Avengers: Absolute Vision Book 1

Reprints Avengers (1963) #231-241, Avengers Annual #11-12, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16, Fantastic Four (1961) #256, and Doctor Strange (1974) #60   
Written by Roger Stern, J.M. DeMatteis, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne and J.M. DeMatteis.
Penciled by Al Milgrom, John Byrne, John Romita Jr., Jackson "Butch" Guice, Dan Green and Bob Budiansky.
Inked by Joe Sinnott, John Romita Sr., Rick Magyar, John Byrne, Terry Austin, Jack Abel, Brett Breeding, Al Milgrom, Kim Demulder, and Andy Mushynksky.

Nebulon, the Celestial Man has been exiled to Earth. The alien from planet Ul'lula battled the Defenders several times and has been banished to this planet for repeated attacks on Earth. In the Himalayas, Nebulon encounters Thor and tells the thunder god of his desire to change his ways. Thor believes Nebulon and brings him back to New York, where Nebulon is introduced to the Avengers.

We later learn that Nebulon's wife Supernalia has arrived on Earth as well. Nebulon chose exile over death as his punishment. Supernalia sees this as dishonorable and has come to restore her husband's honor...by killing him! Through mind control, she recruits the Defenders to battle the Avengers!

Sometime later, a new superhero arrives on the scene. New Orleans-based police Lt. Monica Rambeau is involved in a freak accident that gives her the ability to transform into any form of electromagnetic energy. A local paper reports on her actions and dubs her Captain Marvel! But if Monica can't learn to control her new powers, she will "explode...like a megaton bomb!".

With this in mind, Captain Marvel heads to New York City to seek help from Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. But before she arrives at their headquarters, she accidentally knocks out Spider-Man.  This makes the webhead think she's one of the bad guys.

With Richards out of town, Monica visits the Avengers for assistance. With the help of Spider-Man and Iron Man, Captain Marvel is saved and is invited to join the Avengers.

Subsequently, SHIELD Director Nick Fury and President Ronald Reagan visit a SHIELD base near Baltimore. But they're ambushed by SHIELD agents and taken hostage. The Avengers are called to the scene and discover it's the work of the super-villain known as the Plantman.

During the fight against Plantman, the Avengers are aided by Eros of Titan. He says he came to Earth to join the Avengers. Eros possesses super-strength and the power of flight. But his primary power is his ability to psionically manipulate "pleasure centers" in people. This makes Eros' foes easily persuadable.  Wasp suggests Eros take on the codename Starfox and he is made an Avenger-in -training.

Plantman's monster stomps She-Hulk.

The Plantman escapes in a submarine, but Thor, Eros and Captain Marvel track down the villain. The two new Avengers play an important role in Plantman's capture.

After that, the Avengers travel to the moon. They visit the Inhumans, who recently transported their homeland to the moon's blue area. The United Nations Security Council is uneasy about the Inhumans' lunar presence and sends the Avengers to secure a non-agression treaty with them.

The Inhumans agree to this, but then the Avengers are notified about the bombarding of Earth with moon rocks. The prime suspect in this attack are the Inhumans. The Avengers question them and tempers start to flare.  t gets worse when Black Bolt orders the execution of the Avengers! Have the Inhumans turned evil? Or is there another explanation?

The Avengers battle the Inhumans on the moon!

Later, the Fantastic Four's old foe Annihilus takes over the Baxter Building. He encases the surrounding area in an invisible and seemingly impenetrable barrier. Vision uses his ability to become intangible to walk through the barrier. But after taking one step, Vision falls unconscious. Thanks to Captain Marvel's intervention, the barrier is deactivated and Annihilus is eventually defeated and presumed dead. But the Vision remains in a coma.

Shortly after, Doctor Strange contacts Scarlet Witch with some bad news. Dracula, the lord of vampires is seeking Wanda's copy of the Darkhold, a book of sorcery that contains very dangerous spells.  Dracula attacks the Avengers mansion, but Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are ready for him and his vampire minions. Doctor Strange joins them in saving the world from Dracula.

Next, the supervillain known as the Wizard escapes from prison. Wasp thinks that the best place to find him is his futuristic mansion in Long Island. She-Hulk, Captain America, and Scarlet Witch visit Wizard's home and find that Wasp's intuition was correct. But if the Avengers want to apprehend the Wizard, they'll have to get through a series of death traps that the villain has created for them.

Following that, when She-Hulk tells Spider-Man she makes $1000 a week as an Avenger, he decides to join the team. Much to their chagrin, the webhead breaks in to the Avengers mansion to show he's good enough for the team. The Avengers' alarm goes off and puts a halt to Spider-Man's request.

The heroes are called to Project Pegasus, a government research facility founded to seek out alternative forms of energy. Spider-Man stows away on the outside of the Avengers' Quinjet. The Avengers are NOT happy about this, but Spidey tags along with them anyway.  

They learn that Project Pegasus has been attacked by the subterranean race known as the Lava Men.  But the real villains at Project Pegasus turn out to be Blackout, Moonstone, Electro and the Rhino! The Avengers will need Spider-Man's help in battling these foes. But the wallcrawler soon discovers he has a lot to learn about teamwork.

Sometime later, Starfox is assigned to watch over the comatose Vision. He is surprised to learn that Vision is awake and has regained his ability to speak and hear. Starfox decides to aid Vision's recovery by connecting him to ISAAC, the supercomputer that operates the Titan moon of Saturn. This gives the Vision control of the Avengers' computers and grants him near omnipotence. Vision uses his new abilities to catch villains, but his fellow Avengers are worried that it could lead to ego problems for the synthezoid.

During a rare quiet period for the team, Wonder Man's agent has booked him to appear as a guest on Late Night With David Letterman to boost his acting career. But Letterman's producers want Wonder Man to bring some of his Avengers teammates along with him. The regular Avengers are away, so Vision and Hawkeye recruit some reserve members for the Letterman show. Black Widow, Black Panther and the Beast agree to join Simon on Late Night.

David Letterman interviews the Avengers.

Everything seems to be going well for the Avengers on the show. But unbeknownst to the heroes and Letterman, their enemy Fabian Stankowicz is in the audience. Stankowicz attacks the Avengers with various machines he's created, turning 30 Rock into a battlefield! Only David Letterman can save the Avengers!

Lastly, former Avenger Tigra calls her teammates to San Francisco. Tigra's friend Jessica Drew, better known as the crime-fighter Spider-Woman, is in a coma. While Jessica is unresponsive, a ghostly image of Spider-Woman looms above her. Tigra and the Avengers learn that this is the work of Morgan Le Fey, evil sorceress from the Arthurian Era! The Avengers call Doctor Strange for help in defeating Le Fey. But even if they win, will it be too late to save the life of Jessica Drew?  

Review:
This is a great team of Avengers that features a nice blend of the "old guard" (Wasp, Captain America, Thor) and newbies (She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Starfox). The stories reprinted in Avengers: Absolute Vision Book 1 feature work from some of the finest creators of the Bronze Age.

Story:
Roger Stern writes the bulk of this tpb and does a great job. I get the impression Captain Marvel meant a lot to Stern, and rightly so. Monica Rambeau is a great character with cool powers who saves the day multiple times in these tales.

Captain Marvel flies through New York and smashes into the barrier!

Speaking of Captain Marvel, Stern does a great job writing the women of the Avengers. There are stretches where the team contains four women on their active roster (Wasp, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch), which is an unusual example of gender representation in early 80s comics.

Spider-Man's guest appearance is good as well. Stern, of course, wrote Spider-Man around this time and these stories show Stern understands the difference between a "loner" hero and a team. Stern demonstrates that Spidey has a lot to learn when it comes to teamwork. But the webhead also plays a valuable role in protecting Project Pegasus from Blackout's gang.

One of the highlights of this book is the Avengers' visit to Late Night With David Letterman, which was published during Assistant Editors' Month. I was a big fan of Letterman when I first read this story (and remain a Letterman fan to this day!). It does a nice job of capturing the free-wheeling "anything can happen" style of Dave's early years on NBC.

Dave turns the tables on Fabian Stankowicz!

Letterman retired from tv last month.  If you're having a tough time adjusting to a world without Letterman (like I am), this is a good time to revisit the Letterman/Avengers tale. For a more comprehensive summary of the Letterman story, please visit my other comics blog, Assistant Editors' Month Online.

Avengers: Absolute Vision Book 1 opens with a story penned by J.M. DeMatteis. It's a good "done-in-one" story that features a fun Avengers/Defenders duel. Nebulon always made a good antagonist for the Defenders and this story is a good farewell for the Celestial Man.

In some ways, this feels more like a Defenders story (maybe it was originally intended to be one?). But that's fine, since DeMatteis wrote so many great Defenders tales around the same time this story was published.

Bill Mantlo authored the Inhumans story. It's entertaining, but it suffers from the same problem as most stories that feature the Inhumans: Maximus is almost always the cause of their problems.  

John Byrne wrote one issue of the Fantastic Four that ties in to the Avengers struggle against the barrier. It's good, but it's part 6 of a six-part story, and it doesn't add a lot to this tpb. I had a similar problem with the inclusion of the tale from Doctor Strange #60. It's included here because Stern wrote it and it features guest appearances by Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch and Jarvis. But it's also part of a multi-part saga from the Doctor Strange series.

With the exception of Annihilus and Dracula, the villains here aren't exactly A-listers, but Stern writes them all very well. He even makes good use of a joke-of-a-badguy like Plantman.

Art:
The art on the whole isn't great, but it's mostly good. Most of the book features Al Milgrom penciling with inks by Joe Sinnott. They were always good for solid Marvel House Style art. Dan Green and Terry Austin serve as penciler and inker for the Doctor Strange story and they're okay too.

My personal favorite artwork comes from the Spider-Man/Captain Marvel story that's reprinted from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16. John Romita, Jr. penciled it, while his father provided the inks. They create a wonderful combination of (then) new-school and old-school Spidey art. 

John Byrne penciled and inked the portion that originally ran in Fantastic Four #256. It looks great and Byrne does a nice job creating an epic atmosphere.

How Does It Look?:
Pretty good, here's a scan of an original page from my copy of Avengers #238:

And here's how it appears in this tpb:

There's a bit of recoloring, but I've seen much worse, and it's not too garish or distracting.  

Extras:
This tpb contains a page of original art, plus several Avengers-related entries from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Avengers Annual #11 included the Avengers Membership Manual and that's reprinted here as well.

Avengers: Absolute Vision Book 1 contains some great stories that show why Roger Stern is one of the greatest comic writers of all time, and re-reading it this month helped me get over my post-Letterman hangover. But the lack of consistently great art prevents it from achieving this blog's highest grade.

J.A. Morris' rating:

  
.5

3.5 Sals.

Avengers: Heart Of Stone

Reprints Avengers #188-196 and Avengers Annual #9
Written by Jim Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Steven Grant, David Michelinie, Mark Gruenwald.
Penciled by John Byrne, Arvell Jones, Don Newton, George Perez, Arvell Jones and Sal Buscema.
Inked by  Ricardo Villamonte, Dan Green, Frank Springer, Joseph Rubenstein, Marvel Staff.

The Avengers are flying home from Europe and decide to take a shortcut through Soviet airspace.  They're about to ask a MiG pilot for permission to do so when the Soviet plane explodes. The Avengers land their Quinjet and find themselves on a Soviet military base. The Russians ask for their help in freeing a nuclear reactor that has been taken over by a strange team of criminals. 

The base is under attack by a team of villains called the Elements of Doom. Each member is the living embodiment of an element. The Elements capture Falcon and Wasp and intend to turn them into elements. It's up to the Avengers to save their teammates and the base.  


In a secret cave below the Avengers' mansion, the android known as Arsenal is planning to attack the Avengers. Arsenal is talking with a computer it calls "Mistress", who gives it orders.

Iron Man learns that his father, Howard Stark, created Arsenal during World War II. Arsenal would be activated if the Nazis took over the United States to defend the country from the Third Reich. It will take the might of the Avengers to stop Arsenal, but Iron Man is shocked when he learns of his  connection to Mistress.

After the fight with Arsenal, Hawkeye leaves the team mansion in anger. He's still frustrated over being removed from the team in favor of the Falcon.

Falcon tries to make peace with Hawkeye, to no avail.

He gets a job as chief of security at Cross Technological Enterprises. He is glad to have a "cushy" job, but it doesn't last for long. Cross is attacked by Deathbird, Ms. Marvel's old enemy. She's been stealing technology from Cross, and Hawkeye will have to stop her all by himself.

Later, a meteor lands in Jamaica Bay. Unlike regular meteors, this one sprouts legs and walks from the bay into New York City.

At the same time, the Avengers are subpoenaed and forced to attend a Senate hearing. Their NSA liaison, Henry Peter Gyrich, has accused them of violating the membership rules he recently set up for the team. 
The hearing ends when Gyrich learns of the "walking meteor" and the Avengers are allowed to leave so they can stop it. They're shocked to learn it's really their old foe the Gray Gargoyle. He turns several Avengers into stone.

Subsequently, Tony Stark is touring a steel mill in Pittsburgh that he possibly intends to purchase. The mill's claim to fame is that Thor once visited it for repairs to his hammer. A worker named Joseph Conroy keeps a fragment of Thor's hammer as a good luck charm. But disaster strikes when one of Conroy's enemies pushes him into a vat of molten steel. Due to the hammer fragment, Conroy is transformed into a monster known as Inferno. The Avengers are called to Pittsburgh to battle this new menace.

Back in New York, a man named Selbe comes to the Avengers' Mansion seeking help. Selbe has escaped from the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane. He claims he's been tortured at the institute.

The Wasp feels very sympathetic to Selbe's cause, but the other Avengers aren't sure what to think of him. It's a moot point when someone arrives at the mansion with a court order that sends Selbe back to Solomon Institute.  

Jan shrinks to "wasp" size and sneaks into the institute, where she's gassed and imprisoned. Wasp's husband, Yellowjacket guesses she's inside and plans a rescue mission. The Avengers learn that man behind Selbe's torture is a criminal who calls himself the Taskmaster, who was born with the rare gift of Photographic Reflexes. This gives him the ability to watch feats performed by superheroes and imitate them with amazing accuracy. Taskmaster has set up "schools where I could train crooks and social misfits to be goons for the frontline baddies." The Solomon Institute is one of his crime schools.

Taskmaster makes a grand entrance.

Can the Avengers stop the Taskmaster and shut down his criminal training school? They're helped in this battle by a guest superhero, Scott Lang, the Ant-Man!

Plus, Wonder Man's acting career results in a gig...as second banana on a local children's show!

Wonder Man gets a job on The Uncle Elmer Show as "Mr. Muscles!"

Review:
While none of these stories are classic or essential Bronze Age tales, it's a good, solid entertaining book.

Story:
Bill Mantlo wrote opening tale. It isn't great, but it features a good action story, even if the Elements of Doom are forgettable. Mantlo also penned the Arsenal story. It would have a lasting impact on the Marvel Comics and Cinematic universes. For it shows Howard Stark actively involved in creating WWII-era technology, something we would see in Captain America: The First Avenger.

David Michelinie scripted the majority of these stories and they're all pretty good. He writes Hawkeye as a jerk. There's a nice panel where Yellowjacket says, "Hawkeye's never happy unless he can complain about something!" Truer words were never spoken by a comic book character. But Hawkeye's solo outing, credited to Michelinie, Steven Grant, Mark Gruenwald, & Roger Stern is a fun ride.

The Taskmaster never reached A-list villain status, but he was a great bad guy and one of my favorite Avengers antagonists. I always thought his idea to start schools for minions made sense in the context of comic books. 

Last but not least, the Inferno/Pittsburgh story is credited to Michelinie and the Pittsburgh Comix Club.  It's basically a tale of corporate corruption, with the steel mill having connections to the Maggia. But setting a story outside of New York was a nice touch and it features some good references to Pittsburgh landmarks.

Inferno rampages through Pittsburgh.

Art:
The book opens with several stories penciled by John Byrne and ends with a three-parter drawn by George Perez, two of the finest artists of the Bronze Age. They both provide gorgeous work in Heart Of Stone.

This was a great era to be a Byrne fan. I've never been a big fan of Grey Gargoyle, but Byrne makes him look great in this tbp. Here's a nice fight scene that features the Gargoyle and Falcon:

I love this "training exercise" drawn by Perez, great stuff:

And Perez pencils a nice snowstorm, as seen in this scan:

 
Don Newton penciled the Arsenal story. I haven't read many stories drawn by Newton (this is one of only two Marvel credits since he mainly worked for DC), but his art is good here. It's a shame he didn't get the chance to draw Marvel characters more often.

Arvell Jones penciled the Pittsburgh/Inferno story and his work is decent. Sal Buscema is credited as the penciler for part 2 of the Inferno battle, but Dan Green's inks are so heavy Buscema's work is barely visible. Their art isn't bad, just a step down from the work of Byrne and Perez.

Extras:
We get an essay written by Tom Breevort that praises Perez' Avengers art. Seven pages of original art are included. The Avengers roster, from the 1982 edition of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is also reprinted in this tbp.

How does it look?:
I don't own copies of all the issues reprinted in this tpb.  But here's the splash page as of Avengers #196:

And here's how the same page looks in the book:

Looks pretty good to me. I don't see any "modern" recoloring.

Avengers: Heart Of Stone contains some good stories, great art, and it introduces Taskmaster. The contents of this book might not be as important to the Avengers history as the Korvac saga or battles with Ultron, but it's a fun book that is worth picking up. It's especially recommended for fans of Perez and Byrne.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5

 3 and a half Sals.

Avengers: The Serpent Crown

Reprints Avengers #141-144 and #147-149.

Written by Steve Englehart.

Penciled by George Perez.

Inked by Vince Colletta, Mike Esposito, Sam Granger.

The Avengers are confronting the forces of evil in the present and the past, and on two different versions of Earth!

The Beast, formerly of the X-men, has joined the Avengers on a trial basis. His old friend Patsy Walker shows up and asks to tag along with the Avengers on their next mission.

Brand Corporation and Roxxon Oil are collaborating on some sort of  corporate corruption, so the Avengers investigate them. It turns out Roxxon's boss Hugh Jones is under the control of the mysterious, mystical Serpent Crown. Brand/Roxxon hires the Squadron Supreme (a team of superheroes from Counter Earth) to defeat the Avengers. Complicating the matters, Patsy's ex-husband Buzz Baxter is working for Brand Corporation on this project! In the middle of this, the Avengers and the Squadron are teleported to Counter Earth.

The Serpent Crown has taken over Counter Earth! Even the President of the United States Nelson Rockefeller is under the Crown's command.  Vision and Scarlet Witch manage to steal the Crown, but Rockefeller sends the Squadron Supreme to track it down, and an epic battle ensues between the two Super-Teams!

At the same time, the Avengers arch-foe Kang The Conqueror has trapped Hawkeye in the 1870s, during the "Wild West" era.  Thor and Moondragon go back in time to save Hawkeye, but they will also have to save the world of that time from Kang. The Avengers team up with Marvel's wild west heroes Two-Gun Kid, Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid and Night Rider!

And just when things are looking up for the Avengers, they're attacked by Orka, the human Killer Whale!

Plus, the debut of a new Marvel superheroine, the Hellacious Hellcat!

Vision & Scarlet Witch Tangle with Hyperion,Lady Lark & Golden Archer

Review:

This tpb features one of the first Bronze Age Avengers stories I ever read (#147). So I'll admit that I'm fighting nostalgia in order to give an objective review here. In case anyone doesn't know, the Squadron Supreme were created as stand-ins for the Justice League of DC comics. For instance, Hyperion = Superman, Lady Lark = Black Canary, Golden Archer = Green Arrow, etc. For a complete list of Squadders & their JLA counterparts, click here. When the Justice League visited Earth 2 and teamed with the Justice Society, we often got covers like this:

Cover of Justice League of America #38, from comics.org

In the Serpent Crown story, George Perez and Sam Grainger paid homage with this splash page:

It's also worth noting that Patsy Walker first appeared in a Miss America Magazine #2, way back in 1944, which makes her one of the oldest characters in the Marvel Universe. She appeared in Marvel's humor titles (very similar to Archie Comics tales) like Patsy Walker and Patsy And Hedy that were published from the 1940s well into the 60s. Marvel later retconned these stories out their continuity, saying that Patsy's adventures in the stories were fictionalized accounts written by her mother. 

Story:
Steve Englehart nicely juggles the multiple storylines. This tpb featurs non-stop action and great characterizations. There is a WHOLE LOT going on in this tpb, but it never feels convoluted.
Englehart had previously written the Beast and Patsy Walker in Amazing Adventures, he does a nice job wrapping up their stories here. I also really enjoyed the Vision in this story, I don't think he was ever more of a bada$$ than he is here. If you're not a fan of the Vision, this tpb will make you one.  

Englehart also added some depth to the Squadron Supreme characters. Hyperion makes an aside about his "arch-foe Burbank" and mentions his home city Cosmopolis (a stand-in for Superman's Metropolis). And we get some nice interaction between Golden Archer and Lady Lark.  
Avengers: The Serpent Crown shows why Englehart is rightly remembered as one of the premier scribes of the Bronze Age.

Art:
I have mixed feelings about the art. George Perez is an all-time great and one of my favorite artists, and this tpb features some of his earliest work. But the inking of Vince Colletta, Mike Esposito and Sam Grainger doesn't always compliment Perez's pencils. Still, the art isn't bad and sometimes the Perez art we know and love shows through the ink jobs.

How Does it look?:
It looks fantastic. Check the scanned pages above, and look at this splash page:

Extras:
In the back of the tpb, you'll find the entries for Patsy Walker and Two-Gun Kid from The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe.
It also contains summaries of Avenges #145 & 146. These were fill-in stories published in the middle of the Serpent Crown storyline. They don't relate to the rest of the book, but they don't detract from it either.

Avengers: The Serpent Crown is a great tpb that features Steve Englehart at his Bronze Age best. The aforementioned inking prevents me from giving it the highest rating, but it's still recommended. I should mention this tpb has just been reissued to coincide with the release of the Avengers movie, pick it up at your local comic shop!

My rating:
.5 Sals!