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Cover: John Byrne & Terry Austin

The Avengers #186

Name: The Avengers #186
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Aug 1979 · Marvel · 0.40 USD

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“Nights of Wundagore!”

★ 1st appearance — Magda Eisenhardt

About this Issue

The second chapter of the 'Nights of Wundagore' arc, this August 1979 Bronze Age issue delivered one of the most consequential origin revelations in Marvel history: Bova's flashback account to Quicksilver formally established that the twins' biological mother was a woman named Magda — a refugee fleeing a husband of terrifying power — and implicitly pointed toward Magneto as their father through a careful cross-title coordination with X-Men #125, published simultaneously. Beyond the parentage bombshell, this issue gives Chthon his named debut in the Marvel Universe: the Elder God whose dark essence was imprinted on Wanda at birth becomes the explicit source of her hex powers and her greatest vulnerability, a mythological scaffolding that would underpin her most dramatic storylines for decades to come. The issue also corrected years of mistaken fan and in-universe belief that Robert Frank, the Whizzer, was biologically related to the twins — making it a rare case of a single comic simultaneously introducing new mythology and retiring an old one.

In "Nights of Wundagore!", the Avengers confront a mysterious force tied to the High Evolutionary’s experiments at Wundagore, where the fate of Pietro and Wanda hangs in the balance. With the twins’ past revealed through Bova, the cattle-like nursemaid, the team must unravel the secrets of the High Evolutionary’s designs before it’s too late. Written by Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and David Michelinie, and illustrated by John Byrne with inks by Dan Green, this issue brings the full power of Byrne’s dynamic art to a story that’s as emotionally charged as it is suspenseful, all framed by a striking cover by Byrne and Terry Austin.

writer Mark Gruenwald · writer Steven Grant · writer David Michelinie · artist John Byrne · inker Dan Green · colorist Roger Slifer · letterer Jim Novak · cover John Byrne, Terry Austin

ComicBooks.com Value

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Raw (Fine) $12

CGC 9.8 · 99 in census $1,047

CGC 9.6 · 151 in census $317

CGC 9.4 · 117 in census $228*

CGC 9.2 · 78 in census $174*

CGC 9.0 · 63 in census $142*

CGC 8.5 · 75 in census $116*

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CGC 8.0 · 59 in census $55*

CGC 7.5 · 45 in census $46*

CGC 7.0 · 31 in census $41*

CGC 6.5 · 21 in census $33*

CGC 6.0 · 20 in census $33*

CGC 5.5 · 9 in census $30*

CGC 5.0 · 11 in census $28*

CGC 4.5 · 3 in census $26*

CGC 4.0 · 4 in census $25*

CGC 3.5 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 3.0 · 4 in census $20*

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CGC 9.8 ▾ $368–$396 2 listings

CGC 9.8 $368 CGC 9.8 $396

CGC 9.6 ▾ $125–$150 3 listings

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CGC 9.2 $145 1 listing

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CGC 8.5 $79.88 CGC 8.5 · Newsstand $90

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History

The issue was plotted collaboratively by Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and David Michelinie — who also scripted — during a creatively industrious stretch on the title that followed Jim Shooter's sprawling Korvac Saga; Michelinie's first task as new scripter had been trimming that oversized roster down to a workable cast. John Byrne penciled the interior pages and co-drew the cover with inker Terry Austin, while Dan Green handled interior inks and Roger Slifer colored; the Grand Comics Database and Marvel's own records also list Roger Stern and Jim Salicrup as editors, with Jim Shooter as editor-in-chief. Gruenwald and Grant were simultaneously scripting the Spider-Woman series, which allowed them to weave in a quietly poignant continuity beat about Bova remaining on Wundagore to care for young Jessica Drew — a scene that, like the Magda/Magneto thread, relied on Byrne illustrating identical imagery across two books published in the same month.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Magda (Magda Eisenhardt), Magneto's wife and biological mother of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who appears in flashback as Bova recounts her arrival at Wundagore Mountain heavily pregnant and alone.
First appearance of Chthon under that name — the Elder God had appeared earlier as 'the Other' in Marvel Chillers #1 (1975), but this is his debut as Chthon, and it is here that he fully possesses the Scarlet Witch's body at the issue's cliffhanger.
The issue is the second chapter in the three-part 'Nights of Wundagore' storyline (Avengers #185–187), titled 'Nights of Wundagore!' with the secondary title 'Enter... Modred the Mystic!' for a backup sequence; the overall arc details why Chthon imprinted a fragment of his essence on Wanda at birth, establishing the true origin of her hex powers.
Magneto's paternity of the Maximoff twins is strongly implied but deliberately left unconfirmed: Bova reveals only that Magda's husband had 'developed great abilities and used them horribly,' while across town in X-Men #125, Byrne simultaneously drew Magneto reflecting on a woman named Magda who fled him — the two books together making the inference unmistakable without either stating it outright.
The story definitively disproves the longtime belief that Robert Frank (the Whizzer) was biologically related to Pietro and Wanda: Bova explains that after Magda vanished, she offered the twins to Frank, who fled the citadel in grief after learning his wife Madeleine Joyce-Frank (Miss America) had just died in childbirth — Frank's mistaken sense of paternity is explained as stemming from this chaotic night.
Plot by Mark Gruenwald and Steven Grant; script by David Michelinie; pencils by John Byrne; inks by Dan Green; cover by John Byrne and Terry Austin — Jim Shooter served as editor-in-chief.
The issue has been reprinted numerous times, including in Avengers: The Yesterday Quest (1994), Backpack Marvels: Avengers #1 (2001), Avengers: Nights of Wundagore (2009), Essential Avengers Vol. 9 (2013, black and white), the Marvel Universe by John Byrne Omnibus (2016), the Marvel Horror Omnibus (2019), and Avengers Epic Collection #10 — The Yesterday Quest (2023).
The Marvel Database notes that Byrne's rendering of Chthon-possessed Wanda visually echoes his near-simultaneous depiction of Dark Phoenix in the X-Men, a striking artistic parallel from the same penciler working across both titles in the same period.