Avengers: The Trial Of Yellowjacket

Reprints Avengers #212-230
Written by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, Steven Grant, Roger Stern, Bob Hall, J.M. DeMatteis and Alan Zelenetz.
Penciled by Alan Kupperberg, Bob Hall, Alan Weiss, Don Perlin, Greg Laraocque, Sal Buscema and Al Milgrom.
Inked by Dan Green, Brett Breeding, Chic Stone, Joe Sinnott, and friends.

As I was preparing this review yesterday, I learned of the passing of artist Alan Kupperberg, who penciled the first issue that is reprinted in this book. This review is dedicated to Kupperberg and I send my condolences to his family and friends.

The Avengers have recently formed a new team. Founding member and noted scientist Henry Pym, currently known as Yellowjacket, has rejoined the team and Tigra is an Avenger for the fist time. Pym is feeling insecure, feeling embarrassed about depending on his wife's money and also feeling that his powers are inadequate compared to his teammates. Pym appears to be losing his sanity. This is likely related to his changing from insect-size to giant-size and using multiple costumed identities over the years. This causes Yellowjacket to lash out at his wife Janet, who fights crime as the Wasp, and at the other Avengers.

In rural Northern Virginia, a woman named Linnea and a man named Gorn have decided to rejoin civilization. They have been living for thousands of years in a hidden glade and are surprised at what they find when they visit Washington, DC. Gorn gets into a bar fight and stabs a police officer. This gets the attention of the Avengers, who set out for DC.

More police arrive on the scene and shoot Gorn, killing him. Linnea is incensed and goes on a rampage. The heroes arrive and make the battle a brief one. Captain America is trying to talk Linnea into surrendering. Suddenly, Yellowjacket zaps her from behind with his sting-blast.

Linnea resumes her attack. Pym's teammates are angry with him for attacking Linnea when she had all but given up, but Yellowjacket believes he did nothing wrong.

The Avengers return to New York and prepare to court-martial Yellowjacket. Pym is convinced they will find him guilty, but has an ace up his sleeve. He's constructed a robot called Salvation One that will attack the team and then only Yellowjacket will be able to stop it. Pym believes this will once again make the Avengers see him as a hero. When Wasp confronts him, he slaps her in the face, giving his wife a black eye.

Pym's court-martial doesn't go well and he activates the robot, but it's more dangerous than he anticipated. Wasp is able to stop Salvation One and Yellowjacket skulks away in disgrace.

The team lingers about the Avengers Mansion, trying to come to grips with Pym's betrayal.

At the same time, Warren Worthington III, better known as the X-Men's Angel, is driving through New Mexico. He encounters Ghost Rider, who attacks the mutant. Angel's girlfriend Candy Southern calls the Avengers for help. They arrive, but Earth's Mightiest Heroes learn that the Spirit of Vengeance is not easily defeated.

Sometime later, the cosmically powered Silver Surfer arrives in New York. He encounters the super-villain known as the Molecule Man.

The Surfer discusses his time when he served as the herald of Galactus and helped the Big G find planets to be consumed. Molecule Man is inspired by this story and says he wants to "eat" the planet Earth!

Molecule Man surrounds a portion of New Jersey in a force field and creates a kingdom for himself.  The Avengers try to bring him to justice, but are easily defeated. Molecule Man kills them (or appears to), except for Tigra. The newest Avenger will have to go it alone, or it could mean the death of everyone on Earth! 

The team regroups after the battle with Molecule Man. The Avengers gather at the mansion for a meeting. Wasp calls for a new leader and nominates herself to chair the Avengers. The others agree unanimously and for the first time, the Avengers are led by a woman.

At the same time, Hank Pym encounters his arch foe Egghead in a New York diner. Egghead seems to have reformed. He's feeling guilt over causing his niece, Trish Starr, to lose her arm as a result of one of his earlier schemes. Egghead asks Pym to deliver a cybernetic arm to Trish, but it's all a ruse to frame Yellowjacket. The arm makes Trish go crazy and is actually under the command of Egghead.

With Trish's life in jeopardy, Egghead forces Pym to break into a military base. This gets the attention of the Avengers, who are forced to fight their ex-teammate. When Yellowjacket is defeated, he tells the heroes he was forced to aid Egghead, but Trish acts like she has no idea what Pym is talking about.  Yellowjacket is taken into custody and sent to jail. It seems that Egghead has finally succeeded in defeating his greatest enemy.

Next up, a young boy named Morgan Macneil Hardy shows up at Avengers mansion and meets with the team. But this is no ordinary child. He takes out a pistol and shoots himself, committing suicide.

Within seconds, he is reborn! Hardy tells the Avengers he is immortal and as old as life itself. He is tired of living asks the heroes to help him die. The Avengers are torn, since they've dedicated themselves to protecting people. Hardy takes things into his own hands and sneaks onto an unmanned rocket headed towards the sun. But instead of killing him, the sun transforms Hardy into a deadly fire monster!

Subsequently, the Avengers receive a video transmission from Drax the Destroyer. He tells the heroes that he and his daughter Moondragon have helped stop a brutal war on the planet Ba-Bani. Using her mental powers, Moondragon has kept the peace on Ba-Bani.

But the Avengers soon learn that Moondragon's powers have (quite literally) gone to her head. She has set herself up as a goddess and only the Avengers can stop her. That won't be easy, because Moondragon has taken mental control over Thor!

Shortly after returning to Earth, the Avengers meet and decide it's time to add new members. Tigra has recently resigned, leaving the team with only 4 active members. Wasp says the team needs "more girls". Jan invites She-Hulk and several other superheroines to join the team. She-Hulk and Wasp click immediately and the jade giant agrees to join the Avengers.

At the same time, Captain America and Iron Man pay a visit to Clint Barton, their former teammate known as Hawkeye the archer. Barton is still a bit upset over the way he was removed from the active roster a few months back and is angry that Cap and Shellhead expect him "to come crawling back to the almighty Avengers," but he nevertheless relents and rejoins the team.

The new team has little time to coalesce. Egghead has recruited several super-criminals to form a new Masters Of Evil team. The new Masters consist of Moonstone, Whirlwind, Scorpion and Tiger Shark. Egghead wants them to go after the Avengers, but only when the time is right. Plans get changed when Whirlwind pays the Wasp a visit. This leads the villains to the Avengers' mansion, where the new Masters Of Evil face off against the new team of Avengers!

Later, 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 Scott sees Hawkeye running around the carnival, he decides it's time to don his Ant-Man costume and aid the archer. It's a good thing he did, because the heroes discover the man behind the scenes is none other than the Taskmaster!  The villain has a bomb that will kill everyone at the carnival and only Ant-Man and Hawkeye can prevent this from happening.

While all of these events are occurring, Hank Pym remains in jail, awaiting trial. Tony Stark is paying his best lawyers to represent Yellowjacket. Ant-Man believes Pym is innocent and sneaks in to the jail (easy to do when one is ant-size!), intending to spring Hank. But Pym wants to stay in jail and prove in a court of law that he was framed by Egghead.

The mystical superhero known as Doctor Druid arrives at Avengers Mansion. He transports the Avengers back to the 12th century, where they find their former teammate Dan Whitman, the Black Knight. The Knight had been stuck in the past, fighting in the Crusades.

Whitman needs the Avengers help to confront the Fomore, an evil race of super-powered immortals.  The Fomore prove to be a tough opponent for the Avengers. The most dangerous Fomorian is the giant known as Balor!

When they return to the present, the Avengers have a new member among their ranks. Her name is Monica Rambeau, known to the world as Captain Marvel. Monica can transform herself into any form of energy, which gives her the power to fly across the universe in seconds. The Avengers devise a test for Captain Marvel's powers and are quite impressed with the results.

Captain Marvel joins the Avengers.

Finally, Henry Pym's trial date arrives. But shortly after it begins, the Masters Of Evil break into the courtroom. They claim to be acting on Pym's orders, but it's part of Egghead's plan to further discredit Hank. The Avengers battle the villains, but Pym is taken to Egghead's Long Island hideout.

Egghead forces Pym to help him, telling him that the Masters Of Evil are the closest thing to allies Pym has in the world. The Avengers are hot on Egghead's trail. But if Henry Pym is to survive and clear his name, he must engage Egghead in a one-on-one fight to the finish.

Plus, the would-be menace of Fabian Stankowicz, the Mechano-Marauder!

Review:
A momentous saga that features the end of Hank Pym's superhero career (for a while at least) and the end of his marriage to Jan. But on the whole, it's a mixed bag.

Story:
The big problem with this story is that Pym's fall from grace happens very quickly. He lost his mind three years earlier in "real" time. But after that, Yellowjacket recovered and he and Wasp had a solid relationship. But one minute Hank feels a bit disrespected, the next he's plotting treachery and smacking his wife in the face. Most of this book is written by Jim Shooter, who wrote some classic Avengers stories in the late 70s. The tales reprinted in Trial Of Yellowjacket aren't as good. The stories that depart from the Pym-centric portion don't add much. The Ghost Rider fight is a mess.

The book also would have been a slightly better reading if issue #211, where Pym rejoins the team, was included.

But it's not all bad. Shooter writes the Wasp as a very strong, powerful character. He deserves kudos for making Jan the first woman to lead the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Wasp is forced to grow a lot in a short time and Shooter makes it believable.

Shooter's Molecule Man story is entertaining, even if we never believe the villain has killed the Avengers at the end of the first part. Silver Surfer's guest appearance also helps make this a solid tale.

The Black Knight story written by Steven Grant isn't great either. The Fomorians aren't very interesting and feel like one-shot villains.

David Michelinie writes the one-and-done Hawkeye/Ant-Man team-up. Taskmaster was always fun and Michelinie creates a memorable maneuver that Ant-Man uses to save the day. A highlight of the tpb.

J.M. De Matteis penned the Morgan Macneil Hardy story. It might not be essential to the Avengers' history. But it gets into some interesting topics when Hardy asks them to help him die. The heroes are torn, since they've spent their careers saving lives.

Roger Stern began his long Avengers tenure by finishing the Pym saga. He does a nice job wrapping things up, with Hank clearing his name. It would have been easy for Stern to blame Egghead's machinations for Pym's domestic violence, but that's not the case. The Wasp's maturation that Shooter began continues under Stern's pen.

Art:
The art here is all decent, but never rises beyond pretty good. My favorite art is found in the portion reprinted from Avengers #227. It features Sal Buscema embellished by Brett Breeding. The lack of a consistent artist (seven different artists provide the pencils) hurts the book. This tpb also includes several issues that are inked by committee, which means at times the art will look very different from one page to the next.

 
How Does It Look?:
Here's a panel from Avengers #212:

And this is how the reprinted version looks:

Avengers: The Trial Of Yellowjacket reprints a story that has had repercussions for years to come, especially regarding Wasp and Hank Pym. The story itself is not a classic of the Bronze Age, but the Wasp's growth, the Hawkeye/Ant-Man tale, and the final battle with Egghead make it worth reading.

J.A. Morris' ratings

.5

Marvel Masterworks: The Defenders Volume 2

Reprints Defenders #7-16, Giant-Size Defenders #1 and Avengers #115-118
Written by Steve Englehart, Len Wein and Tony Isabella.
Penciled by Sal Buscema, Bob Brown and Jim Starlin.
Inked by Frank Bolle, Frank McLaughlin, Jack Abel, Klaus Janson, Dan Green, Mike Esposito, Al Milgrom and Frank Giacoia.

Variant cover.

Valkyrie, Hulk and Namor, the Sub-Mariner, all members of the Defenders, encounter the archer superhero Hawkeye. He's recently left the Avengers and wants to find a new direction in life. After a less-than-friendly encounter with Hulk and Valkyrie, order is restored and Hawkeye is invited to join the Non-Team.

Suddenly, an Atlantean arrives at their headquarters and tells Namor that his old foe Attuma is preparing to attack Atlantic City. The Defenders head to the Jersey Shore to battle Attuma and his minions. In a short battle, Namor, Hawkeye and Valkyrie are captured and imprisoned on Attuma's ship.

The heroes learn that Attuma's new partner is the Red Ghost. The Ghost uses cosmic rays to mentally control the captured Defenders and orders them to attack Atlantis. Thankfully, the Defenders' leader, Doctor Strange, returns and brings Silver Surfer with him to take on Attuma and Red Ghost.

Shortly after that, Loki, Asgardian god of mischief falls off a cliff after being blinded in a battle with his brother Thor. Loki is rescued by the dread Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension. Dormammu tells Loki he will restore his eyesight if Loki will assist him in his "grandest scheme."

Dormammu wants to recover the Evil Eye, a device that will give him the power to destroy the Earth.  He manipulates the Defenders into finding the pieces of the Evil Eye, which are scattered all over the world. The Black Knight, a friend of the Defenders has been turned to stone. Dormammu tricks the Non-Team into believing that only the Evil Eye will restore the Knight's humanity.   

But Loki has second thoughts. He believes Dormammu will destroy Asgard after he eliminates Earth.  Loki secretly contacts the Avengers and tells them that the Defenders are evil and willingly aiding Dormammu. After hearing Loki's tale, the Avengers go in search of the Evil Eye. This leads to a clash of epic proportions between the Defenders and the Avengers!

On an island in the South Pacific, Silver Surfer battles the Vision on top of an active volcano!

Iron Man takes on his old Avengers teammate Hawkeye in Mexico!

Valkyrie and Swordsman engage in a sword-fight in a Bolivian castle!

Doctor Strange faces off against Mantis and Black Panther in an Indiana cornfield!

Captain America seeks the Evil Eye in Osaka, Japan and is confronted by Namor!

Last but definitely not least, two of the mightiest beings on Earth, Hulk and Thor, duel in Los Angeles.

Eventually, the Defenders and Avengers realize they've been duped and team up to battle Dormammu.  But to defeat him, they'll have to enter the Dark Dimension, where Dormammu reigns supreme.

The Avengers & Defenders unite to battle Dormammu!

After the clash with the Avengers, the Defenders still have to free the Black Knight from his stone prison. This requires them to time-travel back to the Crusades! The Defenders are surprised when they find the Black Knight battling giant gnomes! These gnomes are a difficult obstacle for the heroes to overcome.

Sometime later, Hulk is attacked by the Defenders' old foe Xemnu, the Living Titan. Doctor Strange and Valkyrie come to his rescue and help Ol' Greenskin battle Xemnu.

Next up, the supervillain Nighthawk pays a visit to Doctor Strange's Greenwich Village home, which serves as the Defenders' unofficial base of operations. Nighthawk has recently quit the criminal team known as the Squadron Sinister over their latest scheme.

The Squadron, which consists of Hyperion, Doctor Spectrum and the Whizzer, has "sold" Earth to an alien "geologist" called Nebulon, the Celestial Man. Nighthawk left the Squadron when he learned of Nebulon's plan. The alien has created a laser gun that will melt the polar icecaps and cover the entirety of Earth in water!  
 
Nighthawk tells the Defenders about this and convinces the Non-Team to join him in tackling the Squadron. They arrive at the Squadron's base and quickly gain the upper hand on the villains. But Nebulon arrives and easily beats the Defenders. He imprisons the Defenders in an energy globe and blasts them into space. 

The Defenders ultimately come out on top, thanks to the intervention of Nighthawk. The former villain says he wants to fight crime now and is granted membership in the Defenders!

Lastly, Doctor Strange receives a mental contact from Charles Xavier, known to the world as Professor X, leader of the X-Men. Xavier has discovered something amazing in the Carlsbad Canyons in New Mexico.

But shortly after the Defenders arrive in Carlsbad, they're attacked by Magneto and his new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The Defenders defeat the Brotherhood, but Magneto has a secret weapon.

The Defenders face off against the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The master of magnetism has discovered alien technology that gives him the power to create new forms of life. He uses this tech to create Alpha, the ultimate mutant. Alpha easily beats the Defenders and he departs with the Brotherhood to New York. Magneto walks into the United Nations and declares himself ruler of the world. Alpha's power makes Magneto seemingly unbeatable. But as long as the Defenders are alive, there's hope for Earth's survival!

The Defenders are no match for Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant!

Review:
I'm a huge fan of the Defenders and this is one of my favorite lineups of the Non-Team.

Story:
Marvel Masterworks: The Defenders Volume 2 features stories from one of the classic eras of the Defenders. Even in the context of Bronze Age comic books, the Defenders shouldn't work. But somehow they do. It's always fun to watch Doctor Strange, Hulk, Valkyrie and Sub-Mariner interact with one another. The Non-Team nature means the cast is always rotating, so you never get bored with characters. Hawkeye and Silver Surfer don't stick around very long. But Nighthawk arrives shortly after their departure and Kyle Richmond goes on to become a Defenders mainstay for many years to come.  

The Defenders meet the Avengers and explain that they are on the same side.

I especially love how the Hulk is written in these Defenders tales. I still laugh when he calls Doctor Strange "dumb magician" and refers to Nighthawk as "bird-nose"! It's also nice to see the Hulk be happy for a fleeting minute or two. Like in this panel, where he realizes his fellow Defenders are his friends.

Hulk smiles when he realizes "Dumb Magician" is his friend. 
It's nice to see Hulk happy every now and then.

The centerpiece of this book is what's become know as "The Avengers/Defenders War." This is one of Steve Englehart's crowning achievements and one of the most entertaining stories of the Bronze Age...with one caveat. During the Vision's fight with the Silver Surfer, Scarlet Witch is around for the sole purpose of being a victim. This is silly, since Wanda had already been established as a heavy hitter.  Englehart makes up for it later by having Scarlet Witch play a major role in the battle against Dormammu, but it's still silly.

The other Defender vs. Avenger fights are all excellent. I was surprised when I re-read this to see that the Defenders won every battle, or at least walked away with the piece of the Evil Eye they were seeking. Maybe Englehart wanted to help the new team build their reputation against the old one. I was also surprised to see the Swordsman stab someone to death. It doesn't bother me, since Swordsman was a recently reformed villain engaging in self-defense, but I'm still shocked Englehart would write a story where an Avenger kills someone. The Hulk-Thor conflict is the highlight of the book and Englehart does a great job in the narration building up the powers of "Jade Jaws" and the thunder god.

Len Wein takes over after Englehart and the stories remain strong. The conflict with the evil mutants takes place during an interesting era for Marvel's mutant characters. The X-men series had been cancelled and turned into a reprint title.  But Professor X and the X-men made sporadic appearances in other Marvel series between the end of the old team and the first appearance of the new X-men.

It should be noted that Magneto is written here like a cartoonish madman villain dedicated to world domination. That's fine by me, but modern readers may be surprised by this, since the story was written about 8 years before the retcon that established Magneto as a survivor of the Final Solution.

Of course superheroes need quality opponents. Any book of Bronze Age reprints that features Dormammu, Loki, and Magneto as villains has to be good! Plus we get appearances by Nebulon, the Squadron Sinister, Attuma, and the Red Ghost, who aren't exactly slouches either.

Good stories all around from Englehart and Wein.   

Art:
The art is as good as the writing here, if not better.   

Sal Buscema pencils the Defenders stories. This book shows Buscema at the peak of his Bronze Age powers. He gives us lots of great fight scenes. Buscema was the definitive Bronze Age penciler of the Defenders series and his work still looks great today.

If there's any problem with the art in this book, it's the lack of a steady inker. But Sal B.'s work shines through no matter who inks him. Klaus Janson inks two of the issues reprinted here, I thought he was the best inker of the bunch. Here's a great two-pager, where Nighthawk describes what the Squadron and Nebulon will do to Earth if they aren't defeated:

Nice work by Buscema and Janson!

Bob Brown was the Avengers penciler at the time and he provides some good art as well. Brown received a special on-page commendation for his art in Avengers #118, which required him to draw 14 superheroes, a few SHIELD agents, Loki, Dormammu, a few other heroes making cameos. Plus, Brown does a nice job depicting Dormannu's Dark Dimension. Brown was 20+ years into his career at this point, but the art in the Avengers/Defenders War is one of his finest hours as a penciler.

Giant-Size Defenders #1 consisted of reprints, but it also included new "wraparound" pages penciled by Jim Starlin and inked by Al Milgrom. Their art is great and leaves you wanting more.

How does it look?:
I dug out my old copy of Defenders #16, here's a scan from that issue:

The same pages look like this in the Marvel Masterworks version:

Looks pretty good to me, no weird recoloring.

Extras:
A nice 4-page introduction from Steve Englehart where he talks about writing the Avengers-Defenders war. One gets the impression that Englehart is very proud of that storyline 40 years later, and rightly so. 

We also get three non-Bronze Age stories. As I mentioned above, Giant-Size Defenders #1 featured reprints with new filler material. A Sub-Mariner story from the Golden Age is reprinted, along with Silver Age stories that feature Hulk and Doctor Strange. I'm not crazy about this, since it means we get one less Defenders story.

Marvel Masterworks: Defenders Volume 2 is worth buying just to have the Avengers/Defenders battle, but the other stories are fun and action packed as well. Plus, this book features work by some of the finest writers and artists from of the Bronze Age and easily earns my highest grade.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!