The Heroes Return Era of the Avengers

[Nomads1]

Eh, what? That series is not reprinted yet?

To my knowledge, no! And I have been keeping an eye out for it.

Peace

[comictimes]

Oddly, the more successful Claremont got -- the more his writing diminished. I think he was a victim of his own success.

I never enjoyed him that much on his own. While reined in by Byrne, he was good. Outside of that collaboration... not much to highlight.

[Mister Mets]

The Black Panther #6-8
T’Challa is stuck in the United States while there’s a coup in Wakanda. The state department is pressured to throw a dinner for the major African monarch, which results in a large inspired crowd, but can lead to a potential race riot when Kraven attacks and outside agitators try to escalate the situation. The Avengers arrive to save the day, but a big secret comes out in the chaos.
I mainly know Joe Jusko through his trading cards. His painted interiors here are stunning. I get that it’s impossible for Black Panther, or any comic book, to always look this good, but this is just amazing work. I wish he had been publishing five issues a year: Imagine all the beautiful comics we’d have from him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know that he can do funny scenes and fight sequences. From trading cards and covers, you’d recognize that he can pull off a major sense of grandeur, but the variety is impressive. Yes, he can make the Avengers majestic, but he can do the same with a dinner scene, crowds or Black Panther in a death trap against New York City thugs in a burning building. He could have been a reputation somewhere between JG Jones and Alex Ross if he did more interior work.

This section of the series’ first year does explore how T’Challa intersects with African-Americans, and the message it sends to them to have an African king of a successful, technologically advanced nation. These are elements of the series that have been adopted in the films.
So many small moments land, like inexperienced Avenger Firestar realizing she's going to have to do something difficult, or Captain America's awkwardness at addressing a black crowd. Priest uses the guest stars well, and I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being my favorite story of his run (and it could be a very good run, even if there is nothing else is on this level.)
In the first arc, we saw T’Challa mainly through Everett Ross up until a dream sequence. Now we have a bit of the aftermath, as T’Challa has domestic problems with the Dora Milaje- after accidentally kissing one of them under Mephisto’s spell. And his ex-girlfriend becomes a target. And another ex-girlfriend remembers the reaction to an interracial relationship, which also serves to set up a revelation about one of T’Challa’s former classmates. And that’s before a major reveal about T’Challa’s first encounter with Captain America- a nice sequence where Amanda Connors does her best Kirby impression.
A+

[Mister Mets]

Larsen and Busiek. LOVED it. I can't believe Marvel never collected that series (including The Order mini-series that ended up concluding it).

Peace

I was going to check out the Order as part of this thread, but I guess the Defenders will be part of it too.

Oddly, the more successful Claremont got -- the more his writing diminished. I think he was a victim of his own success.

My sense is that there's a complex dynamic.

I plan to do one of these threads on his X-Men run.

[Mister Mets]

Black Panther #9-12
To shut down the conspiracy against Wakanda, T’Challa makes some statements that can basically be interpreted as an act of war. Everett Ross has to get him to walk it back immediately or he’ll face major professional repercussions. And warlord Achebe has access to Wakandan robots, as well as other weapons of mass destruction.
The conspiracy is convoluted, and there is a weird tonal shift in art. The first 5 issues were painted by Mark Texeira, and the next three were painted by Joe Jusko, so it’s odd for Issues 9 and 10 to be in a simpler animated style by Mike Mayhew, before switching to conventional on-model superhero work by Mike Bright- frequent Owsley/ Priest contributor.
The story goes all over the place. Issue 9 kicks off with Everett Ross having a miserable time, relocated to Iceland (payoff to a threat made by President Bill Clinton in the previous story.) T’Challa and the Dora Milaje trace allies of Achebe to an ice cream van, which connects to the Russian mafia. The White Wolf meets T’Challa’s ex-girlfriend. And T’Challa has to talk with Captain America, who isn’t exactly happy about how the last story went. A generic NSA agent appears and ends up being important later, as part of how US black ops makes some bad decisions involving Wakanda. Although Thor is getting along splendidly with Zuri. There are a lot of spinning wheels, and the tale is told non-chronologically, but this story is never generic, careless or boring.

Achebe’s a weird villain, kinda like a Wakandan Joker, simultaneously insane and exaggerating it for effect. There are some decent scenes where we see just how crazy he is, especially when a member of the Wakandan royal family underestimates him. He’s important to the story, because while the death traps may seem out of place in a series about international espionage, he is the type of lunatic who would use giant robot panthers or trap beltway lawyers in giant machines rigged with explosives and acid.
White Wolf/ Hunter is an interesting addition to the series, a surrogate brother to T’Challa with his own hang-ups who can serve in a sort of nemesis role: an ally with the potential to be an antagonist with an army of Wakanda secret agents whose brutality makes T’Challa uncomfortable.
Captain America pops up in the first and last chapter. It ends up connecting to an encounter with Klaw in his own title, although there is a twist with his first encounter with Achebe.

T’Challa remains distant in this story, although we get a new reason it was from Everett’s point of the view. The story needed somebody who didn’t know everything T’Challa knew, who would be ahead of everyone else.
A-

[kcekada]

I never enjoyed him that much on his own. While reined in by Byrne, he was good. Outside of that collaboration... not much to highlight.

His run on Marvel Team-Up with and without Byrne is noteworthy, but that was before he changed his scripting style where people talked too much and in a non-realistic manner.

[Mister Mets]

Cable #66-68
The Avengers guest-starr in a big way in this Cable story. I checked it out because I like the creative team of Joe Casey and Salvador Ladronn. It’s a team-up that makes sense, fitting Cable’s quest of preventing Apocalypse’s- well- apocalypse, so a clash with the Avengers sells the scope, and doesn’t diminish the Earth's mightiest heroes as guests, because they should get involved in situations with this level of life and death stakes. It’s set up nicely with all sorts of Marvel heroes getting notice of danger, but the Avengers popping up in a big splash page at the end of Issue 1.
The Harbinger of Apocalypse attacks New York City as part of an ancient prophecy, and there may be a way to defeat it and to avert Apocalypse’s reign. That’s the good news! The bad news is that this may require the sacrifice of New York City, just as Cable’s met a girl and told her who he is. The Harbinger is powerful and able to adjust to different powers. It’s temporarily sealed in another dimension, but the delay is temporary, and the final fight may require a sacrifice.


Cable’s relationship woes are charming. It’s very Marvel, but it’s usually a challenge for more nebbish heroes, so there’s something satisfying with having these scenes with a character who is normally so gruff and macho. It also provides human stakes to scenes where people have to shelter from the threat, which is something that would happen a lot in the Marvel Universe, but isn’t depicted often.

Ladronn’s Kirby vibes are a great fit for the Avengers. I suspect part of the point of having the Avengers prominently on two covers is to promote this series to Avengers fans, and it’s fine as such. There’s a scene where the Avengers discuss a former encounter with Moses Magnum- an agent of Apocalypse- that helps with the sense that the Avengers comics are just one section of a big ongoing story. The story ends with Cable making a sacrifice, with a last minute twist that is intriguing enough. We know he gets out, but the how is the question. The Avengers who appear here are generally white male members, which was probably because Ladronn and Casey wanted the big three plus heavy hitters Vision and Wonder Man, rather than anything else. It does highlight that they’re mainly here to serve Cable’s story and it doesn’t say much about them. The gold standard for Avengers guest appearances has to be when they save Hells Kitchen in the end of Daredevil: Born Again, although that set up a great challenge for Cap. Here, the Avengers mainly comment about a desperate situation and Cable's sacrifice.

I like the sense of strategy that the Avengers and Cable have, which makes sense with Cable’s military background. The biggest pacing problem is that Cable doesn’t find out about the choice of sacrificing New York to stop Apocalypse until the third chapter, so he doesn’t respond much to the central dilemma. The sacrifice is dramatic, but this question deserved more time, and even an exploration into whether they made the right call saving New York.
B

[Zauriel]

Cable #66-68
The Avengers guest-starr in a big way in this Cable story. I checked it out because I like the creative team of Joe Casey and Salvador Ladronn. It’s a team-up that makes sense, fitting Cable’s quest of preventing Apocalypse’s- well- apocalypse, so a clash with the Avengers sells the scope, and doesn’t diminish the Earth's mightiest heroes as guests, because they should get involved in situations with this level of life and death stakes. It’s set up nicely with all sorts of Marvel heroes getting notice of danger, but the Avengers popping up in a big splash page at the end of Issue 1.
The Harbinger of Apocalypse attacks New York City as part of an ancient prophecy, and there may be a way to defeat it and to avert Apocalypse’s reign. That’s the good news! The bad news is that this may require the sacrifice of New York City, just as Cable’s met a girl and told her who he is. The Harbinger is powerful and able to adjust to different powers. It’s temporarily sealed in another dimension, but the delay is temporary, and the final fight may require a sacrifice.


Cable’s relationship woes are charming. It’s very Marvel, but it’s usually a challenge for more nebbish heroes, so there’s something satisfying with having these scenes with a character who is normally so gruff and macho. It also provides human stakes to scenes where people have to shelter from the threat, which is something that would happen a lot in the Marvel Universe, but isn’t depicted often.

Ladronn’s Kirby vibes are a great fit for the Avengers. I suspect part of the point of having the Avengers prominently on two covers is to promote this series to Avengers fans, and it’s fine as such. There’s a scene where the Avengers discuss a former encounter with Moses Magnum- an agent of Apocalypse- that helps with the sense that the Avengers comics are just one section of a big ongoing story. The story ends with Cable making a sacrifice, with a last minute twist that is intriguing enough. We know he gets out, but the how is the question. The Avengers who appear here are generally white male members, which was probably because Ladronn and Casey wanted the big three plus heavy hitters Vision and Wonder Man, rather than anything else. It does highlight that they’re mainly here to serve Cable’s story and it doesn’t say much about them. The gold standard for Avengers guest appearances has to be when they save Hells Kitchen in the end of Daredevil: Born Again, although that set up a great challenge for Cap. Here, the Avengers mainly comment about a desperate situation and Cable's sacrifice.

I like the sense of strategy that the Avengers and Cable have, which makes sense with Cable’s military background. The biggest pacing problem is that Cable doesn’t find out about the choice of sacrificing New York to stop Apocalypse until the third chapter, so he doesn’t respond much to the central dilemma. The sacrifice is dramatic, but this question deserved more time, and even an exploration into whether they made the right call saving New York.
B

Jose Ladronn is an awesome and fantastic artist. His artwork is so kirby-esque.

[Tien Long]

Jose Ladronn is an awesome and fantastic artist. His artwork is so kirby-esque.

Oh yeah, Jose was an amazing artist. I remember the backup story he did for the Thor 2000 Annual where Thanos and Mangog absolutely annihilated the world of the Colonizers of Rigel-3:

[K7P5V]

Jose Ladronn is an awesome and fantastic artist. His artwork is so kirby-esque.

My sentiments exactly, Zauriel!

[Mister Mets]

Avengers Forever #1-12
Kang and Immortus are at war, with Immortus trying to stop humanity from threatening the galaxy and Kang figuring that this priority of his future self offends his honor. A team of Avengers are gathered from different time periods with Rick Jones, Wasp and Antman from the present, a despondent Captain America, a crazed Yellowjacket (from that time Hank Pym had a breakdown and believed that he killed Hank Pym) and cocky size-changing Hawkeye from the past and Songbird and Captain Marvel (Genis-Vel) from the future.

After an initial showdown in limbo, they’re sent on missions to the past and future as they uncover the secrets of Kang and his many variants. One group encounters the Avengers of the 1950s when their interest in a Skrull impersonator of Richard Nixon is misunderstood. Another group goes to the west, which makes former carny Hawkeye giddy. The third group goes to the future of Killraven when Black Panther and a pregnant Jocasta lead what is left of the Avengers.
There are a lot of major retcons, but in a story about time travel it feels natural. Examples include the exact relationship between Kang and Immortus, as well as the exact relationship between Vision and the original Human Torch. It might seem indulgent, especially with big moments that don’t involve the Avengers in this story, but it’s fine for a story that is so obviously a love letter to the whole franchise. It is the type of story that makes the other comics it references better. And they do their homework, so something that might contradict early Avengers issues turns out to be supported elsewhere (a twist with whether there can be more than Space Phantom connects to a What If? Issue, the Avengers forgetting a Silver Age story due to time travel shenanigans figures into the plot.)

Years ago, this story was in first place on a list of 40 best Avengers stories meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Avengers. I don’t know if I’d go that far (my personal favorite Avengers story was published at around the same time- I’ll cover it in about a week), but it’s fun and epic and says something about the characters and the purpose of humanity.
It seems to have an impact on the depiction of time travel and Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although part of this may be how expertly Busiek and co-plotter Roger Stern hang together all sorts of different elements of Marvel Comics.

[Mister Mets]

Carlos Pacheco is astounding on pencils. I’m spoiled by the quality of the art looking at the Avengers comics at this time, with George Perez, Ron Garney, Andy Kubert, Mark Texeira, John Romita Jr, Mark Bagley, Joe Jusko and others delivering awesome work. And there’s more to come from Steve Rude, John Cassady, Alan Davis and others. Among his fellow legends, Pacheco acquitted himself well, matching humor in facial expressions and body language with epic battle sequences in a series that required him to draw pretty much everything- Dinosaurs in the old west, 1950s political campaign events, eerie supernatural realms created by other artists, etc.

One quibble is that this comic is an example of why Quesada wanted to get rid of exposition that becomes distracting when reading multiple issues quickly. It’s generally handled pretty well, but it can be repetitive. It might be better to read this a day at a time, and that might have been the best way for me to cover this, but I just don’t have the patience to deny myself the pleasure of the next chapter. And this feels like an epic sci-fi novel, perhaps one that was serialized so there are minor compromises to getting readers who just joined or may have missed an issue of Asimov’s caught up.

I’m kinda disappointed we haven’t seen more comics like this. It’d be fun to see an X-Men Forever with a team from different eras (I get that it’s similar to the Exiles, but it’s not quite the Exiles) or a Spider-Man: Forever mini-series where he’s hunted by the Time Keepers or something, or a Fantastic Four Forever with four different iterations from different eras. It does seem to have a continued impact on the comics, even if it’s in Jocasta’s relationship with Machine Man in Slott’s Iron Man run. But it seems time for Songbird to be an Avenger, so she could take part in the Destiny War.
A

[ComicNoobie]

Avengers Forever! I read that for the first time last year thanks to the volume 1 of the Kurt Busiek Omnibus. Hard to believe Songbird hasn't been part of at least one big Avengers team since then. Though she did get offered a membership at one point but declined. Just imagine if she had accepted. She could have been the Avengers very own Rogue! Look at the hair!

[K7P5V]

Avengers Forever! I read that for the first time last year thanks to the volume 1 of the Kurt Busiek Omnibus. Hard to believe Songbird hasn't been part of at least one big Avengers team since then. Though she did get offered a membership at one point but declined. Just imagine if she had accepted. She could have been the Avengers very own Rogue! Look at the hair!

I know, right?! That rejection was truly disheartening (IMHO):

[Nomads1]

Avengers Forever #1-12
Kang and Immortus are at war, with Immortus trying to stop humanity from threatening the galaxy and Kang figuring that this priority of his future self offends his honor. A team of Avengers are gathered from different time periods with Rick Jones, Wasp and Antman from the present, a despondent Captain America, a crazed Yellowjacket (from that time Hank Pym had a breakdown and believed that he killed Hank Pym) and cocky size-changing Hawkeye from the past and Songbird and Captain Marvel (Genis-Vel) from the future.

After an initial showdown in limbo, they’re sent on missions to the past and future as they uncover the secrets of Kang and his many variants. One group encounters the Avengers of the 1950s when their interest in a Skrull impersonator of Richard Nixon is misunderstood. Another group goes to the west, which makes former carny Hawkeye giddy. The third group goes to the future of Killraven when Black Panther and a pregnant Jocasta lead what is left of the Avengers.
There are a lot of major retcons, but in a story about time travel it feels natural. Examples include the exact relationship between Kang and Immortus, as well as the exact relationship between Vision and the original Human Torch. It might seem indulgent, especially with big moments that don’t involve the Avengers in this story, but it’s fine for a story that is so obviously a love letter to the whole franchise. It is the type of story that makes the other comics it references better. And they do their homework, so something that might contradict early Avengers issues turns out to be supported elsewhere (a twist with whether there can be more than Space Phantom connects to a What If? Issue, the Avengers forgetting a Silver Age story due to time travel shenanigans figures into the plot.)

Years ago, this story was in first place on a list of 40 best Avengers stories meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Avengers. I don’t know if I’d go that far (my personal favorite Avengers story was published at around the same time- I’ll cover it in about a week), but it’s fun and epic and says something about the characters and the purpose of humanity.
It seems to have an impact on the depiction of time travel and Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although part of this may be how expertly Busiek and co-plotter Roger Stern hang together all sorts of different elements of Marvel Comics.

Without a doubt one of my favorite Marvel stories EVER!

Peace