In the course of my occasional perusals of the Official Index to the Marvel Universe, I came across the entry for issue 218 of the Avengers, co-written by J.M. DeMatteis and Jim Shooter, and I knew from the synopsis that this issue called for a more thorough, in-depth analysis!

Our story begins on an ordinary quiet day at Avengers Mansion, when Jarvis opens the door to greet a precocious young lad who demands to meet with the Avengers on a matter of grave importance.  Wasp happens by and offers to take the boy on a grand your, but sick of being patronized, he shoves his way past her and into the mansion to find the rest of the Avengers.  Which brings us to this panel.  I love this panel, I love everything about it.  It’s so simple, yet so expressive, in that it tells such a wonderful story about an off-day in the lives of the Avengers.  Thor, the immortal Norse god of thunder, son of All-Father Odin and wielder of the mighty Mjolnir, in full regalia, has been crouched down and holding up this doodad for the last, like, forty-five minutes, and e’en the vaunted patience of the Asgardians hath limitations, though verily it doth approach the edges of eternity itself.  The Thing holding up a giant mechanical framistat for hours on end on behalf of Mr. Fantastic?  Sure, of course, that’s what he’s there for.  But Thor?  Hilarious.  Meanwhile, Captain America is so eager to get their team meeting underway that he has spent the last three hours working out his frustrations in the gym.  This is fair enough for a guy like Captain America, but aside from the math not adding up here – perhaps we may safely assume that the inter-spatial monitor repair was but the last item on Iron Man’s extensive to-do list – but now, his patience at an end, he has resorted to leaning against the wall and staring at these two until their work is completed and they can finally get down to important Avengers business.  I suppose he could bring these guys up to speed while they work, but they haven’t yet called the meeting to order, and the by-laws are there for a reason, you guys.

So once Little Timmy Trouble successfully infiltrates Avengers Mansion, we get a couple truly wonderful moments, like this one: I’m not 100% sure what’s supposed to be happening in this panel, but truly, who among us could reasonably expect to survive being spanked by the Norse god of thunder?  (Of course, if Chris Hemsworth Thor was willing to participate in this study, I would report back to you, dear reader, with my findings.)  But the very next panel, oh my god you guys, this is the one that just sets me all a-giggle.  “Steeeeve… is this another one of your boys hanging around, getting underfoot?  Avengers Mansion simply isn’t equipped to accommodate all of the foundlings you insist on bringing home, and poor Jarvis is absolutely at his wit’s end!”  “No, no, I recognize all of my boys, Tony, and this little scamp isn’t one of them!”  I just love that Captain America uses the phrase brought around.  Sure, I suppose I could do some research on Captain America 267 as recommended by the footnote, but I don’t wanna.  (Well.  Maybe someday.)  And so, when Iron Man asks the boy’s name to see if they can contact his parents, the boy instead reaches into his wee little jacket with an air of “calm uncertainty”(?), straight-up pulls out a revolver, and before the Avengers can do anything to stop him, he shoots himself in the head.

Dear reader, at this point, I would like to show you the eye-catching cover of this issue:

This is the cover of Avengers 218, released in April 1982, and I can only imagine that it stood out among the other offerings displayed on newsstands!  I want you to think about how many adult professionals in the comic industry signed off on this issue, gave it their stamp of approval, and said, “Yeah okay, this looks good, let’s send it off to the printers.”  This issue includes a full-page ad for Bubble-Yum bubble gum, and when one turns the page, literally the very next page, we get a five-year-old boy shooting himself in the head.

Anyway!  Upon resurrecting from a wad of Silly-Putty — and thereby finally succeeding in grabbing the Avengers’ full attention — this child tells them his tragic tale.  Formerly some dumb minor Captain America villain, “billionaire/inventor” Morgan MacNeil Hardy, he was reborn after his apparent demise, but with full memory of all his many lives, going back thousands of years.  For lack of a better option, Captain America refers to him as “this… ‘Forever-Man,'” which, c’mon you guys, he’s from the ’40s, his name is Captain America, what does he know about cool super-names?  Good ol’ Thor basically says he doesn’t see the problem, since he knows from firsthand experience that immortality is awesome, but the Forever-Man replies that yeah, it’d be awesome if you were a thunder god instead of just an endless succession of regular boring jerks, which I think is a valid point.  (Though doesn’t it make this self-professed immortal’s earlier assertion that he wouldn’t “live through” Thor spanking him somewhat… peculiar?)  So the Avengers run some tests, after which Iron Man has no problem referring to this kid as “a freak of nature” while he’s in the same room, and in the space of two pages, dear sweet Wasp goes from “the Avengers will do everything in their power to help you!” to “But who are we to provide him with a means of suicide?”, even though that is what he is literally demanding!

So what happens afterwards?  Well, what else is a Forever-Man to do if Earth’s mightiest heroes cannot aid him in his plight?  He sneaks out from Avengers Mansion under the cover of night, stows away on board a south-bound freight train, and uses his trusty revolver to fend off a pair of hobos with untoward intentions towards this young boy traveling alone, who, by the way, are drawn to resemble Laurel and Hardy(??????????).  He then exploits his child-like appearance to bluff his way into a research base and on board a space probe headed toward the sun, in the hopes that he can take matters into his own hand and bring about his own demise… resulting in the following nightmarish ordeal.

You guys, let’s… let’s just take a moment here.  Can you even wrap your head around the fact that this guy, this tragic immortal, stowed away on board a solar probe with no life support, continuing to suffocate and die and resurrect and suffocate and die and resurrect over and over again, for as many weeks as it takes to reach the sun?  Oh and P.S. he’s in the body of a naked five-year-old boy???  That is DARK, sirs!  They just don’t make ’em like this anymore, and there is probably a valid reason for that.

As much as I hate to admit it, the latter half of this issue is comparatively dull (in that it does not actively portray the Avengers as helpless to stop the repeated suicidal demise of a child).  Once the Forever-Man reaches the sun, he is repeatedly obliterated and resurrected to the point where he becomes a deranged amnesiac giant sun-monster, then makes his way back to Earth to wreak vengeance upon the Avengers, even though he can’t remember why.  A by-the-numbers superhero battle follows ensues, after which Thor summons a vortex to hurl the Forever-Man into orbit before it goes nova and explodes.  The Avengers explore the resulting crater and find the young boy resurrected yet again, only this time, with no memory of who he is or how he came to be there.  As the issue draws to a close and Iron Man wonders if this amnesia, if legitimate, might be a bit convenient, he and Captain America ponder the ramifications of what they’ve learned from this adventure.  And I can only hope that they continue to wonder about it “for the rest of their days.”  To this day, while Steve Rogers is passing down the mantle of Captain America to his longtime friend the Falcon, or pursing fugitive Avengers suspected of annihilating entire parallel Earths, or even fighting in an alien gladiatorial arena alongside his pal Devil Dinosaur, I hope he sometimes takes a moment to pause, reflect, and wonder about this day in which the Avengers encountered a little naked boy who just wanted to shoot himself in front of them when he wasn’t rampaging through the city as a giant sun-monster.