Avengers, The #190

Issue Details

Synopsis

"Heart of Stone" A meteor makes an impossible turn in midair and crashes into the marshes of Brooklyn's Jamaica Bay. The rocky shape changes, hatches, and transforms into a stone behemoth and begins marching toward Manhattan. In the Manhattan courthouse, the Avengers arrive for a Senate hearing into their activities. Their NSC liaison Henry Gyrich has declared the team to be a security threat and is demanding their dissolution. After fighting their way through a mob of reporters, they enter the hearing chambers and find Gyrich awaiting them, smugly confident that he will get his way. Matt Murdock acts as the team’s legal counsel. In a Brooklyn subway station, the rocky behemoth smashes through the ticket booth and jumps down into the darkness of the subway tracks. It continues its unstoppable march to Manhattan. At the senate hearing, opening statements are made. Murdock mentions several adventures from the team’s history to emphasize the team’s importance in defending the world. However, one of the committee members overseeing the hearing dismisses this defense, stating that those instances are in the past and the committee are inclined to agree with Gyrich’s claim that the team is an inherently dangerous enterprise. Gyrich calls his first witness: S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Lt. Dwight Stanford. The stone monster crushes a S.W.A.T. blockade of the subways. Back at the hearing, Gyrich is giving testimony of his own experiences with Avengers' security when Iron Man gets word of an N.Y.P.D. request for assistance. He asks for the hearing to be rescheduled. Gyrich accuses the team of making up the attack as a PR stunt. Captain America is about to get into a verbal spat with Gyrich, but a bailiff draws everyone’s attention to a TV set showing news reports of the attack, confirming it’s for real. Before the Avengers can take off, however, the Beast interrupts and suggests that perhaps Gyrich is right and the Avengers aren't needed. He hands Gyrich a table leg and suggests he take care of it. After silently watching the news footage of the stone behemoth plow through police forces, Gyrich gives in and the Avengers take off. After the Avengers have gone, Matt Murdock slips out to change into his costumed persona Daredevil and joins up with the Avengers. The Avengers and Daredevil confront the stone menace and appear to defeat it. A simultaneous blow from Iron Man and Vision shatters the creature. Iron Man leans in to investigate the rubble when Daredevil warns him there's a heartbeat under the rubble. Suddenly, Iron-Man and Daredevil are transformed into stone statues! Out from the rubble emerges the Grey Gargoyle!