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Issue Review
Avengers #261

Credits

Title: Earth and Beyond!
Writer: Roger Stern
Breakdowns: John Buscema
Finishes: Tom Palmer
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Max Scheele
Editor: Mark Gruenwald
Editor in Chief: Jim Shooter

Summary

Having destroyed Sanctuary II, the Avengers and Skrulls end their tenuous alliance and go their separate ways. The Avengers head for home in Starfox's Titanian starship, where he announces that he will be leaving the Avengers to hunt down his grand-niece, Nebula, with Firelord.

Back on Earth, Jarvis frantically updates the Avengers on the Beyonder's recent visit, and Captain America deduces that the Beyonder was the being the had encountered in outer space while battling Nebula.

The next day, Captain America and the Wasp travel to the offices of the Federal Aviation Administration, having been informed that their Quinjets will be banned from flying out of New York City. During this meeting, the Beyonder appears, and when confronted, runs away taunting the two Avengers to catch him. When they finally do, he simply disappears.

Meanwhile, the Black Knight and Hercules travel to Project Pegasus, in hopes of using some of their equipment to track the Beyonder. As they are about to triangulate his location, he simply appears before them. A large section of the mountain beneath the Pegasus complex is blown away in the ensuing battle, which ends when the Beyonder disappears after being impaled by the Black Knight's ebony blade.

The entire group convenes at Avengers Mansion to decide what to do next, when the Beyonder appears yet again. After a brief fight, and a lot of damage, the Avengers discover that the Beyonder wants to make amends for his failure to help on board Sanctuary II by issuing a challenge for the group to catch him. Wasp, the current leader of the Avengers, tells him that pursuing people is a part of what they do as a team of heroes, and offers to accept the Beyonder as an Avenger-In-Training. The Beyonder declines the offer, opting instead to remain solo in order to experience the entire world out there. Before teleporting away, the Beyonder restores the damage done to the Avengers Mansion.

Quotes

The Wasp: There he goes, Cap -- down the up-escalator! It's almost EERIE... He's not as smooth or as practiced, but he moves quite a bit like YOU. He even looks a little like you!
Captain America: I noticed.

The Beyonder: That was clumsy of me! I knew that sharpened blades can pierce flesh and cause pain -- I've experienced such before!
The Black Knight: You... IMPALED yourself! How can you just stand there?
The Beyonder: My eagerness to experience more temporarily overwhelmed my understanding of experiences past! How peculiar!
The Black Knight: Peculiar?!? You should be DEAD!
The Beyonder: I must go think about this!

The Black Knight: So we're saying that the best way to prevent the Beyonder from becoming a threat is to keep him here... and sort of COACH him? It's crazy, but it might work! Just imagine... if we could teach the Beyonder the old straight and narrow -- there might be no limit to the good we could accomplish!
Captain Marvel: That's an awfully big "if", Dane! Do the Avengers have enough power -- or wisdom -- to teach the Beyonder how to use his powers responsibly? I mean, look at this place! This damage is more the fault of Hercules than of the Beyonder!
Hercules: 'Twas not my intent--!
Captain Marvel: That's just my point! We may be superhuman, but we still make mistakes! How do we set an example for a being who for all practical purposes is omnipotent?

Commentary

As incredible as the Stern/Buscema run on the Avengers was, this issue is a disappointment. The first third of the issue seems to just be an administrative wrap up of loose ends, and the second half involves a wild goose chase with an out-of-character Beyonder behaving more like the Impossible Man than anything else. It's only at the end that his behavior is revealed - he's making amends for his part in losing Nebula by engaging the Avengers in a sporting game of cat and mouse.

The idea to grant the Beyonder membership in the Avengers is an interesting idea that seems uncannily similar to how the Avengers will approach the Sentry years down the road. It's dropped fairly quickly however.

Up next...

Secret Wars II continues in Secret Wars II #5!