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  1. #1
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    Default In Your Face Jam - Sep 3, 2014

    Marvel's '90s "Avengers" comics may owe a lot to the X-Men, but that's exactly why Brett White loves them.


    Full article here.

  2. #2
    Extraordinary Member Nomads1's Avatar
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    I loved that phase of Avengers. IMHO, the Avengers book had reached a real rough patch after Simonson left (though a lot of people consider Simonson's run part of this rough patch, since his membership changes were widely unliked), with only ocasional good storys, but mostly rudderless. Only when Harras and Epting came on board, and gave us a fairly stable membership did the book recover it's mojo. We had a great team with a lot of space for the characters to develop. The Gatherers are among my favorite Avengers foes ever, full of untapped potential, and I'd really love to see them back in the hands of a capable writer.
    Sadly enough, the book had another huge drop in quality after Epting left and harras took a back seat on the writing, sharing it with Kavanaugh and Raab, only recovering when Busiek and Perez came on board for Heroes Return.

    Peace

  3. #3
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    I 100% agree with you Brett and on all the reasons you posted. I think I'm going to see if I can find any of these books digitally on Marvel's app...

  4. #4
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    The Avengers: The Magnificent Hair Years. I do have some affection for this period myself. And I miss Avenger Herc.

  5. #5
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    Marvel Unlimited? Think I read this period on there, so enjoy.

  6. #6
    Incredible Member MollyBarton's Avatar
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    "And now I have to track down action figures of all of these characters."

    Sadly, I don't think there have ever been action figures of Sersi or Crystal.

  7. #7
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    I read these when they came out .... I'm about Brett's age for the record. I started out liking them a little but grew to dislike them, and I dropped the title right after the X-Men crossover. With X-editor Harras writing, I felt as if the fabled Avengers I'd heard so much about had been pigeon-holed into X-Men roles, but without any of the honesty the X-Men had in those roles ... if that makes any sense.

    I did, however, keep reading Avengers West Coast -- unsurprisingly, in retrospect, because guess who were the stars of that title at that time? Hawkeye, Iron Man, Wasp, Hank Pym, Scarlet Witch -- the so-called "classic Avengers" -- and they were written by legendary Avengers writer Roy Thomas and his wife, Dann. And THAT was the title they canceled a few months later, reborn into the interminable "Force Works."

    Which reminds me .... Brett, do a "Force Works" column, I'm curious as to whether you'll like or loathe those issues.

  8. #8
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    I wouldn't say that I love these comics, but they're definitely not as bad as people say. Well, superhero fiction was at a low point at this time, and everybody was trying to be kewl and anti-heroic, so Harras and Epting did the right thing in recruiting B-list characters that had a more "amoral" vibe already, instead of trying to remake the classic Avengers into anti-heroes. I mean, I can buy the Black Knight, Black Widow, Hercules, and Sersi as anti-heroes. Dane fought in the crusades, Hercules killed people in classic Greek legend, the Black Widow was a Russian spy, and Sersi used to turn men that displeased her into pigs. So yeah, they have potential as 1990s grim vigilantes with magnificent hair. And yes, it was good to have a stable cast.

    However, this run later degenerated into The Crossing. And boy, THAT was awful.

  9. #9
    House of Frost NewMutant's Avatar
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    I'm not a huge fan of this period aside from West Coast Avengers/Force Works. That side actually felt like Avengers, where these characters seemed random with Captain America... whom I had no interest in at the time. I love that he refers to it as X-Avengers... I guess this current period to X-Men fans is what that period was for Avengers fans?

  10. #10
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    It's not a bad run, though you can't get away from the feeling that this is a weak lineup. Only Roger Stern could make Hercules, Black Knight, etc. seem like A-listers; Harras was good but no one's quite at Stern's level on that. I feel like Marvel shouldn't have insisted on trying to maintain two separate Avengers books; they didn't have enough characters available for two teams.

    I appreciated that Harras and Epting were trying to bring the Avengers into the '90s without going completely Jim Lee on the art and look, and that Harras used his clout with the X-Men to get the Shi'iar in there and bring Beast in as a guest star and do the Bloodties crossover with the X-Men - helping to make the Avengers a little more relevant in an era where Marvel's core universe was really the X-Men universe. (As EiC the thing Harras did best was to make the Avengers and Avengers characters more prominent in the Marvel Universe; his big fumbles on the X-Men and Spider-Man overshadowed that, though.) And making Black Widow a more prominent Avenger was long overdue, and who knows? Maybe it helped influence her being in the film. It was also good to see Quicksilver back with the team full-time, even if he was mostly there to be part of a triangle with Crystal and Dane.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by gurkle View Post
    It's not a bad run, though you can't get away from the feeling that this is a weak lineup. Only Roger Stern could make Hercules, Black Knight, etc. seem like A-listers; Harras was good but no one's quite at Stern's level on that. I feel like Marvel shouldn't have insisted on trying to maintain two separate Avengers books; they didn't have enough characters available for two teams.
    It is pretty bizarre that Hercules and the Black Knight, definitely B-list heroes (the Knight being closer to C-list, I guess), actually have been in the Avengers team for such long stretches of time. Both the lengthy Stern run and the Harras run, and also some parts of Roy Thomas's run.

  12. #12

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    I have that Avengers team card.

  13. #13
    Incredible Member baltiroo's Avatar
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    I actually started reading Avengers during this period so I do have a fondness for this line-up. I did go and get back issues as far back as I could to catch up to them. I really wish that we could get some real panel time for Dane and Sersi and I really thought that The Gatherers were an interesting villain group.
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  14. #14
    Cry Havok! havok's Avatar
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    Bring back Havok's bomber jacket!
    How about Alex?

  15. #15
    Amazing Member ChrisGa's Avatar
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    Harras' run on the book is actually my second favorite behind Stern's, not to mention one of my all-time favorite line-ups. Once Epting came onboard the book really gelled and while some of the book's plots and characters were meh--Deathcry anyone?--he and Harras did a great job of mixing great long-term arcs with the more character-driven, "soapy" moments that had been missing from the book since Stern left.

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