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

It was very refreshing to see that there were consequences to their actions, especially after the let down that was the Cap follow up.

Avengers #351 (Retribution)

The Good - A surprisingly well done wrap up to the Starjammers (at least two of them) assassination attempt on The Black Knight.

Carol is used very effectively here, and I like the way the resolution came about...just as 'controversial' as what the Avengers did.

The Bad - Really, I would have loved to see this played out a little more somehow...but that's just a side thing.

The Ugly - It's not Epting, but I guess the art was decent for this issue.

The other bad thing is we're going into a 3 issue fill in...

AVengers #352 - 354 (Fear the Reaper - an act in three parts)

The Good - The Black Knight moves to the 'unofficial' position as field leader. Zombie villains are always fun, and so is seeing the Grim Reaper, even if he is kind of wasted here.

The Bad - Len Kaminski gives is a cliched story that uses way to many liberties with dialog and situations. Herc takes not one step back in this story, but several...thankfully Harras all but ignores the events here and moves on with his next issue with nothing more than a passing reference to this. Threats are brought to bear (Dane being bit by one of the ghouls, but this is taken nowhere and ignored by the next time he appears on panel (not that I want Dane to be hurt more, but when someone chomps on your side, you should show some effect a panel or so later.)

The Ugly - M. C. Wyman's art is a big let down from Steve Epting. There are worse artists out there, but following Steve and the other fill art by Jarvinin, is just a difficult task.

Avengers #355 - 357

The Good - Lovely art and a great story building here. They cram a lot into these issues.

We learn more about Proctor and his Gatherers. The 'gather' the Coal Tiger, bring him to 'our' universe, and attempt to get rid of the Black Panther (the Coal Tigers dupe here.)

The Avengers fight the Gatherers several times and eventually stop them from killing the Black Panther, and are also successful in capturing the Swoerdsman (who helped in saving the Black Panther after some goading from the Coal Tiger.)

There's also more with Sersi, both on a mysterious front as a man she went out with is found dead (we learn that there have been several others found dead as well), we have a dinner party to hook up Herc and Taylor. The triangle between Dane/Sersi/Crystal starts to get interesting.

Oh yeah, there's a party crasher (or two) during the Avengers party.

The Bad - Not much as the team moves the Avengers along at a pretty good clip here.

The Ugly - Nothing.

I recently read those grim reaper ones, that finger cover actually creeped me out!!

I thought the story was pretty run of the mill as an in between big story arcs story. I thought Hercules had sooooo many hilarious lines though.

i thought the zombie battles were a bit of a let down, and awkward, some situations i thought the Avenger was very outclassed and should be dead and other situations i though they would easily defeat their zombie counterpart.

and then the end where the zombies are *defeated* was extremely abrupt and ... cartoon-esque.

356 was the point where I came in. Even though it was in the middle of a story, I loved it and I wanted to know more, which led me to following the book faithfully as well as buying the back issues.

357 is, in my opinion, Epting's finest hour on the Avengers. Palmer's inking could be heavy-handed on the issues before and after this one, but here he gives Epting's gorgeous pencils room to breathe. This, to me, is the issue where Epting went from "The New John Buscema" to a formidable artistic force in his own right.

Ah, the Gatherers saga begins. One of my all time favorites.

Some might say the book became too cluttered at this point, but I loved that swordsman, magdeline and deathcry stuck around. I like books with big supporting casts.

Love Sersi's sexy new red and black costume. Note that Crystal would get a more revealing black and white costume a few issues later. (see? Passive-aggressive!)

Anyone else notice that Black Widow never really did much during these Harras run? It's easy to forget she was a member, let alone the leader.

Big supporting casts rock!

I love the red and black costume, too.

I'd like to think that the Black Widow did all the stuff that was too boring to show on panel, and she did it very efficiently.

Avengers #358/359 (Arkon)

The Good - This is a decent story in and of itself. The Avengers run upon Arkon, Thundra and Astra. Arkon is trying to save Astra from being sacrificed. The Avengers are transported back to Polemachus. They are given 24 hours to solve the overheating problem the world is facing, or the girl will be sacrificed. I'm not going to spoil the ending...but it was not what I was expecting.

The Bad - It feels like a flll in by the regular creative team.

The Ugly - Oh yeah...Sersi does something bad.

Avengers # 360 (Alternate Visions)

The Good - The Vision is captured and replaced by another version of him...the one that the Swordsman freaked out about when he initially saw our Vision.

Sersi goes bonkers (technical term) and the 'ner' Vision knocks her out.

The Bad - Big trouble brewing for our heroes.

The Ugly - Sersi taking out her team.

Thing that strikes me here - compare the type treatment of the covers. You've got the logo-quality "Assault on Arkon" on #358, and the fairly pathetic type "...one shall {fall}" on #359. Was the letterer sick that day?

I loved the crowded feeling of the book, I mentioned earlier that I really liked the inclusion of the support staff outside of Jarvis as well in this time frame.

The costumes that Sersi has here (red/black) with the jacket is awesome.

The Black Widow is something I noticed as well. A shame really, but as Fickles said, she was playing a huge role behind the scenes.

God I love this era. From here on, IMO the issues are close to perfect.

The Widow played an interesting role (never followed up on again) of being the rock of the team. She provided moral support and reassurance for the others; particularly Herc and his romance with Taylor.

Glad to see Dev and Cobie agree with me about the Widow.

358-359 were shocking to me back in the day, and even in re-reads they pack quite a punch. Dev didn't spoil them, and I won't either.

By this time, Harras & Epting had achieved that elusive perfect creative synergy, and 360 was another winner. Putting Vision in an awesome new/old body that was NOT an exact copy of the original -- great stuff. The Byrne Vision design, which I've always likened to a large bottle full of sour milk, was more than fitting for a soul as ugly as that of the Anti-Vision.

I'm moving at lightning speed today...so the content is a little lower.




Avengers #361 - 363

The Good - The plot of Sersi moves forward as the Eternals visit and force the role of Gann Josin on Dane. Dane turns to Crystal for comfort (or at least to share his true feelings.)

The Anti-Vision stands revealed and meets his fate.

They find Proctor and the Gatherers. That base is destroyed, and Magdalene is taken with the Avengers as they escape.

Deathbird also shows up to help.

The Bad - Whooo...Dane goes all insane on Cap thanks tot he Gann Josin thing with Sersi.

The Ugly - Nothing here. All good solid fun.

Avengers #365 - 367

The Good - The Kree make a move against the Earth and the Avengers. Nice to see a little more fallout from OGS...don't remember much after this, and hopefully there wasn't much...if any. Natasha takes a definite lead in this story, which is nice, especially when Cap and Dane are on the team as well.

Also nice to see Hank Pym on board as well.

The Bad - Wiping out humanity with a nega bomb seems a bit anti climactic at this point...we know nothing will come of this. Honestly, a smaller more terrorist approach would have felt better. Don't get me wrong, I liked the story, just couldn't feel the danger.

Avengers #368/X-Men #26/AWC #101/UX-MEn #307/Avengers #369 (Bloodties)

The Good - Not a bad crossover, and it flows naturally from the events in both the Avengers and X-Men universes.

I am thankful that it is not overloaded with every X-Men and Avenger character that ot could have been.

The Bad - AWC ends right after this, and this felt a little shoehorned into that overall story of what was happening there. Included only for the Scarlett Witch's involvement, and that they wanted another issue to include. Just glad they didn't frag X=Factor into the mix.

Fury is a DB here...just following orders is not an excuse for trying to stop them from rescuing Luna.

The Ugly - Luna in jeopardy (because honestly...she was at risk. Thankfully this was done in a time where kids were usually left alone...with the Vision & Wanda's boys being just written out of continuity in a horrid story.)

Wow, in that X-Men 26 cover, the more I look at it, the more I wonder what sort of agony those four characters must be in, to hold those poses!

Cap's arm is all messed up, and both of Cyke's shoulders appear to be dislocated. Wanda's leg ends at her boob, and the less said about butt and breasts being almost on the same horizontal level, the better!

As for the story, I only remember part of it, and thinking that Sersi should have kicked Exodus around like a hacky-sack. Or, using her transmutation powers, *literally,* as a hacky-sack...

Sersi's kind of oddly used. Her big 'thing' is her transmutation powers, which are legendary even among her ridonkulously powerful people, and instead, she is often relegated to shooting energy at people, which is Ikaris and Thena's specialty, not hers. Sometimes I see that and wonder why she's not using her big gun.

It's like 'I'm the Human Torch, and I can shoot you with my Fantastic Four flare-gun!'

'Uh, dude, you also can throw fireballs at people...'

'Oh yeah!'

Wanda's hip is almost as enormous as the alien trying to burst out of Cap's side.

I really hated that they made AWC #101 part of the bloodties crossover. It bugged me Mockingbird died in issue 100 and it wasn't even mentioned in issue 101.

And don't even gat me started on issue 102, the final issue...
As far as I'm concerned, AWC ended with #100.

As a whole though, bloodties was a well done crossover.

Avengers 361

Epting's depiction of the Eternals is stunning. But I don't like Cap returning to the team. I suspect this return was forced on Harras.

Avengers 362

Sersi kicking the synthetic $%$ out of Anti-Vision is oh so satisfying.

Avengers 363

I wonder if Dane is acting as Harras' avatar when he attacks and badmouths Cap?

Avengers 364-366

I love this arc, although some of Epting's art seems a little "off", as if he was starting to burn out. Still, Sersi smashing the Sentry (say that ten times fast) is a classic moment, as is Giant-Man coming back, better than he ever was before -- if only Harras had been able to explore Hank further, there would have been no falling back on his past sins. The Kree renegades are like a twisted alien version of the Howling Commandoes -- their leader even has a cybernetic eyepatch!

Avengers 367

A good spotlight on the Vision, with a GREAT Epting cover (if only he'd done the interior art, too.) Vision makes significant progress, and I think him and Deathcry made a cute couple.

Avengers 368

Sersi after Crystal tears Fury a new one: "It seems our little kitten's developed claws! I love it." Great line, and a promising start to Bloodties.

X-Men 26

Andy Kubert trying to be Jim Lee when he should have just been himself...painful. And Fabian Nicieza trying to be Chris Claremont when he should have just been himself...sad. Amid all the verbiage and bad anatomy, the story loses momentum.

Avengers West Coast 101

Roy and Dann Thomas + crossover = phoning it in.

Uncanny X-Men 307

If Cobie and other JR Jr fans think I'm too harsh on him, they should take another look at his early 90s UXM run to see how bad he can sometimes be. By this time, the story is just stumbling around looking for some kind of direction.

Avengers 369

For the concluding issue, the story finally regains some much-needed focus. Crystal and Quicksilver both get some great moments. Epting's art is wildly inconsistent, though, and the Duursema fill-in pages are just awful. Thankfully, Epting would pull himself together for the 4-part conclusion to the Gatherers Saga.

I totally agree about Cap coming back, but I like that Natasha never once really faltered in the fact that she was in charge.

You may be right about Dane being Harras' mouthpiece (I actually think he was the character that he put the most of himself into throughout his tenure as an Avenger.) But I may be reading too much into it.

I finished the run through 375 last night, so my final thoughts coming today...as I put these grand issues away and pull out some X-Force and New Warriors goodness.

I love JR Jr's 2nd X-Men run. Just reread them about 2 years ago. Love the way he depicted the Acolytes.

I like that his style is so his own and he's been one of Marvel's favorite sons for so long that he makes not even the slightest attempt to be more commercial or traditional.

Of course, another way of looking at it is that favorite sons often grow complacent.

Avengers #370/371

I do not have much to say about these issues. The art is pedestrian at best, the story is filler.