesting that Wanda accompany her to Vietnam to try to find out where the Avengers disappeared to. Wanda refuses to delay her studies of the occult for such a trivial matter, and when Moondragon insolently tries to read her mind, she uses her magic-enhanced hex power to punish the interloper. Sneering at Moondragon and Jarvis, Wanda goes back upstairs, taking Agatha with her. Shortly afterward, Moondragon’s aircraft lifts off and flies away. For the next hour or so, Wanda tortures Agatha while interrogating her about the Elder Goddess Gaea. Caught in a magical trap, Ebony is powerless to intervene. Finally, having learned what she wished to know, Wanda opens a portal to a distant subterranean cavern and marches Agatha through it. They are greeted by their master, the Dread Dormammu, and his sister, the Unspeakable Umar.

Once Agatha has been imprisoned in a narrow crevice in the cavern wall, Umar chains Wanda to a large slab of rock by the wrists and ankles. Wanda suddenly finds her mind clearing of Dormammu’s malign influence and realizes she’d been possessed. She quickly determines that neither her mutant hex power nor her newly acquired magical skills are effective against Dormammu’s sorcery. Dormammu reveals that he has already imprisoned Gaea to keep her from interfering with the reintegration of his corporeal form. By completing the process on Earth rather than in the Dark Dimension, Dormammu is essentially staking a claim to the planet. He will then be able to wreak terrible vengeance on the Scarlet Witch. Completely helpless, Wanda starts to fear the worst, but her heart soars when the Vision appears in the cavern and challenges Dormammu on her behalf. Dormammu laughs and tries to convince the Vision that Wanda isn’t worth saving, given how easily he could corrupt her spirit. Undeterred, Vision fights his way through a horde of demons that Dormammu conjures up, whereupon the villain releases Wanda from her chains while again seizing control of her mind. Wanda viciously attacks the Vision with her hex power but is unable to counter his ability to vary his density. She then switches tactics and causes all the energy to drain out of the solar jewel on his forehead. Umar laughs with sadistic glee as the Vision quickly grows too weak to stand. He pleads with Wanda to remember the love they once shared, but she remains impassive until he finally collapses at her feet.

Coming to her senses, Wanda recoils in horror at what she was made to do. She surreptitiously reverses the spell, causing the dissipated energy to seep back into the solar jewel, while casting another spell to free Agatha from confinement. Thus, when Dormammu unleashes a magical attack on the defiant mutant, Agatha is able to block it. Wanda then uses her powers to cool down the pool of lava Dormammu is standing in. She’s noticed that he’s stood in that same spot since she arrived and has deduced that he needs the heat from the lava to regenerate himself. Dormammu’s panicked reaction proves her hypothesis was correct. He cries out to his sister for help, but the Vision knocks Umar out before she can do anything. His scheme unraveling, Dormammu surrenders and tells the Scarlet Witch to name her terms. She demands that Dormammu allow her, the Vision, and Agatha to leave without fear of retribution; that he release Gaea from imprisonment; and that he abandon his plans to conquer Earth’s dimension. Seething with rage, Dormammu agrees and teleports the three captives back to Avengers Mansion. Wanda asks Agatha if she can have a few minutes to speak with the Vision before resuming her lessons. Agatha merely chuckles and says that, after twice saving the world from Dormammu, Wanda doesn’t need anybody’s permission to do anything. As she leaves the room, Agatha assures Wanda that, from now on, her magical education will continue at her own pace.

Finally alone together, Vision reveals the true depth of his feelings for Wanda, assuring her that when Mantis threw herself at him, he had no desire to reciprocate. Then, summoning up all his courage, he asks Wanda to marry him. Despite her heart swelling with love, Wanda catches herself and asks for reassurance that he’s not asking just because she’s the first woman he ever had feelings for. He explains in his calm, measured way that he feels such a deep connection to Wanda because she truly understands what it means to be an Avenger, and everything they’ve experienced together over the last three years has forged a bond between them. But more importantly, he says, his most recent experiences have revealed to him facts about his mysterious past that have completely changed how he sees himself. Whereas before, he was merely a being of synthetic flesh and computerized components, he now understands himself to be a man, created by a human father to live a human life. Seeing an uncharacteristic expressiveness in the Vision’s face, Wanda declares that “love is for souls, not bodies” and enthusiastically accepts his marriage proposal. Their passionate kissing is interrupted a moment later when a man in strange but regal clothes materializes in the room. Vision recognizes him as “Immortus” and credits him with providing the new insights into his past. Wanda is grateful to Immortus, who says he has come to take them to their teammates. He invites Agatha to accompany them, and when the elderly witch agrees, he teleports them all to an abandoned temple in the jungles of Vietnam.

There, they find Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Moondragon, Libra (Mantis’s father), and the glowing corpse of the Swordsman, which has been reanimated by an extraterrestrial entity called a Cotati, some kind of plant-based lifeform. They are frantic because Kang has just kidnapped Mantis and spirited her away in his time machine. However, Immortus coolly informs them that he’s tricked Kang by having Mantis swap places with the shape-changing Space Phantom. He then opens a large, ornate box, revealing Mantis within. Mantis steps out of the box and announces that she has accepted her destiny as the Celestial Madonna and will enter into a marital union with the Elder Cotati in order to produce a new lifeform—a hybrid of plant and animal who enjoys the best of both worlds. Wanda is thrilled by this news and announces her own engagement to the Vision. Immortus magnanimously offers to officiate the double-wedding by the power vested in him as the sovereign of the timeless dimension of Limbo. The two couples agree to proceed without delay. Thor, as Avengers chairman, makes a motion that the team officially induct Mantis as a full member, to honor her and their time together. The other Avengers agree, and Mantis is truly touched. Even Wanda is willing to forgive and forget, given the joyous resolution of their rivalry. Everyone then adjourns to the garden, where Mantis presents Wanda with a lovely bouquet of flowers. Wanda notices for the first time the beauty and serenity of the temple grounds. The two couples come together, and Immortus conducts a brief ceremony that Wanda considers to be pitch perfect. Afterwards, Mantis and her husband transform into pure energy and ascend into the sky. Wanda and the Vision decide on a more traditional honeymoon in French Polynesia. Moondragon flies the Avengers to Saigon to pick up their Quinjet, and the Scarlet Witch and the Vision part company with them there. Agatha returns to New York with the Avengers.

Shortly after arriving in French Polynesia, Wanda and the Vision hear reports of weird occurrences all around the world and wonder what’s going on. They worry that their honeymoon will need to be cut short, but then the Fantastic Four announce that it was all part of an alien invasion plot that they have foiled. Relieved, the newlyweds turn their attention to frolicking on the beach.

August 1967 – While they’re island hopping throughout French Polynesia, Vision gradually opens up to Wanda about the strange sequence of events that led him to his new understanding of himself. After transporting the Avengers from Vietnam to the Labyrinths of Limbo, Kang the Conqueror set a gang of undead henchmen on them. Among the group were Wonder Man, on whose brain patterns the Vision’s own artificial mind is based, and the original Human Torch of the World War II era. When the Vision was nearly destroyed in battle with the Ghost of the Flying Dutchman, he was saved by the Human Torch, who was himself an android. In the process, the Torch discovered that he and the Vision were, in fact, the same android at two different points in history. This finally explains the Vision’s recent claustrophobic panic attacks—he’s been reacting to traumas suffered by the Torch during his earlier existence. Kang was finally driven off, but not before the Vision was further damaged at the hands of Wonder Man. Fortunately, Immortus stepped in and restored the Vision to full functionality. Then, as a reward for saving his realm from Kang, Immortus offered to send the team on a trip through the past to learn the secrets of the Vision’s origins as well as the history of the Celestial Madonna. Since the Vision’s story involved very recent events, it was decided that he should travel alone, with the aid of a telepathic device called a synchro-staff, in order to protect the integrity of the timestream. The rest of the team accompanied Mantis.

The synchro-staff led the Vision to New York City in 1939 to witness the Human Torch’s unveiling by his creator, Phineas T. Horton, though he remained in a ghostly state and could only observe. The reaction to Horton’s artificial man was predictably negative, especially as a flaw in the design caused him to burst into flames upon contact with air. Horton was pressured into containing his creation until a means could be found to control his flame, and so the android spent weeks trapped inside a tube submerged in concrete. When he finally broke free, the android inadvertently caused a good deal of property damage as he explored the city. Realizing this, he doused himself in a swimming pool on a large estate. However, he became trapped there while the pool’s owner, a notorious racketeer, tried to figure out a way to exploit him. It was experiences such as these, Vision explains, that triggered his panic attacks while fighting Dormammu, Zodiac, and Kang over the last year or so. Wanda is very sympathetic and glad to finally understand what the Vision has been going through.

After ten years of fighting crime alongside his sidekick Toro, a mutant with similar powers, the Human Torch was ambushed by a gang of mobsters who neutralized his flame with an experimental solution provided by the Soviet Union. Believing the paralyzed Torch to be dead, the criminals buried him in the Nevada desert. He was revived in 1953 by an atomic bomb test and soon rescued Toro from the Soviets, who had brainwashed him into blowing up American ammo dumps in Korea. They then resumed their crime-fighting crusade, but the radiation that had freed the Torch slowly caused him to lose control over his powers. By 1955, he realized he was dying and, after saying goodbye to Toro, retreated to the desert, where he attempted to commit suicide. However, rather than being destroyed, he was merely rendered inert again and remained there, covered by the drifting sands, until being discovered by the Mad Thinker eight years later.

The Mad Thinker used the Torch to attack his namesake, the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, who was in the area experimenting with his own flame powers. However, when the rest of the Fantastic Four arrived on the scene, the Torch was deactivated again by the Mad Thinker’s A.I. assistant, the supercomputer known as Quasimodo. Unable to resuscitate him, Mister Fantastic decided it would be best to leave the Torch where he was, letting the villain’s secret base serve as his tomb. Unfortunately, five months later, the Torch was found there by Ultron-5, who had learned the location of the base from the Mad Thinker. Back in his own laboratory in Cresskill, New Jersey, Ultron-5 labored for weeks to reactivate the Torch, his efforts always ending in failure. Finally, he tracked down Horton, who was working as a television repairman in Stamford, Connecticut, and forced him to help. Following some of the earliest programming he’d received from his creator, Hank Pym, Ultron-5 was intent on converting the android Torch into a “synthezoid”—a sophisticated synthesis of android and robot—while incorporating density-altering technology confiscated from the evil genius Egghead. However, Horton could not bring himself to erase the Torch’s personality, as Ultron-5 had instructed him to do—after so many years of loneliness, he realized that he thought of the Torch like a son, the only legacy of his wasted life. Thus, when he was reactivated in his new form, the Torch went berserk and drove Ultron-5 away, though not before the murderous robot mortally wounded Horton. In the elderly man’s last moments, he and the Torch were reconciled and regretted their long estrangement. The Torch truly came to see Horton as his father and grieved for him.

Determined to bring Ultron-5 to justice, the Torch chased him down and attacked him, but without his familiar flame powers, he was quickly defeated and deactivated. Ultron-5 then erased the Torch’s mind and replaced it with the brain patterns taken from Wonder Man, which he’d found in Hank Pym’s lab. Thus, when the synthezoid was next reactivated, the Vision was truly born. Having learned all there was to learn, the ghostly Vision was then returned to the present, whereupon the synchro-staff dematerialized. However, he had somehow been diverted to the cavern where Wanda and Agatha were being held prisoner by Dormammu and Umar. Wanda assumes that that’s one more thing they have to thank Immortus for and marvels at what a benefactor he has been to them. Vision concurs, admitting that, now that he knows he wasn’t created out of whole cloth by Ultron-5 merely to serve his evil schemes but has instead an honorable heritage as one of the greatest heroes of World War II, a life defined by courage, camaraderie, and compassion, he finally feels worthy of Wanda’s love. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Wanda kisses her husband and holds him tightly, hoping that one day she’ll be able to honor Horton’s legacy by giving the Vision children of his own.

September 1967 – Having plenty of time to rest and reflect, Wanda comes to realize that, if she’s going to continue studying witchcraft, she needs to purge herself of all the toxic negativity she’s been carrying around the last few years. She sees how Dormammu took all the hatred, bitterness, and resentment in her heart and used it against her. But even before that, she recognizes, it did so much damage to her relationships with the other Avengers. She understands that such emotional baggage will only inhibit her ability to work spells and will ultimately lead her down the road to corruption, as it did Necrodamus. Determined not to fall into that trap, Wanda decides the first step is to forgive Pietro for cutting her out of his life. She hopes that, in time, her brother will overcome his bigotry toward the Vision and see him for the wonderful man that he is.

After spending the last two weeks of their honeymoon in Tahiti, Wanda and the Vision return to Avengers Mansion and settle into their new routine as a married couple. They decide to continue living in their adjoining rooms but install a connecting door between them. Hawkeye and Moondragon have both become active members of the team and have taken up residence in the mansion as well. Furthermore, Hercules has moved back in, along with an Asgardian woman named Krista. Hercules and Krista spend a lot of time together, and Wanda finds them to be enjoyable company. She’s sad to learn, though, that Thor is spending most of his time at the hospital where his former love, Jane Foster, lies dying of a mysterious malady. Wanda starts traveling to Whisper Hill in upstate New York once a week to continue her magical training with Agatha Harkness. She is impressed with Agatha’s creepy old manse, which seems the perfect spot for an exploration of the occult. Pleased with Wanda’s new attitude, Agatha is happy to continue their lessons, and they essentially start over at the beginning.

October–November 1967 – Having taken over as team chairman, Iron Man recruits Krista to provide combat training to the Scarlet Witch and Moondragon. Iron Man makes a point to oversee their sessions personally, though Wanda suspects he’s merely ogling them. He and Hawkeye seem to find Moondragon irresistibly attractive for reasons Wanda can’t understand. Though Moondragon is insufferably arrogant, Wanda isn’t bothered by her too much, especially as she shows no interest whatsoever in the Vision. And Wanda must admit that she enjoys the physicality of such fight training, as well as the positive effect it has on her marital relations.

December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Scarlet Witch and Vision find themselves trapped within force-field bubbles. Try as they might, they are unable to escape. Finally, the force fields vanish as mysteriously as they appeared. The couple then learns that while they were trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army. They return to Avengers Mansion, where they find that Krista has gone home and Hercules is off on some kind of quest with Thor’s friend Sif. However, the Grand Vizier of Asgard’s royal court has decided to spend some time on “Midgard,” and he takes a room at the mansion. The Grand Vizier seems genuinely curious about humanity, and Wanda enjoys talking with him.

Steve Rogers shows up at Avengers Mansion one night and retrieves his old costume and shield from the storage vault, ready to take up the mantle of Captain America again. He then sets out to hunt down his nemesis, the Red Skull, and the other Avengers are relieved that their teammate’s identity crisis is over at last. Nearly a week later, Scarlet Witch and Vision attend the Avengers’ Sixth Annual Christmas Charity Benefit with Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Moondragon. Thor puts in a brief appearance, and the Grand Vizier seems to find the whole affair delightful. Wanda feels a tinge of regret that she has not had the chance to even inform Pietro of her marriage, but she’s determined to give her twin brother whatever space he needs to grow up a little.


Notes:

January–May 1967 – Black Spectre wreaks havoc in the United States in Daredevil #109–112 and Marvel Two-In-One #3, during which the Avengers remain behind the scenes.

June 1967 – The Scarlet Witch is behind the scenes when Captain America, disillusioned after the Secret Empire affair, calls it quits in Captain America #176. Scarlet Witch’s adventures then resume in Avengers #127 and following. The battle with Ultron-7 crosses over into Fantastic Four #150, where the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal is depicted in abbreviated fashion. Kang’s first attempt to capture the Celestial Madonna culminates in Giant-Size Avengers #2. The timestream disturbances in the late 20th century that Kang refers to are the result of the “time bubble” (which stretches from 1995 to 2010) that Thor and Iron Man (among others) will investigate in Avengers #296–297 and Fantastic Four #337–341.

July 1967 – Wanda succumbs to demonic possession in Giant-Size Avengers #3, as Dormammu seeks revenge for the defeat she handed him back in Avengers #118. She and Vision then face down Dormammu and Umar in Giant-Size Avengers #4, which ends with the big double-wedding. On the splash page of Iron Man #74, Scarlet Witch and Vision are erroneously shown instead of Moondragon. Once back in Manhattan, Agatha tells the Avengers that Wanda “will never be a great witch, let alone a sorceress, but she will be very good.” Presumably, Agatha sought out Wanda mainly because she needed her help to fight off Necrodamus and then to rescue Gaea from Dormammu, rather than because she believed Wanda to be a promising student of witchcraft. The way writer Steve Englehart seems to conceptualize witches suggests that Agatha would derive much of her magical power from Gaea. Thus, while Gaea was being held captive, Agatha was unusually vulnerable. However, Agatha unwittingly plays into the hands of the arch-demon Chthon, who has been trying to turn Wanda to the occult for several years in a gambit to escape imprisonment within Wundagore Mountain. This brings us up to the first couple pages of Avengers #137. The Fantastic Four repel an alien invasion in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3, during which the Scarlet Witch and the Vision are behind the scenes.

August 1967 – As revealed in Avengers West Coast #50, the Vision and the Original Human Torch were always two separate entities, at least as far as the Original Marvel Universe is concerned. This means that the events the Vision witnessed in Avengers #133–135 actually occurred in an alternate timeline, one selected specifically by Immortus to convince the Vision that he was indeed worthy of marrying the Scarlet Witch, as part of the scheme to manipulate her that was finally exposed in Avengers West Coast #61–62. With access to innumerable parallel realities as the ruler of the dimension of Limbo, Immortus was aware that, if the Vision did not overcome his insecurities and propose to Wanda at this time, he would most likely lose her to Wonder Man after the latter’s resurrection next year. Sharing the same brain patterns, Vision and Wonder Man both fall in love with Wanda, which will become an ongoing subplot in the Avengers titles. Presumably, a romance with Wonder Man would have precluded Wanda from having the eventual mental breakdown that Immortus is counting on. Therefore, Immortus stepped in to convince the Vision that he had started life as a world-renowned crime-fighter and war hero, as learning the truth of his origins would have had the same effect on the Vision as remaining ignorant of them. For in fact, Vision was created by Ultron-5 out of the remains of another of Phineas T. Horton’s androids—Adam-II, a villain who fought the All-Winners Squad while trying to assassinate congressional candidate John F. Kennedy in What If? #4.

Like the rest of the so-called Legion of the Unliving, the Original Human Torch who appears in Avengers #131–132 and Giant-Size Avengers #3 is not the real one but merely a simulacrum created by Kang using Immortus’s time-manipulation devices. As such, he says what Immortus needs him to say. Immortus’s synchro-staff then takes the Vision on a trip through history to witness events from Marvel Comics #1, Young Men #24, Fantastic Four Annual #4, and Sub-Mariner #14. Vision’s recent panic attacks were actually caused directly by Immortus in furtherance of his master plan, not due to any shared history with the android Torch. The timeline diverges when Ultron-5 discovers the inert Torch in the Mad Thinker’s abandoned laboratory. In the OMU, the Torch had already been buried in Pleasantville’s Quaker Hill Cemetery, as shown in Avengers West Coast #50. As a result, Ultron-5 instead obtained the remains of Adam-II, which Horton had stashed away back in 1946. Ultron had originally been created to assist Hank Pym and Bill Foster with the development of a synthezoid, and Pym had confiscated density-altering technology from Egghead in the aftermath of Tales to Astonish #61. This is what drove Ultron-5 to make the modifications to the android that he did. When Horton, still very much alive, saw the disassembled Vision in West Coast Avengers #44, he did not recognize it as his work due to the presence of robotic components. Horton’s research was limited to androids—beings of synthetic flesh and blood. This was true of both the Human Torch and Adam-II (who was killed in a car crash). Additionally, it would seem that the Horton in the parallel world Immortus chose never became the stepfather of Frankie Raye, as seen in Fantastic Four #238, and lived a much lonelier life.

December 1967 – Vision is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233, though the Scarlet Witch remains behind the scenes. She is still behind the scenes when Steve Rogers becomes Captain America again in Captain America #183.


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