Avengers (UK) Vol 1 88

Detailed Summary:
Captain America is shocked to receive an invitation to the wedding of the Wasp and Yellowjacket. When he arrives at Avengers mansion and asks the other Avengers what happened they tell him of their encounter with Yellowjacket and how he supposedly killed Goliath. Just then Jan and Yellowjacket arrive, and Hawkeye almost starts a fight with the mysterious new-comer but is stopped by Captain America.

Meanwhile, Jarvis admits the priest and the caterers into the mansion for the wedding reception, however the caterers turn out to be the Circus of Crime, who have come to crash the wedding to get revenge on Thor for defeating them during their last caper.

While Crystal and the Invisible Girl prepare the Wasp's wedding gown, all the guests arrive and the reception starts. Soon Yellowjacket and Wasp are married. This disgusts Hawkeye who is appalled that the Wasp would marry somebody who killed her long time love. Storming into the kitchen he stumbles upon the Circus of Crime who easily take him down and tie him up with Jarvis.

As the Wasp is cutting her cake, Princess Python's snake attacks, and the Avengers attempt to fight it off her, just then the circus of crime attacks. The Avengers manage to hold their own until the Ringmaster trains a gun on Yellowjacket and threatens to kill the Wasp. Losing his temper, Yellowjacket grows to giant size, tearing his costume and revealing that he was Goliath the whole time.

Goliath frees the Wasp, the Avengers make short work of the Circus of Crime and Hawkeye cuts himself loose.

As the police are taking the Circus of Crime into custody, Goliath tells them that he was the victim of chemically induced schizophrenia when he was accidentally doused in an experimental formula he was working on. It caused him to develop the Yellowjacket persona and fabricate the story of Goliath's death.

Shang-Chi looks into a toy-store window on Park Avenue, well aware that someone has followed him there. He confronts the man, who shows him an identity card from the British Secret Service and says that Sir Denis Nayland Smith sent him. Shang-Chi follows him to a sedan and gets into the back seat. Gas begins to fill the compartment. He punches through the roof, climbs atop the car, breaks the passenger-side window, and grabs the man by his tie. The car veers off the street and into a wall. Shang-Chi examines the man's effects and finds a dragon amulet—the sign of the Phansigars, an eastern Indian cult that handles Fu Manchu's most important jobs.

At Smith's Central Park West townhouse, the butler informs Shang-Chi that Smith has left. He introduces Clive Reston, a British agent, who takes a sudden interest in the amulet. Just as suddenly, three Phansigars burst through the windows. Shang-Chi defeats two of them quickly, worried about Reston. Even without his gun, though, Reston is still dangerous; he pulls a curtain over his opponent and knocks him over a railing. In the process he knocks an elephant statue off a stand. With the fight over, Reston tells Shang-Chi that their destination is ....

Chapter 2: London

Shang-Chi and Reston find Smith in the Orientology Hall at the British Museum of Natural History. He and Black Jack Tarr are combing through the debris from a break-in. Smith says that the Phansigars have recently ransacked several such places, searching for something that they have not yet found. He draws this conclusion because they have taken nothing. No clues turn up, so they head out of the museum. Shang-Chi asks why Smith has focused his efforts on England; Smith says that a policemen found a note reading, "I am alive ~ Petrie" (Shang-Chi apparently killed him in Special Marvel Edition #15).

They pass an exhibit of cavemen, who come to life and attack. Reston looks for some deeper meaning behind this sort of attacker, but Smith assures him that Fu Manchu is simply showing off.

Chapter 3: Crucible of Deceit

An English bobby guards a curio shop, following mysterious orders from Scotland Yard. Out of the fog flies a bola that wraps around his neck. Three Phansigars break into the shop to search it. The door swings open, surprising them. A muffled figures says only, "Stop," but then punches through the opened door, stunning the Phansigar hiding behind it. Shang-Chi drops his disguise and goes after the other two. He pins one to the wall with two swords, because Smith wants someone to interrogate, and sends the other through a window. On his way out, he finds the bobby's wallet lying on the steps; he had a wife, a son, a daughter. Shang-Chi puts the wallet with the bobby's body and drags the surviving Phansigar away.

Chapter 4: Test of Loyalty

At Scotland Yard, the Phansigar has been given truth serum. Smith asks what Fu Manchu wants so badly. "Vengeance .. for the theft of life ...." Where will he go next? "Buckingham ... Palace ...."

Fu meets with Shadow Stalker, his most trusted assassin, and sends him on an unspecified mission. Shang-Chi, Smith, Tarr, and Reston race toward the palace. A Phansigar flattens one of their tires with a blowgun. Shang-Chi gives chase, but while he is gone, Shadow Stalker knocks out Tarr and Reston and kidnaps Smith. When Shang-Chi returns, he finds Tarr being loaded into an ambulance; he and Reston continue on to the palace. There they guard the queen's collection of antiquities.

Two Phansigars burst in. Reston shoots, dropping one and wounding the other. Shang-Chi chases the wounded assassin through the halls to the queen's throne room. The Phansigar goes through a secret door behind the throne. Shang-Chi realizes that stealth is paramount, so he pinches Reston's neck to knock him out and follows the secret passageway.

At the end of the trail Shang-Chi finds Fu Manchu ... and the real Petrie! Only then does he realize how duplicitous his father can be and how thoroughly he has been used. He is angry enough to kill ... but Fu claps once and a panel opens. Smith is strapped to a table, with two Phansigars ready to stab him if Shang-Chi attacks Fu. Shang-Chi reluctantly agrees to a bargain: if he can beat Shadow Stalker, Smith will die quickly, but if he loses, Smith dies slowly. To make the fight interesting, Shadow Stalker has two spiked balls on chains at the ends of a bar run through his topknot, and both fighters are chained to a pole. Shang-Chi uses one of the spiked balls to break his chain and breaks the pole to knock out Shadow Stalker. Fu orders a Phansigar to kill Smith. Reston appears and shoots the assassin. Fu presses a button that drops him through a trap door, escaping yet again. Smith releases Petrie, who tells him that Fu's object was an elephant statue filled with elixir vitae, his potion of immortality, because his supply is low. Smith recalls that he took such a statue from one of Fu's bases years ago. Shang-Chi recalls that this statue broke during the fight in Smith's townhouse, which means that Fu Manchu is desperate... and more dangerous than ever...

Returning home to Atlantis, Namor has his ability to breath underwater restored to him by Ikthon. During the process he is contacted by Dr. Strange telepathically, who asks for his aid in stopping the Undying Ones, demons from another dimension who centuries ago once ruled over man, until man defeated them.

Traveling to Kenneth Ward's house, Namor is greeted by someone claiming to be his daughter Joella. With her aid, Namor finds the idol of the Undying Ones, however it turns out that Joella is really a demon in their thrall. Dr. Strange appears and the two defeat her, however her pet cat also is a demon and uses the idol to open a portal to unleash the Undying Ones on Earth.

Battling the Undying One's leader as he passes through the portal, Namor begins to weaken, however Strange conjures up a water spell to revitalize the undersea monarch's strength. The two manage to fight the leader of the Undying One's back into his own realm. Taking the fight there, they soon become over powered, and Dr. Strange sends Namor back to the Earth-dimension and sealing himself in the portal. Back on Earth, Namor returns to his kingdom in the sea.