Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Volume 10

Reprints Avengers 89-100
Written by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams.
Penciled by Neal Adams, Sal Buscema, John Buscema and Barry Windsor-Smith.
Inked by Sam Grainger, Sal Buscema, George Roussos, Tom Palmer, Neal Adams, Alan Weiss, Tom Sutton, Joe Sinnott, Syd Shores and Barry Windsor-Smith.

Summary:
The Avengers battle aliens, gods and Inhumans in a star-spanning epic of the Bronze Age!

On the planet Hala, the villainous Ronan The Accuser takes power over his people, the Kree, and forcibly overthrows its proper ruler, the Intelligence Supreme. Ronan's first act is to activate Sentry 459, a giant robot.

Ronan dispatches the Sentry to Earth to kill the Kree Captain Mar-Vell, AKA the superhero Captain Marvel. Thankfully, the Avengers are protecting Mar-Vell. Vision, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch battle the Sentry, but the robot captures Mar-Vell and teleports him away from the Avengers.

Avengers Wasp and Yellowjacket are conducting research in the Arctic Circle, near Alaska. They notice a strange tropical island among all the ice. When Yellowjacket investigates this, he's shot with some sort of ray. It's the work of Ronan, who has set up a base on the island.  Fearing that her husband has been killed, Wasp contacts her fellow Avenger Goliath, who in turn calls the rest of the team to the Arctic. 

The Avengers learn that Ronan blasted Yellowjacket with an Evo-Ray, which causes Pym to de-evolve into a brutal, savage caveman. Ronan intends to de-evolve all life on Earth, which will make it easier for the Kree to conquer or destroy the planet.

During the battle, Ronan receives an emergency transmission from outer space. The Skrull Empire, eternal foes of the Kree, have launched an all out war against Ronan's people. Ronan flees Earth to join the battle. The Kree-Skrull War has begun! The Avengers find themselves caught in the middle of two alien races who are determined to slaughter each other.

The Avengers decide to keep Ronan's actions on Earth secret from public knowledge, believing that it would cause panic and paranoia. When the Kree activities are uncovered, the Avengers are in hot water for keeping secrets. A sense of dread about alien invasions takes over the public consensus. Captain Mar-Vell is suspected of being part of the Kree invasion. This leads to the formation of the Commission on Alien Activities, headed by H. Warren Craddock.

Mar-Vell wants to turn himself in to the commission, believing it will calm the anti-alien sentiments and take heat off the Avengers. His friend Carol Danvers disagrees and takes Captain Marvel to a farm owned by her friends in Upstate New York. Mar-Vell's friend Rick Jones has a vision that Captain Marvel will be attacked when he arrives at the farm. Rick and Mar-Vell have a unique connection (Rick used to "swap atoms" with Mar-Vell, so the Kree captain could appear on Earth), and he fears his friend is in grave danger.

Craddock calls the Avengers into a hearing, where they are made to look like traitors. Original members of the Avengers Thor, Iron Man and Captain America are embarrassed by this development. They tell Wanda, Pietro, Vision and Goliath that they have disgraced the Avengers and the team is dissolved!

Shortly after this, Vision arrives at the mansion. The android is near death. After Ant-Man saves Vision, he tells the Avengers that he, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver were attacked by three cows who turned into members of the Fantastic Four in Upstate New York.

But this version of the FF have different powers than Vision expected. The heroes decide to investigate these strange cows.

The Avengers battle the Thing, Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic. After a brief fight, the heroes learn that their opponents are actually Skrulls. They also discover that the Cap, Iron Man and Thor who dissolved the Avengers were also Skrulls.

Captain Marvel, Quicksilver, and Wanda have been captured by Super-Skrull, who possesses all the powers of the Fantastic Four. Super-Skrull takes the heroes to the Skrull homeworld in the Andromeda Galaxy, hoping to regain the favor of Skrull Emperor Dorrek.

When he arrives at the emperor's throne room, Super-Skrull is promptly stunned and imprisoned.

Emperor Dorrek forces Captain Marvel to construct an Omni-Wave Projector. Such a device could wipe out the Kree. Mar-Vell is forced to construct the projector when Dorrek threatens to kill Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

Back on Earth, H. Warren Craddock has decided to arrest the Avengers. He sends a brigade of Mandroids to the Avengers' mansion. Mandroids all wear weaponized armor created by Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark. Iron Man's unexpected knowledge of the Mandroid armor helps the Avengers win the day.

The Avengers then blast off into space, determined to save their friends and battle Skrull and Kree alike.

In the middle of all this, Rick Jones is captured by the Kree, taken to Hala and brought before Ronan. He taunts Rick and mocks Earthlings as primitive creatures who are beneath his contempt. However, Ronan tells Jones that Earth is important strategically, since it is the exact midpoint between the Kree and Skrull homeworlds. Due to its location, the Kree will either conquer Earth...or destroy it!

At the same time, the Avengers capture a Skrull spaceship and defeat the crew. The Vision interrogates one of the Skrulls, demanding to know the whereabouts of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Vision gets carried away, beating the Skrull within an inch of his life. The Avengers intervene and save the Skrull's life. He tells the heroes that Earth is doomed, since a Skrull ship is headed towards Earth. The ship is carrying a nuclear warhead powerful enough to wipe out all of humankind.

Rick is imprisoned with Intelligence Supreme. The fallen Kree leader tells Rick that he has an important role to play in the war and zaps Rick with a bolt of energy. This gives Rick the power of the entire human race. Intelligence Supreme suggests that Jones' memories of reading comic books from the 1940s could help him bring peace between the Skrulls, Kree and Earth.

What will Rick Jones do with his newfound powers? Can Rick and the Avengers possibly save Earth from two alien races bent on its destruction?

After the war, the Avengers have little time to relax. A man who calls himself Mr. Talon is stirring up crowds of people, encouraging them to commit acts of mass violence.

When the Avengers arrive to quell the violent mobs, Thor recognizes Talon as Ares, Greek God Of War! Thankfully, Hercules has returned to the Avengers' ranks. But Hercules is suffering from amnesia.

While the Avengers are probing Hercules' mind at their mansion headquarters, the heroes are attacked by two Olympian Warriors named Bia and Kratos. They capture Hercules and take him to Mount Olympus.

Ares has also gone to Mount Olympus where he's joined by the Enchantress, one of the Avengers' oldest foes. The Avengers call every hero who has ever served as an Avenger to Olympus. They will need everyone they can get if they hope to rescue Hercules and defeat Ares. 

Review:
At this point, it's hard to say anything new about the Kree-Skrull War. I'd put off reviewing it, focusing on less-famous storylines. But the recent release of Captain America: Civil War got me thinking it was time to review this volume of Marvel Masterworks. 

Story:
Roy Thomas is credited as writer, but in his introduction, he gives Neal Adams co-plotting credit.  In any case, this is a great story that deserves its "classic" status.

There's lots of drama, action and character development.

Ronan's threat to de-evolve Earth feels like a legit "end of the world" scenario. The Avengers are under siege from the Skrulls, Kree, Ares, the Enchantress and their own government for the entire book!

Of course great superhero stories require great villains, and Ronan The Accuser certainly fits the bill. The Skrull's Emperor Dorrek is also as evil as they come. The Super-Skrull is a minor player in this book, but he's always been one of my favorite villains. As far as I'm concerned, any story can be improved by the presence of Super-Skrull!

But it's a tribute to Thomas and Adams' storytelling that not every alien here is evil. The Intelligence Supreme helps Rick Jones and Skrull Princess Annelle begs her father not to go to war.

While readers of this story know Earth won't be destroyed, Thomas' script keeps adding layers of tension to the story. These tales also give us early indications that the Vision and Scarlet Witch would eventually become romantically involved.

Thomas' script is full of pop culture references. The characters mention Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills & Nash (the names of three ants who help Ant-Man!), and the silent movie Metropolis. This helps lighten the mood, so that the story isn't all doom, gloom and paranoia.

The Commission on Alien Activities is an obvious allegory for Red Scare-era investigatory entities such as the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Securities Subcommittee.  H. Warren Craddock's behavior resembles the actions of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. This will seem obvious to any student of history, but such allegories didn't appear very often in comic books of the early 1970s.  Roy Thomas deserves kudos to adding Craddock's committee to the story, it adds a bit of realism to the story.

Making Rick Jones the hero of the story is also a nice touch. Rick served as sidekick to Hulk, Captain America, Mar-Vell and the Avengers during the 1960s and early 70s. Jones always wanted to be a superhero and in this story he gets to save three planets from destruction.

If there's anything to criticize about the Kree-Skrull War, it's that the Inhumans portion of this story doesn't add a whole lot. Most Bronze Age Inhumans stories involve Maximus seizing control (or at least attempting to seize control) of Attilan. This one is no exception.  

The Ares story that follows is a comparably weak follow-up. It's not bad, but any story that followed the Kree-Skrull War was guaranteed to be a bit of a let down.

Art:
The first four issues reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Volume 10 feature pencils by Sal Buscema embellished by three inkers (including himself). Sal does a fine job drawing aliens, fight scenes and cavemen. I love Sal's depiction of the helicopter crash in these images:

Neal Adams (pencils) and Tom Palmer (inks) take over the art duties after Sal and this is some of their finest work. Ant-Man's journey into the Vision is one of the most memorable stories of the Bronze Age and that's because Adams and Palmer make the Vision's insides look like something out of a sci-fi movie (it's an homage to films like Journey To The Center Of The Earth and Fantastic Voyage). Here are two gorgeous pages from "Journey To The Center Of An Android":

I also love this Triton splash page from Adams and Palmer:

Great stuff.

Sal's brother John Buscema succeeds Adams and finishes the Kree-Skrull War, with Palmer staying on as inker. It's too bad Adams couldn't finish this saga, but "Big John" and Palmer were always great together. Here's a nice example of their work in this book:

Barry Windsor-Smith provided pencils on the Ares story. He's a great artist, but I've never been crazy about his art in superhero stories. But Windsor-Smith provides some good art here, even if his work (like the story he penciled) is a bit of a step down from the previous tale. I've always liked this splash page he drew that features the Black Knight. 

Extras:
Roy Thomas wrote a new introduction where he discusses the creative process behind these issues. Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer created some new Kree-Skrull War pages that were published in a 1983 reprint of the storyline and their work is reprinted here. The book also contains several pages of Adams' original artwork.

How Does It Look?:
I have never owned any of the original issues that are reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Volume 10. However, I found a scan of the splash page for Avengers #92 posted on one of my favorite blogs, Diversions Of The Groovy Kind. Below you'll see that page paired up with the splash page as it looks in this book:

Left: Original page from Avengers #89;
Right: How it appears in Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Volume 10.

It looks pretty good to me. I don't notice any strange re-coloring.

Rating:
Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Volume 10 contains a story that lives up to its hype 45 years after it was first published. When it comes to creators, it doesn't get much better than scripts by Roy Thomas combined with art of Adams, Windsor-Smith, Palmer and the Buscema Brothers.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!

Ant-Man: Scott Lang

Reprints Marvel Premiere #47-48; Iron Man #131-133, 151; Avengers #195-196, 223; Marvel Team-Up  #103; Marvel Two -In-One #87; material from Avengers #181, Iron Man 125
Written by David Michelinie, Bob Layton and Tom DeFalco.
Penciled by John Byrne, Jerry Bingham, Luke McDonnell, George Perez, Ron Wilson and Greg Larocque.
Inked by Bob Layton, Jack Abel, Mike Esposito, Chic Stone, Dan Green and Brett Breeding.

Scott Lang turned to burglary when his career as an electronics technician failed to pay the bills. When he is released from prison, Tony Stark offers him a second chance and gives Lang a job at Stark International. 

Lang's new job at Stark is going well and so is his relationship with his daughter Cassie. But Cassie suddenly falls ill with a rare heart defect. Her diagnosis is not good, but Lang has hope. Cassie's physician tells Lang about Dr. Erica Sondheim, who has recently performed the sort of laser surgery that could save Cassie.

But when Lang goes to Sondheim's office, he sees her being forced into a car. He tries save her, but she is driven away. Lang learns that the car took Sondheim to the Long Island headquarters of Cross Technologies. He decides to use his burglary skills to break into Cross, but he will first need to steal money to pay some "muscle" to help with the job.

His return to burglary has a surprising result. He breaks into the home of Dr. Henry Pym, the Avenger who has fought crime as Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Yellowjacket. Lang discovers Pym's old Ant-Man costume and decides to try on the suit. It fits like a glove and he decides to wear the suit and use it to find Dr. Sondheim.

Lang quickly learns how to shrink to ant-size and how to control ants. This enables him to locate Sondheim, but then the new Ant-Man also encounters the villain behind the doctor's capture: Darren Cross, head of Cross Technologies.  

Cross has become super-strong due to a nuclear powered pacemaker. It works so well that it increased his strength and metabolism. Cross tells Ant-Man he's been forcing Sondheim to perform operations on unwilling donors so that he can use their organs to prolong his life. If Scott Lang can't stop Cross, it will mean the end of his daughter's life and the continuation of Cross' heinous crimes

After dealing with Cross, Scott meets Hank Pym. The Avenger tells Lang to keep the costume and a new Ant-Man is born!

Subsequently, Lang's boss, Tony Stark, is in trouble. He needs to talk to his old foe Whiplash, who is incarcerated at Ryker's Island prison. Stark asks Lang to assist him with this, since Lang had served time in Ryker's. Lang shrinks down to ant-size and pays a visit to Whiplash, getting information that could save Stark's life.

After that, Lang assists Iron Man in a project that could save the life of a former Avenger. Dr. Bruce Banner, also known as the Incredible Hulk, asks Tony Stark to use his technological know-how to help cure him of his Hulk-ness. Stark and Banner ask Lang to help them build a nuclear powered pulse regulator that will help Banner remain calm, preventing his transformation. Dr. Sondheim performs an operation that installs the pacemaker.

The operation is a success and Banner is cured...or so it seems. Unfortunately, the gamma rays that reside in the Hulks body act against the pulse regulator. Banner turns into the Hulk and it doesn't appear that he will ever turn back. Hulk goes on a rampage at Stark International.

Iron Man puts everything he has into stopping Hulk, maximizing all power his armor possesses. When the battle is over, Iron Man lies near death, his armor shut down. Ant-Man is forced to shrink and go inside the armor to repair it. If he fails, it will mean the end of Iron Man and Tony Stark.

Some months later, Ant-Man is contacted by Yellowjacket to help the Avengers. Yellowjacket's wife, the Wasp, is being held captive in the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane. But the Institute is really a front for criminal activity.

Yellowjacket and Ant-Man shrink down and sneak into the Solomon Institute. But they soon learn the institute is actually a "school" for criminal henchmen. It's operated by a man who calls himself the Taskmaster. He apprehends Ant-Man and Yellowjacket and tells them that he was born with the gift of "photographic reflexes." This ability enables him to watch a superhero or world-class athlete and emulate their actions.

The other Avengers are outside the Institute. Ant-Man contacts the team as only he can: by sending ants crawling into Iron Man's helmet.

Can the Avengers save Ant-Man, Wasp, and Yellowjacket from the clutches of Taskmaster?

Weeks after that, Lang receives a visit from Gus Sweezer, an old friend he knew in prison. Gus tells him that he's signed up with a criminal organization in Manhattan on Houston St. that pays well, and asks Lang to join him. But Lang has gone "legit" and wants nothing more to do with crime. When Gus leaves Lang's house, he's killed, hit by a car in a hit and run.

Simultaneously, at the offices of the Daily Bugle, editor/publisher J. Jonah Jameson tells photographer Peter Parker to investigate a block on Houston St that has been suspiciously crime free. As Spider-Man, Parker investigates a warehouse that makes his spider-sense tingle. It turns out to be a trap, and Spidey is attacked by the Taskmaster! The warehouse is another of Taskmaster's criminal academies. Spider-Man is taken captive and Taskmaster tells his trainees that this is proof that superheroes aren't all-powerful.

Ant-Man shows up at the warehouse and and sees that Taskmaster's goons are about to kill Spider-Man. Scott saves the wallcrawler by sending ants to his rescue. The two heroes learn where Taskmaster will strike next and set off to stop the villain!

Following that adventure, Lang is working at Stark International, making sure the computer network is working properly. Everything seems to be okay, but, suddenly, a drop of a strange green liquid seeps into the central computer.  

This causes the computer's security system to overreact and it threatens to destroy Stark's headquarters. Lang must once again become Ant-Man and go inside the system. If he fails, it could mean death for him and everyone who works for Stark.

Later, Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing, is assisting Reed Richards in an experiment. Ben ends up being teleported to the subatomic world known as Tok. Ant-Man gets a message from ants that the Thing needs his help.

He goes after Ben in the subatomic world and is shocked at what he finds. The Thing has become a pawn of Queen Pearla. She was aided years earlier by the Fantastic Four and ordered Tok's scientists to bring Ben to her kingdom.  

Pearla and her people are engaged in a war with the Lizard Men of Tok. Zorak, leader of the lizard men, says he will cease hostilities if Pearla appoints a champion to duel Zorak. The winner of the duel will gain control of Tok.

Ant-Man learns that Pearla has has an armada of spaceships ready to attack while Zorak and Ben are battling. Pearla intends to force Zorak to surrender. Lang overhears her plans and enlists the aid of Tok's insects in thwarting Pearla's plans. It's up to Ant-Man to free the Thing and bring peace to Tok.

Finally, Hawkeye visits a carnival in Long Island. He used to work there and the carnival's owner, Marcella Carson, has written to the archer seeking help. The Avenger discovers Marcella is being held captive by thugs.

Scott Lang is also attending the carnival with his daughter Cassie. When he sees Hawkeye running around the carnival, he decides it's time to don his Ant-Man costume and follow Hawkeye.  

It's a good thing he does, because the heroes discover that the man behind the scenes is none other than the Taskmaster! The villain has a bomb that could kill everyone at the carnival and only Ant-Man and Hawkeye can prevent this from happening.

Review:
Like the new Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a lot more fun that I expected.

Story:
David Michelinie writes or co-writes (Bob Layton co-plots the Iron Man stories) all but one story reprinted in this tpb. It was interesting to have an ex-con become a superhero.  Michelinie does a nice job early on giving Scott Lang a distinctive personality.  

I enjoyed Ant-Man's frequent references to movies and TV shows. For instance, when he and Yellowjacket are trying to escape from the Solomon Institute, Ant-Man says they should "make like Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction and head up to that air shaft."

Ant-Man, Wasp & Yellowjacket are held captive by Taskmaster.

Lang's relationship with his daughter Cassie is another nice touch that works. Comic book writers often fail to realistically capture dialogue between parents and children. But Michelinie nails it here. 

Ant-Man fixes his daughter's Rom doll.

Michelinie also makes smart use of supporting characters. Dr. Erica Sondheim appears in the first story. Then some time later, Sondheim is the physician that Stark calls to help perform the operation on Bruce Banner.  

The Taskmaster is an interesting villain and he appears three times in this book. I guess that makes "Tasky" the arch foe of Scott Lang. I'm also guessing Michelinie is rather fond of Taskmater, and rightly so. The Ant-Man/Hawkeye story is especially good, where Michelinie devises a clever way for Ant-Man to save the day against Taskmaster.  

Ant-Man rides one of Hawkeye's arrows in pursuit of a bomb!

Tom DeFalco wrote the Marvel Two-In-One story. It's not great, but it's a fun enough sequel to a Silver Age Fantastic Four tale.  

Scott Lang meets the Fantastic Four.

If there's any problem with Ant-Man: Scott Lang, it's that the book relies on the same concepts a bit too often. For instance, we get a story where Ant-Man must go inside Iron Man's armor to save the hero's life. Not long after that, he crawls inside a computer network to shut down the security system. Both stories rely on the formula of Ant-Man shrinking and going inside a small space.Perhaps this is just a hazard that one encounters in collections of comic book stories that weren't meant to be read in such close proximity.  

Another minor quibble: we join the Avengers story in the second part of a three-part story. Ant-Man doesn't appear in the first part, so I understand why it wasn't included, but Marvel should have given us a summary at the beginning to bring readers up to speed. Part 1 of this tale has been reprinted in Avengers: Heart Of Stone.

Art:
The art in Ant-Man: Scott Lang is mostly very good. The origin story is penciled by John Byrne with embellishment by Bob Layton. They were two of the finest Bronze Age artists and their art here looks fantastic.  

Layton also provides inks on the Iron Man/Hulk portion, with Jerry Bingham penciling. Their art looks great as well. Ant-Man's exploration inside Iron Man's armor is very nicely depicted by Bingham and Layton. It's likely meant to be an homage to a classic Ant-Man story that was drawn by Neal Adams.

George Perez drew the Avengers stories and his art is a great example of his Bronze Age abilities. Ron Wilson and Greg Laroque also provide good art in this tpb.

All of the artists give us cool renderings of Ant-Man shrinking and enlarging at super-speed, as seen in this image:

How Does It Look?:
Here's a panel from the original printing of Marvel Premier #48:

And this is how it appears in Ant-Man: Scott Lang:

Extras:
This book contains Ant-Man's entry from the Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe, plus a page of original art.  

Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a great introduction to the second hero to wear the Ant-Man costume and is recommended. But the similarities of some of stories prevents me from giving it my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5


3 and a half Sals.