Do Mark Millar's Ultimates count?
Do Mark Millar's Ultimates count?
Avengers #41-196
Avengers #255-285
Avengers #305-318
Avengers West Coast #42-62
Avengers Vol. 3 #1-56
Avengers Vol. 5 #1-44, along with Hickman's New Avengers
Definitely a great group, Adset.
I don't know much about Waid's recent run, but I do remember him having a three-issue stint on Avengers right before the Heroes Reborn takeover. Potentially, it's been said Waid's run from the 90's could have been great had he received more than those three-issues.
I'm going with Kurt Busiek, then Roger Sterns, and I would have LOVED to have seen a longer run with Geoff Johns.
Surprised that nobody's mentioned Shooter's run.
Though Busiek is the definitive run for me.
Me too, Panic.
A lot of memorable moments from Shooter's run, such like:
- the continuing feud between Cap & Iron Man (eventually, putting aside their differences).
- Alone & without any help, Hawkeye getting his chance to shine.
- the introduction of Gyrich.
It's just too bad Shooter's second run couldn't equal (or even surpass) his first run.
Last edited by K7P5V; 11-21-2019 at 06:50 PM. Reason: corrected grammatical errors.
Shooter doesn't always get mentioned, I think, because he took over rather suddenly when Gerry Conway's run fizzled out (basically saving the book) and he was using the cast that Englehart had put together just before he quit, so he never got to introduce his own Avengers lineup in that period (he did introduce the lineup in his second run, but the less said of that the better). Most of the other classic runs have a lineup that the writer got to put together himself.
I agree Shooter's first run was very impressive and his fondness for incredibly overpowered villains was actually a welcome change from the mostly less powerful villains the Avengers had gone up against before that. (Ultron had been a good villain before, but Shooter made him frightening.) If George Pérez had been able to stay until the end of the Korvac Saga it would have a strong argument to be the best.
Agreed, especially since Englehart's 1970s Avengers is probably the biggest influence on Busiek's Avengers/Avengers Forever runs. The whole run is a love letter to the '70s but especially Englehart (even the controversial Triune Understanding plot is an attempt to inject some satire into the run the way Englehart and Steve Gerber often did).
Englehart's WCA is a bit... weird... though I do enjoy it, I'm never sure if I think it's exactly good. I think it would hold up better though if he'd had a different artist than Al Milgrom; Stern's run improved exponentially when Milgrom moved to WCA and was replaced by John Buscema.
Last edited by gurkle; 11-21-2019 at 08:28 PM.