Marvel Universe

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Back with more from the 'A' box. Entirely by coincidence, I've made my way towards the end of the box and thus am reading a bunch of Avengers books from the 70s/early 80s. So I would've read these regardless of the Greatest Comic Book Movie Evah coming out.

149. The Avengers are fighting the Brand Corporation(remember them?). Patsy Walker's husband Buzz is a toadie for them. People forget that Patsy and Buzz used to be like Archie and Betty back in the 50s. Then she became Hellcat and he became a SuperVillain.
153. Ha! People also tend to forget that Wanda Maximoff used to go by Wanda Frank, because she used to be Golden Age hero, The Whizzer's daughter. The Magneto stuff got retconned in years later.
156. Dr. Doom teams up with the Avengers to save Atlantis from being taken over by Attuma and Tyrak. Of course, Doom pulls a double cross.
158. WonderMan and Vision fight for the first few pages over Wanda(for claiming to be emotionless, Vision gets hella jealous easily). Graviton shows up for the second half of the book. His first appearance I believe.
I love how villains first order of business is always to pick out a flashy costume."Now that I have these foofy tights on, I CAN TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Mwa hah hah!!"
168. In one of Gyrich's first appearances, he breaks into Avengers Mansion and starts bossing everyone around. Also, in these earlier books everybody yells at everybody else. Cap and Iron Man in particular are in each others faces a lot. Nobody knew Stark was IM at this point. The Two Gun Kid was in the Avengers having been pulled forward through time. Also, the Guardians of the Galaxy are in the book, looking for Korvac. So the book was pretty crowded at this point.
169. Fill in issue I mentioned in the EiC topic, featuring the 'Eternity Man'. Who, I'm assuming is still under wraps in some crate somewhere. Classy, Avengers.
170. Jocasta returns to the Avengers, then like all Ultron made Avengers, she goes crazy and attacks the team.
175. Korvac's origin(damn, the Korvac Saga lasted a while). Also, the splash page 18 Avengers on it. That's a lot of damn characters to juggle in a team book.
178. Fill in issue by Steve Gerber and Carmine Infantino. Beast is visited by some strange death avatar dude and fights some mafia guys. The best part is Beast, whilst wearing a plaid jacket over a white turtleneck, criticizes a guy wearing a classic tuxedo for having an "outmoded wardrobe". I had to stop reading and laugh for five minutes.
192. A worker falls into a vat of liquid steel and instead of incinerating instantly, he becomes Inferno and threatens to burn all of Pittsburgh. Apparently he survived because he had a tiny flake of Uru that had chipped off Mjolnir in a fight in an issue of Thor a decade earlier and had made it into a keychain. This is what allowed him to survive and turn into a walking molten steel creature.
197. Beast and WonderMan go on a double date. Red Ronin shows up! And Carol Danvers finds out she's pregnant. I'm not positive, but I think her baby ends up being its own father thanks to time travel.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

204/205. The Yellow Claw shows up. This guy is so un-PC he makes the Madarin look like a UN poster child. I think they've only used him like 4 times since the 50s and this was one of them.
206. The Avengers fight Pyron the Thermal Man. An arsonist gets doublecrossed and blows up in a chemical plant he was supposed to burn down. The "chemicals" mixed with the fire and made him a villain. I love how nondescript 'chemicals' account for so many heroes and villains powers.
207. A Shadowlord and villain called the Berserker have been waging a secret war on Earth for millennia. Apparently Mt. Vesuvius was the Shadowlord burying the Beserker so he wouldn't take over the world. Now he's been unearthed by archeologists. I say this is a good candidate to bring back as a major villain.
209. Holy crap! Remember Beast's girlfriend, Vera? I totally forgot about her. Anyway, a Skrull puts her in a poison coma and forces the Avengers to time travel and find the Ressurection Stone in 1348 AD during the bubonic plague. Hmmm. I wonder whatever happened to Vera.
211. A classic 'changing of the guard' issue. Cap says he's gonna reduce the team to six members. Moon dragon shows up and psychically manipulates a bunch of heroes to show up for membership. Moon Knight fights Iceman, which you don't often see in an Avengers comic. The team ends up being Cap, IM, Thor, Yellowjacket, Wasp, and Tigra joins for the first time because "she had nothing better to do". Yes, Tigra is an Avenger solely because "Eh. Sure. Why Not."

[anarky]

So Cyclops and Colossus are Phoenixes (Phoenices? Phoenii?) now?

Wow.

Up next: Frank Castle gets bitten by a radioactive spider and retreats to the mystical land of Kun'lun to recuperate. Hilarity ensues. Deadly hilarity.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Even better, Colossus is both Juggernaut AND Pheonix right now. I assume he'll become a Herald of Galactus soon. And then get ahold of the Infinity Gauntlet.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

And I'm back with another batch of Avengers books, these from 1982-83.

226. Umm. Some confusing time travel and/or alternate mystical mumbo jumbo issue with the Black Knight.
227. Captain Marvel(Monica Rambeau) joins the team as an "Avenger Trainee". Hank Pym's trial begins and they recap his entire story.
228. Egghead breaks Pym out during his trial to make him look like a criminal.
230. Hawkeye kills Egghead.
231. PlantMan kidnaps Nick Fury and President Reagan(Awesome!) the Avengers fight PlantMan's giant Plant creature, who looks exactly like SwampThing.
232. Starfox joins the team.
233. A crossover with the FF against Annihilus. Vision goes into a 'coma' which eventually leads to him taking over all of America's Missiles. That happens several dozen issues later, but it started here. Also, all of these issue take place in the span of like two days. Seriously, back then a years worth of Avengers books happened in a week in Marvel time.
236-237. Spider-Man applies for membership! Everybody goes to Project Pegasus to fight Lava Men, but it's all a big misunderstanding.
238. Vision hooks up to ISAAC, the Titans supercomputer.
239. The Avengers go on David Letterman!

[anarky]

Even better, Colossus is both Juggernaut AND Pheonix right now. I assume he'll become a Herald of Galactus soon. And then get ahold of the Infinity Gauntlet.

That would actually be funny. Colossus should next be possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance. And then find a Darkhawk amulet and become the new host for Sleepwalker. Of course, that won't be the only green guy he turns into when he's blasted by gamma radiation just prior to finding a new costume that turns out to be a symbiote. Then he'll become a Herald and take the Infinity Gauntlet from... Thanos? Warlock? Who has it now?

I'm actually being serious here. As f'ed up as the MU has become, it would be hysterically funny if they kept pushing this to see how far they can get away with.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

The Infinity gems were in possession of the Illuminati. Then the Hood stole them and became super powerful. Then the Avengers beat him and took them back. I'm assuming they are now back in the hands of the Illuminati once more. Don't know if any writer has used them since.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

More Avengers Annuals, oneshots and assorted Miniseries.

Annual 1998. The Avengers team up with Squadron Supreme to fight some 9 ft tall billionaire dillhole named Imus Champion.

Annual 1999. A flashback tale in the immediate aftermath of Onslaught. After they think most of the Big Guns are dead, Black Widow disbands the Avengers and shutters the mansion. Jarvis and the rest of the support staff are let go, including Fabian Stankowicz. Who then takes all the leftover Sentinel bodies and turns them into a robot Avengers force. When the real Avengers turn up several months later they are attacked by these Protector Droids made to look like Cap, AntMan, Thor, etc. Pretty good yarn by Francis Moore and Manco.

Annual 2000. Hellcat returns from the dead. Her friend Hedy Wolfe starts an amusement park based on their 1950s comic adventures (Remember Hellcat AKA Patsy Walker was like Archie back in the 50s). Then the Secret Empire and Salem's Seven show up. It gets pretty crazy. The best part of this comic is the Avengers drawn by Norm Breyfogle! There is nothing more awesome than a Breyfogle Captain America in action. Hunt this issue down in the quarter bins.

Annual 2001. Hank Pym is separated into multiple versions of himself (AntMan, Yellowjacket, Doc Pym, etc) and has to reconcile his different personalities to survive. Also a back up tale explains why Iron Man isn't in jail for murdering several people pre-Onslaught. They blamed it on Kang. Copout, but whatev.

Avengers 0. A Wizard giveaway issue that actually precedes issue 19 and the Ultron storyline from issues 19-22 of the 1998 series.

Avengers 1 Roughcut. A reprint of the 1998 issue that uses ONLY George Perez' original pencil work. No inks, no colors, no word balloons. You kinda take for granted how great this guy's work is, but this is breathtaking. I'm glad I pulled this out of the quarter boxes.

Avengers Timeslip. Sort of an Elseworlds style oneshot. Didn't suck, but nothing special.

Avengers/Invaders 5,6, 10-12. I read the first four issues back in 2008, and 7-9 a couple years ago, so I finally finished this mega series completely out of order.

New Avengers: Reunion 1-4. A mini takes place post-Secret Invasion that has Hawkeye and Mockingbird reconnecting/reconciling after she's "back from the dead". She starts a World Counterterrorism Agency(WCA. Get it? A riff on West Coast Avengers) and leads into their ongoing Hawkeye/Mockingbird ongoing. Which ongoed(onwent?) for only like 6 issues.

Avengers Initiative: Reptil oneshot. Introduced the SuperHeroSquad character into the proper Marvelverse. He's recruited by the Initiative and fights Stegron at a archeology dig in South Dakota.

Avengers: Kree/Skrull war. This was a 2 issue reprint book from 1983 that reprinted Avengers 93-97(and parts of 89-92) from 1971. For all the hoopla attached to the infamous Kree-Skrull war later on in Avengers Mythology, actually reading it was a bit of a shock. it's all over the place, narratively. There are Skrulls posing as Avengers and disbanding the team, Skrulls posing as the FF, Skrulls attacking the Inhumans, Kree kidnapping Capt Marvel, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch. The actual "war" only happened in the last issue, and that gets short circuited by Rick Jones who gets radical mind powers from the Supreme Intelligence and them is forced to combine with Capt Marvel to survive. I guess I always imagined it as a more straightforward military campaign story like Operatation Galactic Storm or then like. But the story was much more slapdash. Still entertaining in that early Marvel kind of way though.

And Avengers:Origin. A five issue mini from 2010 by Joe Casey and Phil Noto that takes the first 12 cent issue of Avengers and blows it up into a $20 story. For fun, I found a reprint of Avengers 1(Avengers Classics 1 from 2007) and read it alongside the series to see how they expanded Stan and Jacks original 22 page story into a 100+ page mini. It's funny how in BOTH the original and the updated mini, the Hulk really just wants to be left alone, and yet Iron Man, AntMan, and Wasp actively harangue the poor guy repeatedly, causing lots of devastation in their wake. Which they then keep attributing to the Hulk. What a bunch of assholes! THAT'S the legacy of the Avengers origin in the comics! Awesome.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

More Avengers readin'!

Earth's Mightiest Heroes. An 8 issue mini by Joe Casey and Scott Kolins. Takes place between the scenes immediately following Issue 1 and up to issue 16 when Cap, Hawkeye, Pietro, and Wanda become the second lineup. Mostly follows Iron Man dealing with the bureaucracy of getting Priority Status from the Pentagon, Cap dealing with being thawed out and eventually stepping up to be the leader, and Hawkeye, Pietro, and Wanda making their ways from "villains" to Avengers. And because it was dealing with those early issues, I simultaneously read--

Avengers Classics 2-12. Which are reprints of the first 12 issues. I was reading to compare the "original" events with the re-conceived version in the EMH series. Ironically, the Avengers only dealt with ONE outside threat in the first 12 issues(Kang shows up and the Army calls the Avengers in). The rest of the time they're fighting each other or getting attacked by some Super Villains nefarious plan to destroy them. Which is humorous considering the sliding timescale thing they were together for only a few weeks at that point.

Avengers Two. A three issue mini from 2001 starring Wonder Man and Beast. For some reason Busiek and Roger Stern felt compelled to tie up all the loose ends from WonderMan's 90s ongoing series. So this is basically WM 30-32 guest starring Beast. Don't get me wrong, it's entertaining enough, it's just strange what Editors okay as far as what gets published. The first issue was almost entirely flashback explaining Simon's convoluted history. Art was by Bagley.

Avengers:Celestial Quest. 8 issues by Englehart. The whole Mantis/Swordsman epic has been one of my least favorite of the ongoing subplots. But this 2002 series serves to wrap up a story that started back in the late 70s or early 80s. Mantis and the Plant dude impersonating Swordsman finally had a human/plant child who is the 'savior' of the universe. But now he's a teenage brat living on the plant planet and Thanos wants him dead so the Avengers have to rescue him. And Mantis hooks up with Vision(that apparently didn't go anywhere. First I'd heard of it). Anyway, it brings closure to the Mantis story. Not that anyone was clamoring for it.

Avengers:Ultron Unleashed. Oneshot. Reprints Avengers 57,58(Vision's 1st App and joins the team) and 170,171(Jocasta turns on Ultron and joins the team)

Avengers:Ultron Imperative. Oneshot. This seemed to be a loose end story Busiek had planned in the regular '98 book but his Kang story got way out of hand(seriously, it lasted like 20 issues) so this got shuffled off into its own oversized issue. Or perhaps it was going to be the 2002 Annual and then got renamed as a oneshot. At any rate, Alkhema(Ultrons 2nd attempt at a Wife) is building a robot utopia under the Sahara. Ultron and the Avengers show up and everything gets ruined.

Tails of the Pet Avengers. Oneshot that came out between the first and second minis. Humorous.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Okay, the last of the Avenger readin' for now. Promise. I'm all caught up. What I haven't read, I haven't bought yet.

Avengers:Domination Factor. I realized as I was reading this, there's an FF mini also, and the two minis are intertwined, so I only got half the story. But anyway, this Asgardian Queen from the past tried to take over Asgard and Failed, so Odin banished her to Earth where she became a very powerful head of a corporation and is now trying to get back into Asgard by eating a Golden Apple. Mediocre Ordway writing.

Avengers:Infinity. 4 issue mini from 2001. These omni dimensional beings that make Galactus look like an ant are trying to steal the Milky Way and line it up with a bunch of other galaxies all neat and orderly like. Not realizing that each Galaxy is teeming with umpteen-illion different unique lifeforms. Quasar recruits a team of Cosmic Avengers to stop them.

New Avengers: Luke Cage. 2010 mini that was probably a testing ground for a new Cage ongoing that didnt happen. Luke goes to Philidphia and roughs up some drug dealers. Enjoyable.

Avengers oneshot. This was a SugarBabies/Charleston Chew promo book from 1993. The Avengers go to Wakanda and fight Diablo. It was during that horrid era where everybody was wearing flight jackets. Skippable.

A Wizard Spec Ed from 2000 that has lots of fun facts about the Avengers up to that point, and articles about Busiek and Perez' ongoing series, the Avengers cartoon, etc.

Avengers Universe 3. Jumbo sized reprint series that only lasted 3 issues(X-Men and Spidey's Universe books made it into the teens).

The AAFES Military freebie issues 3-11(I already had 1 and I'm missing issue 2). They started out strong with writers like Bendis and Kirkman contributing, then got steadily more slapdash.
Issue 4 was the best/most absurd. The only comic where Captain America, Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Silver Surfer team up, I'll bet.
Issue 9 was the lamest. On the way to a battle, Cap gives Thor the history of the Military PX Exchange stores. Yawn.

[anarky]

Not technically MU, but I don't want to start a new thread. Newsarama had a preview of one of Marvel's John Carter adaptations (Gods of Mars 4 of 5). It looked fucking rancidly awful.

[anarky]

Marvel looks to be chasing DC. Though it appears it's just another cosmetic shake-up and not a full reboot.

[Diabolical]

Because there haven't been any problems with The New 52...


http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2aobRw/ww ... lar-titles

[anarky]

Beat you to it by 42 minutes, honkey.

Only I assumed anyone visiting this forum would've seen that story somewhere else first and come here to bitch.

[Diabolical]

I was responding to you post, not trying to be first.