The Avengers: The Serpent Crown by Steven Englehart and George Perez

Beast is going home one night when he is attacked by strange men in green costumes who almost get the best of him, when he is saved by none other than Captain America.

Cap tells him that the men worked for Roxxon Oil, so they gather the rest of the Avengers and go to check it out. At Roxxon, they are attacked by the Squadron Supreme, a group of adventurers from another world. On their world, they are analogous to the Avengers, and have come to work for Roxxon because the head of Roxxon promised to find a way to send them back home. And while they wait, they need something to do...

Temporarily captured, the Avengers, along with the ex-wife of the Roxxon Oil Chief of Security Buzz Baxter, find themselves free inside Roxxon. There, they discover the costume of a Hero called "The Cat", and Captain America, thinking they may need some more help, asks Patsy if she would like to put it on. She agrees and does so, but when the Avengers are sucked into the alternate world of the Squadron Supreme, they discover that the Squadron's world is under the thrall of an artifact known as the Serpent Crown, a mystic poison that takes over the wills of anyone who wears it. But when the Avengers steal the crown to save that alternate world, will the Scarlet Witch be able to avoid succumbing to its pull?

Meanwhile, the woman known as Moondragon comes to earth looking for the help of Thor against Kang the Conqueror, and tells him that Hawkeye has been imprisoned in the past, to be precise, the Old West. The two of them return there, where Hawkeye has found his ancestor, the original Hawkeye, Kid Rawhide, the Ghost Rider and the Two-Gun Kid to foil Kang and bring Hawkeye back home.

But Moondragon tells Thor he is being disengenuous by being just a superhero and not who he really is: a God. And he defends those he chooses to fight with, but during his battle with Kang, he comes to realize that Moondragon is right- he's become so used to pulling in his power to not kill the people he fights who are less than Gods, that he has unwittingly diminished himself. But can he and the others take out Kang, or will it be down to Thor by himself? And if they are able to defeat him, what will happen to his future incarnations who tried to make up for the evil they did as Kang?

Meanwhile, back with the other Avengers, having realized the power of the Serpent crown, they seek to remove its influence from the Squadron's World. But with the squadron thoroughly mislead by those who have worn the Serpent Crown, how can they remove the crown from the Squadron's world? Is there any hope to remove its influence for good?

Both stories were good, in their own way, but neither one was exactly suited to each other. The Western story was about the increasing dissatisfaction of both Hawkeye and Thor with their roles in the Avengers- Hawkeye because of his lack of Superpowers, and Thor because he is so much more powerful than any other superhero in the Avengers, which he only realizes while fighting Kang.

Meanwhile, on another world, the world is full of people deluded by their leaders into thinking everything is gravy, while in actuality, all those leaders are being controlled by the Serpent Crown. The world is ruled by big businessmen, and the current President, Nelson Rockefeller, is one, too. But even if he isn't wearing the crown- just having worn it once links you to everyone else who has ever worn it-all the better to plot with, of course.

But the two stories bear so little resemblance to one another that the other world story, for me, ended up losing out to the old Western story with Thor, Moondragon and Hawkeye. I had never heard of the Squadron Supreme before, and the plight of their world just... didn't interest me, except for the part of Nelson Rockefeller being President, It was as if the storyline was introduced solely to make Patsy Walker/Baxter into Hellcat.

Both of these stories are just fine, but they don't gain anything from being thrust together this way. I suppose you could say that the stories being unalike makes each more interesting, but for me that explanation doesn't jibe. So, while this graphic novel is neither bad nor exceptionally good. it just ends up somewhere in the middle for me. YMMV, of course.