Featuring: Avengers
Release: October 8, 1964
Cover: December 1964
12 cents
Spectacular story by: Stan Lee
Incomparable illustrations by: Don Heck
Dazzling delineation by: Chic Stone
Lachrymose lettering by: Sam Rosen
20 pages
| Previous | #291 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #62, Story B | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #112 |
| Avengers #10 | Avengers | Avengers #12 |
Don Heck is still the artist, but this time with inks by Chic Stone. I think it’s the first time we’ve seen the combo. Stone is easily my favorite Kirby inker so far; their pairing has that very classic pop art feel. Paired with Heck, they do a passable job, certainly better than the last two issues with Heck/Ayers.
But nobody, not even Kirby, can get Spider-Man right. The cover would seem to prove me a liar, as it’s Kirby’s best take on Spider-Man yet. But that’s likely because it’s mostly Ditko. Nick Caputo examines the question of who drew what on the cover on his blog Marvel Mysteries and Comics Minutiae.
I think Heck has been doing fine work on Iron Man. Avengers is a bit harder because it’s got so many characters. And we’ve reached the point where Stan is “writing” everything, which means he’s mostly relying on the artists to come up with the stories themselves. I think Heck is a good artist but just struggled with the weight of it all. It doesn’t help that he’s being constantly compared to Kirby and Ditko in this era.
The storytelling is just off, though. Look to this page. Just what happened to Giant-Man’s experiment? The art doesn’t quite tell a coherent sequential story, and it again relies on Stan’s narration to try to explain what’s going on. That middle panel could easily have kept the experiment in frame to see it fizzling.
The Avengers rotate chairmen. Currently, Thor is the chair. Captain America will be the chair next week. They are presumably meeting weekly.
Captain America seems to have coined a new nickname for Giant-Man: the Master of Many Sizes. (I think it’s new; please correct me if we’ve seen it before.)
Rick still gets invited to the meetings, but Captain America reminds him he’s not allowed to vote. Pretty harshly. “You’re out of order, Rick!”
C’mon, Rick, don’t take that. This is when you need a snappy comeback. “I’m not out of order! You’re out of order! The whole freakin’ system is out of order! I show you out of order! You don’t know what out of order is!”
The Avengers recognize the death of Tony Stark, grant Iron Man a leave of absence, and agree to continue about their business. In Tony Stark’s mansion. Which I guess they just think is theirs now.
Kang returns with a new plan to defeat the Avengers. Kang’s plan is stupid. With all the resources of all of time at his disposal… the best he can think to do is make a robot Spider-Man to fight the Avengers. Fake Spider-Man asks to join the Avengers, then tells them that Iron Man has been captured by the Masters of Evil and taken to Mexico.
We know that Iron Man is actually a prisoner of the Mandarin in China at this moment, being subjected to the torture of having to listen to Mandarin’s life story.
Wasp of course notes how she hates Spider-Man because wasps hate spiders. Apparently, even a robot Spider-Man has a triggering effect on her wasp instincts.
Thor notes they don’t just let anyone join. Maybe that’s a new policy after Wonder Man’s recruitment turned out to be an evil plot.
Giant-Man describes reading about Spider-Man’s exploits. Did he forget they actually fought once? Seems like the type of thing you’d remember.
I don’t really believe Spider-Man would defeat Thor. I get this is a robot Spider-Man, but all he does is web Thor up.
Somehow, robot Spider-Man actually defeats all the Avengers. But somehow real Spider-Man had followed them to Mexico and defeats robot Spider-Man. It all ends really fast, actually. Fortunately, Captain America saw the two Spider-Mans battle, so the Avengers won’t walk away mistrusting Spider-Man.
If Spider-Man can easily defeat robot Spider-Man and robot Spider-Man could easily defeat the Avengers, what does transitivity imply?
Spider-Man has still never really met Thor or Captain America.
As far as I can tell, Spider-Man left the robot lying deactivated in the jungle. Wonder if we’ll ever see it again. (Hint: yes… just wait 30 years)
The Spider-Man books make a big deal out of how hard it is for Spider-Man to travel, given that he’s a high school student with little money. They put a lot of effort into showing how he got to Florida or even Philadelphia, and made the point that he couldn’t do anything about Dr. Octopus’ crime spree outside of New York.
Now, we just see him in Mexico somehow.
Rating: ★★½, 35/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Scans are taken from a reprint in Avengers Special #5 (1972).
This reprint omits page 4, but that’s okay. Page 4 wasn’t very important. I do appreciate Heck’s homage to the Kraven fight from Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1.
You can find this story in Avengers Epic Collection vol.1: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Thor
- Giant-Man/Ant-Man/Hank Pym
- Wasp/Jan Van Dyne
- Captain America
- Spider-Man
- Rick Jones
- Kang
- Spider-Man robot
Story notes:
- Reference to Tony Stark’s death; Iron Man granted leave of absence.
- Kang notes his ancestor Dr. Doom is the greatest robotic creator of the 20th century.
- Kang’s iso-nuclear duplicator creates robotic duplicate of Spider-Man.
- Captain America has regularly scheduled visit to Teen Brigade HQ.
- Robotic Spider-Man saves Captain America from Kang’s robots disguised as thugs.
- Spider-Man claims Zemo, Enchantress, and Executioner took Iron Man to the Temple of Tirod in Mexico.
- Hank and Wasp take commercial plane to Mexico; when they went to Arizona, they had their own copter.
- Kang pin-up.
| Previous | #291 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #62, Story B | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #112 |
| Avengers #10 | Avengers | Avengers #12 |
