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

So much for Marvel Legacy.

So this latest run of Avengers was yet another big pile of shit.

Bring on Aaron!

Avengers has been seeming like pleasantly drawn inconsequential nonsense.


I'm looking forward to Aaron's as well, I am a sucker for that Avengers One Million B.C.


I got issue one. I wasn't in love with the line up or the art but I'm giving the story a few more issues. He certainly has raised the stakes with the Celestials already. Hopefully he gets a loose leash.

Is it just me or are people wondering why Marvel is trying to make Ghost Rider happen? I mean Ghost Rider on a mammoth?

I think they could've done Starbrand and Nightmask, Cloak and Dagger, Sentry and Void ... some other combination ... than a Hulk looking Starbrand and Ghost Rider.



On a related note, I've been going through some old(er) Marvel events, House of M and Civil War and I think they age ok, I thought they were good to read again. Secret Wars III less so IMO.

I wasn't super into Civil War I at the time but I liked the recent reread of it.

I'm going to miss Wasp (Janet) and Sunspot and (Living) Lightning and Wanda and Simon and Toni Ho, etc.

I am just beyond caring about the continuing character regression / movie synergy characters of Tony, Steve and Thor, so a 'back to basics' classic lineup built around those three, and various other characters apparently chosen for MCU synergy (Carol, T'Challa, Strange) doesn't particularly appeal to me.

I know I'm weird, but I'd rather read a book about Monica Rambeau or White Tiger or Hank Pym or USAgent than any of these 'big names' who have their own titles. (Same with the Justice League. The 'Trinity' and the 'big seven,' are the least interesting, to me. The back half of the Satellite League; Black Canary, Hawkwoman, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, etc., and newer characters like Vixen and Booster Gold, are way more my cup of tea.)

Nostalgia. Meh.

And I'm totally aware of the irony of that, from a diehard Legion and Justice Society fan.

I'm burned out on the big three except for Thor who's had some changes that are keeping me interested. Seems like for the past 15 years its been like big three come together, and some combination of the big 3 fight, and then come back together. over and over.

Meanwhile, Janet Van Dyne is amazing. possibly the best leader and a founder too.

I am nostalgic but for an Avengers more near the John Buscemi (80s) era of six (or so) dedicated Avengers. That had adventures rather than penultimate extinction event and penultimate extinction event. And Monica Rameau should really just be in every Avengers line up IMO.

I liked what they are at least trying with Simon being a pacifist, if not necessarily enjoying it. I've always been a fan of Living Lightning. I was glad to see him back around for a while. And the latests Red Wolf seems pretty cool, how he has hunches or sees things or whatever his lucky power it.

Yes to all of this! Particularly the bit about adventures over nigh-extinction event after nigh-extinction event, which is kind of anticlimactic, after awhile.

Also the love for classic characters like Janet and Simon and newer blood like Living Lightning and Red Wolf.

I took the Avengers off my pull list. The revamp just doesn't interest me. I'm not into this cast of characters for the most part and I don't think the writer's take on She hulk is very nuanced unlike how she is portrayed in her own book. The art is ok, it would be fine for me, but not exciting, if the cast was different or a new take, and if the story line was not so generic. I didn't hate it but I wasn't into either, seemed pretty amateurish.

I think it's pretty funny how the JLA and the Avengers have the same storyline about giant robot gods on an extermination binge ....

I got the JLA short series because Manipaul drew most of it.

I want to be excited for West Coast Avengers because it's Kelly Thompson... but I really wish Quentin Quire wasn't in the line-up because he's one of the most annoying characters Marvel has got right now. I thought Generation X was gonna make a better point about what an insufferable prick he is, but it did not and I couldn't even enjoy Jubilee getting her powers back.

I hope the rest of the line-up gives me more to focus on besides him.

The last time I saw Quire, he died. If he's got a rotten personality and appears in multiple books, how long until he gets his adamantium claws?

I'm excited about this! I loved Kelly's Hawkeye series. It certainly wouldn't be my cast of characters and while America and Bishop are friends ... and have had some good moments together there is a big power leap between Hawkeye, her non powered boyfriend with American and Quire.


Gwen pool is just there to put butts in the chairs.

I love Kelly Thompson, but I'm giving this one a hard pass. Looks to me like it's gonna be too much forced clowning and too little gravitas.

TBH, I wasn't a fan of the original WCA, either -- the original mini-series by Stern, Hall, and Breeding is outstanding, but the monthly series just...Engelhart's stories were alternately goofy and creepy, and Milgrom's art was horrible; then Byrne actually got off to a roaring start with Vision Quest, but went off the rails very, very quickly; and as for Roy Thomas & Dann Thomas: MEH. Just meh.

I still sometimes shake my head about "what happened" with Steve Englehart. From the time of his debut at Marvel in the early 70s, right up to the moment when Gerry Conway harrassed him so much that Steve had a FIT and decided to QUIT COMICS altogether, it seemed he could do no wrong. (If you go to the Marvel Masterworks message board, on the other hand, you'll actually see "MMMS" types claiming Englehart was "repeatedly blowing deadlines". NO HE WASN'T. That was George Perez. Heh.)

For one year at DC, Englehart didn't hold back, and did some of the best stuff he'd ever done before or since... then left.

When he came back, he seemingly broke the rules by working regularly for 3 different publishers AT THE SAME TIME. But his output was... uneven, to say the least. Some average, some BRILLIANT... and some AWFUL and unreadable.

Steve, at his website, has gone far to "explain" all these questionable books in ways that ALMOST sound convincing... but I'm not convinced.

As for the original point, I got WAY behind on my reading in the mid-late 80s, and as a result, actually read Englehart's entire run of WEST COAST AVENGERS... after I read John Byrne's run. It wasn't pretty. What happened to Byrne's run at the end wasn't pretty, either. I think in the long run it was all part of why, by the time the early 90s rolled around, I pretty much STOPPED reading ALL new Marvels for about the next ten straight years... and only picked-and-chose certain specific books to try out again after that.

Wow. Hard to believe that 19 days ago, this thread officially turned 12 years old!

Methinks it's time I re-assessed at least some of Avengers Volume One. That'd get 2019 off to a roaring start!

I'll definitely do issues 1 through 149. Then maybe the entire Roger Stern era, although Al Milgrom's art on Stern's first two dozen issues still gives me spielkas.

But I also think it's too soon to re-assess the Epting/Harras era, as we've been through three re-read cycles of it (Peebs, then Dev, then Thoth & He Who.)

Thoughts?

Would it be alright to suggest looking at some of the more obscure Avengers stuff? The miniseries and What If stories?

It's better than alright, I welcome your suggestion with open arms! Thanks, Sarky.

In fact, I'll post a few quick thoughts on my favorite Avengers What If story right now:

What If v.1 #3, "What If The Avengers Had Never Been?" by Gil Kane, Jim Shooter, and Klaus Janson

(34 story pages)

(Reprinted in What If Classic: Volume 1 and Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane)

This tale is just all-around perfection. Kane (who receives co-plotter credit) tended to draw bit bombastically from the beginning of the 1970s through the end of the 1980s. This made him perfect as Marvel's go-to cover artist of the Bronze Age, but made his interior art exhausting to read. Here, though, the does his most beautifully controlled and disciplined layouts and anatomy since the short-lived "Captain Action" series from 1968! And Shooter, whose stories for the "real" Avengers never did anything for me, really comes through here. And Janson had not yet been negatively influenced by Frank Miller to the point where his inks became borderline amateurish-looking. It's also a real pleasure to see the Sub-Mariner, one of my very favorite Marvel anti-heroes, get a meaty role here, and Kane confirms my theory that no artist, other than John Buscema and Subby's creator Bill Everett, was better suited to drawing The Imperious One. And, yes, I know I haven't posted anything about the plot, because it's too good to spoil.

I really need to track down more What If issues for commission references. I'm sure there are some interesting costumes to be found.

Ann what was the basis of that 1950s Avengers story?

Also. My father gave me a copy of Avengers Disassembled for Christmas. I have no idea why but it made me realize something. I kept saying DC Comics is pulling a Robbie Baldwin on Wally West with Heroes in Crisis, and I was only sort of right. They're pulling a Scarlet Witch on him.

Sarky, the basis of that story was the third issue of the original Avengers run, where the Hulk, who had already left the team by the end of the second issue, double-teams with the Sub-Mariner against the Avengers. The outcome was much different, and, to my mind, the What If version was far more exciting in terms of both plot and art.

I've been trying to think of other Avengers What If stories to recommend to you, but I'm coming up empty so far. The Korvac What If is very popular with a lot of readers, but I dislike it even more than the original Korvac Saga, if such a thing is possible! I'll keep searching.

My very first Avengers comic was the finale of the Korvac saga. It basically defined the Avengers for me for a long, long time. I don’t know if I even have the capacity to dislike it.

BFOB, all points of view are welcome -- nay, ENCOURAGED -- in this thread.

You might enjoy this discussion we had on the Korvac Saga a few years ago. I played devil's advocate, but others found positive qualities:

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=816745#Post816745

Reading that did remind me of one of the depressing themes of Shooter’s EiC era work: “trust power.” I can’t remember where I heard that; Sean Howe’s book maybe? But Korvac, Secret Wars 2 and that Moondragon two parter from his second Avengers run all has the same plot: an all-powerful character SEEMS bad, but at the end you realize that if you had just trusted them, everything would have been fine. Oh, a fourth fictional example: his account of the end of his tenure as EiC.

Well, there went a couple hours of my time! Seriously, it's a lot of fun re-reading some of our better back-and-forths, with some great contributions from Cobie and Huey!

It really is fun! Thanks, Lardy!

I'm hoping to bring back that same sense of fun to this thread in the coming year. Hope to see you participating often, my friend.

To recap:

Avengers v.1 #1-149 (the beginning through the Serpent Crown Saga,) and Avengers v.1 #227-285 plus West Coast Avengers v.1 #1-4 (the entire Roger Stern era) are both certainties.

At the same time, I hope to see lots of surprises here with the What Ifs and such.

ASSEMBLE!

LOL

My sentiments exactly!

Thanks, BFOB.

Finally remembered another good Avengers What If story: What If the Avengers Had Fought Crime in the 1950s? That's the one that introduced the Agents of Atlas.

Yeah! That's one of the What Ifs I was wondering about.