The team's 66th issue is a wonderful way to kick off the run, with John Buscema's cover art and Iron Man's swoop nicely matching the curve in the logo. It has the corner characters designed by Gene Colan who just finished his run, and interior art by Barry Windsor Smith with a story by Roy Thomas. In 1985, the final issue shown also has a cover by John Buscema, this time with Tom Palmer instead of Sam Grainger inking, so we make a full circle on the art even though Roger Stern would be the writer by that time. Note the appearance of Spidey in his black garb; somehow that seems appropriate for the end of an era. In between there is quite a bit to take in - take a look.
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| Avengers #66; On Sale May 1969 for 15 cents |
Avengers on sale May 1970, 1971 and 1972.
Avengers on sale May 1973, 1974, and 1975.
Avengers on sale 1976, 1977, and 1978.
Avengers on sale may 1979, 1980, and 1981.
Avengers on sale May 1982, 1983, and 1984.
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| Avengers #258; on sale May 1985 for 65 cents. |
Next time around we will tackle a solo character with a storied career! Cheers and have a great long weekend!
14 comments:
It's curious how the Avengers logo on the first cover (#66) didn't last for long and the original logo came back again. That briefly-used logo emerged again on the UK Marvel comic 'The Avengers & The Savage Sword Of Conan' from Autumn 1975 to July 1976.
I LOVE how Vizh was the corner-logo mainstay for sooooo many years, I do. He and Hawkeye have always BEEN the Avengers, to me.
Pretty serious decline in the early 80's, though. The Red Ronin story was better than remembered upon a re-read. Weathermen was, I believe, a filler issue (a problem). Then we get into the Hank Pym debacle (which isn't a bad read, but the art is so inconsistent). And then. . . the long Al Milgrom tenure, which was sooooo tough to stick through. Hoo-boy. The return of even a half-inspired (quarter-inspired?) John Buscema at that point was such a salvation for a weary fan. . .
HB
BTW, the cover of #66-- which is a memorable favorite-- is a perfect example of the visual dynamic completely camouflaging the absurdity of what's being depicted.
'Cause Friends, WHERE on earth is the rest of Goliath, here? In fact, what the heck is the architecture of the mansion in this particular image?? Does one whole side of the ridiculously open "grand ballroom" simply drop right off into a sub-basement?? No railing? No wall? One suspects that Mr Buscema had a giggle or two in putting this one over-- heh--
HB
From about 190 to 230-something was my era of Avengers (though I had some back issues). I like the classic Avengers and warmed to the kooky quartet, but near the end of my time reading comics was the bomber jacket period (maybe it was just after, I saw them on the newsstand and felt okay about not getting comics anymore).
I do love 222 because She-Hulk is one my all-time favorite Avengers, though I liked her even better as a member of FF. For those of you better informed than I am. . . did the Avengers ever have a woman character with hulk-like super-strength before She-Hulk?
Also, when did Black Panther join (and leave) the first time?
Quite a range of logos during this period. The one with the large 'arrow A' will always be the one I identify with. And cool as the Vision figure in the corner was, I always rather liked the heads. Byrne was great with those.
HB- your observation about the cover architecture on #66 made me look again. Great point! Maybe Goliath is standing in a sinkhole.
Dr. O- can't think of another super strong female Avenger before "Shulkie", but you brought to mind another question. The Squadron Supreme/Sinister was, of course, intended as a stand in for the Justice League. Most JLA members had analogues, but did they ever have a Wonder Woman analog? Anyone?
The Squadron had Power Princess!
I really disliked the last logo but I didn't mind the first one.
Avengers fans should consider yourself lucky with your run of artists! (My chronology may be fuzzy here...) I just remember that after losing Colan on Daredevil and Romita on Spidey and Cap, I found solace in Buckler's issue of Avengers 102 (and others). It was a welcome relief. (I couldn't even find joy in Adam's work like issue 93 b/c of the fouled up comic distribution system.)
Well, not sure how meaningful that was but Don, Gil, Sal weren't doing it for me (not saying they were bad, but I preferred others) and Buckler was a reprieve! (RIP Rich B.)
OK, I'm probably a bit off topic so I'll stop there.
Cheers.
My first Avengers issue was 139. So May of 1975. From perusing Mike's Amazing Newstand, that also was the time my comics buying really took off. My comic book buying went from Spider-Man, which started in 1973, to now include Fantastic Four, Thor and as of this month, The Avengers.
From going on memory, She-Hulk was the first super strong female to join the group.
Speaking of members, the Black Panther joined in issue 52. Capt America sent him as his replacement. At the time, the group was Jan, Hank, Clint, Wanda and Pietro, though Wanda and Pietro were on their way out. For the next couple of issues, the group was T'Challa, Hank, Jan and Clint.
What's ironic, by the end of the Bronze Age, 1985, the only books I was still buying was The Avengers and Fantastic Four.
Now to try to figure out why my comic book buying expanded...
(Ooohoooh yeah
You think you're on top of the world
But you know it's really over
Runnin' round with diamond rings
And coke spoons that are overflowin'
Rock and roll is dead
But all the money in the world
Can't buy you from the place you're going to
Ooohoooh yeah
Rock and roll is dead
You can't even sing or play an instrument
So you just scream instead
Oh yeah
You're living for an image
So you got five hundred women in your bed
Oh yeah
Rock and roll is dead
But it's real hard to be yourself
When you're living with those demons in your head
Ooohoooh yeah
Rock and roll is dead
Rock and roll is dead).
PS: My robot calendar is saying: Time To GOOOO!!!!
Some pretty cool covers in this bunch. I like the Man-Ape cover, the Klaw one is pretty cool, and the one with Collector is a classic. I like the Byrne cover on #186, though I remember the story being kind of blah. Like many here I liked Shulkie as a member and that cover on #222 vs the Masters of Evil is great. I love the Firelord issue too, which crossed over with that issue of Amazing where Spidey beat the crap out of Firelord.
Dr. Osvaldo: I can't think of another "muscle-woman" member of the Avengers either (though I've often thought Thundra would've been an interesting addition); I suppose Ms. Marvel was pretty strong, but she was never portrayed the same way as Shulkie, plus her tenure didn't last long and ended rather terribly.
As for Black Panther, Prowler mentioned that he joined in #52; as far as I can tell, he was a fairly regular member until about #119. There's a chart here that shows membership issue by issue.
Wow. That chart is amazing. A little hard to read, but amazing. Thanks for the resource!
And yeah, forgot Ms. Marvel is super strong, too - though my guess is she scales somewhere above Spider-Woman, but below She-Hulk.
My personal Avengers Era was from around 1976-1980. That was when I was most into the book. After 1980 I became pretty much a sporadic reader of the title. 1977 and 1979 were especially banner years for me. With issues 161-162 and 164-166 (1977) being my Top 5 favorite issues of the Avengers ever!! Then the Michelinie / Byrne run from #181-191 (1979) being still some of my most loved comics of all time.
I've owned 13 of these (consecutively from the beginning, except I had 222, not 210), with 6 off the stands, or 8 if you count them being nearly off the stands (e.g. 114 I missed on the spinner rack, but got it soon after with a big green price sticker irrevocably stuck to the cover).
Basically, it looks like if the Vision is solo in the corner box, regardless of pose, it's "my" core era. Re-reading them via the Masterworks collections, they hold up pretty well for me (with help from nostalgic love, of course).
I think the only one still in my collection is #126 (Klaw), which I kept for nostalgia. It was the issue on top of my pile of comics on the night my mom told me I was no longer allowed to spend my entire allowance on comics -- a traumatic event. It was bad enough that I could only buy 4 a week after the 20-to-25-cent price increase. Now I couldn't even buy 4? An outrage! (To my child-mind.)
Wow, I'm loving these Chew the Fat title overviews -- the FF and this one. Thanks so much!
From Terry in Virginia:
Some late thoughts on this topic:
I really enjoyed the peak Steve Englehart run, and I'm pretty sure I had most of those when they came out. The whole Mantis-Swordsman-Wanda-Vision dynamic was an entertaining arc. Oddly, I phased out of comics sometime after the first Hellcat issue, missing out on the Perez and Byrne runs. I've since corrected that misjudgment and am on track to collecting everything from #58 through #202. Just a few more issues to fill-in my collection.
I think the Avengers, and Marvel in general, retained a high-quality of storytelling during the 2nd half of the 1970s. But since I was more of a DC guy, and that company's writing dropped dramatically by 1975, I took a long hiatus from comics until the early 1980s. I'm not sure what, if any, Avengers issues I might be interested after #202. I've been reading (or re-reading, in many cases), most of my Avengers collection over the past year or two. Looking forward to completing the Korvac saga, which I've never read in its entirety.
My Avengers collection started with #104, although I missed the next couple of issues and after that had two or three other holes in my collection up to around issue #230 after which I mostly stopped collecting. I also missed all the Giant-Size issues, three of which directly tied in with the continuity of the regular series. Of those Bronze Age Avengers mags, the Englehart run was my favorite, although until Perez came aboard the art was usually only average at best. The tragedy of the Swordsman and the mystery of Mantis intrigued me, and I enjoyed the interaction of the Beast and the Hellcat in the latter part of his run. I mostly enjoyed the runs of Shooter and Michelinie, although they made major mis-steps in the handling of Ms. Marvel by Michelinie and Hank Pym by Shooter and in the responses of their teammates to Ms. Marvel's strange pregnancy & birth and Pym's mental breakdown and physical abuse of Janet. I stuck around long enough to see the conclusion of that story-arc and Pym's renouncing of his Yellowjacket persona. No particular reason why I quit collecting after that, other than recognizing that I was collecting more out of habit than actual enjoyment of the comics and drastically cut the number of comics I was buying.
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