Avengers Inc. is a 2023 comic book published by Marvel Comics, written by Al Ewing with art by Leonard Kirk.
Janet Van Dyne, the superheroine known as The Wasp, is investigating a mysterious murder case. Six villains were murdered in their cells with no sign of a break-in, one of whom has a history with her. Meanwhile, New York still has problems with superheroes in the wake of Wilson Fisk's mayorship. But that's not a problem, because for Janet, there's more than one way to avenge people, and Avengers Incorporated is now open for business.
The problem is the supervillains rising from the dead on the mortuary table, and who's behind it... and the mystery of one "Victor Shade", and why he's in someone else's body.
Avengers Inc. provides examples of:
- Amnesiac Resonance: Whoever Victor was, he apparently knew the Grim Reaper, enough that a few memories leak through when they tussle in issue #3.
- And I Must Scream: Ever since Rage of Ultron, the condition of Hank Pym had wavered between whether he was stuck inside Ultron unable to do anything, or if Ultron was just lying about being Hank or genuinely actually deluded that he was Hank. In issue #4 Hank confirms he was in there, just totally unable to do anything.
- And the Adventure Continues: The series ends with Hank and his new Lethal Legion escaping to try and fight Ultron, wherever he may be, while everyone welcomes Mark Twelve back. Jan figures it'll only be a matter of time before Hank or Ultron returns, and she'll be ready when they do.
- Asshole Victim: Zigzagged. Whirlwind was a supervillain and a stalker, so the guards at the Raft aren't really upset at someone blowing his brains out, at most being annoyed about the strike to their reputation. However, his biggest victim, Janet Van Dyne, is unhappy about him being murdered in custody while awaiting trial.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The murderer has Eric O'Grady working for him, and in true form, O'Grady zones out as his employer is monologuing to himself.
- Aura Vision: Jane Foster's Valkyrie vision allows her to see whether people are going to die, represented by a black sphere with a skull on it. So it's a bad sign that when she looks at Victor she sees a metallic sphere with glowing red eyes instead.
- Bait-and-Switch: Issue 4 ends with the reveal Victor is Ultron, as he puts his fist through Hank's chest. Issue 5 reveals that while he is Ultron, he's Mark Twelve, the good Ultron, and he was purging Hank of any Ultron tech.
- Because Destiny Says So: Way back in Walt Simonson's run on Thor, Skurge the Executioner took Thor's place to perform a Heroic Sacrifice. However, Thor was meant by destiny to do it, and destiny is determined to make sure Thor dies for real, requiring Odin and Skurge to try and work around this.
- Boxed Crook:
- Sort of... "Vic" is allowed out of the Raft to investigate Whirlwind's murder, fitted with an ankle monitor, despite not being Whirlwind, just occupying his body.
- All of the supposed "murder" victims had their deaths faked by Hank Pym. He keeps them boxed with the threat of exposing their survival and getting them sent to prison and the promise that he'll keep their deaths fake and give them all clean slates to start new lives. In exchange, he wants them to help him hunt down Ultron.
- Call-Back:
- The murders are carried out "Scourge of the Underworld"-style, right down to the killer using their catchphrase, and the accompanying sound-effect (*pum-spak*) as they do it.
- The Raft's warden wonders if Whirlwind's murder is because of his involvement with the Wasp back in her miniseries, but Jan thinks that thanks to the five other victims, it isn't.
- Issue 2 takes place in Avengers Mansion, now a tourist attraction / hotel, and still under the ownership of Johnny Storm, as it has been since Zub's run on Uncanny Avengers.
- Hank reveals he split off from Ultron after the events in 2022's Ant-Man, inspired to break free by what Scott had said to Ultron during those events.
- Came Back Wrong: The one responsible for the resurrections is supposedly Hank Pym, last seen stuck inside an Ultron who'd been blasted into the timestream. Odin apparently senses Hank's revival, and hints at Jan that while Hank may have come back, Ultron might well have come with him.
- The Cavalry: In issue #5, surrounded by an entire gang of supervillains under Ultron control, Jan calls in the rest of the Avengers.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Black Ant claims he's programmed for this but him laughing to himself about it suggests he's lying about that.
- Civvie Spandex: With superheroing sort of forbidden in New York, Janet and "Vic" are forced to wear plain clothes. Luckily for Janet, she has a wardrobe of clothes modified for civilian affairs, just in case.
- C-List Fodder: Deconstructed; all six of the victims in issue #1 are losers or no-names (Griffin, Anaconda of the Serpent Society, Icemaster, Quicksand, Piledriver of the Wrecking Crew, and Whirlwind). Janet figures whoever killed them probably attacked them for that specific reason, on the grounds nobody would care. But she cares.
- Continuity Nod:
- Issue #4 begins with Oddball being murdered. No. 1 suspect is Moon Knight, who previously threw him off a roof back in 2021.
- The various villains under Ultron's control in issue #5 can only repeat "submit or perish", the same thing Ultron's drones chanted way back in Age of Ultron (a tie-in issue for which being one of Ewing's first works for Marvel).
- Continuity Overlap: Skurge's murder in the third issue is positioned as leading into future events in The Immortal Thor, which is also written by Al Ewing.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Jan and the guard examining the bodies note that you'd need something a bit more than a regular bullet to perform a headshot on Quicksand, what with her being made of sand.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- As Jan laments when she finally discovers what Hank's doing, it's a typical product of Hank in the grips of his bipolar disorder, a plan with holes large enough for a Hulk to fit through. How exactly are a bunch of C-List at best supervillains are supposed to fight a potentially cosmic powered Ultron is anyone's guess, never mind that Hank is bringing supervillains back from the dead. As it turns out, this is because the plan is really Ultron's. A copy of him is lodged in Pym's mind, and he gave Hank the idea so he'd have superpowered drones to control.
- Hits Ultron in issue #5; he tries attacking the heroes with Sunstroke. Whose powers are fuelled by sunlight. In a basement. At night.
- Dirty Coward: As always, Black Ant's first instinct when the going gets tough is to run away.
- The Dragon: Eric O'Grady is working for the first suspect.
- Dude, Where's My Reward?: The killer in issue 2 is going after his former teammates because he feels the dividends of their latest heist aren't being split fairly; it's an equal split, and he feels he earned more than the others. So he tries to kill them.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The various supervillains Hank recruits do so because while they are crooks, they all despise the openly omnicidal Ultron, and don't want him running around, especially not those present who have family.
- Faking the Dead:
- An unusual variation, as the Asgardian god Skurge is already dead and in Valhalla. He needs to get back to the land of the living to assist Thor, but Odin can't simply release him without disrupting Valhalla and creating discontent. So they ensure he's very publicly murdered - seemingly left Deader than Dead - to cover his disappearance.
- Hank reveals this is what's actually happening to the villains he "kills". They're zapped in the head with nanotech that makes them look dead for a while, reviving in the mortuary.
- Fate Worse than Death: For Asgardians, Valhalla is a warrior's heaven, with endless feasting and fighting. For the Grim Reaper, who's been there since Jane delivered him back in Jane Foster: Valkyrie, it's a prison.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Stinger at the end of issue 1 has the killer in his lab, where a large Ant can be seen.
- Foreshadowing: The first issue is pretty casual about the fact whoever killed all the villains is a "he". They managed to get into multiple cells without being seen, which is a different clue as to who did it.
- Genre Blindness: Vision gets a staggering moment at the end of issue #2 when he says one of the only people who could be behind what's happened with Victor can't be because they're dead. In a universe where Death Is Cheap. And while he's talking to someone in someone else's reanimated corpse.
- Harmless Freezing: Jan is frozen in a block of ice by Icemaster, but after a moment manages to bust free. Quicksand is similarly frozen, but it's more harmless for her than it is for Janet.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Griffin decides he's going to try and eat Jan.
- Incredibly Obvious Tail: Moon Knight was spotted following Oddball before his death, making him look suspect. However, Moon Knight explains he wanted Oddball to see him, so as to make him afraid.
- It's Personal:
- The killer chose Whirlwind specifically because it was personal, a fact he laments afterward as a mistake.
- Vision is tetchy about meeting "Victor" because he chose Victor Shade as his own name, and for someone who's spent much of his life struggling over his own identity, this rankles.
- Moon Knight is initially unconcerned about Oddball's apparent demise, until Jan points out that he was murdered at night, making him a "traveller of the night", and therefore under his protection.
- Lampshade Hanging: Hearing Griffin, whose intelligence tends to fluctuate wildly Depending on the Writer, speaking full sentences, Janet says he's clearly intelligent this week
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Whatever the killer did to his victims, it includes wiping their memories of what happened.
- Locked Room Mystery: Six supervillains were killed in their cells, with no sign of a break-in and the killer not visible on the recordings, save for a voice, which all happened at the same time.
- Logical Weakness: Anaconda has adamantium-enhanced limbs. But those limbs still have nerve endings, so Jan attacks them instead.
- Mythology Gag: On meeting Nadia in issue #5, Hank says her parents had originally planned on naming her Hope.
- The Nose Knows: Griffin comments that whoever Victor Shade is, he "smells wrong".
- No-Sell: Jan brings Vision in to scan "Victor" because he's got some of the most advanced detection systems on the planet. Vis reveals that whatever's been done to Vic, there's something blocking him from scanning it, and there's only one or two beings on Earth who can do that.
- Oh, Crap!: Jan in issue #4, when she goes over the clues in her mind and realizes just who one of the most likely suspects really is.
- People Puppets: Tiny little side-effect of all those villains being revived with super-advanced tech; Ultron gets a free squad of supervillains he can throw at the Avengers, with the added bonus he can continue puppeteering them past the point they'd be knocked out or incapacitated.
- Possessing a Dead Body: "Vic Shade", who possesses the deceased Whirlwind's body. He's able to use it in ways David never has, and Jan's internal monologue notes whoever he is, his body language is entirely different from David's.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Pointed out; a regular headshot doesn't work like this. Bullets make a mess, but every victim just has a little hole in their head and not much else, which suggests to Janet something else is going on.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Unlike the other five villains, the reanimated Victor Shade's eyes glow red, which wasn't something David Cannon's eyes could do.
- Red Herring: In-universe. Hank's actions have nothing to do with the Scourge of the Underworld. He just had his robo-ant play a sound clip to make everyone think it was the Scourge.
- The Reveal:
- The first suspect? Hank Pym. Who, when last seen, was merged with Ultron.
- Who is Victor Shade? Ultron. More specifically, Ultron-12, an iteration who turned good and was killed by another version.
- Robo Family: The monstrous snarl that is the Pym family tree gets another branch when Vision dubs "Mark" his uncle, much to Nadia's confusion, but Vis figures it's the most appropriate term he can go with at the moment, given 12's sheer difference from all other versions of Ultron.
- Shout-Out: In her inner monologue, Jan identifies Speed Demon as the "fourth fastest person alive". Speed Demon being a Corrupted Character Copy of The Flash, who go by the title of "the fastest man alive".
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The Thunderbolts, who work for the mayor's office, are brought up, but Luke says investigating murders in prison is outside their current remit.
- Trapped in Villainy: Issue #3 hints that Hank Pym is being forced to kill and resurrect supervillains by Ultron, and that reviving "Vic" was his attempt at fighting back.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Odin is annoyed at Janet for forcing him to explain his plan, figuring that now he's detailed it out loud to someone, it may jinx it.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: At the end, the Lethal Legion shrink out with Hank to continue plotting a way to get rid of Ultron.
- Waking Up at the Morgue: The villains are killed in their cells, and wake up in the Raft's cells with no idea how they got there, at which point they freak out.
- Weird Trade Union: The Death Throws are another supervillain union, complete with rules, regulations and lawyers. The only stipulation for joining is being juggling-themed. Whirlwind tried joining on the extremely tenuous line of reasoning that he occasionally threw his buzzsaws.
- Wham Line: In The Stinger at the end of issue #1, the apparent culprit mentions the six victims are a "batch".
