| One of my favorite forgotten characters appeared in only two issues of Avengers...#112 and #114. His name is the Lion God. The story begins in Africa, where Mr. Umbala, a journalist, is looking for a story on African gods. In the course of his investivgation, he's sacrificed to the Lion God, who intends on returning the Black Panther (who is now running around with the Avengers) to Africa. While the Avengers are enjoying some restful downtime, the Lion God incites a riot using his African followers, right outside Avengers Mansion. Appearing initially in the guise of Mr. Umbala, the Lion God eventually reveals himself, and kidnaps the Black Panther. Apparently, the Lion God is jealous because he's been at war with the Panther God in Africa for countless centuries. The Lion God's followers are falling away, while the Panther God's following thrives. | |
 | His plan is to make the Black Panther share some supposed secrets about the Panther God, which will allow him to destroy the Panther God's followers, thus winning their eternal battle. Unfortunately, the Black Panther isn't one to just bow down to anyone. The Lion God, angered by the Panther's defiance, teleports himself and the captive Panther to Avengers Mansion, where the showdown begins. A battle royal breaks out, as the Avengers take on the Lion God! The Lion God uses his super-powerful god-weapon, his totem stick, to stun Thor, then he goes on to wipe the floor with the other Avengers. Yeah, I know...there's no way this half-forgotten god could beat Thor...you're right. But it wouldn't make for an exciting story if Thor just kicked his ass as he walked in the front door, now would it? ;-) |
| Remember, Thor was only momentarily stunned by the Lion God's totem stick. Now it's the Lion God's turn to be on the receiving end of some godly ass kicking! Thor summons up a storm, commanding the elements, then sends a powerful bolt of lighting right into the Lion God's totem stick, blasting him to atoms. ZAP! End of battle! BUT...not the end of the Lion God! We see him in some godly other-realm in the last panel of the issue, promising revenge. I really liked the Lion God, and the idea of another god fighting Thor. I'd hoped they'd use him again soon. I didn't have to wait long... |  |
| Two issues later, in Avengers #114, the Lion God made his brief return. Mantis and the Swordsman have arrived in town, and are trying to join the Avengers. However, Mantis senses some unusual presence...the presence of the Lion God. So she and the Swordsman secretly plot a course of action. Mantis summons the Lion God into Avengers Mansion. The Lion God then attacks the Avengers, this time armed with his hunting spear (yup, Thor destroyed the Lion God's totem stick permanently in # 112). At first, the Swordsman and Mantis seem to be siding with the Lion God. However, it's all part of the plan. After the Avengers are beaten, the Swordsman spins his sword, in supposed salute to the Lion God, as Mantis performs a dance. Together, the two manage to hypnotize the Lion God and get him to halt in his tracks. At this point, Iron Man hits a control and traps the Lion God in an adamantium cylinder. Adamantium being indestructible, the Lion God is trapped. Iron Man suggests that Thor use his hammer Mjolnir to send the Lion God's prison into another dimension, therefore trapping him forever. |  |
 | Yup, the Living Bombs are suicide bombers, hell bent on eradicating the Vision. While the Avengers stand outside their mansion, one of the Living Bombs manages to push her way through to the Vision, and tries blowing him up! |
| Luckily, the bomber fails...the Vision is alive, but damaged inside. The Avengers rush him to Stark enterprises, where Tony Stark, Don Blake, and the Black Panther try to revive him. While they're doing this, the Living Bombs come back to finish the job! |  |
 | The Avengers start mopping up the floor with the Living Bombs, but they still manage to blow up a good bit of Stark Enterprise property...until Thor steps in and gets rid of them! He spins his hammer, causing a whirlwind to sweep the Living Bombs up into the sky, where they end up committing suicide. Eventually, the Vision recovers, and all is well. I'm not one to like preachiness or social issues being explored in comics...they're supposed to be about fun and escapism, not realism and real world issues, but this story went off pretty well, so I can't complain. Steve Engleheart was the Avengers writer in this period, and as anyone who's read my sites or talked to me knows, I think Steve Engleheart is a god in the guise of a comics writer. These stories were all excellent, and I only wish we could have had someone besides Don Heck drawing them. I never cared for Heck's style (similarly, I never cared for Bob Brown's art either). Too bad we didn't have Perez around back then. ;-) |
| Our next character is so unknown, so unimportant in the Marvel Universe, that it's a miracle he got an entire cover of Avengers devoted to him! His name is Skol, and he's the leader of a band of troglodytes who live underground in England, right near the Black Knight's castle. So why are the Avengers fighting troglodytes in England? well, they flew there to check on the Black Knight, who hasn't been in touch for some time. Unbeknownst to the Avengers, the Black Knight was turned to stone by the Enchantress in the pages of the Defenders a short time before. For more information on that excellent crossover story, see the links page and click on the Avengers vs. Defenders link. |  |
 | As the Avengers approach the Knight's mansion, they run into Dr. Strange's mystical barrier which he sealed off the castle with. As Mantis tries to use her empathic powers to figure out where the barrier came from, the troglodytes spy on the Avengers. Suddenly, they... |
| ...attack! The troglodytes are getting beaten until they unleash some noxious underground gas on the Avengers, rendering them unconscious. |  |
 | The troglodytes take the Avengers to their underground city, where they finally meet Skol, King of the Troglodytes! You'd think he could afford some better clothing, huh? Looks more like a beggar than a ruler. Then again, he IS a troglodyte. ;-) |
| We skip ahead now to Avengers #123. The issue picks up at the end of a long battle between the Avengers and the Zodiac. One of the Zodiac members, Libra, drops a bombshell on us on page one...he's Mantis's father! Mantis denies this, but Libra insists it's true and tells us the story of how Mantis was born. Libra (before he was Libra) was a mercenary in Viet Nam, and met a Vietnamese woman named Lua. They married and had a daughter, Mantis. Lua's evil brother, Monsieur Khruul, was a cruel man. Get it? Khruul? Sigh. Anyway, Khruul did not approve of Lua marrying a white man, and he sent his gang to torch his sister's hut, killing her and blinding the man who would become Libra. Libra left Mantis with the Priests of Pama, who trained her in the martial arts. Ok, so what does all this have to do with forgotten characters? Well, Monsieur Khruul makes his first comic appearance in this issue! Ok, no big deal right? Well, as continuity would have it, the Swordsman used to work for Khruul back when he was a criminal. Hearing the story of how Khruul killed Mantis's mother, and being in love with Mantis himself, the Swordsman flies off in a Quinjet to confront (and probably kill) Monsieur Khruul. Enter another forgotten character! |  |
 | Unfortunately, the Swordsman is outnumbered and weak due to an injury sustained during the Avengers/Defenders battle a few issues earlier (hey, let's see YOU fight three armed brutes after being shot in the back!). He falls to the brutes, and Monsieur Khruul tortures him until he reveals information about Mantis. Khruul wants to take vengeance against the Priests of Pama for helping Khruul's neice, Mantis. BAD idea, as we shall soon see! |
| The Avengers, having heard from the Swordsman over the Quinjet radio, decide to go after him as he's in such a weakened state. They track down the temple of the Priests of Pama, only to find that Khruul has already arrived, and that he's killed the priests with the help of his numerous thugs. After administering a proper application of whup-ass on the remaining thugs, the Avengers hear a cry of mortal terror and agony coming from Monsieur Khruul himself. Rushing into the inner temple, the Avengers find Khruul nearly dead, scarred and "torn to ribbons" in Libra's own words. All he can say is "beware the Star-Stalker!". Which brings us to our next forgotten character... |  |
 | Yeah, I knew you were all waiting for a nice giant size pic, so there it is! And does a foe as cool as the Star Stalker deserve anything less? Really now! Talk about a powerful foe...the Star Stalker is tough! And obscure in the extreme though he may be, there's a ton of Marvel trivia linked to him. Why don't we explore that as we peek into the Star Stalker's history? After a fierce but totally ineffective attack by Thor, Vision, Iron Man, Mantis, and the Black Panther, the Star Stalker does what all great villains do...he regales the helpless heroes with his history, plans for conquest, and other personal information that no one outside of the villain himself cares to know! Well, we as readers care, but... |
| The Star Stalker apparently comes from beyond the stars, and travels the universe destroying worlds, because, well, that's what super powerful villains do! And besides, this guy feeds on planets, not unlike the vastly more powerful Galactus. Anyway, he reveals that in millenia past, the Kree (a warlike alien race, you all know who they are!) exiled a group of their own people who were pacifists and who opposed the Kree government. They were stranded on a prison planet that had no sunlight, no food, nothing. The Star Stalker attacked the prison planet, but the pacifist Kree found a way to defeat him and drove him away. Of course, the Star Stalker refuses to reveal HOW they drove him off, because that would be cheating! The pacifist Kree warned the Supreme Intelligence (leader of the Kree) about this new manace, but they were ignored, being outcasts. So the pacifist Kree spread themselves to other planets, a few here, a few there, all knowing the secret of how to defeat the Star Stalker. The Kree who came to earth became known as the Priests of Pama, and when Monsieur Khruul decimated them, the Star Stalker was free to attack Earth since no one here knew the secret of how to defeat him. |  |
 | Realizing that their power cannot affect the nearly invulnerable ionic body of the Star Stalker (he's made of almost pure ionic energy), the Black Panther comes up with an idea...why not use the Zodiac's Star Blaster ship, which focuses stellar energy? They captured the Zodiac a few issues ago, and the Star Blaster ship should be in working order. So they have SHIELD fly the ship over, and the Avengers try blasting the Star Stalker with it, full power. Not the greatest idea they've ever had, as you can see. |
| Another battle royal breaks out, with the Avengers unable to defeat the Star Stalker. Then Mantis realizes the fiend's weakness! She tells the Vision to shoot his solar beams at their foe, and it works! Mantis and the Vision realize that the creature attacked a planet (the Kree exiles) with no sunlight, that he only came out at night on earth, and so on. Heat and light were his bane, so Vision's solar beams really whupped him. Killed him actually, but that's no reason to forget the Star Stalker now is it? |  |