Customer Reviews

Essential Avengers, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Essential Avengers #1 collects the first 24 issues of The Avengers, Earth's Mightiest heroes. The early Avengers issues were really a struggle to find their way in the Silver Age. With the Hulk as an original member (for at least a couple of issues) we certainly had a rather dysfunctional team. That would change when #4 reintroduced Captain America to the world who has been found frozen solid yet kept young and alive by the Super Soldier serum. Still changes abounded in these early issues as And-Man would become Giant-Man instead perhaps in a move to replace the power void left by the Hulk's departure, although power certainly was in no short supply with Thor and Iron man around. Issue #9 would introduce Baron Zemo's creation Wonder Man which in my mind has always been highly overrated as being a Silver Age key issue.

The early villains were a mixed bag of forgettable types like The Phantom and The Lava Men. Still some classic Avenger's villains came out of the period. The Masters of Evil including Baron Zemo, Black Knight, Enchantress, Executioner, The Melter and Radioactive Man became one of the Avengers most frequent early foes appearing in issues #6-7, 9-10, and 15-16 during this run and numerous times since with different line-ups over the years. One of the Avengers greatest and most enduring foes Kang the Conqueror made his first of many appearances in issue #8 (not #23 as the reviewer below mentions). Big changes took place with Avengers #16 as all of the members of the team would leave except for Captain America to be replaced by the brother/sister mutant duo of The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as well as Hawkeye. This has always struck me as one of the more confusing moves in Marvel history. Thor had his own title, Iron Man and Giant Man shared titles in Tales of Suspense/Tales to Astonish respectively. But of this new team only Cap was co-starring in his own title (Tales of Suspense). Thus it's rather curious as to why Marvel would team Cap with three rather unknown characters who had formerly been villains. Not to mention the fact that this was hands down the weakest lineup in the team's forty plus year history...

The Swordsman would join the team in #19 but was in reality an underling of the Mandarin's sent to infiltrate the team. Issues 21 & 22 would feature the first appearance of the pre-Luke Cage Powerman and Kang would return for issues 23 & 24. For my money, Avengers #24 had got to be about the most common silver Age issue in history. Jack Kirby provides the art for the first 8 issues of the series and then Don Heck would take over, or as I liked to call him, Don Hack. Heck was one of those old-time artists who had kicked around the industry for years working for Harvey, Quality, and Atlas before Stan Lee brought him back to the new Marvel comics. Heck wasn't horrible but compared to the dynamic work of other silver age artists like Kirby, Ditko, Romita, and Buscema, his work paled in comparison.

I've been an Avengers fan forever but for me the title would really begin taking off and become the best comic around once it got to around issue #50. The Roy Thomas/John Buscema issues are some of my all-time favorites. Still, for any Avengers fan you have to start at the beginning and Essential Avengers #1 does have some good reading in it.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

The Essential Avengers, Volume I is a noteworthy classic consisting of many great works from the early to mid-1960's. Despite their flaws, the reprinted comics in this bound volume contain several origins and cornerstones in helping establish the Lee and Kirby brainchild known as the Marvel Universe.

Had I not read the very early Fantastic Four comics, I would have probably issued a resounding five stars. However, I saw slightly better teamwork with Mr. Fantastic and gang and sensed more creative energy in the science fiction realm with this other title. Nevertheless, the revival of Steve Rogers thus Captain America is a priceless story that only this Essential volume contains.

Though the early days of The Avengers needed a little fine-tuning, that deficiency, in itself, was a strength. With the resurgence of Captain America, a superhero from a day and age that was twenty years before the names Giant Man, The Wasp and Iron Man surfaced, the very first Avengers titles presented recurring clashes between the ideas and ideals of younger and older generations and showed how the initially opposing forces were ultimately united to bring about change for the underlying yet all-encompassing goal of a safer and better world.

From the first issue to the last, it is apparent that The Avengers, despite their shortcomings in establishing a stable team at the start, thanks in large part to the Hulk, had the common goals that made their formation very sensible. Though they did not have a shared fate among them a la The Fantastic Four, they were professional enough to look past their differences and use their skills and powers to complement one another.

All in all, where the Fantastic Four was perhaps the best homogeneous grouping in the Marvel Universe, The Avengers was arguably the best in the heterogeneous domain. Not even the Defenders, with their super powers and talent, could quite live up to the same billing.

This volume collects the first 25 issues of Marvel Comics' Avengers series that were originally published between September 1963 and January 1966. Stan Lee is the credited writer on all 25 issues. Jack Kirby is credited with the artwork for the first eight issues with the rest mostly featuring pencils by Don Heck and inks by Dick Ayers.
The first issue shows the founding Avengers: Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Ant-Man and The Wasp. By issue #2 the Hulk leaves the group and Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man. Captain America reappears in #4. A typical plot features the team battling a villian such as Kang The Conqueror, Mole Man or Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil. The first plots are contained within one issue but by #19 stories continue over two-plus issues.
The original Avengers also appeared in separate books outside this series. As a result, their storylines offered more potential conflicts, sometimes with the characters seemingly in two separate places simultaneously. To solve this, Lee had each original member take a leave of absence and Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joined the Cap-led team in #16.
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 first couple of years were a mixed bag for the Avengers, which took longer than some of Marvel's early series to have truly classic stories. The exception to this is, of course, Avenger #4 (introduction of Captain America), and, to a lesser extent Avengers #9 (introduction and death of Wonder Man) and #16 (the new line-up with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Hawkeye led by Captain America). It is the wonderful artwork in the first number of issues by Jack Kirby that makes this collection so enjoyable, before the lesser work of Don Heck starts bringing the standard down. This is not Stan Lee's best work but that is partly due to the nature of the original Avengers, whose main stories and plot developments were left to their own series, and his over-reliance on inter-team squabbling for the new team, which become particularly annoying when seen in a collection of this sort. The introduction of a new team was a brilliant idea that would only be properly capitalized on in later years by different writers. It is wonderful to see the team as it first was before the chaos that it since become. A wonderful look back.

The Avengers have always been one of my favorite comics to read, through good creators and bad. I really enjoyed reading all the early adventures, especially after the original crew left and Captain America took charge. If Cap isn't in an Avengers comic, it's not really the Avengers! This is a series that just gets better and better in its early years.

I can't give this book lower than two stars because of the affordable price and historic significance of these issues. That being said, I can't honestly say I enjoyed much of anything about this collection. The characterization seems off on just about every hero through the entire book. I think Stan Lee was on auto pilot on this team book and more effort was going into the solo titles running at the same time. The best story is probably the last, a battle with Kang in the far future. I recommend this only for the Silver Age Marvel Comics completest.

Great book. Great Price. But I would pay more if you printed them on color newsprint. I like the cheapness of black and white but I can't afford the color Masterworks. Please print these on color newsprint in the future. I'm sure you'd sell way more printing them in color. People love these comics and want to share them with their kids. Pick up this book if you have any interest in classic comics. The art and writing is fantastic... but can't you print them in color... it can be color newsprint... I'd pay more and buy way more.

I honestly don't get the appeal of these books. Why bother making (or reading) black & white reprints of classic four-color comics...? I mean, yeah, the stories are still great and the original comics are hard to find, but a huge part of what made these comics great was the eye-popping artwork, including the bright primary colors: reading them in dull B&W is just plain wrong. Sure, the printing costs are lower, so you can get more pages for your money, but it's more pages of boring, not more pages of fun. It's really a travesty.

On the other hand, it recently occurred to me that these could be used as coloring books... Maybe you could buy a box of crayons to go along with all the artwork that the publishers ruined in this format. (Axton)