First Impressions: Avengers

Walt Simonson is an extraordinarily creator whose Thor work I’ve gone on record as calling definitive. John Buscema is one of my all-time favorite artists and I’ve devoted space to letting all of you know how incredibly talented I think he is. I love Namor, I think She-Hulk is great, I feel Monica Rambeau is an underrated character and the 90’s aside, I’ve even got a soft spot for The Black Knight.

All of these elements, creators and characters alike, combined to make me at a very young age never want to read another Avengers comic again—through no fault of their own.

Let me elaborate.

The very first Avengers comic I can ever recall getting my hands on is issue #291 of the original volume, written by Walt Simonson, drawn by John Buscema, featuring a line-up of the second Captain Marvel, Thor, The Black Knight, She-Hulk, Namor and Doctor Druid. The story is entitled “Shadows of the Future Past!” and it came out in 1988, so I was either six when I read it or not much older. I can’t remember exactly the circumstances under which it came into my possession, but most super hero comics I got back then I acquired through my dad picking up those plastic-wrapped combo packs at the supermarket (I only bought Archie books for myself). I want to say I got this one along with my first X-Men comic (a story for another day) and for some reason I feel like it was over one summer I spent at my grandparents lake house in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire (also known as Ossipee).

The story placed the Avengers at some party celebrating some achievement of theirs, I think (it’s been over two decades). Strike one was that everybody was dressed in formal wear, so while I got that the green chick was She-Hulk, I was having trouble wrapping my head around why Thor was a blond guy in a tux, let alone who his friends are (obviously at age six I could not pick The Black Knight out of a line-up and Doctor Druid even in costume would have struck me as more the creepy neighbor type than an Avenger—actually, he probably made a better impression on me in a suit than he would have in his weird red pajamas/purple bathrobe combo). Confusion over why I was reading about a dinner party in a super hero comic was not a good start.

So then Namor’s wife, Marrina, ate some shrimp (I think) and turned first into a scaly monster lady and then into a full-on giant sea dragon thing. It was terrifying to me; the fact that John Buscema is an amazing artist made it even more terrifying. I’m not joking when I say that this comic along with the laborious job I had at Legal Seafood in high school kept me away from really eating fish until I was well out of college. Some kids lived for horror movies and being creeped out (looking at you, Rickey and TJ), but I was the sort of sensitive wuss who couldn’t make it through the end of Ghostbusters II because of that freaky painting dude. So again, I was not digging this comic.

There was also an interlude with Kang that was part of a larger subplot Simonson was building toward that also involved Ravonna and Doctor Druid. After 21-year-old Ben read Avengers Forever, Kang became one of the coolest villains in comics to him; to six-year-old Ben, there couldn’t have been many things more confusing and off-putting than a guy in a purple mask showing up three quarters into a comic for a page to shoot another guy who looked exactly like him, say a couple cryptic words and take off (the longer term story Simonson was working toward with the prime Kang assassinating his Cross-Time Council is actually pretty rad, but I did not know that in 1988).

The issue ended with the evening wear Avengers still battling big ass scary snake Marrina because it was part one of a three-part story. Recall that I was primarily an Archie reader at this point, and mostly double digests at that, so I was used to having up to a dozen or more plots neatly resolved for me by the time I flipped the back cover shut, not everything left irritatingly dangling and unanswered.

As the cherry on this sundae, there was a house ad with the cover below and a big “Beginning of the End” tag…

…this series is ending? Why did I just read this. Also, there was an ad for the Ann Nocenti/John Romita Jr. Daredevil run with Typhoid Mary that looked a hundred times cooler.

The irony for me in recalling pretty much all of the factors that contributed to me not liking this issue would have been huge selling points for me today.

I love quiet stories about character building. If an issue of anything is solicited as an issue where everybody is hanging out in street clothes and talking for the first half (no issue of anything is ever solicited that way) I get psyched. The wedding of Donna Troy and/or Cyclops and Jean Grey! That issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior where he opens his bar! That other issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior where he has a Christmas party! The Busiek/Perez Avengers story with the parade! That time Nova scored with Namorita in New Warriors! The Force Works holiday special where Abnett and Lanning tricked me into thinking Wolverine was guest-starring!

Kang is fantastic. The weirder his time travel plots, the better. Trying to figure out the paradoxes upon paradoxes of him chasing his past and future selves through the decades hurts my head in the best way possible. The issue of Avengers Forever solely devoted to his crazy ass history is a classic. I loved The Kang Dynasty.

I still love a good one-and-done story, but c’mon, I read X-Men in the 90’s and it was my comics lifeblood—simmering subplots and multi-part stories are my bread and (lactose free) butter.

Maybe the craziest thing of all is that this issue takes place only about a year after “Under Siege,” probably my favorite Avengers story of all-time. Slightly different roster, but a lot of the same players. Same awesome artist. Even the same short-lived logo is the same. It goes to show that had I encountered this issue later in my comic collecting life perhaps as I was trying to follow up “Under Siege” by getting all the single issues, I’d probably treasure it; but encountering it on its own at a time when I was the newest of readers made it anathema to me. It’s all about where you’re at in your hobby.

It also may be about whether you’re six or 30, but that doesn’t sound as good in my estimation.

I still don’t care much for giant fish lady monsters, but I am now an avid sushi and shellfish eater who will even occasionally indulge in a tuna steak.

Doctor Druid is still weird.

The Definitives: The Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer occupies an interesting place in the broad spectrum of classic characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during their landmark run on Fantastic Four. Like the Inhumans, he’s an exotic character who makes for an impactful guest star. However, like The Black Panther, he’s also a figure with depth and an intriguing background who can sustain his own mythology to a degree. It’s tempting to write him off as somebody who works better weaving in and out of series starring other folks and existing on the fringe of the Marvel Universe—and he’s not in lousy company in this regard when it comes to many of the Lee/Kirby inventions from said FF stint—but he’s got quite a few quality stories centered around him as the protagonist.

I met the Surfer during his 90’s solo series, so for me, he was a cosmic hero first and foremost and I wouldn’t learn about his earthbound years or even the sacrificial first appearance that defined him until much later. It speaks to his versatility that he can succeed in either environment; however, it’s also perhaps a commentary on his limitations that he gets shuffled back and forth between Earth and space, between opposing Galactus and serving him, as he gets into a rut if his dynamic doesn’t get changed up every now and again.

At his best, the Surfer is a hero, an enigma, a warrior, a philosopher, a savior, a harbinger of doom and more. Here are some stories that showcase his various sides.

The Galactus Trilogy (FANTASTIC FOUR v1 #48-50)
Few characters whose first appearance is not also their origin are so vitally linked to that story as The Silver Surfer. The Galactus Trilogy is a classic for many reasons, but setting up the Surfer as a different kind of Marvel hero with a compelling mystique about him is one of the chief among those. He makes his debut as a menacing alien heavy that embodies the idea of “the other” and ends the story as a hugely sympathetic underdog we wish we could be more like. The Surfer’s discovery of humanity, his empathy, and his transformation underscore the big action and amazing art, tying a “when we’re at our best, we’re worth saving” moral to the story.

SILVER SURFER v1
Not to cross brands here, but the Surfer’s initial 18-issue series from the 70’s, written by Stan Lee and illustrated largely by John Buscema, really is the character’s most essential tales. Out the gate, we get the origin of our hero, how Norrin Radd became The Silver Surfer, sacrificing love and a big chunk of his own morality in order to serve the greater good; that the character went years with this motivation for his actions in his first appearance as a question mark is pretty wild. That opening salvo is followed up by an exploration of both the Surfer’s exile on Earth as well as his past on Zenn-La, including the introduction of Shalla Bal to create one of Marvel’s most unsung (literally) star-crossed romances. You also get the genesis of Mephisto, that legendary first Surfer-Thor brawl with stellar Buscema art, and other classic stuff. Sometimes Lee hits the angle of the Surfer not understanding humanity’s violent ways a little too hard and too often, but when it scores it scores big.

SILVER SURFER v2 by Steve Englehart
The Surfer series that ran through the late 80’s and into the 90’s had him off of Earth and back soaring through the spaceways. I started reading regularly during Ron Marz’s tenure as writer, which had some cool stuff, and I just missed a Jim Starlin run I’ve always wanted to get around to, but the stuff that sticks with me is Steve Englehart’s work at the start. I definitely recall distinctly the period where the Surfer was entering into an awkward romance with Nova (the chick, not the real one), trying to quell intergalactic wars between the Kree and Skrulls, and dressing up as a pirate to go undercover among a crew of lizard people. It was weird, it was wild and it was ambitious—it was everything stories about a shiny demigod riding through space on a surfboard needed to be and presented a nice counterpoint to the claustrophobic 70’s stories where the Surfer couldn’t venture outside his earthly prison. Slick art from the late Marshall Rogers didn’t hurt either.

SILVER SURFER: REQUIEM
I’ve got a whole entry on this underrated beauty.

“On the Last Day” (NOVA v4 #13-15)
During the first Annihilation, Keith Giffen made the bold move to put the Surfer back as Galactus’ herald for the first time since his introduction (I think, please correct me if I’m wrong) and this was, to my opinion, the story that best played off that change in status quo. The premise is pretty simple: The Surfer leads Galactus to an inhabited planet and warns the folks living there to evacuate, Nova wants to save said planet from being eaten, Nova and the Surfer fight. There’s another plot about a body-possessing serial killer, but for me that good stuff is writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning digging into the psyche of the Surfer when he is not turning on Galactus to save the little people. They do a nice job showing the nuances of the character in part not caring because his value system has again been dulled, but also retaining a shred of that compassion and wavering the slightest bit in his duty. The Nova vs Surfer battle is great as the kind of underdog story I dig—Nova is nowhere near Surfer’s league—and because Wellinton Alves does wonderful work depicting it, but the moral debate and contemplation over the greatest good is the meaty stuff, really showing how complex The Silver Surfer is.

Fantastic Four: The Animated Series
The FF side of the Marvel Action Hour from the mid-90’s had very little going for it aside from a hilarious theme song and Brian Austin Green rapping as The Human Torch, but a pretty spot-on adaptation of the Galactus Trilogy is one of the series’ few treats. The animation is not pretty, but the folks responsible for the show do a very nice job with the story, and this was in fact the first place I experienced it in any fashion, so that’s certainly something worth noting.

6 Things Ben Got Into This Year

Following in Kiel’s mighty footsteps, I wanted to also endorse a half dozen neat things I discovered and found to be rad over these past 12 months as part of our two-year blogiversary. I don’t think any of these will come as any great surprise—or perhaps I am indeed an enigma wrapped in a mystery more than I believe—but maybe my endorsement this time around gives somebody that last little push to give something cool a shot.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS
Silver Age Marvel has always been a big gap in my comic book reading repertoire until quite recently. One reason is simply that I didn’t have access to the material—even at Wizard our Marvel library started a lot later than our DC stuff—and the other was that I’d sampled old school X-Men and Avengers comics as those were my primary franchises and didn’t really fall in love with them (ditto early Justice League). However, over the last couple years over at Marvel we’ve been re-releasing the Masterworks series in paperback, and thus I’ve had the opportunity to sample the classics. This will shock nobody, but wow, those original Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four runs got their reputations for a reason; the fertility of incredible characters and ideas as well as the frankly stunning Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko art is just jaw-dropping. I also really took a shine to the Stan Lee/John Buscema Silver Surfer series and was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed the Captain America series from Tales of Suspense. Next up for me is giving Doctor Strange a try as well as continuing to wait patiently for the Warlock stuff to come around.
PARENTHOOD
I wasn’t sure what to make of this show when it came on—Rickey loves the original movie but I don’t remember it that well—but it has rapidly become one of my absolute favorites on TV. I’m a sucker for family dramedies with talented big-ass casts, in part because I have a very entertaining extended family myself, and since “Brothers and Sisters” has been running out of steam a bit, this came along at the perfect time. I’m happy to see Peter Krause on a good show (since I suffered through the unevenness of “Dirty Sexy Money”), I’m loving seeing what all the fuss was about in regards to Lauren Graham, I’m shocked at how much I enjoy Dax Shephard’s work, and it’s always nice to see Craig T. Nelson on television. That’s just scratching the surface of the great group of actors on this show, and not even getting into brilliant scripting, the clear improvisation, the heartstring-tugging stuff, and the dynamite chemistry—just a pleasure.

DAYTRIPPER
I’ve spent a good bit of blogging real estate this year talking up Daytripper, but now that the series has wrapped, I think it warrants at least one more solid praising. Credit where credit is due: this book wasn’t on my radar at all, but Ryan Penagos recommended it to me after the first issue came out, I borrowed from Rickey (I believe) and then bought the rest of the series, seriously eagerly anticipating each installment. Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba created something really beautiful here that I feel like is going to be a timeless work and something I personally look forward to putting on my shelf. Death is a very hard subject for me to deal with or even think about, yet these guys had me devoting time to doing just that every month, and ultimately I do believe I made a little bit of peace with how much living a full life and really appreciating those you love ultimately matters more than anything in the end; can’t speak highly enough of this book.

RING OF HONOR WRESTLING
I’ve never stopped watching pro wrestling, but prior to 2010, I think it had been about seven years since I’d been to a live show. My buddy “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels has tried to remedy this fact in recent years, but I always indisposed whenever he came to town. Finally, back in May, I not only had the fun of Chris joining myself and Megan for lunch at the Saddle Brook Diner, that night I went and saw him perform at Ring of Honor’s Supercard of Honor V at the Manhattan Center in New York City. There and then again on September 11 for Glory By Honor IX, I had a real blast rediscovering how awesome live wrestling can be via the great product ROH puts on. There’s just something real cool about watching guys who are awesome at what they do and pretty damn fearless put on an incredible show while surrounded by passionate and vocal fans who are totally into it. Getting to hang with the boys after the shows was really a dream come true for me as well, as I’ve always been totally fascinated by this bizarre fraternity that is pro wrestling, and love getting to be even a fringe part of it every few months.

MARVEL ALL-AGES BOOKS
I’ve been pretty openly complimentary to Thor: The Mighty Avenger in particular recently, but that’s really just the crown jewel in the awesome all-ages empire of titles Nate Cosby and his band of miscreants have carved out at Marvel. I’ll admit I used to chuck away the bulk of my Marvel Adventures books in my comps, but once Paul Tobin took over MA Super Heroes with that killer regular Avengers line-up of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Invisible Woman, Black Widow, Vision and Nova, I was hooked and started gobbling it up. When that got re-launched alongside MA Spider-Man, I gave that a shot as well and it’s more great stuff. Those are seriously three of the most enjoyable comic books on the market right now, and I don’t think it matters how old you are as far as digging them; “all-ages” really does mean for all ages in this case. Beyond that, you’ve got Pet Avengers, Power Pack and so on—all great stuff. Roger Langridge, Paul Tobin, Chris Eliopoulos, Chris Samnee, Ronan Cliquet and the rest of the talented crew Nate has assembled are hard-working dudes (and ladies) who love to have a good time and the fruits of their enthusiasm are some of comics’ true gems right now.

AMY’S SOY CHEESE PIZZA
As a guy who gave up pizza about five years ago when I learned I was lactose intolerant and has suffered without it ever since, I cannot thank whoever Amy is enough for this glorious creation.

My Five Favorite John Buscema Comics

I always knew I was a John Buscema fan, but I don’t think I realized how much until I started writing this blog.

It seems like nary a subject goes by where I’m not singing the praises of “Big John,” whether it’s thanking him for designing Nova or saying what an honor it was to work with his granddaughter Stephanie. There’s no question some of my favorite comic books and those that drew me in as a fan to begin with bore the handiwork of John Buscema; in a lot of ways, I owe the man greatly for drawing me into my chosen profession.

When I was a kid, guys like Jim Lee and Darick Robertson grabbed my attention; as I grew up, George Perez and Mike McKone became more my speed. But if you group all those guys, you notice a common element of solid fundamentals and appreciation of how to infuse larger-than-life super heroes with a sense of reasonably grounded anatomy that was a benchmark of what Buscema did his entire career.

With all that in mind, I wanted to pay some much-deserved tribute to Mr. John Buscema by listing off the five works of his that resonated most profoundly with me personally.

(And I should not before I even begin that I know Buscema is forever linked to his Conan work and while I’ve admired it from afar and it’s impressive as heck, I’ve never actually read it, so I’m disqualifying it in this instance)

5. The Punisher Meets Archie
As with Buscema’s Conan, his Punisher work is a gaping hole in my reading history I hope to someday fill, but I did get a tease in this quirky little memento of my childhood. Buscema handled the strictly Punisher portions of the most bizarre team-up in comic book history and brought a professionalism as well as a grit that did not seem out of place to a story that benefitted from both. And it was pretty cool to see the Marvel Universe version of an evil Archie Andrews that Buscema dreamed up.

4. Nova
Obviously I will be forever indebted to John Buscema if for no other reason than he visually created my favorite comic book character of all-time and garbed him in one of the coolest costumes ever. Buscema only drew the first two issues of Nova’s first ongoing series, but he made an indelible mark on Richard Rider and his world. Besides establishing the pace for the Human Rocket as far as his action sequences and how he propelled through the air with the greatest of ease, Buscema also eased the John Romita Sr. template of portraying young people in their civilian lives admirably into a new decade.

3. Avengers: Under Siege
Due to a lot of his oeuvre being so centered around action-based characters like Conan or Thor, Buscema has a well-deserved reputation for a guy who can deliver great battles and brawls, but there’s a lot more to his talents than that, and he demonstrates this in one of the best Avengers stories of all-time, Roger Stern’s “Under Siege.” That’s not to say there’s not plenty of slam bang in a tale where Earth’s Mightiest Heroes take on the biggest assemblage ever of the Masters of Evil, and Buscema delivers more than ably on that front, but it’s the quiet moments that set this story apart and where he really makes his mark. Whether it’s the anguished reactions of his charges when Jarvis is tortured or Captain America’s somber resignation following the destruction of Avengers Mansion and his prized heirlooms, Buscema knows exactly what buttons to push emotionally and does so with tremendous skill. And yeah, the fight scenes are awesome too.

2. Silver Surfer
After many years of wanting to, I finally started reading the first Marvel Masterworks collection of Silver Surfer recently, and besides the fact that I’d highly recommend it, I also have to say it’s not tough to see why Stan Lee selected John Buscema to be the artist on the first regular series for his self-admitted favorite character. The Surfer’s not necessarily an easy character to nail, given that he is essentially a naked dude draped in silver (on a surfboard, of course), but like Jack Kirby before him and a select few since, Buscema knew how to navigate the challenges and bring Norrin Radd to life. While Buscema’s nuts and bolts anatomy works perfectly on the Surfer, it’s the care and heightened sense of urgency the artist used in rendering the character’s facial expressions that served to really illuminate the torment, melancholy and bursts of rage Lee made the Sky Rider of the Spaceways’ benchmark. When the Surfer opens up in battle, you can see Buscema come alive, rendering the Power Cosmic with relish and care, not just settling for ill-defined energy blasts, and letting it all hang out when Thor or other come to play. This work really is Buscema—already pretty darn great—at his best, running the gamut from making the Badoon the ugliest mofos in the universe to showing why Norrin Radd is so hung up on Shalla Bal, as she really does seem like the most gorgeous woman ever. Buscema’s splash pages are downright inspirational as well, from the sinister introduction of Mephisto to the iconic shot of the Surfer emerging from Galactus’ hand imbued with his power for the very first time.

1. How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way
The way John Buscema first came into my life—at least in a way I significantly remember beyond odd issues of Avengers from the late 80’s—was via Marvel’s pivotal instructional book on the essentials of cartooning. Released in 1978, “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” has gone through at least 33 printings at last count and served as a launch pad not only for fans-turned-doodlers like myself, but scores of actually legitimate future comic book artists. Buscema’s style was the one we all aspired to emulate, and he was more than willing to hold our hands through a series of easy-to-follow chapters and in-depth lessons that laid the treasure trove of trade secrets comic artists employed at our fingertips. I not only enjoyed the book for its instructional value though, I confess I also just loved looking at the great art contained within and dreaming of someday being close to that, if not as an artist than in some other way. Indeed, John Buscema’s art was the gateway that welcomed me into this wonderful world of comics. My mother was recently looking for a gift for my young cousin who has shown some proclivity towards drawing comics and I suggested this book; I only hope he can get even half out of it that I did and perhaps want to borrow some John Buscema comics from me.

My History with the Avengers

Monthly on Marvel.com, your pal and mine, TJ "It stands for Thomas Jane" Dietsch, does a feature called “My Five Favorite Avengers” where he asks various creators, um, who their five favorite Avengers are. With a new Avengers #1 on sale this Wednesday, I thought why not give the list you’ve all really been waiting for: mine.

But we’ll do that tomorrow; tonight, a slice of my own personal history with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The first Avengers comic I ever remember reading was issue #291 of the original series, written by Walter Simonson with art by John Buscema. I was like six and my father bought me one of those awesome multi-packs of random comics we had back in the day at the local supermarket when I was up visiting my grandparents in New Hampshire. The story had the Avengers—whose roster at the time consisted of Thor, Namor, the female Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Doctor Druid and The Black Knight, only the first two of whom I had even a passing familiarity with—all dressed up at some fancy dinner party where Marrina (the Sub-Mariner’s wife) suddenly turned into a fish monster and started destroying the city. There was something going on with multiple Kangs in a sub-plot as well, but I didn’t know who Kang was.

Buscema’s imagery was what stuck with me this was my first exposure to his work and he remains one of my all-time favorite artists), in particular his depiction of Marrina’s transformation from pretty young lady into freaky scaled creature, which scared the crap out of me. Between being suddenly terrified that all girls could potentially turn into sea monsters at a moment’s notice and the fact that Doctor Druid seemed like the least cool super hero ever, I had no particular interest in learning any more about the Avengers at that time.

I next revisited the title in the early 90’s when I was really falling head-over-heels into comics and buying pretty much everything for at least a few issues at one time or another. This was during the Bob Harras/Steve Epting run on Avengers where everybody had brown leather jackets and every story seemed to center on Sersi, The Black Knight and/or Crystal (seriously, based on that old school issue and my 90’s immersion I just assumed Black Knight was the Avengers’ franchise player for a long while). I wrote a bit on this era previously and had a nice conversation with Mr. Epting about it last year at San Diego Comic-Con (he is a very good sport about the leather jackets and let’s just leave it at that).

Frankly put, this was not a great time for the Avengers and I don’t believe it was the fault of anybody in particular. Fact was, X-Men was selling like hotcakes so conventional wisdom said it made sense to make the Avengers more like the X-Men, with more leather and soap opera, less classic foes and nostalgia. Bob Harras was editing the X-Men, so he was the logical choice to make the Avengers more like them (Bob Harras is also, by the way, an extremely underrated writer, and you should check out his work on Breach if you can track it down).

But what worked for the X-Men didn’t work for the Avengers because their DNA just wasn’t the same (oh I didn’t even realize what I was doing there; I am so clever). The X-Men franchise had well over a decade of Chris Claremont doing the ultimate soap opera run in comics and characters who were by design not iconic and thus more suited for the angsty character-driven stuff; Avengers was supposed to be the biggest and best Marvel heroes all in the same book, with epic threats and huge battles as the order of the day.

In the early 90’s, the Avengers very much felt like a B-list X-Men, which was completely wrong as being an Avenger should be the ultimate “you’ve made it” moment for any Marvel hero and being on the X-Men should kinda suck (because you’re feared and hated). It didn’t work for me, and so, for a second time, I ditched the Avengers.

Third time’s the charm, though, as in 2001 (or thereabouts) during my second comic book renaissance, I discovered the Avengers once more, and have been a card-carrying fan ever since (I actually do have a membership card because we had a bunch of leftovers from some promotion around the office recently; it’s signed by David Gabriel, so you know it’s legit).

The way I circled back around to the Avengers was that I’d gotten heavy into the Marv Wolfman-George Perez New Teen Titans and was looking for more of that sweet Perez art fix. Somehow or another I was tipped off to the fact that Mr. Perez drew 30-some-odd issues of Avengers written by Kurt Busiek beginning in 1998, so I was off to the races hitting the back issues bins.

And good lord, as incredible as Perez’s stuff was on NTT, I could not believe how much better his Avengers was. I know I’m not alone in praising George Perez for, among other things, constantly working to improve his game no matter how long he’s been on top (his Legion of 3 Worlds work from last year is incredibly even better than his Avengers stuff). George is simply one of the greats, and also a true gentleman in every sense; getting to interview him a few times is one of the high watermarks of my career and a Nova sketch by the man remains among my most sought-after treasures.

But as good as Perez’s art was on Avengers—and it was really really good—Kurt Busiek’s writing is up to the task of matching that work. It really is among the most enormous, most imaginative, most “nothing is too big to cram in here” runs in comics (and a future Essentials entry for sure). Not too many folks who have worked on the Avengers—or many other books—over the years have had a better appreciation for what their material had been at its best and what it would take to bring that out again than Busiek. He recognized the inherent coolness of the Avengers comes from having as many heroes as you can manage in the same place bumping into each other as they go and putting them up against crises that (as the old saying goes) none of them can face alone.

Aside from the regular roster of 7-10 members Busiek generally had on tap, he also had a steady supply of alumni, guest stars, cameos, etc. flowing in for Perez to challenge himself with (and George Perez is always up to the challenge). I can’t think of many comics where the creators’ (and editor’s, because Tom Brevoort deserves a lot of credit here) love for what they’re doing is more evident than Busiek and Perez’s Avengers.

And so I became an Avengers fan; and as a newly-minted Avengers fan, I did my duty and tracked the classics in trade paperback to fully understand what I was getting into.

I started from the start with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original stuff in softcover Marvel Masterworks form—didn’t love it. The sense I got then and have since gotten more from reading both more early Avengers and also other Silver Age Marvel is that Stan and Jack’s real passion went into the stuff they were making up as they went (if that makes sense) like Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, etc. I feel like Avengers was almost more of a book they felt they had to do because stuff like Justice League of America did well and it just made sense that if they had enough “name” heroes to have them all in one book. And don’t get me wrong, Stan and Jack at 70% is still better than most at 110, but it just doesn’t feel like their hearts were as much in those early Avengers stories as the concept more drove itself. You can see the quality level noticeably rise after Roy Thomas takes over writing probably in large part because it (along with X-Men) was the first book he could really make “his.”

The Kree-Skrull War is a science-fiction blockbuster that definitely stands the test of time, though. The aforementioned Mr. Thomas really hits his stride by cooking up a disaster worthy of the Avengers—because if two big, bad alien races going to full-on war with each other isn’t enough, there isn’t much that’s going to be—and hitting both the story and emotional beats with panache. The art chores shared by the Buscema brothers, John and Sal, plus the great Neal Adams are just stunning as well, particularly Adams bold experimentation.

One of my favorite Avengers stories I discovered during this period and really of all-time is Under Siege, the mid-80’s tale by Roger Stern and (again) John Buscema that directly predated my bad Marrina experience and is just one of the most gripping, bad ass things you’ll ever read if you love super hero comics. The gist is that Baron Zemo organizes the most massive Masters of Evil team ever and they just absolutely kick the shit out of the Avengers for a few issues. Hercules gets beat into a coma; Jarvis gets nearly crippled; Avengers Mansion gets leveled. It’s one of the most stark examples in comics of the bad guys really actually winning and the heroes being totally up against the wall, making their inevitable even-half-triumph so much more meaningful; great stuff.

Avengers Forever was also a really sweet jam by Busiek, Stern and Carlos Pacheco, but it’s so elaborate and continuity-packed that I’ll just leave it at that.

So suffice to say by the time I entered the comic book industry fo’ real in 2004, I was well-schooled in Avengers lore just as Brian Michael Bendis was blowing it all up and starting a whole new chapter. Now on Wednesday, after half a decade of redefinition, we’re gonna start seeing how Bendis’ new era meshes with the Thomas/Stern/Busiek days of yore and I’m pretty psyched at hearing what people think.

I think I’ll always be an X-Men guy at heart since that’s what I was reading when I was 12, but I’m glad I was stubborn enough to keep scratching that Avengers itch until I figured out why they were special and now get to enjoy their tenure as comics’ current biggest deal, both in print and on the big screen.

Tomorrow (barring something crazy): my five favorite.