The Avengers Annual #23

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About this issue

Writer

Al Milgrom and Roy Thomas

Penciller

John Buscema

Inker

John Buscema

Colorist

John Kalisz and Mike Marts

Letterer

Ken Lopez and Susan Crespi

Cover

John Buscema

Editor

Matt Idelson, Ralph Macchio, and Tom DeFalco

Characters

Captain America, Crystal, Hank Pym, Hercules (Marvel), Loki, Pluto (Marvel), Thunderstrike (Eric Masterson), and Vision

Teams

Avengers

Story arc

Strangers on an Astral Plane

Cover date

August 1994

Cover price

$2.95

UPC

75960602922802311

Pages

68

Rating

CCA

Pluto and Loki meet as astral projections in an interdimensional void and after realizing they can’t hurt each other, they agree to swap enemies; Loki will mastermind an attack on Hercules’s life, while Pluto will attack Thor. In Avengers mansion, the team has a training session while Cap and Hercules are both depressed. Loki descends into Hades to find Typhon, whom he charges with the assassination of Hercules, with several other imprisoned titans as his minions. They are transported to Earth and attack him in the middle of a restaurant where he has taken two ladies. They successfully defeat Hercules, despite the Avengers showing up, and Typhon absconds with Hercules. He takes him to Hades and forces him under the waters of Lethe, making him forget his anger toward Typhon and directing that anger instead toward Zeus. Loki watches as Typhon reaches Olympus and extinguishes the Promethean flame, which causes all the Olympian gods to vanish. The Avengers arrive and once again battle Typhon’s minions, whom they defeat. Cap ends up having to fight the brain-addled Hercules. Badly beaten, he reminds Hercules of his Twelve Labors, undertaken as penance for the slaying of his wife Megara and children. This causes the enraged Hercules to unleash a river towards Cap, but once submerged he regains his proper memory, and turns his rage on Typhon. Typhon soon manifests his true, serpent-legged form, and all the Avengers together battle and defeat him. They manage to send his axe back into the braxier of the Promethean flame, which reignites it, returning the Olympians to corporeality. Zeus demands to know how he was freed from hades, and summons his brother Pluto, who denies all knowledge of the escapade. Loki, meanwhile, regrets Typhon’s failure, but is satisfied that Pluto will succeed in destroying Thor.