I'm re-reading all Roger Stern's Avengers right now. As great as I remember!

Issue 244 credits pencils by Milgrom and Infantino. It looks to me like Milgrom pencilled page 2.

Roger, you can't possible remember, but did he do any other pages?

Looking over the issue, I'd say that Al drew Pages 1, 2, the first two panels of Page 3, Panels 3-4 of Page 4, Panels 1 and 4 of Page 5, Panels 5-6 of Page 6, Panels 5-6 of Page 9, Panels 1-2 of Page 10, Panels 5-6 of Page 11, Page 12, Panels 1, 3, 4, and 7 of Page 13, Panels 1-7 of Page 14, Panels 4-5 of Page 15, Panels 1-4 of Page 16, Page 17, Panel 5 of Page 18, Panels 1, 5, and 6 of Page 19, Panels 1-3 and 6-7 of page 20, all but Panel 4 on Page 21, and Page 22...plus maybe a figure here and there throughout...although there was probably a little addition here and there from (then-Assistant-Editor) Mike Carlin as well.

See, we assembled the art for this story using some pages that Carmine had penciled for an inventory story that had never been completed. It became sort of a jigsaw puzzle that Joe Sinnott helped make whole.

I can still remember sitting on the floor of my apartment with the pages spread out in front of me, making notes as to what panels to kep, what to drop, and what to alter. (Yellowjacket was originally in the story. He was changed into Starfox in most places.)

-- Uncle Rog

So.....I was right about page 2!!

Wow. I'd guess Captain Marvel was added afterwards, also (Since Yellowjacket was retired before she joined). That's an amazing story. I'd have never guessed, though Sinnot's inks give the transitions a smoothness.

Before I started re-reading this, I "remembered" Milgrom/Sinnot as the art team on all your Avengers until they went over to the west coast team. My memory is very faulty. There were lots of different inkers and a guest penciller or two.

You shoehorned a lot of events (Dire Wraiths, Casket of Winters, Iron Man's alcoholism) into the Avengers, yet kept the personal stories going forward and kept the book true to the spirit of the name "Avengers".

I always thought the "six member limit" was one of Shooters worst ideas. Though you shouldn't have 25 Avengers, the number six seemed very arbitrary, only picked so Shooter could pick the team he wanted to write about. You came up with clever ways to get around the limit when you needed to. Bravo! Would you have been allowed to change the "six rule" and did you ever want to?

Well, if you look at all of the issues from 211 (or so) when they made the limit 6 members all the way through to 299 when the team more or less broke up, the 6 member limit was rarely ACTUALLY in effect, even though "in-story" they technically adhered to it. And the roster turned over so quickly, there was always a new or returning charachter to focus on, keeping things fresh. Between sep 81 and sep 84 there were a total of seven charachters appearing that were brand new to the Avengers mythos making an appearance (three of them joining the team, and two of them would join later on). Four former members rejoining, several old friends or former member stopping by also.

I bet that there were less than a dozen issues in that span that only featured a team of six Avengers only.
Here is a list of charachters that were not part of the "six man roster" that appeared from a real quick review

Ghost Rider 1
Angel 1
Silver Surfer 3
Ant Man 3
Reed & Sue 2
Black Knight 2
Dr Druid 2
Hank Pym 9
Captain Marvel 5
Spider-Man 3
Alpha Flight 1
Dr Strange 3
Shroud 3
Tigra 3
Hawkeye 2
Sersi 3
She Hulk 1
Wonder Man 1
Herc 1
Paladin 2
Wasp 4
Marinna 2

Plus the big membership shake up issues
211- That had:
Cap, Thor, Vision, Witch, Wasp, Wonderman, Beast, Hawkeye, Jocasta, Iron Man, Yellowjacket, Moondragon, Moon Knight, Angel, Black Widdow, Black Panther, Iceman, Hercules

221- That had:
Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, She Hulk, Black Widdow, Invisible Woman, Spider Woman, Spider-Man, Dazzler, Hawkeye

243- That had:
Cap, Thor, Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Wasp, She Hulk, Iron Man, Starfox, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Mockingbird

In practicallity, the six man rule was either not important, or skillfully circumvented by the writers.

This is why my friends Valkyrie and the Holt said I should come here:
1) among many other topics in life: an encyclopedic discussion of classic comics
2) actual in-depth answers from Roger Stern himself

I really do have an uncle Rog, but now I have a spare.

Yeah. I've been wanting to dig out this issue just to double check Rog's memory.