Avengers #133. The Celestial Madonna Saga: Part 10.

You have to hand it to the Avengers. If someone with Immortus' track record handed me a stick, claiming it'd take me back in time, the least I'd demand is a good sturdy rope to tether me to the present, and for Thor to remain behind to give him a pummelling if he tried anything.

Not the Avengers though. He gives them the sticks and they're off, no questions asked, into the ocean of Time to unearth the origins of Mantis and the Vision.

It's the origin of Mantis that turns out to be the most convoluted, as it doesn't even begin with her but with the beginnings of the Kree race and the seeds of the Kree/Skrull War.

Long long ago, on a world far far away, the Skrulls decide to pay a visit to Hala, homeworld of the then-primitive Kree and their planet-mates the Cotati plant people.

The Skrulls offer them a deal that whichever race does most in the next twelve months to impress them'll be granted access to the Skrulls' technology and knowledge. The Cotati win the competition by creating a garden - as opposed to the Kree who waste an awful lot of effort creating a totally pointless city on the moon - and the Kree respond with good grace by killing all the Cotati and the Skrull visitors. All of a sudden it's clear just where Ronan the Accuser got the attitude from.

Yes, they're celebrating killing some plants.

It is a strange thing though to see the Skrulls depicted as more advanced and peaceable than the Kree, given how they've always been portrayed up to this point. On the one hand, I like the fact that we're told it's such Kree aggression that'll ultimately drive the Skrulls to become the devious war-like imperialists we all know and love but, on the other, it does feel a little off for the Skrulls to be so much more advanced than the Kree. I do prefer the idea of them as moral and technological equals.

Not that the Vision cares. He has other things to worry about as, sent off with a stick of his own, he heads back to the late 1930s to see the origin of the Original Human Torch. For those like me who've never read the Original Human Torch's adventures, it's a useful history lesson on one of Marvel's Golden Age giants and provides an explanation for various mysteries, such as the Vision's fear of jumping into water.

But, clearly the origins of both the Vision and Mantis are so earth-shattering and senses-searing they can't be contained within one comic and so we have to wait for next month to find out how these events lead to the creation of our heroes.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, even stranger things are afoot, with the Scarlet Witch using her powers to bring a chair to life while, in Saigon, the ghost of the Swordsman - who seems a much happier bunny than he ever did in life - and Libra hang around waiting for something to happen.

But waiting for what to happen? And what does it all have to do with Moondragon?