Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thor! Ant Man! Hulk! Iron Man!, February 5, 2003
Thor! Ant Man! Hulk! Iron Man! Earth's Mightiest Super-Heroes! The cover to AVENGERS #1 screams. Marvel comics was promising a teaming up of four of its biggest heroes (leaving out Spider-Man and Dr Strange who worked best as loners and the FF who were already a team) and putting them all in one book to create the ultimate comicbook.Did it work? You bet! Spider-Man and Hulk were amazing and incredible characters. The Fantastic Four was the world's greatest comicbook. But the Marvel Universe began with the Mighty Avengers. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby took some of their new characters and put them together in one book. This is where you could really feel that these stories all happened in the same world and the characters were all tied together somehow. There are two prominent characters not mentioned, the Wasp and Rick Jones. The Wasp is the hopeful girlfriend of Henry Pym (who is both Ant Man and Giant Man). She is a relentless flirt and lone cheery voice in the ranks of the solemn Avengers. She didn't get much respect at first, but she slowly evolved into one of the most valuable members of the team. Rick Jones is the teen-age side-kick of Hulk and the leader of a teen group of short-wave radio enthusiasts (this was the sixties) the Teen Brigade. The fourth issue is a milestone in and of itself because it reintroduces one of the greatest golden age heroes back to comics-- Captain America, whom Kirby had created in the `40's with Joe Simon. Captain America lent an aura of legend to the group and would quickly become the heart and soul of the team. The fact that Iron Man and Thor and Giant Man were ultra strong and had an variety of powers at their disposal made them truly grand, but the fact that Cap with nothing but a shield and war-honed skills could always seem to outdo them made him seem even more wondrous than all the gods and monsters that filled the book. And they did indeed fill the book. In these ten issues we are transported beneath the sea to the realm of the Sub Mariner the Prince of Atlantis. We are taken under the Earth to meet the Lava Men, flown up to Asgard, home of the Norse gods-- and no less than three of them become enemies of the Avengers! We meet an alien from Limbo who can steal the body of anyone he chooses. We are introduced to an alien who can turn the Avengers to stone. Not one but two separate time lords assault the team. An old NAZI enemy of Cap's comes out of the past-- and an almost non-stop line-up of classic villains come after the team, one at a time, and then banded together. In addition to Captain America, there is also the first appearance of Wonderman (a character that would have to wait over ten years to be seen again). There are new villains like Baron Zemo, the Space Phantom, and Immortus who calls up from across time the legendary figures, Paul Bunyan, Attila The Hun, Goliath, Merlin and Hercules to take on the Mighty Assemblers only to be bested of course! But Stan and Jack mostly pulled villains that had already been used in their comics like Loki, The Enchantress, The Executioner, Kang The Conqueror, The Lava Men, Sub Mariner, Black Knight, The Melter, Radioactive Man and in a reversal one of their own members, the Hulk, becomes one of their greatest threats! These previously used villains added weight to the concept that the Avengers were independent heroes with a history of foes who would come from every corner of the Marvel Universe to match up against Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Here is the first, and only appearance of Iron Man's image projector that sends his transparent image all over New York. Captain America gets "sub-miniature transistors" in his shield that enables him to control it magnetically (something not used too often). Thor's hammer is revealed to control "cosmic magnetic waves"-- a trick I don't believe he ever used again. Evil Baron Zemo wields a "vibra gun" and the time traveling tyrant Kang lounges in a "transparent anti-gravity seat!" As is true of many of the classic Lee/Kirby comics more heroes, more vile villains and more fantastic places and concepts are introduced in ten issues than you would expect to find in years worth of comics!
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Earth's Mightiest Heroes---in the Mighty Marvel Manner!, August 1, 2000
As good as the early Fantastic Four issues were, the Avengers took the superteam concept to a whole new level. Here was a team formed for the noblest of goals, thrown together by the machinations of an evil immortal only to turn the tables and begin the legendary association which would have teenagers all over the world shouting "Avengers Assemble!" in their backyards. "Essential Avengers vol. 1" captures the first 24 issues of the classic series, scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by Jack Kirby and Don Heck. If the first appearances of Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, and the Masters of Evil aren't enough for you, pick this collection up for Avengers # 4, the return of Captain America. This alone is enough to mark a substantial return on your investment for this book. Highly recommended to all comics fans and X-Men fanatics who need a primer in how team books used to be written.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beginnings of the world's greatest heroes, May 5, 2001
The Avengers were initially an obvious recipe for success - take a number of characters already supporting their own comics and bring them together as a group, an idea as old as the Justice Society of America. So, in the debut issue, we have Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-man and the Wasp joining forces as an unexpected consequence of a plot by Loki against his half-brother, Thor.However, the ideas changed quickly as the Hulk left and teamed-up with the Sub-mariner to fight his former allies and was replaced by Captain America, a World War 2 hero frozen between then and the 60s. And then again, to suddenly have all the original members depart, leaving Cap with Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, three super-villains seeking to reform, as his teammates. The stories in this volume represent a fairly diverse bunch, showing both the best and worst aspects of Stan Lee's writing at the time. Interesting team dynamics, where the characters are not always each others' friends, villains with motives beyond the banal, references to events in other titles, secrets and subplots that aren't resolved in a single story all show the hallmarks of a writer seeking to develop a loyal following. At the same time, we have blatant sexism and racism, villains with banal motives and some very hokey dialogue. The art is OK, the early Jack Kirby issues not his best work, and I've never been fond of Don Heck's art. It seems a little odd to be reading these stories in black and white, although this obviously keeps the price down. If you want to see how one of the best super-hero team series started out, get this.
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