Warning: Spoilers for The Avengers #10 ahead!
What appears to be a random series of increasingly escalating conflicts takes on new meaning as yet another major super-villain begs the Avengers for help. Seeing as the mighty Kang has already appealed to the Avengers for assistance, this suggests that the coming threat to the Marvel Universe will be big enough to require heroes and villains alike to join together.
TheAvengers #10 by Jed McKay and C.F. Villa deals with the fallout of Myrddin’s Twilight Court attacking Kang at the Impossible City. Furious at the Avengers for “failing” to protect him, Kang leaves; looking for answers, Thor and the Scarlet Witch confront Nightmare about why his attack on the Avengers coincided with Myrddin’s.
In a surprising twist, Nightmare admits that his “attack” wasn’t an attack at all, but rather his own way of trying to warn the Avengers about the dire threat that is yet to come.
The Avengers’ Best Team-Up Move is Playing Musical Chairs
Superhero team-ups usually showcase duos joining forces for moves against their enemies, but the Avengers showcase a rare team-wide maneuver.
Nightmare Is the Second Major Avengers Villain to Plead for Help
While not as prominent a villain as Carnage or Doctor Doom, Nightmare is still a significant villain in Marvel’s lineup. Notably, he squared off against Jean Grey in Gerry Duggan, Javier Pina, Erick Arciniega, and Clayton Cowles’ X-Men (2021) #4 in a battle for the sleeping minds of all of New York, and played a critical part in unmasking the wicked General Strange in Doctor Strange (2023) #2 (by Jed MacKay, Pasqual Ferry, Matt Hollingsworth, and Cory Petit). His power over sleep and dreams makes him a formidable opponent, able to catch all but the most powerful sorcerers and telepaths off-guard.
This is the second time that a seemingly standard confrontation with a super-villain has turned out to be a cry for help. By following in Kang’s footsteps, Nightmare proves that whatever threat that is coming for the Avengers is vast enough to erase the normal conflicts between hero and villain and force them to stand side-by-side. From history’s greatest conqueror to the predator of sleeping minds, the Avenger’s enemies are quick to fall in line with the heroes to face what is coming, whatever it might be.
The Marvel Universe Faces a Threat Unlike Anything Before
These calls for help recontextualize the events of the series thus far, retrospectively turning an apparently random series of super-villain battles into a way for the Avengers to fight up the chain toward increasingly powerful enemies in order to pool their knowledge together. One cannot rule the universe if the universe is destroyed, after all, leading to the unlikeliest of circumstances: the Avengers standing side by side with figures like Kang against this unknown threat.
The Avengers #10 is available now from Marvel Comics.
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