Avengers Anniversary
Assemble!
Originally written May 19, 2004
The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
celebrate their 40th anniversary
By Avi Green
And now, I’d like to celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of
Marvel’s most exciting teams: The Avengers!
Many years ago, there came a day, or a week, or a month, whichever
sounds best, in which Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, two of comicdom’s
most famous writers, united to lay out the framework for what would
become one of Marvel’s most colorful teams. An elite task force for
guarding the safety of the country and the planet that would be
recognized and respected by many nations across the globe, battling
supervillains and other sinister foes whom no one superhero could
take on alone.
The team as it was first
formed consisted of at least six characters: Iron Man, the main
founding member, Thor, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and even the Hulk, who’d
been shoehorned into the book sometime after his own book, when
first launched, went on hiatus for 5 years after failing initially
in sales, as well as Rick Jones, the college student and longtime
pal of Bruce Banner who’d been trying to serve as a guide for him
ever since he’d been transformed into the jade giant. Tony Stark,
the chairman of Stark Industries and Iron Man’s alias, was also the
financier for the team, and provided them with their very first
headquarters in New York, where Edwin Jarvis, his butler, would
perform double service as butler for both Tony and the Avengers, and
would also assist them in communicative needs and forge many great
friendships with the many members as well.
But while Iron Man certainly
proved to be a good team leader at the beginning, he would soon be
surpassed in the leadership by Captain America/Steve Rogers, who’d
been thawed out of an iceberg in which he’d been frozen since an
accident he’d been through near the end of the Second World War.
Upon his return to the world as we know it, he resettled in New York
and prepared to resume his duty to the world as the Sentinel of
Liberty again.
Cap, while he’s certainly got super-human strength, is still far
from being as powerful as some of the other heroes to join the
Avengers, but that’s not what makes him a leader – it’s his brains,
strategic planning and experience as a fighter that do. And that’s
what’s made such a great chairman for the EMH when he ascended the
position years ago, and the great character he is.
Rick Jones even became an assisstant to Cap for sometime as well as
the Hulk. This was during the time that Loki, Thor’s half-brother
and leading archnemesis, had framed the Hulk for committing sabotage
in order to draw the attention of the God of Thunder. Rick was
trying to contact the Fantastic Four, who became good friends and
allies themselves with the Avengers, but thanks to some interference
from Loki, he ended up meeting Thor and the Avengers instead, and
they came to deal with Hulk, subsequently exonerating him of any
charges, and invited him to join the team as well.
Cap tended to
treat Rick to some extent with extreme caution, due to the knowledge
that his late teen sidekick, Bucky Barnes, had perished in the
explosion that ended up causing him to be frozen on ice, and opposed
letting Rick become a full time member. And while there was one time
when Rick did wear a costume in Cap’s own book, most of the time, he
went around wearing his own plain clothes! It sure does sound odd,
but, that’s how it was for Rick Jones back then.
As for Ant-Man, Hank Pym, he teamed up with Janet
Van Dyne, the daughter of one of his science collegues, Vernon Van
Dyne, who’d been murdered by an alien villian from the planet
Kosmos. Using his skills, he gave her superhuman abilities too, and
she took on the crimefighting career of the Wasp. He later became
Giant-Man, coming possibly second to Thor in terms of strength. The
Avengers would later go on to aquire new members, even sometimes
switching current cast members for other ones. These included the
twin children of the X-Men’s archnemesis, Magneto, that being the
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, alias Wanda and Piotr Maximoff
(they’d been raised by a family in Europe other than Magneto, whose
real name is Erik Magnus Lensherr, hence, their last name is
different from his). The two former members of the Brotherhood of
Evil Mutants joined in Avengers #15, vol 1. after quitting their
father’s crooked gang during the same month, May 1965, in issue #11
of The X-Men. Back then, Wanda’s “semi face mask” was drawn rather
wide, but luckily wasn’t too detracting from the character design.
Piotr still wore his green-colored costume, but subsequently changed
to a gray-colored one that suited him more in the role of former
baddie turned good. Both would go on to become some of the most
popular members of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, both are among my
top favorites too. They’re among the liveliest and most appealing of
the EMH, and both even show that mutants and metahumans can work
well together.
Other notable
members over the years have included Vision, a red skinned character
described as a “synthezoid” created by the Avengers’ robotic foe
Ultron to use as a weapon against them but who instead defected to
join them, who’s also been one of the many hearts that give the
Avengers their driving force. And then, there’s Warbird/Carol Susan
Jane Danvers, a former USAF officer and intelligence agent for NASA
who first gained superpowers on an adventure with the first Captain
Marvel (Mar-Vell of the Kree, now deceased), and began her career as
Ms. Marvel (love that codename!). Later, after losing her initial
set of powers to the mutant Rogue, later a member of the X-Men, she
gained new ones after an encounter with the alien race known as the
Brood, and could manipulate stellar energy. She then adopted the
codename of Binary for some time, and finally, her current one,
Warbird, which may very well be the best one she’s had in her whole
crimefighting 
career. And then,
most notable of the many de-facto alien characters to join the
Avengers, there’s Quasar, aka Wendell Vaughn, a guy with a costume
that looks like a window to the star-studded galaxy, a former SHIELD
agent who was gifted with powers by an ancient, wise alien named
Eon, who appointed Quasar to be “Protector of the Universe”.
Unlike DC’s own superteam, the Justice League of America, where the
idea is simply to have some good, clean fun and excitement, and
where the personalities are secondary to the action, many of the
members of the Avengers, just like Spider-Man and the X-Men, had
realistic problems and other matters to deal with. Scarlet Witch and
Quicksilver sometimes contemplated how they were once persecuted
refugees in Europe, Ant-Man and the Wasp married but later divorced,
and Hank Pym even suffered a series of mental breakdowns, ended up
in bankruptcy, and even got jailed for treason after being framed by
one of his old foes, Egghead, who’d tricked him into helping him in
an allgedly non-criminal action before finally recovering both his
mental and financial stability. Warbird even became addicted to
alcohol a few years ago, which led to her facing a court-martial by
the Avengers and briefly resigned the team before returning and even
attending an Alcoholics Anonymous program.
Over the years, the Avengers aquired not only a flamboyant list of
members, but also many awesome and menacing enemies too: Ultron,
Baron Zemo, Korvac, Nefaria, Melter, the Grim Reaper, the
shape-changing Skrulls, Ronan the Accuser, Morgan Le Fay, Absorbing
Man, the Lava-Men, Gray Gargoyle, some of whom formed a rogues
gallery group called the Masters of Evil. But their most menacing
foe of all to date is surely Kang the Conqueror, a warlord from the
30th century who wanted to rule time in its entirety who first made
his debut in Avengers #8, September 1964, vol 1. Kang is said to be
a future decendant of the Fantastic Four’s own archnemesis, Doctor
Doom, and he even once met with him in the 20th century. The
earliest period in the Marvel universe in which he spent time was
ancient Egypt, travelling there in a time machine shaped like a
Sphinx, where he ruled as a pharoh named Rama Tut. He even
subsequently conquered several other timelines as well in the far
future. But it was not enough for him, and so he came back to the
20th century, where he came face to face with the Avengers, and has
lost his battles with them every time, but not without giving them a
hard time, every time he fought them.
Some of the Avengers’ most
famous battles to date include the Kree-Skrull War, in which, thanks
to a series of events masterminded by three cunning members of the
Skrulls, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and even their allies from
SHIELD and the Inhumans find themselves caught in the middle of a
very complex battle between the Skrulls and the Kree. And there’s
also Celestial Madonna, in which three “wise men” from 
tomorrow, being in this
case three villains from the future, try to possess the power of the
cosmic being, the Celestial Madonna for themselves, and only the
Avengers can stop them. And much kudos must be given to Roy Thomas,
Steve Englehart, and artists Neal Adams and Sal Buscema for the
steller writing and drawing jobs they did on this book. The
Thomas/Adams/Englehart era is probably by far the best of the
Avengers’ run to date.
There have also been some bad times in the history of the Avengers’
publication history, however. Former Marvel editor Jim Shooter’s run
on the book from the late 1980’s is probably by far the weakest
period, and if there’s anything most notably awful about that time,
it’s that all the women characters were treated very badly under
Shooter’s writing. Luckily, along came Kurt Busiek a few years later
and jazzed up the Avengers again. Busiek’s run in the recent years
since the post-Heros Reborn era is probably the best, and one of the
things I liked best about it was that in contrast to Jim Shooter,
Busiek wrote some very strong characterizations for the women in the
team. In the Kang War, the best by far was the issue that
spotlighted Warbird. And the artwork by Alan Davis and Mark Famer
–oh my!- was some of the most colorful and appealing from the past
years.
All in all, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have had their ups and
downs, but overall, it’s one of the most consistently entertaining
team titles from Marvel, and with some of the best artwork too. And
I hope for there to be many more exciting adventures for years to
come. If you’re not reading the Avengers yet, please do. It’s a
wonderful ride you’ll enjoy tremendously with many facinating and
appealing characters to grace its many team lineups over the years.
Copyright 2003-2004 Avi Green. All rights reserved.
