Its time again for another Weekly Comics Hype, but I dont have time to write one! So forgive the repeat; Ill add some additional information at the end of it!
Although it was eclipsed long ago by the X-Men, The Avengers was, once upon a time, Marvel Comics' principal superhero team book. It is still the central, core title for their mainstream world of superhero action; any given issue will feature some well-known Marvel superheroes saving the world from the latest evil menace, and it is typically helmed by the company's top creators. The book ended last year after 504 issues and has been replaced by a book called The New Avengers, which teams most of Marvel's A-list characters.
I'm sorry, I've gotten used to Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View." This is supposed to be a recommendation.
The Avengers is a big, fun, silly book. The team's lineup has always been very flexible, a key factor in its popularity, but any given team will have at least one of Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, supported by a half-dozen or so Marvel B-listers such as Black Panther, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye or Hercules. They work from a big Manhattan mansion, have access to super-technology and save humanity from a host of nefarious miscreants.
The earliest issues of the comic were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, who practically invent long-term comic book continuity in issue #4, when the Avengers find the frozen body of World War II hero Captain America (created twenty years earlier by Kirby and writer Joe Simon) in suspended animation. Kirby left the book not very long afterwards and was replaced by Don Heck, whose incredibly stylized pencils, often inked by Frank Giacoca, bring a sense of dynamism and swinging sixties sensibilities to the book. Lee himself left the writing to Roy Thomas after about two years. Thomas, who helmed the book for almost a decade afterwards, occasionally bogs down with continuity and reviving ancient, Golden Age characters and situations. Still, he pens a good yarn every once in a while and has a truly epic scope to his ideas. Paired with John Buscema on pencils, they crafted many memorable stories.
That's not to say it's all golden. While there are certainly moments of high-energy fun, most notably a great parody of DC's Justice League called "the Squadron Sinister" (which is still active today in revised form as "Supreme Power") and the ongoing machinations of Thor's enemy the Enchantress to form a "Masters of Evil" to take down our heroes, Thomas crafts some remarkable duds. Topical "hot-button" issues of the late 60s such as feminism and racism are addressed with jackhammer-like subtlety, Hank Pym's mental illness doesn't make any medical sense at all, and, most inexcusably, the legendary Kree-Skrull War is revealed to be, not the star-spanning outer space epic newcomers might suspect, but Rick Jones locked in a closet with a loudmouthed green space pumpkin. Still, it's done with style and energy and wit, and with page-turning gusto. All the creators involved packed as much over-the-top action into their work as the pages could stand, a far, far cry from the "write-for-the-trade" mentality exemplified by many of Marvel and DC's talents today. It would take Brian Bendis 33 years and 400 issues to tell the stories presented in the first hundred Avengers comics.
Marvel has reprinted the first 97 issues of the Avengers, along with some annuals and tie-in comics, across four really big trade paperback collections in their "Essentials" line. Essentials are low-priced, black & white reprints of about two dozen comics for $15 or so. Each has something to commend it Volume 1 is full of great Kirby art, Volume 2 has hundreds of pages of Don Heck stylizations, Volume 3 shows Roy Thomas's worldview really forming, and Volume 4, apart from being the best value for money, features some fill-in work by Harlan Ellison and Neal Adams. All four volumes are available from your local comic shop and are spectacular value for money.
* * *
To follow up the above, a fifth Essential Avengers volume is now available. This 552-page collection reprints Avengers # 98-119 and crossover stories from Daredevil # 99 and The Defenders # 8-11, featuring the classic early 1970s Avengers/Defenders War in its entirety. Steve Englehart scripts most of this book, and it also features the beginning of the Vision & Scarlet Witch romance, which was really quite stupid in the first place, and especially so in retrospect because it has forever defined each character in terms of the other. It also sees the introduction of the Vietnamese martial artist Mantis, who will play a big part in a famous epic which will presumably see print in Essential vol. 6 called Celestial Madonna.
Although it was eclipsed long ago by the X-Men, The Avengers was, once upon a time, Marvel Comics' principal superhero team book. It is still the central, core title for their mainstream world of superhero action; any given issue will feature some well-known Marvel superheroes saving the world from the latest evil menace, and it is typically helmed by the company's top creators. The book ended last year after 504 issues and has been replaced by a book called The New Avengers, which teams most of Marvel's A-list characters.
I'm sorry, I've gotten used to Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View." This is supposed to be a recommendation.
The Avengers is a big, fun, silly book. The team's lineup has always been very flexible, a key factor in its popularity, but any given team will have at least one of Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, supported by a half-dozen or so Marvel B-listers such as Black Panther, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye or Hercules. They work from a big Manhattan mansion, have access to super-technology and save humanity from a host of nefarious miscreants.
The earliest issues of the comic were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, who practically invent long-term comic book continuity in issue #4, when the Avengers find the frozen body of World War II hero Captain America (created twenty years earlier by Kirby and writer Joe Simon) in suspended animation. Kirby left the book not very long afterwards and was replaced by Don Heck, whose incredibly stylized pencils, often inked by Frank Giacoca, bring a sense of dynamism and swinging sixties sensibilities to the book. Lee himself left the writing to Roy Thomas after about two years. Thomas, who helmed the book for almost a decade afterwards, occasionally bogs down with continuity and reviving ancient, Golden Age characters and situations. Still, he pens a good yarn every once in a while and has a truly epic scope to his ideas. Paired with John Buscema on pencils, they crafted many memorable stories.
That's not to say it's all golden. While there are certainly moments of high-energy fun, most notably a great parody of DC's Justice League called "the Squadron Sinister" (which is still active today in revised form as "Supreme Power") and the ongoing machinations of Thor's enemy the Enchantress to form a "Masters of Evil" to take down our heroes, Thomas crafts some remarkable duds. Topical "hot-button" issues of the late 60s such as feminism and racism are addressed with jackhammer-like subtlety, Hank Pym's mental illness doesn't make any medical sense at all, and, most inexcusably, the legendary Kree-Skrull War is revealed to be, not the star-spanning outer space epic newcomers might suspect, but Rick Jones locked in a closet with a loudmouthed green space pumpkin. Still, it's done with style and energy and wit, and with page-turning gusto. All the creators involved packed as much over-the-top action into their work as the pages could stand, a far, far cry from the "write-for-the-trade" mentality exemplified by many of Marvel and DC's talents today. It would take Brian Bendis 33 years and 400 issues to tell the stories presented in the first hundred Avengers comics.
Marvel has reprinted the first 97 issues of the Avengers, along with some annuals and tie-in comics, across four really big trade paperback collections in their "Essentials" line. Essentials are low-priced, black & white reprints of about two dozen comics for $15 or so. Each has something to commend it Volume 1 is full of great Kirby art, Volume 2 has hundreds of pages of Don Heck stylizations, Volume 3 shows Roy Thomas's worldview really forming, and Volume 4, apart from being the best value for money, features some fill-in work by Harlan Ellison and Neal Adams. All four volumes are available from your local comic shop and are spectacular value for money.
* * *
To follow up the above, a fifth Essential Avengers volume is now available. This 552-page collection reprints Avengers # 98-119 and crossover stories from Daredevil # 99 and The Defenders # 8-11, featuring the classic early 1970s Avengers/Defenders War in its entirety. Steve Englehart scripts most of this book, and it also features the beginning of the Vision & Scarlet Witch romance, which was really quite stupid in the first place, and especially so in retrospect because it has forever defined each character in terms of the other. It also sees the introduction of the Vietnamese martial artist Mantis, who will play a big part in a famous epic which will presumably see print in Essential vol. 6 called Celestial Madonna.
brooklyn:
Thank you so much for the very nice comment on my set! I'm really glad that you liked it.