Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

CAPTAIN AMERICA:

- He is away from the team during the whole time that another man is wearing the Captain America costume.

- His one appearance as "The Captain" is brief one between him and Namor, who is beginning to feel out of time and believes his old friend can relate.

- He returns to the team after reclaiming his identity and costume.

CAPTAIN MARVEL:

- She becomes aware of a dormant consciousness within her, which seems to be directly connected with her powers. Taking a hiatus from the team to find answers, she ventures into deep space. Once there, she discovers that the accident which gave her super-powers resulted from the merging of Monica Rambeau with an obscure Kree entity known as the Omni-Being, a sentient cosmic force whom the Kree captured and attempted to de-program into a living weapon, chiefly through the efforts of the most cold-blooded Kree scientist of all, Dr. Minerva. The project was code-named Experiment IV and was put into motion after word got around that Mar-Vell – Monica’s predecessor -- was dying of cancer. But the Omni-Being’s will was never completely broken and it was instead exiled to the Darkforce Dimension. It was accidentally freed by a machine on Earth which Monica was standing in front of at the moment of its liberation. The Omni-Being had withdrawn so deeply into itself, that it took all this time for it to begin to assert itself within Monica’s mind. Thanks to the guidance of Eon, who also trained Mar-Vell, Monica makes peace between her own self and the Omni-Being and returns to Earth, but not before Eon informs her that she is fated to mate with another superhuman similarly endowed with cosmic powers. Once back on Earth, she is a fully confident leader, but her personal life goes to hell because of Eon's prediction, and she is unable to get a relationship started with Derek Freeman, the friendly and good-looking Federal Agent who appeared a few times in Roger Stern's Avengers stories. Eventually, Monica’s fated lover will be revealed as Wendell Vaughn alias Quasar...who was also trained by Eon.

DR. DRUID:

- First he loses a telepathic battle against Mentallo, then he awakens only to be crushed to death by the Fixer, who has downloaded his consciousness into a killer machine resembling a gigantic spider.

MARRINA:

- Despite their guarded optimism in Roger Stern's last issue, the marriage of Namor and Marrina begins to unravel as they try to adapt to the surface world.

- Namor's archenemy Attuma kills the Alpha Flight villain known as the Master of the World, and appropriates all of the Master's technology, as well as his alien Plodex creatures; he then launches an attack on Hydrobase. Marrina, being a Plodex herself, cannot keep herself from reverting to her monstrous self, but she gets in touch one final time with her better self and dies a heroine.

NEXT: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER

Bres and Fomor? These were good villains. Why haven't they showed up again? These are basically the demonic gods of the Celtic pantheon. You'd think with Morgan Le Fey as a somewhat major villain we'd see them all back!

Bres is the celtic loki and better yet isn't tied to a specific hero like loki is with Thor.

They have connection with Spider-Woman, the Black Knight, Dr. Druid, the Falcon, and now New Avengers Luke Cage and Iron Fist.

You'd think Excalibur would fight these villains!

Stealth, I like tying Monica to the Kree and Marvels but not with the "dormant consciousness within her".

I like the idea of Attuma taking over the Plodex technology! Dangerous! Combine two somewhat boring villains into one. I admit the Master isn't as boring but having Attuma with that kind of technology is much more interesting!

Thanks for the feedback, Jorge. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the rest of the entries. I'll admit the dormant consciousness is not the best idea, but I couldn't think of any other halfway believable way that she would have been motivated to finally search for the source of her powers. I'm sure that if Stern hadn't been fired and then blacklisted, he would have covered that eventually, maybe in a Captain Marvel limited series or one-shot special, but I can only speculate what he might have come up with.


NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER:

- Enraged by the death of Marrina, Namor challenges Attuma to a fight-to-the-death -- at the end, Namor stabs Attuma with the villain's own weapon, and shouts a bitterly triumphant "IMPERIUS REX!!"

- Now feeling that he has no reason to remain on the surface world, as well as wanting to prevent the Atlanteans from turning on each other in the wake of their ruler's sudden death, Namor proclaims himself King of Atlantis and bids an icy farewell to the Avengers.

- Later, Namor is manipulated by his court into searching for the Serpent Crown and using its power to conquer the surface world -- inevitably, he and his former teammates battle each other. (Yes, I know that's a similar plot to the mega-crossover Atlantis Attacks, but this is a different timeline in which Atlantis Attacks happened much differently; at the very least, that means we don't get Byrne's nauseating Namor-the-Yuppie.)

Next: SHE-HULK

Stealth, and other Hulk fans. Hercules appears in Incredible Hulk #107 and is written quite well!

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Herc and Angel feel guilty over fighting the Hulk over in the Champions days. They also don't appear to happy with the current Marvel status quo. They join the Hulk! The Hulk doesn't believe them and throws down on Hercules. Herc didn't fight back! He took a few hard blows and then the Hulk realized he isn't lying. It was impressive.</span></span>

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Ummm... Jorge...</span><span class="spoiler_text">Re: "Hulk and Angel feel guilty over fighting the Hulk over in the Champions days. They also don't appear to happy with the current Marvel status quo. "

Angel (No More Archangel, it seems) doesn't exactly join up willingly - he gets shanghaied by Cho and doesn't get much of a choice. Herc does too - but, like Namora, he decides to do it anyway.</span></span>

Reboot, fixed I think.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll browse through it the next time I'm at the comic shop.


SHE-HULK:

Her relationship with the Black Knight gets stronger after she accidentally takes a villain's life during the battle in the 12th Century; the Black Knight knows a lot about taking lives because of the years he spent fighting in the Crusades, and he helps her deal with it.

She-Hulk helps her best friend, retired Avenger the Wasp...(WARNING: Fans of the Wasp may be bothered by what follows)...after she discovers that the Wasp has had a drug habit since getting involved in the fashion world.

She-Hulk makes a new friend in the female Yellowjacket; more details about this in the upcoming Yellowjacket entry.

She-Hulk and the Black Knight leave the East Coast Avengers to join the West Coast Avengers, partly because She-Hulk misses California and partly for reasons which I'll cover in the upcoming Valkyrie entry.

THOR:

Leads the team while Captain Marvel is in outer space; reluctantly (and without telling the rest of the team), he accepts Dr. Doom's offer to supply the team with the necesarry technology to travel to the 12th Century; naturally, this would have had repercussions, but I never got around to figuring out what they would be.

After Captain Marvel returns, the Avengers are caught up in a war between Asgard and Olympus, which turns out to have been a result of both pantheons being manipulated by the Enchantress (disguised as Hera) and, of course, by Loki. And it goes without saying that Hercules gets involved, too; so does Prometheus, the Titan who helped the Avengers in Roger Stern's Olympus storyarc.

In the aftermath of the Asgard-Olympus War, Thor must stay behind to help rebuild Asgard. His replacement in the Avengers is the all-new Valkyrie, formerly known as Dani Moonstar.

Next: VALKYRIE (DANI MOONSTAR)

It might better fit the character to have any drug issues or whatever be related more to her Avengers responsibilities. Something else else as simple as stimulants to get the level of performance that she thinks she needs, with lives depending on her and such.

Less 'spoiled Naomi Campbell supermodel on a coke-binge,' more 'Dr. Franklin needs some chemical 'help' to fit that third surgery in today...'

It always seemed to me that she took her responsibilities a lot more seriously than people took her, and I could see her developing a bit of a complex about that, with people looking up to Captain America, Iron Man and Thor and looking down at her, every bit as much a founding Avenger.

A sadly underutilized character. I've always yearned to see a Hank Pym-created Avengers team consisting of himself, Jan, Rita DeMarr-as-Yellowjacket, Scott Lang-as-Ant-Man and perhaps a few others, like Jocasta, Bill Foster-as-Goliath, Cassie Lang and various other Pym-derived superhumans.

Pym's always been the Brainiac 5 of the Avengers (far more so than Stark, who, until just recently, didn't really get into the whole 'giving other people superpowers' game). Then again the whole occasionally going nuts and building Ultron/Computo thing is another unfortunate point of similarity...

Dani Moonstar as a Valkyrie would definitely be a welcome sight, particularly if her mutant powers got 'firmed up' into one thing, rather than the various random different things she's been able to do (make scary images, make real things, make energy bows, slice vegetables, clean windows...). A little bit of Valkyrie-derived strength and toughness (if not up to full Asgardian standards, obviously), coming from those handy apples of Idunn, the same old butt-kicking attitude she always had, and the ability to project your darkest fears into you, and she'd be a fun character. Tack on a flying horse, and the ability to travel to Asgard (and, from there, to other dimensions) and she's not only a good addition to the team, but a built-in plot hook, for when the writers want to have adventures off-Earth.

Marrina and Dr. Druid dead? Yikes. Granted, they are anyway, but I liked both characters a lot. I think Marrinas marriage to Namor was senseless and sudden. Granted, that happens a lot in the real world, so perhaps it isn't unrealistic, but now I'm picturing the two of them waking up in Vegas, looking at each other, looking at the rings on their fingers and thinking, 'oh crap'...

Dr. Druid went sideways, anyway. Last I heard his powers had ramped up into crazy territory and he was becoming unusable as a character, becoming able to cause natural disasters and stuff.

Your ideas on developing Monica Rambeau sound interesting. She's also always been a favorite (I love her powers). The whole 'must mate with champion X' thing sounds kinda Byrne-esque. Carol Danvers can attest that characters with babymaking organs sometimes seem to be expected to use said organs to advance the plots of others. It might be interesting 'though to have the entity within be sentient, allowing Monica to have a running internal monologue with the entity. (Sort of like they do with Nova these days, or they did in the Marvel Boy series with his running chatter with the Kree intelligence in his ship.)

Another Rita fan. Yay!

I see Jan's drug use starting out as a simple "when in Rome, do as the Romans," especially in a business as drug-infested as fashion, but then snowballing (no pun intended) once she had the additional responsibilities of Avengers leadership. Good observation about her taking those responsibilities more seriously than other people took her. It would also help explain her poorly motivated departure from both the leadership and the team altogether -- Roger Stern kinda screwed up there, IMO, trying to put it down purely to stress; I find it rather strange, too, that Stern never addressed the trauma from the Masters of Evil disaster and the guilt trip it must have put her on.

That's exactly what I intended, for the cosmic entity to be sentient. But before Monica could start conversing with it, it would have taken a long time for it to "come out of its shell" because of the torture it suffered at Dr. Minerva's hands.

VALKYRIE (DANI MOONSTAR):

- Among the many things I love about Dani: how self-assured she is, she's tough as nails, and she knows she has nothing to prove. She's also a strong leader, and a straight-talker with no patience for B.S.

- I see her easily rising rapidly to become Captain Marvel's second-in-command and, eventually, leader after Monica retires.

- But life is never completely smooth. She developes a brother/sister relationship with the Black Knight, but She-Hulk becomes jealous and paranoid, even though she has no reason to. So it is that Dane Whitman and Jennifer Walters switch teams to join the West Coast Avengers, because of the tension between Jen and Dani. In the long run, though, they make peace with each other.

Next: YELLOWJACKET (RITA DE MARA)

YELLOWJACKET (RITA DE MARA):

- I don't know if the writers of Guardians of the Galaxy ever gave Rita an origin story, but here's the one I came up with -- Rita was the youngest of three childern and the only daughter; her father repaired cars, and once her and her brothers were old enough to work alongside their father, that's just what they did; her mother was in and out of hospitals due to physical and mental health problems, and died when Rita was 12. A few years later, her father and oldest brother were shot to death by a thief; her surviving brother spiraled downward into drug abuse; Rita coped by focusing on her work, taking any machine-related jobs she could find, and eventually becoming an expert in all things mechanical; frustrated with the low pay for her work, she began taking illegal jobs because they paid better. She had also been obsessed with costumed people, heroes and villains alike, particularly Yellowjacket because, "I thought I would never be as glamorous as the Wasp or the Scarlet Witch, but Yellowjacket's outfit was kind of androgynous, and that seemed attainable." So it was that she stole the Yellowjacket costume as we saw in Avengers # 264, and subsequently joined the Masters of Evil, but she quickly realized that she was surrounded by people far more evil than she could ever be.

Wanting to redeem herself, she breaks out of jail and breaks into Hydrobase, telling the Avengers she wants to be in their custody, and offers to do maintenance work on Hydrobase. To prove she's sincere, she helps the Avengers track down and defeat the Fixer.

The Avengers succeed at getting the Comission on Super-Human activities to grant them custody of Rita, mainly because Gyrich is no longer involved, having been humiliated and thrown in jail after a sex-and-drugs scandal.

Rita and Jen become friends, and this helps Rita and Janet make peace with each other. Eventually Rita follows in the footsteps of many other former criminals and becomes an Avenger.

At a party welcoming Valkyrie to the Avengers, Rita (who has been given a glamorous makeover by Janet) meets Scott Lang, the current Ant-Man; they start a relationship (and Scott is especially glad that his daughter Cassie finally has a mother figure in her life.)

But Moonstone forms a new Masters of Evil, and they kidnap Scott and Cassie in order to blackmail Rita into betraying the Avengers. In the end, the new Masters are defeated without any harm done to Scott and Cassie, and the happy family goes on with their lives.

Next: AND WHAT ABOUT THE WEST COAST AVENGERS?

I like Rita as YJ as well. Anyone but Hank as YJ I am happy with.

I always wanted to see one of the New Mutants join the Avengers. Sunspot, Dani, or Cannonball were always my picks to join. In that order.

The Black Knight while always flying under the rader is just a romance magnet isn't he. He's one of the few characters I see you can easily work into a romance. Wasp, Sersi, Crystal, She-Hulk, Dani, Tigra, heck even Captain Marvel(Monica).

To me, the secret of the Black Knight's sex appeal is that he's boyish without being childish.


Wrapping up the imaginary stories, we have...

AND WHAT ABOUT THE WEST COAST AVENGERS?

The Englehart-era WCA continuity stays mostly intact in this timeline, with a few exceptions such as the Wasp not joining the WCA. None, I repeat, NONE of the Byrne stories occur in this timeline. The East Coast continuity converges with the West Coast continuity right after Hydrobase is destroyed by Attuma and the Plodex, Marrina dies, and Namor quits.

Needing somewhere to stay until they either find or build a new base, the East Coasters crowd into the West Coast Compound.

But strange things start happening. Security breaches become common, leading to the deaths of Tigra and Wonder Man (despite the efforts of Captain Marvel trying to save Wonder Man with her energy-based powers, she ends up floating in outer space unconscious after Wonder Man explodes.) The investigation appears to point the finger at the Vision, until they catch an intruder who looks like the Vision in his human guise. But he's a red herring. When the teammates let down their guard, the Vision suddenly turns on his teammates, showing his capabilities as a one-man army! But it's not really the Vision, it's the Vision possessed by the Fixer (remember, he's now a disembodied cyberspace entity who can possess any kind of machine)! Realizing the team needs all the muscle it can get, Hank Pym (WARNING: those who prefer Hank Pym in plain clothes will probably not like what follows) becomes Giant-Man again. But in the end, it's all down to the Vision reclaiming his identity and ejecting the Fixer's consciousness.

Feeling that he's too much of a danger to live on Earth, the Vision exiles himself to the Inhumans' refuge on the moon; the Scarlet Witch follows.

This leaves Hawkeye as a leader without a team. Luckily for him, his prayers are immediately answered: the Black Knight and She-Hulk request a transfer to the WCA, Hank decides to remain Giant-Man, and Iron Man makes an uneasy peace with Hawkeye about Iron Man's rogue behavior in the Armor Wars. Enter the new WCA!

I had only two subsequent WCA stories plotted:

- A battle against Graviton, which brings the team full circle to their first mission.

- A battle against the Leader and his Riot Squad (for those who haven't read Peter David's Hulk, the Riot Squad are a handful of survivors of a town that the Leader nuked, who gained super-powers from the Gamma radiation.)

AND FINALLY, SOME ODDS & ENDS:

- I had sketchy, unformed ideas for a grandiose space opera tying into Steve Englehart's Second Kree-Skrull War from Silver Surfer (but in this timeline, the events of the war diverge right at the point where editorial started interfering with Englehart; it also would have resolved the dangling plot thread of Firelord and Starfox's hunt for Nebula in a much better way than it was resolved during the Avengers' Post-Stern/Pre-Harras Dark Ages.

- I eventually wanted to bring some of the Harras Avengers into the team, mainly Sersi and Crystal (the Black Knight still being in the WCA) although I didn't work it out much beyond that.

- I had vague ideas for a cosmic story where Captain Marvel and Quasar have a newborn son and they are all menaced by an unfamiliar villain who turns out to be Mantis' prematurely grown son under the mind-manipulations of Moondragon. Captain Marvel comes THIS close to killing Moondragon, and the baldie blowhard finally learns a lesson in humility. The one scene I pictured very clearly was the last one, where Moondragon changes into street clothes and puts on a wig, and joins Crystal and Luna for a walk in the park, saying it's time for Heather Douglas to rejoin the everyday world.

"I had sketchy, unformed ideas for a grandiose space opera tying into Steve Englehart's Second Kree-Skrull War from Silver Surfer (but in this timeline, the events of the war diverge right at the point where editorial started interfering with Englehart"

Still a sore point with me, whenever I think back on the period-- and more confusing since Steve's descriptions on his website sometimes seem completely at odds with what I read about back when it happened. (Part of me suspects that Steve is just SUCH a nice guy that he has selective memory and tries to look back on things as nicer than they really were.)

Care to elaborate?

I would have kept all of Englehart's setup (the first 14 issues and the Annual) and then introduced a Third Column: Nebula (whose original goal, in Roger Stern's story, was conquering the remains of the Skrull Empire) returning with a stronger private army than before, plus a weapon of cosmic-level power, which would have killed Firelord and mortally wounded Starfox. Then Nebula would have used it to cause several casualties for both the Kree and the Skrulls. Meanwhile, the Surfer would have flown to Earth with Starfox's body, and called upon any available super-heroes for help. The Eternals of both Earth and Titan would have joined the fray, and I'm not really sure where it would have gone from there.

Stealth, I like a lot of your ideas for where the Avengers would go after Stern’s run. I like tying Monica more into the Kree and the Marvels, and eventually a love interest with Quasar.

Love that the Black Knight would eventually get the sword he had under Harras. I, of course, prefer him with Crystal, so I hope he’d eventually get there along the timeline. Many of you know he’s one of my favorites, if not my favorite. I’ve never roleplayed comic stuff before, but I guess if I did, I would want to be the Black Knight.

Don’t mind Dr. Druid’s death/exit and prefer it actually.

Like your Sub-Mariner outline a real lot. I really like the idea of Attuma using the Master’s tech. Attuma has always appealed to me because he has a great visual and a great history, and with the right writer could really have some great stories opposite Namor. The Master, on the other hand, just feels lame to me.

I’ve always said Dani should be the new Valkrye and have a much more prominent role in the MU with the Avengers and with a solo series (it could have such a profound underlying theme of death). Really enjoy that idea. And I love a Dani/Dane friendship that could develop, with a brother/sister nature. Those friendships are a strong tradition in the Avengers that are always a delight to read when they develop naturally.

Not sure about the Wasp drug bit, but I wonder if it could make for a good story where Hank could help her, since he too understood what it was like when you think the Big 3 (Cap, Iron Man, Thor) may be looking down at you.

I’m a bit of a Rita fan too, and I really wish she could have assumed the Yellowjacket identity from then onwards (and Hank would never have seen it again).

Gyrich ‘sex and drugs scandal’:

WCA
I love Hank’s return as Giant-Man as much you Stealth, so I like it here especially. (Still give it my highest recommendation to HWW !)

Love the Clint/Tony dynamic, so this would be great to read about here.

Hopefully Wonder Man’s story wouldn’t be over!

I really like how you’ve amped the Fixer into his all bad-ass status, as he was around the early Thunderbolts issues. He could make a great nemesis.

If I wrote Avengers, I’d be tempted to add Mantis to the team myself for another cosmic story. I love the character too much!

Nebula’s continued presence would be a welcome addition too as an antagonist. But I’m a big Firelord fan! I like to keep him around as a sometime ally/sometime antagonist to the heroes.

Your timeline seems fun and incorporates the spirit of the Stern era, moving it forward instead of simply cutting it off as it happened in 'real life'. So many of Stern's themes could be continued while keeping things new, fresh and exciting, and I think you'd capture that really well. You should start a fanfic! You'd have one reader right here!

PS – looking forward to reading about my man Herc!

And ofcourse I do not like Hank becoming Giant-Man but it doesn't bother me as much as YJ. Ant-Man and Giant-Man I like. (I dont even like Goliath as a codename)

I always loved the original Clint/Tony dynamic. Clint had to deal with two founders serving under him. But Tony certainly would challenge him.

Re: Mantis/Nebula

I had a Cosmic Avengers fanfic which centered around Monica, Black Knight, Hercules, Starfox, and Firelord. Others would guest star like the Forgotten One, Mantis, Moondragon, Quasar, etc.

I think having these characters in a series based on Titan would rock! Space opera fun!

"Your timeline seems fun and incorporates the spirit of the Stern era, moving it forward instead of simply cutting it off as it happened in 'real life'."

This got me thinking, this sort of C*** has happened a lot of times over the years. One can imagine how things might have gone on if something abrupt and bad hadn't suddenly happened. For example...

Steve Englehart & Gene Colan's run on DR. STRANGE. What made this most jarring was that it happened exactly halfway into their latest 4-parter. Part 3 comes along, and suddenly, it's Marv Wolfman (new writer AND editor) and Alfredo Alcala. I could have stood Alcala-- but the next issue, he was gone, and there was a rotating-roster, with Rudy Nebres as the focus. It was a mess...

Gerry Conway & Ross Andru's run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was never the most "fun" book in the world... but by the time Pete went to Paris to find a kidnapped JJJ (you wonder why he bothered-- heh) things had FINALLY gotten decent between Pete & MJ. The, editorial interference, the Gwen Stacy clone, Conway's angry departure, and Len Wein turning MJ into a typical "bitch" girlfriend. I actually stopped reading the book 6 months into Len's run...

Wow. I must confess that never occured to me, and you're absolutely right. And that would help Janet and Hank's relationship evolve from ex-spouses to friends.

Glad you liked that one, I'm very proud of it. I wonder if we should all try to imagine all the details, with each of us trying to top each other for sheer outrageousness.

Originally, I thought it would be Starfox who dies first and far more graphically, but then I thought it would work better dramatically and make more sense for it to be Firelord, since he had a much deeper vendetta against Nebula. And I also thought it would be more powerful to have Starfox not die right away, so that there could be a scene where he dies in the arms of his father, Mentor. But it's not inconceivable to bring back Firelord somehow.

Why, thank you, Cobie. I do have some Avengers fanfics in mind, and I'll post a link in this thread once I have one rolling.

Um...I'm not sure I understand what you mean, unless maybe I'm forgetting something I had posted before. I do love Hercules, though, and I'm sure I'll write something about him sometime.

Yeah, and that would have been especially cool in the aftermath of Armor Wars. Layton & Michelinie did such a great job of bringing Tony so close to the edge. But they knew where to stop, whereas other writers keep making Tony go over the edge.

Oooooh, behind-the-scenes dirt! Give us the details, Prof, please.

And re: Len Wein, I've always wondered why, during the Bronze Age, Wein did such good stories for DC on Swamp Thing and JLA, but such bad ones for Marvel (although his Hulk run is fun in a mindless way, AND he brought back my beloved DOC SAMSON!)

"his Hulk run is fun in a mindless way"

Len hit the ground running on HULK, spending his first several issues finishing up some long-long-running subplots established by several previous writers. In effect, he wrote the "climax" of a movie that had been going on for about 2 years before he got there. It was GREAT. "Death Knell" "The Day of The Devastator"., etc. But then... he seemed to run out of ideas real fast. Then Joe Staton came on, first as inker, then doing finishes over Trimpe layouts, then doing finishes over SAL BUSCEMA layouts. It was really, really bad. Staton grew on me over the years, but his work on that book was just "wrong", especially as I felt the ONE character in the entire Marvel U. that Sal did not know how to draw was The Hulk. I quit after HULK #200. When Roger Stern got on as writer 2 years later, they got much better inkers to work with Sal.


Between me and my best friend Jim, Len was a longtime "joke" as a writer. He always seemed to start out with a bang-- then peter out so quickly, he just didn't have staying power. We were introduced to him mostly via MARVEL TEAM-UP, a book whose "formula" for the longest time seemed to be, "2 heroes cross paths, misunderstanding, big fight, then they talk and figure out who the real villain is, chase him down, climax. Which let no room for any "character" scenes, and always made heroes of the Marvel U. seem like IDIOTS.

Following the chaos that overwhelmed the 2nd half of Mike Friedrich's run on IRON MAN, Len took over and his 1st issue was a breath of fresh air. Within 6 months Bill Mantlo was doing fill-ins, then Archie Goodwin, Gerry Conway, etc. etc... Mantlo eventually got the book (his 1st regular assignment, I believe), apparently BY DEFAULT. Took him a long while to warm up. And JUST when he was starting to kick ass... Michelinie & Layton pulled a coup and kicked him off so they could do it. I don't care HOW good M&L were-- it was NO way to get a book!

Len got on the FF, but was gone in about 4 issues. When Roy left the 2nd time, Len came back for a longer run... barely. He started a year-long story where the FF break up... and then LEFT! His buddy Marv had to finish it.

Len pulled the exact same stunt on GREEN LANTERN. After Hal was in space for a year, Len came in and decided to do another "back to basics" schtick with Hal on Earth involved with Carol (bitch queen) Ferris. She gave Hal an ultimatum: her or the Corps. The IDIOT picked her. As if to shove his mistake in his face, the Guardians replaced him with John Stewart, who he really didn't like at the time. Dave Gibbons, fresh from DOCTOR WHO, had wanted to do "space adventures" (I just found this out recently). He got tired of the Earthbound crap real quick, and left. Len decided, oh, if HE's gonna leave, I might as well, too. Right in the middle of his story. Englehart & Staton came in... and did such a good job, sales DOUBLED. Take THAT, Len!


I don't know too much about what really went on behind-the-scenes on ASM, except back then, I read that a "group" of editors had looked over Spidey's future, and were felt they were in a rut. They didn't want to marry him off yet, and they'd already had him & Gwen break up too many times. So, they decided to KILL her. It wasn't Conway's idea-- but fans back then didn't know what an "editor" did, so Conway took the brunt of the HATE MAIL. Decades later, i found out it was really all John Romita's idea!!! He wanted to pay tribute to Milton Caniff, who'd bumped off Steve Canyon's girlfriend in the papers, and fans had talked about it for months. Lovely. Personally... I suspect (but can't prove) that Romita was MJ's biggest fan... and with Stan (who shoved Gwen down fans' throat for years) out of the way, this was his chance to finally get Pete & MJ back together. Sadly, only a few months after Gwen & the Goblin got bumped, Romita left the book. (GRRRRRRRRRRR.) Ross Andru could have REALLY used Romita's inks. Andru & Giacoia took almost 2 years to get the main characters to look right-- and then Esposito came in and MURDERED the art. (Yeah-- I know there's a lot of Andru & Esposito fans. I like some of what they've done. But that run on ASM was a big part of why I stopped reading the book.)

Anyway... Stan claims he knew nothing about Gwen's murder, and after it happened, asked, "Can't we bring her back?" 2 years later, Conway got orders to do just that. Result: Gwen Stacy clone. I don't know if I actually read this anywhere, but Gerry leaving Marvel the way he did at the time he did always suggested to me that he was tired of editors interefering with his storylines.

A year later, having been a writer & editor at DC, Gerry came back to be the new Editor at Marvel. CHAOS erupted. Almost every book in the line was disrupted, longtime creative teams were replaced (some of them by Conway himself, who wanted to make extra money as a freelancer in his spare time-- is it a conflict of interest to hire yourself?). He drove Steve Englehart so crazy on THE AVENGERS that Steve quit Marvel, and planned to quit comics altogether!!! (Poor fool-- if he'd stuck around a few more months, Conway would have been gone...)

The whole situation has caused me to joke over the years that "REVENGE is no basis for an editorial regime."

Again, I have no evidence to back this up, except for the comics that came out at the time and what happened to so many of them. Marvel was NEVER the same after Conway's Editorial period. About a year after he left, Jim Shooter took over. Need I say more?

Stealth, glad you like the Jan/Hank idea. The more I think about it, but more I'd love to see you do that story!

Oh, and my Herc comment was supposed to be Jorg in reply to my anticipation of the upcoming Herc moments in Hulk.

Prof, as always, I find your insider knowlegdge of the industry fascinating. As you know, I have a nostalgia and affection for that entire era of Spider-Man stories (though I do know many of them are weak), mainly because I used to reread them constantly as a kid. I think you're right on the money though about JR/Stan and Gwen/MJ.

To make up for the "permanent" absence of Gwen, Stan introduced a new blonde romantic interest in the early SPIDER-MAN newspaper strips-- ironically, full art by John Romita. The first time I met Romita-- in his office (!!) he was working on the strip, and I told him I wished he was instead doing the book, which I considered the "real" Spider-Man. (Even if MORE people over the last 3 decades have probably read the newspaper version. I guess the same goes for those Grantray-Lawrence & Krantz Films cartoons. I believe they contrbuted more to Spidey's worldwide popularity than the comic-books themselves ever did.)

My first (brief) exposure to Gwen & MJ was in ASM #55-56 (what luck, picking up 2 issues in a row-- though both ended on cliffhangers-- grrrr). I didn't really get a "feel" of Gwen until I read a MT reprint of ASM #31-- the day Pete started college. She came across as so self-centered, she just struck me as the kind of girl I'd try to avoid if I met her in real life. Sometime later, I read a reprint of ASM #43-- and completely fell for MJ.

Amazingly, when I was in art school, for 2 months there were 2 girls in my classes almost exactly like the early-Romita era Gwen & MJ. I wish I'd been listening to my instincts more back then... (In real life, "my" MJ married somebody else, who made her MISERABLE.)

I feel the opposite way, I think Sal's Hulk is the definitive "Savage Green Hulk" -- he always had a flair for monsters. I also think that his first few years on Hulk rival his early issues of Defenders as his best work.

Oh, yes. Sal with Ernie Chan inks...I'm fangirling just thinking about it.

What about his JLA run? I think that was consistently excellent, and since the book was bi-monthly for most of his run (which I find bizarre, since sales increased during his run) that limited the number of issues, and probably kept him from losing steam.

I haven't read his Green Lantern, and don't intend to. I've always felt that he did his best writing in the 1970s, and should have stuck to editing in the 1980s, seeing as he sheperded New Teen Titans, All Star Squadron, and Batman & the Outsiders, PLUS he hired Alan Moore to write Swamp Thing v 2 (Karen Berger took over the book shortly thereafter, but it was Len who hired Alan.)

And his subsequent editorial stint brings to mind the old saying about seeing in ourselves the things we dislike about others.

Yeah, I think that would fit neatly into my revised plans for Avengers fanfics. I'll keep the fanfics' status updated in this thread.