Appearing in "This Power Unleashed!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Zeus (Mentioned)
- Hermes (Mentioned)
- Hephaestus Aetnaeus (Mentioned)
- U.S. Army (Mentioned)
- Charlie (practice robot)
- Hank Pym (Mentioned)
- Maelstrom (Mentioned)
- Iron Man (Tony Stark) (Mentioned)
- Thor (Odinson) (Mentioned)
- National Security Council
- Agent Colby (First appearance) (Unnamed)
- Sid Ward (First appearance)
- Raymond Sikorski (Referenced)
- Vision (in Black Knight's thoughts)
- Scarlet Witch (in Hercules' thoughts)
- Bowery Boys (Referenced) (Topical Reference)
- NORAD (Mentioned)
- S.H.I.E.L.D.
- sailor (Unnamed) (Main story and flashback) (First appearance; dies)
- Terminus (Behind the scenes) (also mentioned)
- Fantastic Four (Mentioned)
- ⏴ Ka-Zar (Kevin Plunder) ⏵
- ⏴ Zabu ⏵
- Dr. Smythe (First appearance)
- Dr. Hopper (First appearance)
Races and Species:
- Humans (Main story and flashback)
- Olympians
- Horses
- Human-Olympian Hybrids
- Robots
- Titanians
- Synthezoids (in Black Knight's thoughts)
- Pigeons (Mentioned)
- Sarks
- Laxidazians
- Deviants (Main story and flashback) (Retcon)
- Termini (Behind the scenes)
- Smilodon
- Dinosaurs
Locations:
- Milky Way (Main story and flashback)
- Solar System (Main story and flashback)
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- North America
- United States of America
- New York
- Washington, D.C. (Mentioned)
- Gulf of Mexico (Referenced)
- United States of America
- Shanghai, China, Asia (Referenced)
- Antarctica
- Larsen Ice Shelf (First appearance)
- Savage Land
- South Atlantic (Main story and flashback)
- Falkland Islands (First appearance)
- North America
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- Solar System (Main story and flashback)
- Andromeda Galaxy (as "some other galaxy")
- Olympus (Mentioned)
- Heavens (Invoked)
Items:
- Ebony Blade
- Wasp's Suit and Wings
- Iron Man Armor Model 4 (Mentioned)
- Captain America's Uniform and Shield
- Captain Marvel's Suit
- Terminus' Lance (Main story and flashback)
Vehicles:
- Chariot of Hermes
- Captain America's Motorcycle
- Sanctuary II
- Avenger's Quinjet
- cargo ship (Unnamed) (Main story and flashback) (Destroyed in main story, destruction in flashback)
- Terminus (mecha) (Main story and flashback) (First appearance) (Retcon)
Synopsis for "This Power Unleashed!"
The Olympian Apollo visits Avengers Mansion, bringing Hercules a new costume to replace his previous garb, shredded in battle. Then, at the team's regular meeting, the Wasp is reinstated as chairman and the Black Knight officially rejoins the roster. The team is then summoned to the site of a South Atlantic shipwreck, where they learn of a monstrous extraterrestrial menace called Terminus. Following the mystery being's trail, they rescue the staff of a wrecked Antarctic research station and deduce that their quarry has entered the hidden primeval jungle known as the Savage Land, where, at that very moment, the giant alien menaces a party of researchers and their guide, Ka-Zar.
Notes
- The Terminus who appears in this issue was presumably meant to the same character as the Terminus who last appeared in Fantastic Four #270. However, a later retcon in X-Men Annual #12 will reveal that this Terminus was not the real one, and Quasar #7 will reveal that the being controlling this Terminus is actually Jorro, a Deviant who had been sent by the real Terminus to recover the lance that he had lost.
- Additionally, the fact that Jorro seems to actually believe that he is Terminus throughout this storyline suggests that the real Terminus may have brainwashed him into believing that as a way to control him.
- Since it isn't the real Terminus who appears in this storyline, this issue marks the first appearance of a giant armored robot designed to look like the real Terminus and controlled by a living being riding inside it.
- Although Captain Marvel knows that she has been shanghaied to another galaxy, she doesn't yet know that she's in the Andromeda Galaxy.
- The Agent Colby who appears (unnamed) in this issue is not the same person as the Agent Colby who appeared in Marvel: The Lost Generation #8.
- According to a footnote in this issue, the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building headquarters had vanished off the face of the Earth, as seen in Fantastic Four #278-279, by the time the Avengers had flown past the Falkland Islands. A corresponding footnote in Fantastic Four #281 indicates that events in that issue take place while the Avengers are having problems of their own in Avengers #258. Unfortunately, these attempts at creating a self-consistent chronology have some problems.
- According to this issue, it's daytime when the Avengers leave New York City and it's still daytime when they arrive in Antarctica. However, Fantastic Four #278 shows that it's after nightfall in New York City when the Baxter Building was pulled up into space by Doctor Doom (Kristoff Vernard). Since New York City is significantly to the west of both the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, it's impossible for it to be nighttime in NYC while still daylight throughout the Avengers' flight.
- The running battle between Spider-Man and Firelord in Amazing Spider-Man #269-270 began while the Avengers were returning from Antarctica in Avengers #258. At one point, Spider-Man attempted to lead Firelord to the Fantastic Four because they were used to fighting comic-menace types. However, upon reaching the empty lot where the Baxter Building used to be, Spidey realized that he had completely forgotten that someone had trashed their headquarters "a few weeks back."
- This issue's story also has some problems with the amount of time that seems to pass for the Avengers. The straight line distance from New York City to the Falkland Islands is almost 6,500 miles, and from the Falkland Islands to where the Savage Land is located is at least another 1,100 miles. Given that a Quinjet's max speed (as of Avengers #265) appears to have been about Mach 2, or 1,534.54 miles per hour, it should have taken the Avengers about 5 hours to travel from NYC to the scientific research station south of the Larsen Ice Shelf. However, the half-page that depicts the longer leg of that journey seems to imply that they reached the wreckage of the cargo ship in only a few minutes. Or maybe they just didn't get around to talking about why they had been called in to investigate a shipwreck until only a few minutes before they reached the rocky shoal in the South Atlantic?
- BTW, if that rocky shoal was part of the South American mainland, then the fact that it was not too far north of the Falkland Islands would mean that it would have to have been on the coast of Argentina. However, since those islands are about 300 miles to the east of the South American coastline, it would be odd if the Avengers were able to travel that distance in "mere moments" or that they would go so far east before turning south, so perhaps the rocky shoal was actually just located in the ocean slightly to the north of the Falkland Islands?