The thread wherein Beachy, Evans, Marcus, Doot, and other interested IMWANkers revisit and comment upon a sequential run of Marvel Avengers issues and story arcs from the title's Silver Age beginnings well into it's glorious Bronze Age.
Avengers #1 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, and S. Rosen.
Splash page with a profile view of Loki, God of Evil, plotting revenge against his brother, The Mighty Thor. Currently exiled on a barren isle, Loki lets his consciousness thought-project across the heavens to settle upon earth where he surveys the family practice of Dr. Donald Blake. Loki hopes for a decisive victory against his godly brother, but not one won against Thor when he's in his crippled human form, so Loki looks further until his astral peepers settle in the southwest upon the creature known as The Hulk.
Sensing no true evil within the Hulk but also knowing that the rest of the world fears and hates him, Loki tricks the green brute into causing wanton destruction, destruction that will get the attention of Thor—and this will further Loki's plan, whatever shape that will take on at that point. The Hulk's rampage also catches the attention of Rick Jones' Teen Brigade of Ham Radio enthusiasts, who try to contact the Fantastic Four—because, who else is strong enough in early 1960's Marvel who could hope to deal with the Hulk?
There's a definite hole in the Marvel Universe that needs filling here.
A nice opening, although I never much cared for Rick Jones. Loki's magic delays the FF from hearing about any of this (it turns out that they've were too busy anyway), but Loki makes sure Don Blake's radio sounds the news. It's also heard by other newcomer superheroes such as Ant-man and the Wasp, and Millionaire Industrialist Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. They and Thor manage to show up before the Teen Brigade at the same time, then they go after the Hulk, who is now working/hiding out in a Circus, pretending to be a super-strong robot clown. But, Thor, as he is too prone to do in these early tales, leaves almost immediately to return to Asgard—because after he tangles with an illusionary Hulk distraction, he concludes it must be Loki at the heart of all of this. This gives our two tiny heroes and the golden Iron Man (Still in his clunky pre-Ditko armor) a chance to shine as they battle Marvel 3-on-1 against ol' Jade Jaws—and mostly under the big-top tents where the circus audience think it's the greatest show ever!
Meanwhile, beyond the mortal coil known as Midgard, Thor battles with Loki and trolls, eventually besting the God of lies and flies him down to earth, where Thor presents him before the Hulk and Iron Man, whose battle is still raging on. The Thunder God explains how they have all be duped.
Loki uses his magic to turn himself radioactive, hoping to kill them all all once. But Ant-man and the Wasp, with the help of a swarm of ants, manage to drop Loki into a handy, near-by lead-lined nigh-indestructible tank. The conflict ended, but before they depart on their separate ways, Ant-Man and the Wasp suggest they should continue to work together as a team. Iron Man and Thor agree that the idea has merit, and even the Hulk is all for it because he's tired of being chased and hated.
It's hard to appreciate at this distance how awesome this felt to the neo Marvelites who were just discovering these characters scant months after their first appearances anywhere. I didn't QUITE (quite) feel that myself when I first encountered them in British comics in the early seventies in reprints, because i already knew (reprints-duh) what they had in store. But looking at the cover now reminds me of how new it all was, how full of potential, and how fragile, those relationships were because of the volatility of the Hulk. I think my first ever American comic, somehow acquired when I was 3 or 4 was the next one, #2, - so I'll leave that to you, Beachy!
I don't know exactly how my 30-year-old father felt except I can conclude this: Before Avengers #1, which appeared on the newsstands in July 1963, he wasn't buying Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, or Journey Into Mystery.
But then he immediately starts buying those three books.
Also, likely unrelated, I was born a little before Avengers #1 came out. So after me, there was Avengers in the house, but not before.
Also of Interest to me, he never bought the first issue of X-Men, which came out that same month, but he grabbed issue #2, and he bought most every Marvel hero book after that for the next four or five years.
And he never had an actual copy of Avengers #2 (I picked up a very nice one of those about 10 years ago), but he quickly got onboard when Marvel started releasing repeat anthologies like Marvel Tales, Fantasy Masterpieces., Collectors Items Classics. Those 25¢ giants were how I was able to read most of the early Marvel stories that had come before Avengers #1.
I'm just going to drop this here for consideration. Released in 1999, this issue slots in between the first appearance and issue #2. The newly-formed Avengers faces off against… well… you can guess from the cover. It's nice to see the team start to gel as a team (and also bicker) and also to see the cameo of others in The Marvel Universe reacting to the announcement of the new hero team.
I liked it well enough that I consider it canon, and I advise any Avengers fan to track down a copy. Oh, and the surprise new hero to join by the way was Giant-Man, and Doom is defeated because he didn't yet know Ant-Man could grow.
I'm not that comfortable with the Avengers being analyzed. I know modern comics and all.....
I was just trying for some nice Assembled-like alliterative words to use in the title. But we're looking for what's valuable in the Avengers' runs, and going to break done why they work or don't, so….
EDIT: I changed the title to just AVENGERS SUMMARIZED! as I wasn't doing all that much analyzing.
Splash Page opens on the Big 3 waiting on Ant-Man to show up for a team meeting. Thor is disgusted with how the Hulk dresses (only in trunks and sporting just three toes on each foot). The insect-sized heroes arrive, pop some uppers, and Hank and Jan grow to human size just in time to defuse the fight before it breaks out. Hank explains his size-changing pills.
Meanwhile, The Space Phantom ends up on Earth having disguised himself as a falling asteroid. We learn his power is to take on the shape/appearance of anyone, and, while he occupies a copy of their body, they flash away into Limbo— which is just what happened to some random guy on the street. Phantom knows that Iron man is Tony Stark (ummm… because he saw it by observing Earth for months before he arrived), so he knows Tony allows the Avengers to meet in his mansion. And… nice, the Avengers' meeting table is secretly also a television viewer, so the team watches him walk in the building. The Hulk goes out to "greet" him, but Phantom swaps him out and then returns as the Hulk and is a Jerk!
And that's how this story goes. Phantom wants to break up the team by causing them to bicker and fight among themselves.
Ah, but the Phantom also has that super villain gene that forces him to boast, and he demonstrates his power to Rick Jones. His Teen Brigade later contacts Giant-Man, yes, Giant-Man not Ant-man, because this is a top-level emergency. Hank and Jan arrive to find the real Iron Man has been tricked into fighting the real Hulk, and Giant-Man helps to break that up. The Wasp is captured after she she sees The Phantom swap out the real Giant-Man, but Hulk saw it too, and those two fight each other, the Hulk bragging that he's as strong as a dozen Giant-Men. Phantom switches to Iron Man as soon as he's able, but Hulk sees that too and warns the returning Giant Man. Wasp contacts Donald Blake because that's who Thor told them to contact if they ever needed him.
Phantom Iron Man is keeping both Giant-Man and the Hulk at bay by using jet-powered discs. Wasp sneaks inside his armor and rips out a bunch of wires to stop that nonsense. Thor then attacks and calls down a rain storm to rust his armor and lock him up. The Space Phantom tries to copy Thor, but, because he's not human, it doesn't work and the Space Phantom himself is bounced into Limbo. The heroes win and we don't find out what it was about the Avengers that crawled up Phantom's butt in the first place.
Oh, and the Hulk realizes that everyone on the team hates him, so he quits the team and jumps off.
The Avengers were good from the start. Stan and Jack really differentiated them from the JLA in this issue. Imagine Martian Manhunter leaving like the Hulk in 1962.
The Avengers essentially spend their first year (mostly a bi-monthly comic at the time) fighting among themselves and/or fighting the rest of the heroes in the Marvel Universe. As Marvel was restricted each month in how many actual comic books their publisher would allow them to market, and because Jack Kirby was drawing most of them, it makes a certain amount of sense doing this just to keep the characters well represented on the shelves. And, yeah, the entire industry has taken a lot of crap in the last decades for all the events and cross overs between titles, but Marvel has always been doing it. The shared universe of titles really was one of their primary strengths. That and a strong continuity between issues, real-life locations, flawed heroes, and in-fighting among team members.
I'm just going to drop this here for consideration. Released in 1999, this issue slots in between the first appearance and issue #2. The newly-formed Avengers faces off against… well… you can guess from the cover. It's nice to see the team start to gel as a team (and also bicker) and also to see the cameo of others in The Marvel Universe reacting to the announcement of the new hero team.
I liked it well enough that I consider it canon, and I advise any Avengers fan to track down a copy. Oh, and the surprise new hero to join by the way was Giant-Man, and Doom is defeated because he didn't yet know Ant-Man could grow.
My copy is signed by none other than Roger Stern.
_________________ What will be will be even if it never happens.
At their monthly meeting, Iron Man, now in his red and gold armor, argues that the Avengers needs to go after The Hulk, but how to find him? Iron Man uses his boss' invention, an Image Projector, to beam his image to the Baxter Building, and as such, he's able to see, hear, and be heard. Nice trick, Tony. The FF haven't seen him. Neither has Spider-Man he learns when the image of Iron Man zips around New York. Tony also tries at the X-Mansion, which he knows about because he's Marvel-hero-vs.-hero fought with the Angel recently, and was told how to contact them in the future. The mutants haven't seen Hulk either. So the team turns to Rick Jones.
Rick, glued to his ham radio, says he hadn't seen him, but then he goes out and actually looks, and finds him, helps Hulk get back to their secret cave, and Hulk changes back to Brace Banner. But he soon changes to the Hulk again, and smashes out. The Brigade radios the Avengers and they arrive in New Mexico and mix it up with the Hulk for 6 pages until the Hulk escapes and makes himself scarce while traveling across country.
He and the Sub-Mariner eventually meet up, bicker, fight, and Namor beats the Hulk once they are both in the Atlantic. Namor suggests they team-up since they have a mutual hatred of humans. They decide to take out the Avengers first, and afterwards, each plans to destroy his partner. They challenge the Avengers by radio and issue their challenge. The Avengers accept, and race to the rock of Gibralter in Tony Stark's experimental Bathyscaph Submarine. The fight is to take place in caves that the British forces abandoned after World War II. Namor and Hulk start the attack by firing shells from a left-over Howitzir. And soon it is an all-out war between them, but Hulk and Namor don't really have each other's back in this fight. So, when the Hulk accidentally changes back into Bruce Banner and flees, Namor naturally assumes that The Hulk has deserted him. They might very well have won otherwise. As it is, though, Sub-Mariner still manages to escape once he's able to find some water in which he can supercharge himself. And, Thor's gained some respect for Namor, and so believes he's earned his escape. Giant-Man is sad that Namor isn't on their side, and Iron Man thinks they're making a big mistake by not finishing him off now.
Well, this is a four-toed Hulk not the Simon-approved three-toed version, but I'm prepared to forgive this cover for being generally good in every other way.
_________________ "They'll bite your finger off given a chance" - Junkie Luv (regarding Zebras)
Avengers #1.5 by Roger Stern and Bruce Timm I liked it well enough that I consider it canon, and I advise any Avengers fan to track down a copy.
Excellent. It's still early into the thread, and we're already beginning to see the formation of Beach Avengers Canon.™
Oh, don't expect to see me in this thread suddenly start listing books like Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #1 from 2005 or anything else modern that amplifies or retcons the core Avengers history (as established in the main title). And yes, I've read most of that over the years, and I've enjoyed a lot of it, but it was all mostly forgettable and/or I have no desire to go track it down again.
That 1.5 issue was easy for me to drop a non-review mention in here because it was given a main Avengers title number.
But I will mention contemporary cross over or Avengers tangental books like Fantastic Four #25-26 and X-Men #9, maybe some of those early Captain America stories from Tales of Suspense that prominently featured some of the Avengers.
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