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Title: Stan Lee Presents Essential Avengers, Vol. 3: Collecting Avengers #47-68 & Annual #2 by Roy Thomas, John Buscema ISBN: 0-7851-0787-8 Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: June, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.42 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Avengers become interesting once the Vision joins them
Comment: Volume 3 of "The Essential Avengers" is where the Marvel superhero group finally starts to grow up. Part of the reason is because John Buscema became the resident artist (through issue #62), marking the first time that the artwork was a strong selling point, but the more important reason was that the group finally came up with an original group member with the Vision. At that point the group really crystalized for me, so scripter Roy Thomas gets a big part of the credit.
This trade paperback collects issues #47-68 of "The Avengers," along with Annual #2. I first seriously started reading "The Avengers" with issue #53, which is where the Avengers battled the X-Men, who were my favorite Marvel group in the Sixties. At that point the lineup for the Avengers had, once again, changed. At that point it was Golaith, the Wasp, Hawkeye, and the Black Panther. Getting rid of Hercules and the mutant tag team of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch was a good move, although I can never really think of it as the Avengers unless Captain America is in charge (he bolts in the first issue here). But I never liked Hawkeye and thought making him the new Giant-Man and making Goliath into Yellowjacket, was ill-advised. The only reason I kept reading the book was because of the Vision, so that even when other Marvel superheroes who were incapable of sustaining their own books (e.g., the Black Knight) joined up it was the android that held my attention. .
The Vision first popped up in issue #57, created by Ultron-5 to defeat the Avengers. Instead, he became their most interesting member, although it would be a while before the whole backstory on his creation came to be. At this point the idea that he was "an android...with the amnesiac brain patterns of a murdered man," Simon Williams a.k.a. Wonder Man, was enough. On top of that I liked the way Buscema drew the Vision with his eyes always completely shadowed. Buscema leaves the book during these issues, but he was replaced by Gene Colan, always a favorite, and then Barry Smith came in for a couple of issues drawn in the distinctive style that was still evolving and about to explode when he and Thomas started "Conan the Barbarian."
Rating: 3
Summary: The Avengers keep assembly but not much is happening
Comment: Volume 2 of "The Essential Avengers" marks the point where the pendulum started to center for the series and Roy Thomas and John Buscema took over from Stan Lee and Don Heck. The Avengers started out as a group of super strong super heroes including the Mighty Thor, the Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. This proved to be rather problematic with coming up with super villains who could plausibly give this group a stand up fight. So then the group went in the completely opposite direction and came up with a skill quartet of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. That lasted until issue #28 when Giant Man came back (now called Goliath), bringing along the Wasp. This not only gave the new Avengers some muscle, but with Henry Pym back in the fold the group had its requisite scientist for those times when brains can help brawn and the ability to throw a shield, shoot an arrow, run really fast, or cast hexes. Then for brawn without the brains, Hercules joins the group.
Collected in Volume 2 are "The Avengers" #25-46 and Annual #1, which brings together the "original" Avengers with the Avengers of "today," against the Mandarin, Power Man, the Living Laser, the Swordsman, the Enchantress, and the Executioner. Thomas took over as writer with issue #35 and Buscema takes over as the primary artist with issue #41. The artistic improvement is obvious, especially for someone such as myself who was never enamored of Don Heck's artwork, but the more significant changes are coming from the writing. It was Thomas who brought Hercules into the mix, which upped the ante on the bickering in the group. In other words, with Hawkeye and Pietro vying for the role of the biggest malcontent in the group, always having to be slapped back into place by Cap, Hercules provides a joyful sense of having no regard for teamwork. Consquently, even more so than the Fantastic Four, the Avengers are the group that has to stop fighting itself to be able to fight the super villains.
However, we are still a year or two away from getting to some of the classic issues of "The Avengers." The group starts off fighting Dr. Doom, weathers an attack by the army of Attuma, and Hawkeye falls for the Black Widow. Then there is another giant conspiracy with the Serpents, the attack of the Ultroids, and a visit from the Sub-Mariner. Of the three volumes of "The Essential Avengers" out to date, this is the weakest of the trio, without a really memorable story in the bunch. Again, part of the problem is that we are dealing with characters who were considered strong enough to only carry half a comic (e.g., Captain America with "Tales of Suspense"), if even that (e.g., Giant Man as the former Ant Man), and a couple of ex-members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Wanda and Pietro). It was really not until the Avengers created their own characters (i.e., the Vision) that it really made it up to the next level in the Marvel Universe.
Rating: 1
Summary: The quintessence of hackwork
Comment: It's pretty clear that Stan Lee had no real love for this series and was just grinding it out. None of the characters are sharply drawn, except Hercules. The villains are usually recycled, their villainous plots rarely interesting, and way the stories are finally resolved almost never make sense.
Most of the dialogue, in fact, is designed to try to explain the implausibility of the images we're looking at. Good God, how many times does some bad guy observe Captain America at work and cry out, "His speed is unbelievable" or "His shield is uncanny - it's like a part of him"? It's a pathetic attempt to justify the fact that Cap, who is just an acrobat and hand-to-hand fighter, is allowed to prevail over giant robots, or laser canons, or dozens of men with machine guns, or whatever happens to be that issue's menace. Cap was always to weak to be a member of this team, so Lee tried to make up for it by making the more powerful characters heap praise on him. It doesn't work and it's annoying.
Lee and Heck really should have tried to come up with foes who were more appropriate opponents for the team.
They never could decide what to do with Hank Pym either, so every few issues his powers keep changing. Every time they change, he delivers some wooden speech explaining exactly what he can and can't do. It's like reading the description of a character in a role playing game.
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Title: Stan Lee Presents the Essential Avengers, Vol. 1: Avengers #1-24 ("Marvel Essentials" Series) by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck ISBN: 0785107010 Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Essential Captain America by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Dick Ayers, John Romita, Jack Sparling ISBN: 0785107401 Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Essential Fantastic Four (Volume 3) by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby ISBN: 0785107827 Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Essential Iron Man by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Al Hartley, Larry Lieber ISBN: 078511002X Publisher: Marvel Books Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: The Essential Fantastic Four Volume 1 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby ISBN: 0785106669 Publisher: Diamond Comic Dist. Star Sys. Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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