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

That is correct.

Well, since that's the first half of a 2-parter, I might review 379 just so you and others can find out what happened. Besides, 379 is what I consider the last Harras issue that's half-decent. I'm not sure how much of his decline had to do with Epting leaving and the lack of a viable replacement, but the quality just plummeted from 380 on, sort of like how DnA's Legion plummented in quality after...well, different people have different ideas of when DnA declined, but I think it started with the first issue of the re-launched Legion ongoing.

um, but why wait until the bodies are found, instead of gee going to the last place they told dispatch they were off to? I'd hate to be in a crisis and have to rely on a save from these guys.




Can you dance the Synthezoid? It the new Robot.




I'm expecting childish moping/ tantrums for a while after this story, or it's just not him.


Avengers 373
A very good opening page, that's probably a lot better on a reread today than it would have been at the time. Ah, those telling silences of doomed relationships.

But hey! If you have trouble ending doomed relationships, then I can help with this advice! Why not take the person you're drifting away from into a damaged building that could collapse on them at any time? Don't forget to take in any offspring too! You wouldn't want to go into a new relationship with any baggage, now would you? Thanks Marvel!

But I'm not just full of great relationship advice. I can offer career advice too! For example, there's a fireman slumped beside his fire truck as if he's been through the wars. But he couldn't save anyone. On the other hand, Crystal spots Dane in 2 seconds. Where was the Fireman looking? My advice is to start looking for another job guy, because you're not much use at that one. Thanks Marvel!

I'm not sure that Cap's shield or Hank being big, would really have saved anyone from the debris. Yet, despite having a building dropped on them, they still doubt Sersi would try and kill anyone. Perhaps some small rocks hit them all on the head in the destruction.

The good news is that there's hopefully a nicer looking mansion on the way. Who did they bribe in the planning office to allow that bunker to get built there?

Cap's shown as needing a moment or two after getting out of that one. It reminds me of an Ultimates moment after a conflict. It's a shame that no one else seems to be at all affected by the same events here.

Back to advice corner, or bridge in this case. For all those troubled, desperate souls who find themselves staring suicide from a bridge in the face, the Avengers comic has a simple message for you. Quit yer whining! Because "none can compare, in their pain, to the desperation of..Sersi." Thanks Marvel!

Had we seen Jocasta before? This version goes back to her Metropolis roots. She has been promised a look at this world's Vision. But couldn't she have done that back when he was a prisoner of Proctor's? Perhaps Harras hadn't thought of her back then. Perhaps new pieces have been added as it's gone on for so long.

Going back to long falls, there's the long drop of the exposition dump from Proctor. It deflates the idea of the reader really wondering if Sersi was responsible; It's a huge amount of plot dumping against an immobile, voiceless Alt+Watcher (I think his tears are from witnessing the poor writing technique); It turns out our main villain is a sad, psycho.

It's not that it's badly written. I've some questions about the plausibility of all those burning, destroyed worlds. Not to mention the credulity of the Gatherers. But the idea of the consequences from a destroyed love between two very powerful people has parallels with Dane, Sersi, Crystal and Pietro elsewhere in the book. All of the cast are pretty broken figures at this point. Well, except Widow, who isn't much of anything really.

An example of that would be in the climactic fight between Sersi and the Avengers. Widow is just swatted away by Dane, Mind you, we don't even see how Cap is beaten. He just appears unconscious. The conflict is decently done. Sersi is by far the more powerful, and the battle goes accordingly. I did wonder why she didn't just transmute the quinjet at first.

Having gone out of control by trying to kill the Avengers and then by turning on the city, I had thought Sersi was beyond help. Crystal acted as the wedge between Sersi and Dane. Predictable, but not in a bad way, as Harras has been building up to thins for ages.

But Sersi is calm enough when Proctor appears, and the balloon of comic plot escalation is deflated once again. I fear for plot dumping next issue, when I was expecting other dimensional battle. Which funnily enough has parallels with keeping relationships going through the less than exciting times too. Thanks Marvel!

Avengers 374

The Avengers are being drowned in the bay. Fortunately, they have an elemental in their ranks. It's a nice, easy moment for her to shine and to have some moments with Dane. But, nope, Harras takes away yet another chance to have any of the actual team look good in their own book.

The Eternals have arrived. They note that Dane is free of his Frank Herbert overload disease. Crystal notices that the first woman Dane sets eyes on after his freedom is a statuesque blonde alien wearing skin tight armour. Epting draws a look of death for the woman on Crystal's face accordingly.

Sprite can spot a subplot when he sees it, telling the team that Sersi is being pushed into her madness. I would have thought that the whole point of all these issues, was to make everyone be convinced of Sersi's guilt, but it never really reached that stage.

Thunderstrike arrives with Jarvis to handily confirm the idea. I nearly skipped that back up story as well. It wasn't the best, but I can't argue that the mind links haven't been well established throughout the run.

Cap sits and says nothing for a few panels. I thought this was a plot point last issue and even more now. Unless Harras wrote this when he didn't want Cap back on the team, and Epting is just reminding us that they guy's alive.

One of my favourite panels in the run is Sersi looking out from Avengers tower. Rooftop thoughts have even been a recurring theme in Harras' tenure. We see Proctor use a sword like Dane, reminding us of the main Avengers team. I must admit, I'm not at all keen at the main marvel universe being so much more important than all the others.

I wonder how Proctor imprisoned Sersi, to begin his ranting. Convenient globes of force have been a bit commonplace in Harras' stories.

Considering just how keen Proctor is to bleat on about his hatred for Sersi, you do wonder why the Gatherer's follow him. After a couple of universes, you'd have thought they would be able to spot that Proctor is behind things. Baring in mind, they were supposed to be Avengers in their own timelines. Oh, Proctor's actually an Alt+Dane. I wonder where he got all of the extra powers from.

Mind you, Harras has had our Dane survive being blasted often enough to be invulnerable too.
Ah, the Watcher. He figures that being cryptic isn't the same as actually telling. It's not watching though is it?! Useless on any parallel universe you can find.

Pietro calmly talks to Dane about his marriage. That must have taken a heck of a lot for him to do based on previous appearances. I can't say I'm too keen on his suggestion either. Even if Dane had agreed, it's simply not allowing Crystal to make up her own mind. That's a controlling sort of love, Pietro. Only a git would think like that. Ah, good to see you back!

A quicker issue than last (even with Pietro handily injured), as many of the subplots are spelled out to the reader before we get to next issue's conclusion. I've no idea why the police officers were spared. Proctor is responsible for so many deaths, it's not going to help redeem him.

Avengers 375
New York is tense from recent events. Experienced Event-watchers debate over the new energy signature appearing in the sky. Many assumed that all such things were to be white energy clouds, but this is different.

Unlike the plot. After all this time, after all these issues, it's going to be a straight fight between the Avengers and the Gatherers. Deep sigh.

Herc isn't knocked out with the first punch, with Thunderstrike picking up the baton (or hammer) of being ineffectual this time round.

Considering the number of panels devoted to Thunderstrike, the battle is strangely short lived. Most of both groups are reduced to battling background shadows, while our key cast members resolve their differences.

There are some answers behind Proctor's powers. He has the ebony blade (which might have been in an annual I skipped around this time). He has been transformed by his link over time.
The need to absorb prime earth templates to stay sane, is very clunky and doesn't really add up. It doesn't say much for the heroism of the other earth Avengers for a start. Speaking of which, when Proctor is defeated they conveniently fall over.

Love saves the day! Pietro's love for Crystal helps him do the right thing (although he does have to think about it. Good 'ol Pietro). Sersi's love for Dane helps her break free and Crystal's love for Pietro and Dane gives her extra focus to take down Proctor.

It's Sersi's genuine love for Dane in this reality that teaches Dane and Proctor about their differences. Proctor has come through a lot of issues as a practically Plot-Divined indestructible villain, so his end is relatively quick.

He gets one last rant in, before Sersi executes him, bringing us back to the dark parts of Harras finales. It should be noted that the Avengers are so used to their own killing foes, that there's barely a cry when Proctor is killed.

There's a sting in that Proctor's manipulation of Sersi has indeed instigated the madness that would consume them all in the end.

Nearby, a watcher, destined to only view events at all times, knows that he can get a last bit of meddling in before he dies. As a last hurray at defying the Watcher Look/Don't Touch Code of Conduct, it's a good one. Realigning reality and providing a literal Plot Device to end a number of storylines.

Sersi gets a route out of our universe. Apparently, solitude in a strange, possibly hostile, environment helps to calm the mind. I think Alex Luthor may have a different view of that. It suggests that the universe itself inflicts the madness on the Eternals, which doesn't really work.

The team's other killer chooses to go with her. I note that despite his whiny protestations, Cap does nothing to really stop them. In fact, he seems to know lots about interdimensional portals. How does he know that green glowy ones are only one way trips? I think he rigged it, and he'll be happy the moral tone of the book has been lifted. I wonder if a nodding Jim Shooter gets a cameo in the background.

Crystal doesn't get to make any decisions of her own. Things have been decided by Dane and Pietro around her. She clearly doesn't want Dane to go. When he does, she stands there clutching a memento of him, right in front of her husband. That's going to make an interesting counselling session.

Dane has been faced with an alternate, evil version of himself. The Proctor/Dane relationship is one of the most important in the run. Yet, for all his talk about learning not to run away Dane does exactly that once more at the first opportunity, leaving messy emotional entanglements with Crystal behind. In a bit of self destructive angst, he leaves both his sword and helm behind.

I skip the back up, wondering why we didn't get more time with the cast of the main story. Are the Gatherers now trapped in our Universe? "Thanks for our glowy little doors Watcher. Git."

Like them, I found the resolution a bit unsatisfying. Crystal didn't get to decide for herself; Dane ran back into his fantasy world; Sersi was given an easy out (and a free kill)by a character who should never do such a thing (I didn't like her last expression either); The other cast members were just cut outs in the story (again for some of them); the killing Avengers were moved offstage rather than have anything addressed.

The writing was pretty much what I've come to expect in the run. Pretty standard storytelling for this period in mainstream comics, with some clunky moments offset (only in small part this time round)by the undercurrent of his emotional twists.

Who are the "they" who were also unsatisfied with the story's resoultion, Thoth?

Sorry to learn it didn't work for you in the end. But thanks for at least giving it a go.

Now I'm going to go several pages back in this thread and re-read your comparison of this run to the TMK Legion run, and comment accordingly.

ah, the "them" were the gatherers, in that I don't think they'd have been happy at getting left behind. So much for my quippy link between paragraphs.

Ah, okay.

Except for the Jocasta analog (who appeared in a minor role in a terrible Vision solo mini-series* which confirmed that Harras had lost his muse) and the two reformed Gatherers -- Swordsman & Magdalene -- none of them were ever seen again.










* It did have lovely Epting covers, though.

It all comes down, I believe, to individual taste.

I think Giffen has trouble differentiating between good ideas and bad ones, and if he doesn't have a strong editor, the ideas jumble together into an ugly mess. He also seems to change his mind at the last minute about where things are headed, most notably in his petulant destruction of Earth.

Harras has freely admitted that he was more or less making it up as he went along, but I felt it all came together satisfactorily. Your mileage may vary.

I also prefer Harras' undeniably flowery dialogue to T&M's, which I find too colloquial.

I think that while TMK may have sincerely loved the Legion, they sometimes had a funny way of showing it, considering the way they treated several characters -- all of whom, it should be mentioned, were introduced post-Adventure-350, which I think brought out a reactionary, elitist streak in TMK.

I do believe Harras loved the Avengers, and wanted to do something different. He didn't have Stern's talent for sprucing up old Avengers touchstones (neither, arguably, did Busiek/Perez). He didn't go for imitating the competition and/or turning back the clock, either, as Hama did with his painfully unfunny and ham-fistedly topical hybrid of JLI and Silver Age Marvel (no offense intended to He Who, it's just my opinion.)

I think both Harras and TMK left of a lot of characters and ideas underdeveloped, and we've already discussed the pacing at length.

So I think the comparison stands up. Neither run was to everyone's taste. Neither run was perfect. But both runs dared to be different, and I think for that they both deserve credit.

So, we have a group of alternate Earth Avengers. They have all seen terrible things. A number of them will have been complicit in a number of other terrible things. They think that they are only sane, because they've killed counterparts on this Earth. Some of them may not have got that far, and may or may not be going a little insane. They have been mind controlled in the past.They have had access to multidimensional transportation in the past, and are aware of parallel time-lines.

Yes Avengers, let them roam around the planet. No story potential there at all.

It's not surprising that Harras was "making it up" as he went along. Much of these last 40 issues feel that way: directionless, meandering, waiting for something to happen.

One thing I've learned about writing fiction both before and after giving up The Avengers is the importance of structure. A story line needs to build toward a climax and then a resolution. Anything that does not advance the story in this direction must be trimmed -- "murder your darlings," as Stephen King said.

The story must also have a payoff that is worthwhile. If the resolution doesn't amount to much, the journey is wasted.

The problem with making it up as you go along is that it's impossible to know what scenes, characters, or arcs contribute to the story and which do not. It's also difficult to know when to actually end a story. It's like embarking on a journey without a road map or a final destination in mind: You never know if you're actually "there."

As to whether or not Harras had any muse to begin with, I think that's debatable. His early efforts on the Avengers were bad--being rushed or being initially a temporary writer excuses only so much. I'm not sure when if ever he hit his stride. The resolution to the Gatherers storyline has been his best contribution, but that's only in comparison to all of the other stories, which range from mediocre to bad.

There have been some moments of potential, but--as has been pointed out many times during these reviews--Harras invested very little time and effort in the Avengers themselves. Characters came and went without reason, and some of those who stayed (Herc and the Widow) became little more than window dressing. Harras never seemed to get inside his characters' heads to figure out why they do what they do. They go through the motions--as did their writer.

And, yes, heavy exposition and infodumps are signs of bad writing. It's a shame, really. Comics are a visual medium and much can be revealed through the art alone. However, the writer needs to know when to shut up. Sadly, neither Harras nor his fill-in writers seemed to understand this. I think the worst part of it is that they communicated to a generation of fans that this is good writing. After all, it's in a Marvel comic and Marvel comics sell, so they must be doing something right, right? (I think several earlier comics writers gave me similarly bad messages about writing--things I had to unlearn in college and grad school and since.)

uh oh, I see a post of mine revived. I shall report back later with my petard for hoisting, since I'm sure I rattled that off in two minutes as Fickles requested a response to her point.

To think I passed up typing that, because I thought it was a cheap shot.

My shots aren't cheap, but they do come at bargain prices.

No, I think it was a cheap shot. If he had truly been without a muse, then nobody would care about these stories as much as Cobie and I and others do more than 20 years after they were first published.



That's exaclty how I feel about the 38 issues and 3 annuals of TMK Legion.




Crystal, Dane, and Sersi?

Avengers Summary

A quick look at the team from this run.

Black Widow - There purely to make up the numbers. With a team so small, and over quite a long run, the writer has a responsibility to give each character something that their fans can look to and enjoy. Although leader of the group, it was merely a title for all the panels we got to see her in. She had no subplots, and no defining scenes. I can think of a single scene where her involvement related to someone else, and a bit of poor-leader dialogue on a mission.

In the Busiek/ Perez run, she's referred to as having led the team, and there's an indication that it didn't go well. I guess that this refers to issues up ahead, but her involvement was brief, in that she just left before events got as far as picking members.

Hercules - His first into the fray and first to fall approach became a running joke as the series progressed. Getting punched by everyone was pretty much Herc's contribution to the run. By #375, a subplot had been started with gods directly wanting to mess with his life. This was a main part of a single issue, and follow up reminders of the subplot were added just in time before this reader forgot about them entirely. In the last third, Epting gave Herc a visual upgrade, making him look less ridiculous. Sadly, that had gone by the Perez run, along with whatever depth, if any, came out of his subplot.

Captain America - Portrayed as a terrible tactician, a poor leader, rather whiny and ineffectual generally. I've never read Cap's solo series, but I'd be surprised if he was as pathetic there as he's shown here in the company of his peers.

Harras clearly didn't want him on the team, but there are so many ways to write a character respectfully while keeping them in the background, or ushering them towards the door. Cap's return to the team, in particular, showed that Harras simply wasn't prepared to spend any time out with his core characters. Cap is just shunted into the background. There was a recurring theme of the Avengers being passengers in their own book, and ineffective leadership characters helped to highlight that.

When I saw him, he was front and centre of the Perez/ Busiek run along with the other "traditional/ big gun" members.
Swordsman & Magdalene - Two characters that the writer knew would join up in the end. But in knowing the ending, he forgot to write in the steps to it for the readers. The result was that both characters who were part of an often telepathically manipulated villain team, that had helped destroy worlds, were allowed to roam around the mansion.

Magdalene's counterpart on our Avengers Earth was killed by the Gatherers to allow Magdalene to function here , which isn't picked up on by #375. The first arc involving the gatherers is replaced by the second arc and the revelation of Proctor's true mission. To such an extent that neither Magdalene or Swordsman are even present in the final issues leading to #375.

As the Avengers had melee weapon wielding characters in this team already, in Cap and Black Knight, neither Magdalene nor Swordsman added anything new to the team. Whatever potential either character had was squandered, and had they perished in the destruction of the first Gatherers team, there would have been no impact on the book.

I first saw them in the first issue of the Busiek/ Perez issues, where they got some decent panel time in their fight against some plant things in central park. They were ciphers*, who didn't contribute anything really, before departing.

Death Cry - An attempt to harness some of the rather sad badass Image attitude of the 1990s, itself lifted from the success of one of Marvel's psychotic pointy clawed "heroes." Clearly no one likes the character, although there's a Vision romance brewing. It's not that the character is set up to be self absorbed and unlikable. That would be fine. It's that there's rarely a reaction to such an attitude. Getting away unchallenged, reduces the empathy with and effectiveness of the rest of the cast.

In the Busiek/ Perez first issues, Deathcry is treated pretty much as a joke character. No one was at all bothered that she didn't show up.

Thunderstrike - His appearance at the end of the gatherers arc, seemed to suggest that he hadn't learned a thing since his departure earlier in the run. But then, that's possibly an issue for whatever other book he was appearing in. As a character with panel time elsewhere, there's only so much that Harras could have done with him.

Hank Pym - Visually a good addition to the team. He also prevented Dane becoming a complete mary sue, by taking on the science tasks for the team, leaving Dane with the more techy aspects. There wasn't a great deal of plotting around him, his health issues were ignored, but then he was a late arrival and there were already a number waiting in that queue. He's a regular in the Busiek/ Perez run, leading up to a reprise of older Ultron stories with extra knives into his psyche.

Vision - A charitable summary of this character in this run would be that he's very repressed, trying to refute any form of true feeling, even though his every action suggests otherwise. In practice, it led to some seemingly uneven moments in Harras' writing of him. It's down to not really getting a grasp of what such an emotionless being would really be like, as the issue plots shifted around him. If he is emotionless, what's keeping him there? If he has no bond to anything, why does he continue to interact with them? Perhaps unintentionally, it led to some interesting thoughts about his relationship with the other team members and the idea of trust between them. That was emphasised further with the arrival of Alt+Vision.

Quicksilver Appearing in the first arc and in the issue sup to #375. We know that his marriage with Crystal is shaky. We learn (in a reference to another comic) that reconciliation looks unlikely. We see him spot that his wife may be having an affair. While other interpretations of Pietro would have gone ballistic, this one realises that it would result in him losing Crystal completely. His appeal to Dane is heartfelt, but in true keeping to the character essentially selfish. Harras manages to give

Pietro some intellectual maturity while keeping his essential personality in there.
All of which leads up to the main three characters of these 42 issues.

Black Knight A mish mash of a comic book scientist who's good at everything by default, mixed up with some basic sword and sorcery material. From the books I've read, he's never struck me as a strong character or one with any particular purpose. He's a guest star on demand. He's hampered by the lethal weapon he uses, and has renounced a more powerful version of it in the past.

As I posted in the review of #375, I don't think Dane has actually learned enough to change himself during the run. He knows he runs away form things, but then runs away to a fantasy land with the person who was just mind controlling him.
But what he has done, is literally face himself and the choices he's made in the past. That he can't overcome them is actually quite a realistic end of the arc. It's darker tone also suits a number of other Harras highlights.

Harras was looking to make Dane his leading man in the run. Unfortunately, Harras has to get Dane to tell the reader his own personality traits in the end, to explain why we should like him. In trying to make us like the character, Harras doesn't seem to have moved him too far form the things that made him generic in the first place.

Dane's never really moved away from being generically good at everything. Dane's omni science remained throughout, until the arrival of Hank Pym. He's good with all the cast, even those who should be concerned about his attitude. He's practically immune to everything in battle, and recovers from one serious injury very quickly indeed.

Dane could have done with some refining. Recklessness isn't a character flaw, if you're strangely immune to damage and fawned over by the rest of the cast about it. Like Deathcry, the limited reactions from the rest of the cast let Dane get away with too much.

Still, we learn that he will go beyond the normal superhero parameters, as befits someone who carries a sword around. We learn that he tries to do the right thing, even if it doesn't really work out in the end. Having decisions to make, and not getting to pick one that pleases many, shows Dane as being human. Someone just trying to do the best he can, built on some shaky, ill defined comic book personality traits. That's not bad from Harras as many characters don't even get that. But that's in a review of the issues, rather than hat was really presented in them.

He does get a light-sabre, which is immediately more useful than the thing he's been carrying around all those years.

Crystal She starts off as someone who is looking to move away from previous mistakes, forge a role within the team and move on to a new part of her life. In the end, she repeats previous mistakes, doesn't really create a lasting niche in the team and returns to the aspect of her life that she just left.

Like Dane, she simply doesn't move on although Harras provides solid enough writing of the two to show us all of the steps around the circle.

Crystal certainly had her moments power wise, not least in defeating Proctor. She was decent when it came to teamwork too. But she suffered from one of Harras' flaws. He rarely showed the Avengers as an effective team. They were constantly being overpowered or saved by others. There was a frequent lack of feeling that the Avengers were at any sort of fighting peak in the run. That reflects poorly on someone with Crystal's versatile powers even if she did come off better than most.

But her real story was in her relationship with Dane and Pietro. As noted for #375, the men in her life got to do all the talking around her, leaving her to react rather than participate in any decision making. Pietro would rather talk to Dane about leaving the couple intact, than let Crystal make her own mind up. Dane would rather run away into a portal than deal with the consequences of an affair.

On the way to that rather downbeat conclusion, there were some tender moments between both couples that do stand as highlights.

Sersi Of all the cast, Sersi came out of these issues the strongest. Since most of the issues had links to her or her culture, that's not that surprising. From the Brethren to the Gatherers, she was an intrinsic part of the run. On Polymachus, Sersi got to show that she was one of Marvel's powerhouse characters.

In execution, she wasn't terribly well used in some stories. Her passiveness in the Brethren issues, and being allowed to get captured by Proctor in the final issues being examples.

Then there was execution of another kind. Although she was gradually losing her mind, she killed two enemies. While her insanity stayed away from Phoenix levels (although her other world counterparts destroyed planetary life), her actions meant that her tenure wouldn't go on for too long.

Another flaw was in her Eternals attitude, particularly in having her force Dane to be a partner. In hindsight, her action was exactly the sort of thing that Proctor cited as a sign of her monstrousness.

Her expression as she and Dane depart hints strongly that she got what she wanted in the end. The partner she thought she had lost to Crystal and independence from the eyes of the Eternals. Just think about Crystal and Dane had Sersi not been there. There's little doubt that they would have ended up together. Sersi's actions prevented them from moving on.

Visually, both Crystal and Sersi received Epting upgrades, and haven't looked better. When I picked up the Perez/ Busiek run Sersi, Crystal and Dane could have been complete strangers to each other and all were back in their earlier outfits.

Lockjaw Here boy! Here, boy! Where is he...?

A very thoughtful summary with a lot of valid points, Thoth.

The only thing I fervently disagree with is that Crystal didn't really create a lasting niche in the team. She was a team player, a humanist, and a powerhouse. She could have easily fit into a more traditional-style Avengers run, if Busiek/Perez hadn't wanted her O-U-T.

The neglect she has suffered from Marvel in the years since is nothing short of evil. How long are those idiots running the place going to hold on to their Anti-Harras/Anti-90s grudges? Sadly, it's all of a piece with the immature, unprofessional attitudes of the people in positions of power in the mainstream (read: Big Two) comic book industry.

Thanks Fickles. I know that the run means something to you and you've been excellent in taking comments on board throughout. I'd love to hear your own thoughts on how you think the characters developed (or a nod to a link if this has already been covered)

On Crystal, I was really meaning that she didn't rather than she couldn't. An analogy would be the beginning of Zatanna's elemental run in the JLA. Although she had been more powerful before, she was utilised frequently using her powers.

Crystal, on the other hand, didn't seem to have that level of control. Yet She had a moment above Polymachus, stretching the powers that had been used sparingly before then. Harras let her, and others, down there. An example was having the Eternals save the team rather than Crystal and there were others. I think that the team looked more effective in one of the fill ins that they did with the regular writer.

In the first Busiek/ Perez issue, Crystal was shown with Pietro and Luna. They were definitely a couple and it's as if this entire run never happened. I seem to think that they got a fair few panels (Wanda might have been there with them), but there was never a hint of her joining.

On anti-Harras, I had a vague notion that he made the call for Lee over Claremont in the X-Men. That led to Claremont's departure and Lee couldn't make the deadlines anyway. Fuzzy memory, but I was aware of something a little negative going into reading this run.

Fanfie, I think it's great that you and others love these stories. I've enjoyed reading your comments precisely because this run means so much to you. I wish Cobie and Lardy had been a more active presence in these reviews so we could round out the "Pros vs. Cons" debate. Clearly all of you see something in Harras's tenure that I'm missing.

However, I stand by my comments. By general writing standards (or even general comic book writing standards), Harras's run is weak. He rarely used what he had in the book to its fullest potential.



Now there's a cheap shot.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Harras's run. You seem to be drawing an analogy between the two series, but, in your comments here and above, I don't see how the two are related other than each is loved by some fans and not loved by others.



I agree with thoth's assessment. Some of that potential I mentioned above was built around these three characters (and Pietro); however, they were misused in a lot of ways, as thoth suggested.

I'm still not sure I see too many fundamental connections between the TMK & Harras arcs. A lot of my earlier points are comparative strengths and weaknesses, but I think they are different beasts. In that I'm not seeing too many common sources.

On Cast:-

The Avengers have gone through numerous membership changes since #16, at least. So this line up never struck me as being any more or less innovative than any previous ones. They had all, except Crystal, been Avengers before. Although I had picked up #229, an earlier purchase had Dane, She Hulk and Doctor Druid. They could just as ealisy have been the characters that Harras picked. Power levels fluctuate all the time too. This group started off with Cap and Alt+Thor; two big gun representatives. So, I never saw it as a huge membership shake up.

By contrast, the Legion's membership traditionally changed much more slowly generally with minor changes in the 25 or so membership. The shift to a regathering of the group, following disbanding, was a much greater change than a roster switch, enhanced by the time lapse in the 5YG.

Rokk: Right Kono. You can be the Reserve Substitute Legionnaire for Jacques.
Kono: Nass off!


On Background:-

The Avengers world was the same as it was in previous arcs. The group had some convoluted attachment with the UN following #229 (sorting out just what in the world they could avenge). But essentially, it was much the same.
The shift to a galaxy where the Legion had disbanded and had to pull together again (beyond a 2 issue Universo related storyline) was something on a different scale.


On long term goals:-

Although TMK seemed to have a vision of where the book was supposed to go, in practical terms it made no difference, as it lurched along from early on.

While Harras clearly didn't have that sort of scope in mind, the use of The Eternals as a resonant beat of the run is more consistent than anything TMK pulled out (The Dominion's control of Earth being a very long, drawn out, exception)

I've covered a fair bit in the post you kindly quoted (to save me going back to wonder what I was talking about) above, so onto your points:-



I think nearly all of the ideas used had some sort of merit. Likewise with Harras. There's many a slip twixt cup and lip. If anything, they were diluted due to pleas from the rest of the team (Erin for example). That's something Harras didn't have to worry about with pros and cons attached. Simply, TMK were a team and Harras was not unless he was Jamie Madrox in disguise. Additionally, TMK had been kicking a huge number of these ideas around for a long time. They were refined long before they hit the page.

There were a lot of them, and it was a big cast. They got to use a lot of those ideas because of Giffen's art choices and the text pages. The comics were crammed full of hints. Giffen was a long serving Legion pro, and T&M enhanced his talent here. Harras had none of that going for him, least of all time, leading to some pretty choppy writing and by the numbers plotting.

Good ideas and bad ideas are pretty subjective. As you said, it's a matter of taste. Did Sun Boy's arc work out badly for him? Yes it did. Was it effective? More or less. Was turning Sersi into mentally unstable executioner going to please her fans? Probably not. Was it effective? More or less.



He did manage to build on his previous stories if that's the case. It didn't always work but there is some internal consistency and recurring themes that work out just fine.

Both titles needed a stronger editorial hand. For Harras someone to improve the technique, for TMK to focus the team on the goal of the book. Both left little subplots behind as they went along. TMK more so as the title bounced like a crashing Legion cruiser.




Well, there's Sun Boy above for a pre-post-adventure character. I think everyone has their favourites. I doubt you or I would be any different. Harras clearly wasn't, judging by the way he treated Cap. The additional thing with TMK was that their run was a reprise of many of the Adventure themes. As a concept of what they were up to, a lot of Post Adventure didn't have much of a part. So yes, they did consider Adventure to be the best era and played to that. We did see a Darkseid sequel and Tellus in the Circle, and the setting was foreshadowed by Levitz/ Giffen from #50 of the previous series, so it had its post Adventure links.

I don't know enough about how Harras chose his team. He could have been an avid Avengers reader and his stories could also resonate with Avengers issues I've never read. It didn't come across like that though. TMK had time on their side from fandom to really mine that. I'm reminded of your comments on Busiek's elitism in his team selection too. That's something I'm more aware of having read these issues.



I'm not familiar enough with those runs to really have a comment. What I can say is that Harras should be congratulated for the scope in some of his ideas, actually getting a couple of character arcs closed in a mainstream book and those pyrrhic endings, with space in them to imagine even darker goings on.



I can't argue with the comparison on how things turned out for them. To Harras' credit, his run didn't torpedo the concept (unless there's something I've not seen) in the same way that the TMK run did. I imagine that Harras hit more of his goals for the series than TMK's numerous ideas did too.

He Who, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. I do respect your opinion. What blindsided me about the muse comment was that I interpreted it as if you were saying that this run was hack writing without any heart. And despite its many flaws in execution, I think this run was anything but hackwork. Whatever else it was lacking, it did have a lot of heart.

You're welcome, and thank you for being as gentlemanly as you are opininated.



I'll definitely get to that sometime in the coming weeks.



That situation was a bit more complicated that it might initially have appeared.

Firstly, I need to make it clear that as much as I love some of his writing, I don't think Harras was a good editor, except for hiring Peter David to write the Hulk -- and even there, I believe it had more to do with desperation than an especially high regard for PAD's writing talent.

Secondly, by favoring Lee over Claremont, Harras was following a precedent already established by fellow Marvel editor Jim Salicrup, who favored Clod McFarlane over the writer on Amazing Spider-Man and was instrumental in McFarlane getting his own Spider-Man book. I also think there was a lot of pressure from above on Harras to follow in Salicrup's footsteps.

Thirdly, Claremont's X-Men stories had gotten bloated and flatulent over the past few years, comessurate with Claremont's ego. If Claremont had not become such a self-indulgent prima donna, and if he had been more willing to be a team player, he might not have ended up leaving the book.

I think they're different beasts, but the same species. Both tried to do something dark and challenging with long-running teams whose books had gotten tired, misguided, and even arguably, already flown off the rails. Both were ripped apart by fandom at large and sold poorly. Both have cults of passionate defenders. I also think the Harras run as a whole has something in common with the DnA Legion run: both runs abruptly plummeted from the sublime to the ridiculous; in Harras' case, it was clearly after Epting left, while the DnA breaking point is muddier.



Agreed.



I'll admit have a morbid interest in finding out the specifics of how the Erin thing was diluted.



Point well taken, though I would add that I hate the pre-Harras and post-Harras versions of Sersi.



Again, agreed.




I think The Quiet Darkness is abysmal and the Tellus-in-the-Dark-Circle thing enraged me. I also hated Baxter 50 and all its repercussions except for the way that the Shady/Mon dynamic changed.



I think the Harras/Epting run was very much in the same mold as Steve Englehart's 70s run, only with more consistently good art. So, in that sense, I think Harras was mining the Avengers mythos similar to the way TMK mined the Legion mythos.



And, once more, agreed.



Post-Epting, Harras went into the downward spiral I already mentioned above, although, in fairness, almost all of Marvel's books, even PAD's Hulk, went through rough times around 1995-1996 due to a misguided editorial restructuring. Which leads me to wonder whether Epting might have been as active, or almost as active, a contributor as, say, Perez was to the New Teen Titans.

I can't speak for or against the run, Huey, because I haven't read a lick of it except, dimly remembered, the "Blood Ties" crossover with the X-books. This was just prior to my exodus from the X-books due to my continuing disenfranchisement with what had been a greatly loved group of characters for me. Similarly, I had jumped off Avengers a year or more prior to "Blood Ties" probably while Hama was still on the book or at the very onset of Harras's tenure (or fill-ins in between?).

That said, I have read or skimmed many of the posts of this discussion. Many times I have felt myself wincing for Fickles when I could see the writing on the wall that you, Huey, clearly weren't enjoying what you were reading like she has. I appreciate that you don't sugar-coat your reviews and opinions. But it's hard not to feel empathy when one fan heartily recommends something she loves and the reaction is virtually the opposite. I've been there, and it's not a lot of fun.

But I applaud you both (and the more moderate thothkins, of course!) for sharing your honest opinions and providing much food for thought. I still hope to someday read the run myself in some future hypothetical collection and will certainly weigh in with my thoughts if and when this happens.

Somehow, Lardy, I thought you were one of the champions of this run. My apologies.

As for not sugar-coating my reviews, let me say that it's never been my intention to degrade someone else's passion for this run. In fact, I know exactly what it's like to have something I love--including my own work--ripped apart by critics. It was painful, but I learned quite a lot about writing and about myself in the process.

So, while I've never tried to be mean in my reviews, I've operated under a principle I learned in writing classes: When reviewing a writer's work, it does the writer no favors to spare his or her feelings. Even though we are readers here, not writers, I think the same principle applies. We learn nothing about what makes a story work unless we are exposed to a reader's honest reactions to it.

Each of us brings to any given reading who we are as people as well as our previous associations with the subject matter. That's why I think these reviews have been so meaningful: As I've mentioned before, we represent three "generations" of readers who approach the series from very different perspectives: thoth reading these stories for the first time, Fanfie re-reading stories that she first encountered as a teen, and me as a then 20-year fan of the Avengers. If anybody else has been reading these reviews, they have gotten three different takes on the run and can draw their own conclusions. We're like Siskel and Ebert and ... somebody.

However, it's probably just as well that the next issue will be my last as a reviewer. I've accomplished what I set out to do, and I've learned a lot along the way. Even when a story wasn't particularly enjoyable, I learned much by dissecting what didn't work. If this dissection was painful for Fanfie or anyone else, I apologize.

In fact, I thank Fanfie and thoth for their own reviews and spirited discussions. At the time these stories were published, I had no one to discuss them with, so to be able to share my thoughts with two insightful and articulate reviewers has been a slice of heaven.

Lardy, I thank you kindly for your sympathy, but I'm a tough cookie, and I knew going in that this could turn out to be a bumpy ride. It was a rollercoaster, and ultimately, it was as exhilarating as a rollercoaster.

He Who, no need to apologize, and I return your thanks. This project was helpful to me in understanding why this run is so polarizing. And in the end, my love for it was reaffirmed.