Customer Reviews

Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume 4

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The Avengers were my favorite Marvel characters when these issues were published. I was never crazy about the lineup introduced in #16, when Marvel decided to delete Thor and Iron Man, along with Giant-Man and the Wasp, from the team, in favor of a quartet helmed by Captain America, including Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch.

With the re-introduction of Giant-Man (as Goliath) and the Wasp, in #28, the team had enough punch to carry the storylines, and in this volume (#31-40) we have some of the best, particularly the Sons of the Serpent, the introduction of Hercules as a team member, and a memorable encounter with Namor the Sub-Mariner.

Don Heck will not be remembered at the same level as Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, or Steve Ditko. Like several Marvel artists of the time, he reliably delivered workmanlike art on time, and the quality of his work depends a great deal on who does the inking. In this volume, Don is at his best, and while John Buscema, who succeeded Don as the Avengers artist, did more richly detailed and action-oriented work, there are some striking images in these panels that have stayed with me for many years. (I was about twelve or thirteen when I read them.)

This was one of the strongest periods in Avengers history, and things get even better in the next volume, largely due to John Buscema's taking over as penciler. Highly recommended for Avengers fans.

"Marvel Masterworks Avengers, Volume 4" starts off with an line-up consisting of Captain America, Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Goliath, with the Wasp coming back into the fold over the course of issues #31-40, which are the ones collected here. As included is "Avengers King-Size Special" #1 and a selection from "Tales to Astonish" #27 featuring Ant-Man. When last we left our heroes, Goliath had just learned that he was stuck at being 10 feet tall, unable to ever reduced to his normal size, and the Avengers were still facing the threat of the Black Widow, who had teamed up with Power Man and the Swordsman to take on the super group. In search of a cure, Goliath ends up in the clutches of the Keeper (#31-32), and has to be rescued. Irony abounds as he is told the only man who can help him is the most brilliant bio-chemist in his field, a man named Henry Pym (Since Golaith IS Henry Pym, this is not good news).

In the rest of these issues the Avengers fight the Supreme Serpent and his minions (#32-33), the Living Laser (#34-35), and the Ultroid hordes of Ixar the Invincible (#36-37). Hercules shows up in issue #38 to help take up the Mad Thinker's Triumvirate of Terror (#39) and then the Sub-Mariner (#40). Hercules becomes a de facto member of the Avengers, although he does not make it onto the lineup featured in the upper left corner of the cover for a while. Once Hercules pops up things get a bit more interesting, because he ends up being a different sort of malcontent than the group already has with Hawkeye and Pietro. Besides those two are both distracted. Hawkeye has fallen for the Black Widow and wants her to fight on his side instead and Pietro has to deal with Wanda wanting to leave the Avengers because she is having trouble controlling her problems (that is right, True Believers, this is massive foreshadowing of the current House of M storylines in the Marvel universe).

"The Avengers" is still just an average Marvel comic book from the 1960s at this point. Introducing Hercules into the mix starts to move it in the right direction and having the Sub-Mariner show up ends this one on an upswing, so I end up rounding up on it overall. Stan Lee does the writing through issue #34, with Roy Thomas taking over as the scripter on issue #35. Don Heck is the artist for the comic book at this point, with Frank Giacoia inking issue #31, Heck inking his own pencils for #32-37, and George Bell inking #38-40. Once Thomas brings in the Vision and John Buscema takes over as the book's artist we get to what would definitely qualify as the first golden period of "The Avengers." But we are not there yet. Still, if you are fans of Marvel's answer to the Justice League of America you want to have a sense of completeness to your Marvel Masterworks collection.