Customer Reviews

Essential Avengers, Vol. 2 (Marvel Essentials)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Reprinting Avengers 25-46 and King Size Special #1, "Essential Avengers vol. 2" is something of a mixed bag. Stan Lee hands over the reins to Roy Thomas at approximately the midway point in the collection, which is a slight improvement as Thomas injects some fresh blood into a project which clearly held Lee's interest only flaggingly at the end. Don Heck's art looks uniformly execrable throughout, so John Buscema coming on board for the last third or so is a very welcome change indeed.

The scripts themselves are uneven. While the initial bickering amongst the team is fairly interesting (if only to hear Captain America, a product of the 40s, exchanging barbs with Hawkeye in perfect 60s tough-guy patois), the team soon begins to emit affirmations of hero-worship to each other like a couple of natural-born bootlickers at a Promise Keepers rally ("You're the man!" "No, you're the man!" <hug>)

The initial promise of Goliath's being trapped at the freakish height of 10 feet tall is squandered within a few issues, Hercules joins the team in an apparent attempt to bring Stan Lee's lofty dialogue back, the Wasp is her usual irrelevant self, and Captain America, the born leader, fails miserably to control the team and needs Goliath to straighten it out.

The issues do build some momentum, and classic battles with the Super-Adaptoid and the Whizzer rekindle the old magic of the Avengers.

Even with all the aforementioned flaws, this collection of the Avengers still beats most of the stuff on the newsstand and in the comics shops today.

The second volume reprinting this comic series is a bit of a mixed bag - the stories are of a fairly variable quality, some great, some quite poor, and the overall impression is of something moving along with no real plan.

I guess what we have here is fundamental proof that Stan Lee, at the height of his powers, had his limits - while turning out great stories in Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, this title suffered. Stan even appeared to realise that as, part of the way through this volume, a new writer was brought in: Roy Thomas.

Roy has shown himself to be a great writer of this form, but his first few stories don't really show him at his best. I believe that this was amongst his first published work.

On the plus side, however, the characterisation improves vastly, with some of the cast becoming easily distinguishable by their dialogue alone, a vast improvement from the period where all the characters spoke the same.

Not a showcase of the greatest Avengers issues, but of a period of transition. Things were better before this, and also improve after.

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.

The Essential Avengers, Volume 2 is an apt but not quite equal followup to the first volume. If fractions could be allowed, I would give Volume 2 three-and-a-half stars.

There are some great issues in the mix, especially those where just as Hawkeye is trying to get his Russian girlfriend, the Black Widow, to be voted in as an official member of the superhero fighting team, she is working for Shield where a primary mission is to act as a double agent and give the impression that she is on the Communist side of the Cold War, thus pitting her at odds specifically with The Avengers and, in general, with the free world.

Among the best stories are indeed the ones that strongly center around the Black Widow. The rest of the volume, by and large, has recurring themes of trying to regain or maintain lost superpowers. For instance, for a few issues, Hank Pym is doomed to remain ten feet tall as a result of a freak accident in one of his encounters and thus cannot alternate between his Ant Man and Giant Man states without endangering his health. Also prevalent and quite problematic are the issues focusing upon Quicksilver, with his declining speed, and The Scarlet Witch, with her weakened spell-casting abilities; in these storylines, nothing substantial explains why they were losing their powers from the start or how, after retreating back to their homeland, they were able to fully recover them.

To their credit, the writers did try to pose challenges that would make the Avengers seem more human, that is, where they have to use more ingenuity to remain a team, especially with Thor and Iron Man having already exited the picture for personal reasons. I do think that they got a bit carried away, but I believe that the series of storylines was their way of making Captain America seem, to the mind's eye, like a more relative and relevant leader and member of the Avengers.

So far, this bound volume has the most verbage of any of the Essential volumes I have read. There are several frames per page and in quite a few of them are at least four dialogue or thought balloons. At best, this inclusion does try to get the reader to understand the thought processes and proposals of each hero and villain. At worst, however, are the syrupy statements, worse than the cornball, Scout's Honor phrases that Hawkeye accuses Captain America of overutilizing; long before you reach the last issue will you be sick of the "my darling" accolades between Janet van Dyne, aka The Wonderful Wasp, and Hank Pym, aka The Giant Man, Goliath, Ant Man, etc.

All in all, this is a good volume but one with quite a bit of filler material. And it will take you a while to get get through each issue.

This is a must have for Comic book fans everywhere. While it lacks some of the excitement of the first volume this book contains some great work by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, two of the most gifted writers of all time. Plus you get the first appearance of Goliath. Hawkeye becomes more likable as he stops being a thorn in Captain America's side, but he still plays his role as the team wise guy reall developing into the character he is today. These are the stories that put the Avengers on the map. They began to reclaim their title of Earth's Mightiest heroes, with the addition of Goliath and Hercules after the departures of Thor, Iron Man, and Giant-Man. So read this book and thrill to the pulse pounding excitement of the classic Avengers tales.

It's a great time to be an Avengers fan, isn't it? And these stories are amazing. They seem to have some haters, but all I can figure is they think 50 years ago we already had Millers and Moores, much less Bendis's and Loebs and Millars!

Not so! This is risque characterization and action that is a joy to behold. A lot of folks knock Stan and say Kirby was god. Maybe he was, but Stan delivers without Kirby. These issues alone should dispel any of the "Stan was a thief, Kirby did it all" creeps that are so abundant these days.

The action is mindblowing. And I mean it, true believers! There is so much more content in every issue than we have today in ANYTHING in print. You will blow through Walking Dead, New Avengers, GI Joe, whatever your bag is, in about 8 minutes today. These early Stan issues are packed with content.

The battles are just all hell breaks loose '60s action. Stan understood, unlike today in the post Wolverine/post Bat-God times we live in, that in a fight, EVERYTHING goes wrong. Every battle has the feel that anything can happen, anyone can win, anyone can lose, anyone could die. It's striking stuff.

Bad reviewers are Kirby-centric types that don't want to acknowledge the joy of reading late '60s comics when STAN LEE changed everything. Kirby was a genius. But that's no reason to ever knock Stan.

For people that don't want to see how Cap and Hawkeye become bros for life and see these two archetypes learn who they are in a new, scary world, it might not be for you. But I don't cherry pick my stories. I read them. Stan delivers. And guess what? So does Don Heck.

This volume collects issues #26-46 (plus King-Sized Annual #1) of Marvel Comics' Avengers series that were originally published between February 1966 and November 1967. Stan Lee and Don Heck continue their writer/artist pairing through issue #34. Lee moves to editor and Roy Thomas becomes the writer for #35. John Buscema starts his long run of Avengers penciling in #41-44 and #46.
This version of the team features Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Giant-Man returns as Goliath in #28 and the Wasp rejoins the masthead in #32. Hercules first appears with the team in issue #38 and becomes a regular. The superspy Black Widow emerges in this run. Toward the end Cap disappears for several issues but reappears in #42. The original lineup returns for the underwhelming annual.
Some topics echo recent headlines (the right of a US enemy to speak at the UN, suicide bombers, flooding of tidal cities) while some references are charmingly dated (a villain's laser beam offers him flight powers and is the 'deadliest weapon imaginable!'). On a side note, current US senator Robert Byrd appears in #33.
I prefer the Avengers DVD-ROM for its complete collection of the entire Avengers run in full color PDFs. However, the Marvel Essentials series offers convenient, inexpensive access to these 40-year old Avengers comics without needing a computer. At over 500 pages this is a tremendous value and offers hours of reading.

The avengers hold a certain nostalgic enjoyment for me. The issues gathered in this volume present a terrific collection of stories circa the 1960's. The plots are simplistic and the costumes gaudy, but that is just part of the charm- and who can forget such great characters, like Goliath (formerly Giant-man), Hercules, and Captain America? However, the printing leaves a lot to be desired: It is as times blurry and uneven, and it is all in black and white, in the style you would find in a weekday newspaper comic strip. Nevertheless, you get a compilation of several issues for a low price, which makes it worth buying.

First attempt at shipping, item was lost. Unsure the problem, but seller made it all good re-shipping an excellent condition item as soon as possible.

These stories are genuine classics based on the fact that they are products of the 60s Marvel Explosion but are definitely not to be deemed essential. Starting with a very weak team, the Avengers are joined by Giant Man and the Wasp-the also-rans of the original team. The duo adds nothing but more angst to an already dysfunctional team. The villains are lame-we get the old missing scientist captured by aliens, the Living Laser, the Ultroids and the Keeper of the Flame. The only really good story from the period is the Sons of the Serpent story- a decent battle with white supremacists. Once Hercules comes on board after the obligatory hero vs hero battle ( Herc is brainwashed by the Enchantress) things pick up a little, but at this point GiantMan/ Goliath becomes redundant. In the tradition of early Marvel Annuals, we get the king-size special featuring the Mandarin commanding a host of villains which necessitates calling in Iron Man and Thor since the team can't seem to handle the "Big Jobs" with the then current roster. THe best stories of the bunch are the Red Guardian stories, wherein the Russians commission a Communist version of Cap. As a whole, the book is filler before the Avengers hit another highpoint with what should be in vol. 3. -the arrival of the Vision, Ultron, the Grim Reaper and several other touchstone stories. This volume, though, lacks the early Marvel pizzazz.