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

Any Avengers lineup without Hank Pym is of no interest to me, but I've never been much of a hardcore Avengers fan, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

In his original appearance (I think?) in the Hulk, he was pretty cool, but he joined a badly written group of Avengers and was recast as the annoying pompous jackass of the group for some reason (I guess so that they wouldn't have to write someone anybody cared about in that fashion), and pretty much wrecked the character (who was kind of an 'at peace' zen type, very much contrasting the Hulk, all fueled by temper tantrums, in their meetup).

In Dead Avengers, an awesome mini, there's a running gag where people don't recognize him, until one point where he says something fatalistic about cycles of life and death and how pointless it is for the 'dead' Avengers to resist the inevitable, and Yellowjacket (Rita DeMara) says, "*Now* I remember you! You're an ass. You were always an ass. And now that you're dead, you're even *more* of an ass!"

Even as a fan of the character (and not a fan of what sort of two-dimensional 'bitchy Avenger' he got turned into), I laughed at that.

He had some pretty low-level 'marvel magic-user' powers like hypnosis and mystic awareness and illusion stuff, at first, but someone noticed he had 'Druid' in his name and suddenly he ended up with all sorts of plant control / elemental powers, because... reasons. (Someone played too much D&D, I suppose, and thought that's what 'Druid' meant? Which makes about as much sense as recasting Black Bolt as African American because he's got 'Black' in his name...)

Perhaps the new 'improved' jerkass attitude came with the unnecessary swath of extra powers for no reason at all.

God willing they've managed to learn something from the last time they did an Avengers book with young characters. Although calling "Avengers Arena" and "Avengers Undercover" Avengers book is just being technical. And gracious.

I can't say I'm terribly interested in this either, but then again I'm not exactly a hardcore Avengers fan either. Though the Initiative has me intrigued by all the different teams and characters.

I'm not a huge fan of Marvel's "next generation" characters. In fact, I can trace my the decline of my interest in the Marvel universe to Morrison's decision to make a bunch of young mutants during his New X-Men run.

It's cool.

They go in waves, for me.

I loved the New Mutants. I didn't care at all for Generation X. I loved the 'New X-Men' (Hellion, Dust, X-23, Wind Dancer, Elixir, etc.). And back to not loving at all Morrison's new kids, or some of the latest batch (Eye Boy, Shark Girl, Tempus, Triage, etc.).

The Avengers 'kids' I've generally liked more, whether they be the Avengers Academy group (Reptil, Finesse and Stryker, especially) or the Young Avengers (Hulkling, Kate Bishop, and newcomer Miss America Chavez), although, unlike the 'X-kids,' it seems like the Avengers teens tend to be more hit or miss for me as groups (as in, I'll like half of each group, instead of liking one group and disliking the other). It might be that the Avengers groups are more likely to include characters from multiple creators (Reptil and X-23, and later White Tiger, for instance, were prominent Academy presences, and not created by the same team that introduced Mettle, Veil, Hazmat, Finesse and Stryker), so it's less of a case of my loving (or disliking) one creator affecting my view for the entire group, I guess.

Then again, that could also be said for some X-groups. Karma predated the other New Mutants (and indeed sometimes felt like the odd one out), and Monet predated the other Generation X folk (and happens to be the one I *do* like from that group!).

New Mutants, Generation X, New X-Men, Morrison's X-Kids, Generation Hope, I love all of them. Well, Generation Hope less then the others. I'm not particularly interested in the current X-School kids (the new ones) and I REALLY don't care about the ones in Cyclops' X-Men team. I don't even know their names. Though I just don't want anything to do with Cyclops in general.

I didn't really start paying attention to Avengers Academy until they transferred to the West Coast and included Julie Powers, Juston Seyfert, and all those others. Likewise, I didn't start learning about the Young Avengers until the Children's Crusade.

The one Avengers Kids group I've got no interest in is the Braddock Academy kids from Arena. They're dull as dirt and don't really offer anything interesting in my opinion except all the blatant "Lord of the Flies" crap Arena was loaded with. How can you give Elsa Bloodstone a brother and make him boring?

I know, right? Elsa is the boss!

I didn't bother reading Avengers Arena or Undercover, because I had already got my fill of teen heroes dying in the bus explosion in New X-Men or the Superboy Prime rampage in which Pantha / Baby Wildebeest / Bushido got mechanically separated like chickens, so I never got to 'know' the Braddock Academy kids, although I like the *idea* of a super-academy for teen heroes over in Britain.

Just not the execution. Or, executions.

And Arcade? As a credible big bad? The 'assassin' who charges a cool million dollars a hit, then builds a six billion dollar amusement park of death, and, every single time, fails to actually kill anyone? Ugh. Some characters were meant to remain jokes, like Arcade, and the Hood. Which perennial loser is next to be cringeworthily badassified? The Wrecking Crew? Doctor Bong? Demolition Man? The Green Goblin? Oh wait...

And NOTHING came out of it in the end.

Arcade did everything to make himself some giant threat, but at the end of Undercover he's still a complete joke.

So all those characters died and went through hell for nothing.

You won't believe how much Dennis Hopeless is loathed by Runaways and Avengers Academy fans.

I'm not seeing much talk here about the current Ms. Marvel and her promotion to full-fledged Avenger, and I find that surprising. Am I right to infer that all of you who have posted so far are indifferent to her?

Huh? Oh! I'm sorry FL. I got swept up in the moment talking about Arena.

Good for Kamala. I've been following her book since day one so I'm glad she's getting a chance to join the Avengers and hopefully one day fight alongside Carol.

Ah, okay.

Thanks, Sarky.

I like Kamala herself very much, and having only read the issues collected in the first trade, I'd like to hope the book has improved over subsequent issues, because there's such great potential there. I am definitely reading the second trade when it comes out.

I'm kind of indifferent towards her. She suffers from being too much of a "generation fan insert character" for my tastes, but I think that she's a good way to diversify the Marvel universe.

Thanks, Stalgie.

Her creation was admittedly a bit of a calculated move, but I think that thanks to Sana Amanat and G. Willow Wilson, she's transcended that. Time will tell if she gets her moment to live up to her potential, whether in solo stories or Avengers or both.

Soooo...

(SPOILERS)

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/04...dynasty-after-secret-wars-fcbd-spoilers/

EDIT: Also, the female Thor may or may not be a former Avenger:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/04...n-the-new-marvel-universe-fcbd-spoilers/

I gave her series a shot but found the first few issues to be very weak, so I dropped the book. I do like Willow quite a lot though, as we've discussed in the past.

I really like the idea of Ms. Marvel and hope she succeeds as a longtime part of the MU. I also like her connections to Captain Marvel and the Inhumans.

As to her involvement in Avengers, I'm really indifferent to it. Everything I've seen thus far about the "post Secret Wars" Avengers has left me feeling bored and unexcited. I probably will check it out, but I haven't spent much time thinking about it. None of that has much to do with Ms. Marvel, though. She and the Vision are probably the only two things about this upcoming line-up that I'm interested in.

Cobie, check the new link I just edited into my previous post. I think you'll be as intrigued as I am.

That would certainly get me to read a comic featuring the female Thor!

Me, too.

So from my ever-growing, increasingly-legendary Pile o'trades, I recently crossed off Avengers Omnibus Vol. 1, which reprints Avengers (1st series) 1-30. In kind of a bass-ackwards way, this continued my Avengers reading project from last summer which spanned issues 89-196. This time, though, I went back to the beginning and the Silver Age after having first read the bulk of what comprised the Avengers run in the Bronze Age. As with last year's project, I had read very little of the Silver Age run with maybe a stray, poorly-remembered reprint read here and there.

To be honest the early Lee/Kirby issues were a bit of a struggle to get through. I found them mostly colour-by-numbers compared to, say, the great Silver Age Spider-Man run. There was virtually no chemistry between the Avengers themselves, and the stories were mostly dull. This isn't to say it lacked any interest at all. I mean, I got to see the debuts of such classic villains as Kang and the Masters of Evil and the re-introduction of Cap, but it's hard to argue that the stories themselves were equally classic or particularly memorable otherwise.

I think where there was some interest was in the ongoing threat of Zemo, the Enchantress and the Executioner. There was the feel that these were the book's "house" villains for a while and that they were somewhat of a match for our heroes, not easily put down. It was certainly nice to see Zemo's storyline get a definite conclusion eventually and that the other two still lingered a while afterwards.

It seems strange to say this, but I think the book clearly picked up some steam with the arrival of Don Heck as penciller. Odd, because while Kirby is remembered as a towering legend of the industry, Heck is....well, not all that legendary in comparison. But I feel his art immediately popped on Avengers and improved through issue 30, despite his not having a consistent inker from issue to issue. The comparison between Heck's work here and his irregular fill-ins during the later Englehart Avengers era is like night and day. While the Englehart stuff was rushed, messy and drab, Heck's work while he is clearly in his prime and on a regular assignment is attractive and sometimes striking.

I don't want to come off as a Kirby-basher since I'm not on record as his biggest fan. I really don't lay a lot of blame on him for his work on Avengers. He certainly over-extended himself during this era and probably really only put his real love into the FF and Thor books on a fairly consistent basis. And his Avengers work isn't terrible, per se, but some of it was downright distracting, as in the case of the Hulk's changing toe count. I think of his 8 issues (he helps some also in 14-16), issue 7 was my favorite with the other Avengers brawling with a mind-controlled Thor.

But for whatever reason, everything starts picking up some steam with Heck's arrival. Though the team chemistry still isn't scintillating, the plots start picking up and maintaining my interest. 9, Heck's first, starts off with a bang with the original Wonder Man story and how it finally brings a bit of drama and gravitas to what had been a predictable opening formula. And almost immediately, we start to feel some building tension and even get a cliffhanger at the conclusion of the Nefaria story involving the Wasp. And of course we get some final resolution with Zemo in issue 15.

So the quality is on the rise at this point, but I think it kicks into full gear with issue 16 and the first classic line-up overhaul. Whether it was Stan's decision solely or whatever, the book got 1000% better, imo, when Thor, Iron Man, Giant man and the Wasp were written out and Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were brought in. Immediately, there was tension and chemistry in a book that completely lacked that within its cast prior to the change. It just had to have been a risky move on young Marvel's part to take out the book's stars and replace them with relative unknown characters who had also been antagonists in other books.

I loved all the bickering, quips, leadership challenges and even the seeds of Wanda's crush on a living legend. Hell, even Cap was a bit of a hothead and not entirely immune to Hawkeye pushing his buttons. It's all the better knowing how the relationships would evolve over the ensuing decades from that rough start. I especially smiled thinking of when Hawkeye finally gets his chance to lead the west coast team. But suddenly, the relationships were fun to me and kept me turning the pages even as the plots also generally started to draw more interest as well.

I think if I have to pick my favorites of the "new" era between 16-30, it would be the first Swordsman story (19-20) and the epic return of Kang (23-24). The first Swordsman story made me wish Englehart's later characterization of him were maybe a little closer to how he was here. He seemed more formidable. And I really liked how his code of honor wouldn't allow him to slaughter the Avengers with a bomb. I also liked how the Avengers never realized he'd saved them. The Kang story felt like the first real Avengers epic with the long odds the team were facing and the more cosmic feel. Gotta love Kang having to work with his enemies and the tragedy of his beloved Ravonna.

I like how you really feel the new Avengers foursome have developed as a team and have had enough time to be left to do so before the Wasp and Giant Man/Goliath rejoin. It's basically a full year/12 issues, though both returnees play bit parts in the prior issues before returning to the official line-ups. The untested heroes have gone through their interpersonal and heroic trials by fire before having some experience injected back in. You realize that this is true not of the former villains but also of Captain America, whose experience here is quite a change from what he's been doing before his suspended animation.

As an aside, it's a bit of a hoot that the Omnibus includes the letters pages and how they reflect the downside of what a risk Marvel took with the line-up change. I mean, even through issue 30, readers were calling for the originals to be brought back. And then there was the surprising unpopularity of Cap himself. Readers wanting him kicked out seemingly more often than not! Other than his lack of powers being unpopular, readers weren't enamored of what we might now characterize in hindsight as his 'emo' phase. i mean, Cap was a pretty whiny mutha back then! I mean, it makes sense with all he'd lost, but it's certainly interesting to see Cap anything less than the uber-confident leader he would become known to be.

Anyhow, it only gets more interesting as Pym returns and takes over the emo spot with his size-stuckness. More interesting is the return of Swordsman, the original Power Man (later T-Bolt Atlas) and especially the re-intro of the now mind-controlled Black Widow and how she affects Hawkeye. The book ends with a great spotlight for Hawkeye (who still didn't have a real name yet, btw) as Cap memorably allows him to go after the villainous trio alone after Hawkeye felt he'd let the team down previously by not being able to take Natasha down. Hawkeye more than holds his own against bad odds, though he ultimately is saved by the now (apparently) freed-by-love Widow. It's a great spotlight issue for the archer that I feel like he'd earned as we'd watched him evolve. Seeing how his apparently renewed love affair develops the character is something to look forward to in Vol. 2.

If there's any drawback here, it's that the Omnibus doesn't end very tidily. There's a lot up in the air: What's next for Hawkeye and Natasha? What's up with Wanda and Pietro's power-loss subplot? And there's the more precise unresolved cliffhanger with Hank being imperiled by some cult in South America. But by that time the Avengers had evolved into a book where the story is constantly moving and bleeding into the next issues, and that's a big part of its finally achieving its potential, along with the great chemistry, more dynamic plots and the sharp Don Heck art.

Indeed, I was sorely tempted to continue on to Avengers Omnibus Volume 2 and all the delights that I know await me within. But I ultimately decided to savor this one a while and move on to another diversion....for now. But it's nice to know that what started as a chore to go through really evolved into quite the page-turner and one of the better Silver Age Marvels I've had the pleasure to experience, though Spidey remains the gold standard for me.

Yay! A new Lardy review!

I agree 100% about the Lee/Kirby issues. Lee/Heck I'm not quite as keen on as you, although the Wonder Man issue is definitely a turning point for the book, and I personally believe that Heck never quite equalled that issue. Oh, he was reasonably solid throughout the issues collected in this ominbus, before going into a steep decline during his final year on the book (it didn't help that he inked a lot of those issues himself), but I feel like the Avengers didn't find its signature "look" until the late 40s, after John Buscema had been on the book for about half a year. Buscema was more dynamic, a better choreographer, and his women looked like real women as opposed to mannequins.

While the lack of a steady inker definitely detracted somewhat from Heck's art, I feel that Wally Wood (19-22) and John Romita Senior (23) deserve special mention for performing above and beyond the call of duty. One of the prides of my collection is an original printing of 23 autographed by Jazzy Johnny himself!

By far my favorite story from the first 30 issues is the Kang 2-parter in 23-24. I think all Lee detractors should read or re-read that story as proof that he didn't need Ditko or Kirby to shine. And I'm delighted that you liked it so much, too, Lardy. I was chatting with a friend of mine about that story recently, and we agreed that it would make a really good live-action movie.

IMO, the best is yet come in Avengers Omnibus 2, but I certainly respect your decision to savor the first one for a while longer, Lardy. Thanks for another great Avengers review.

Thanks for the kind words, Fickles!

Yeah, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Heck was an all-time Avengers great, but I think he deserves some credit for giving the book some identity and definition that it lacked with Kirby. His work here certainly opened my eyes from what my impression had been before. No, it doesn't approach the impact that such luminaries as John Buscema and George Perez will have on the book, but the series certainly began to find itself with him onboard.

I, too, especially enjoyed John Romita's inks over Heck. In fact they somewhat overpowered Heck's pencils. I honestly didn't mind because JR is among my very favorite Silver Age artists, so it was kind of a treat to see how the jazzy one might have drawn the Avengers.

Man, that Kang 2-parter was GREAT, wasn't it?

As an aside, I enjoyed such touches Hank being nicknamed "High-pockets" and Hawkeye calling Cap "Methuselah".

BTW, I can't recommend Marvel Omnibuses highly enough! They are fucking AWESOME!!!

My sentiments exactly. Wanda looked especially lovely, as did Ravonna.



Yeah. I particularly love Ravonna's defiant assertion that "no one commands a princess!"

My boss got five copies of the one comic where Carol chews out the team over you-know-what.

IMO, it's a well-written, beautifully-drawn story, but there never should have been a reason for it to exist.

Some people have argued that if the original version of the story had been published and Carol had been impregnated by the Kree Supreme Intelligence, there wouldn't have been so much controversy and we wouldn't have had Claremont's rebuttal.

BULL, I say! BULL! Those people obviously miss the whole point -- that Shooter/Michelinie/Perez were setting out to undermine Carol, and everything she stood for, any way they could.

Other people have argued that Claremont rather petulantly overcompensated and tried too hard to change Carol so that no one else could write her ever again.

To that, I say that Carol was not that great a character to begin with, but I wouldn't wish her fate on even my least favorite characters. Claremont may have over-egged the pudding, but his aim was true and that's what really matters.