Featuring: Avengers
Release: January 12, 1965
Cover: March 1965
12 cents
Plot and editing by: Stan Lee
Script by: Paul Laiken and Larry Lieber
Layouts by: Jack Kirby
Pencils by: Don Heck
Inking by: Chic Stone
Lettering by: S. Rosen
20 pages
| Previous | #311 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #13 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #36 |
| Avengers #13 | Avengers | Avengers #15 |
That’s quite the credits listing. Sounds like they were running out of time to get this done and called in every hand they could to meet a deadline. That’s also how this story reads.
Larry Lieber had long since left superheroes behind to focus on comics like Rawhide Kid, but he pitches in.
Paul Laiken is a new name to us. This is the only superhero story he’ll ever be involved in writing. I literally think they recruited everybody in the building at the time to help get this one done. It seems like he’ll be best known for his work on the Marvel humor magazine which is totally not a Mad rip-off, Crazy.
We start the story with something unusually dark and dramatic for these stories. Wasp has been shot and is dying.
They just kind of fill pages from there. Aliens. Interstellar war. The Watcher shows up at one point. It’s kind of fun, I guess. But the story is barely coherent enough to describe.
Thor says “Avengers Assemble” for the third time. This time in response to Iron Man telling him to sound the battle cry. He apparently now knows what the battle cry is.
Captain America and Watcher both invoke the power of prayer.
We’re reading this comic a bit early because I was eager to learn the fate of the Wasp after she was shot last issue. In terms of chronology, this must take place before Giant-Man gets his new costume and before the Avengers attend the Fantastic Four engagement party.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 38/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol. 2. You can find it in Avengers Epic Collection vol.1: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Thor
- Giant-Man/Hank Pym
- Wasp/Jan Van Dyne
- Iron Man
- Captain America
- Rick Jones
- Ogor
- Doctor Svenson
- The Watcher
Story notes:
- Bullet punctured Wasp’s left lung; 48 hours to live.
- Dr. Svenson in Norway known for experiments in lung regeneration.
- Alien from another galaxy impersonating Dr. Svenson; Dr. Svenson somewhere on Earth.
- Alien base at north pole; armed with ice guns.
- Kallusians/Kalusians from Kallu; sometimes aliens themselves are simply called the Kallu.
- Thor notes only he can lift the hammer.
- “Avengers Assemble” (said previously in #10 and in X-Men 9)
- Wasp saved.
| Previous | #311 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #13 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #36 |
| Avengers #13 | Avengers | Avengers #15 |
