While Starfox continues to spy on his sinister grandniece Nebula, Avengers Island starts receiving reports of heroes being attacked by unfamiliar, seemingly random villains nationwide. As many Avengers are occupied with these attacks, Quasar is the only member present on Avengers Island when an army of robots invades the base. The robots and the seemingly random villain attacks are all being directed by a secret conspiracy of master criminals including Dr. Doom, who created and dispatched the robots. Quasar and the island’s Avengers Crew support staff wage a desperate battle to repel the robotic invaders, but the artificial island’s flotation devices suffer extensive damage and Avengers Island sinks altogether after a time bomb planted by the robots blows up the facility’s fuel dump. The Avengers Crew survive the disaster, safely evacuating the facility in Quinjets with Quasar’s aid, but their headquarters is lost beneath the waves.
Captain America, Namor, Sersi, She-Hulk & Thor are featured on the cover but do not appear in this issue. Robert Frank Jr., M’Daka and Donna Maria Puentes make their fi rst in-story appearances as Avengers Crew members in this issue (fi rst and last in Frank’s case), while Keith Kincaid and Fabian Stankowicz make their fi rst in-story appearances as Avengers Crew members in this series (they started their Crew jobs in Cap #353 & 354, ’89, respectively). A staff list in Av #300, ’89 and stories such as Cap #353-354, ’89 indicated that the Avengers Crew was relatively large, so there are probably other, unidentifi ed Crew members present during the events of Av #311, ’89. John Jameson, hired as a Crew pilot in Cap #358, ’89, would make his Avengers debut in Av #314, ’90, but cannot be present in Av #311 since he is off on a mission with Cap and returns just after the island’s sinking in Cap #365, ’89. Av #300, ’89 listed Talia Kruma (physicist), Diane Newell (secretary), Walter Newell (oceanographer), Genji Odashu (pilot), Arnold Roth (publicist), Inger Sullivan (lawyer) and Gilbert Vaughn (physicist) as being among the Avengers Crew’s new and upcoming hires, but those seven never appeared in-story as Crew, though the Newells and Sullivan were already professional Avengers associates before the Crew’s formation, and Roth later worked for the Avengers in a different support capacity. Regardless, it’s possible some of them are present bts or as indistinct fi gures in Av #311, most likely Odashu and the Newells, all three being known to have worked out of Avengers Island. The Crew apparently downsized somewhat after Avengers Island sank, so only Carter, Jameson (later replaced by Zach Moonhunter), Jarvis, Kincaid, M’Daka, O’Brien, Puentes (later the team’s receptionist) and Stankowicz made further appearances as Crew members after this issue.
