Featuring: Avengers
Release: June 9, 1966
Cover: August 1966
12 cents
Story: Smilin’ Stan Lee
Art: Dazzlin’ Don Heck
Lettering: Adorable Artie Simek
Bugle calls: Honest Irving Forbush
20 pages
| Previous | #523 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #30 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #30 |
| Avengers #30 | Avengers | Avengers #32 |
Soon, my limbs shall be swifter than ever before– while your hex power once again shall dazzle and defeat your enemies! All we need is patience, my sister– and an unaltering faith!
The Avengers are off to South America to save Goliath. And presumably will be here when Galactus attacks.
Hawkeye now likes Captain America, but still dislikes orders. As do I, Hawkeye. As do I.
Wasp recalls how they all used to share the command. It’s the first time they’ve really addressed this change. The original team had rotating chairs. The new team had Captain America as permanent leader. Given this, Hawkeye’s annoyance was understandable.
We check in with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. They have returned to their homeland to recharge their powers. Their powers come from their homeland, which is different from how mutant powers work.
The brunt of the story takes place in the Forbidden Land, where Prince Rey seeks to regain his rule from the Keeper of the Flame.
At first, it seemed Goliath would aid Prince Rey in his rebellion, but he comes to realize neither of these people can be trusted with power, and sets his goal to destroying the Flame of Life.
I guess realizing both sides are wrong is a little better than picking one side blindly like heroes tend to do in these situations. Still, instead of taking sides in a Civil War, Goliath has decided to tear down the structure of their entire society. And then leave, once the destabilization is complete.
The whole goal had been to see if Dr. Anton could cure Goliath of his “being very tall” affliction. But Dr. Anton thinks only one scientist on Earth can help. He recommends to Goliath– Dr. Henry Pym.
Here are the letters pages.
This issue represents a personal milestone. I own it, and every Avengers comic thereafter, for over 40 years. The initial run of Avengers lasted 402 issues, and I own issues 31-402, plus a sampling of the older ones, with issue 8 being the earliest in my collection. I also own the various spin-offs like Avengers West Coast and all the side miniseries and specials and annuals. I have the short-lived second volume of Avengers and the entire third volume, until they went back to the original numbering with issue 500 and ended the series again with 503. They then started New Avengers, which I read for 29 issues, and then gave up in 2007, realizing it had been 5 years since I’d actually enjoyed an issue of Avengers, since Kurt Busiek left the writing in 2002. All in all, I have around 700 Avengers comics, and an unbroken run for the next 41 years.
Interestingly, the writer whose Avengers comics were so unreadable that I gave up was named Brian Michael Bendis, a writer who had been perhaps my favorite writer of the era before his Avengers work. I had loved Goldfish, Jinx, Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Alias. I just last weekend saw him in Ghent, Belgium giving a career retrospective. I managed to not say anything mean to him about his work on Avengers. I haven’t read any of his superhero work since Avengers, but remain interested in his other new comics work like Scarlet or Pearl. I thought he was a great crime writer, and felt his superhero comics worked when he stuck close to that genre.
Rating: ★★½, 46/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Characters:
- Wasp/Jan
- Captain America
- Hawkeye
- Pietro
- Wanda
- Goliath
- Prince Rey
- Keeper of the Flame
- Dr. Anton
Story notes:
- Wasp is uncertain if Hawkeye will join them. He thinks she doesn’t trust him because he loves Black Widow.
- Goliath’s scooter was found in South America; the Avengers go to rescue him.
- Wasp checks her Sting. Hawkeye gets fresh supply of arrows.
- Hawkeye notes Goliath has had Avengers training.
- Pietro and Wanda wait in village in Balkan valley waiting for their powers to return to full strength.
- Hidden cavern deep within an untamed South American mountain region.
- Keeper of the Flame/Flame Keeper controls Flame of Life, which can destroy all life on Earth.
- Attackers hurl time-fused destuctro-bombs.
- Prince Rey’s followers live in hiding, waiting for the day of rebellion.
- Rey’s race descended from ancient Incas.
- Title of Keeper was handed down, father to son.
- Keeper made the Flame and himself more powerful and seized power.
- Goliath realizes Prince Rey doesn’t want to save the world, but control the Cobalt Flames himself.
- Prince Rey orders Goliath killed when he tries to destroy the Flames.
- Local police searching for Dr. Anton seem to be big fans of the Avengers.
- Keeper hits Goliath with power-draining rays.
- Rest of Avengers enter compound. Cap and Hawkeye captured. Wasp free.
- Wasp finds control button to let Prince Rey’s forces in.
- Avengers find Keeper’s failsafes to destroy Flame.
| Previous | #523 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Avengers #30 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #30 |
| Avengers #30 | Avengers | Avengers #32 |
I liked those Avengers themes. They establish very interesting elements that would expand over the years. For example, the confidence of Hank Pym, whose insecurities drive him to look for another scientist to solve his problem, when the truth is that the most capable was Pym himself. Then there is the respect that Hawkeye gained for Cap, which I thought was a good character evolution and was the beginning for Hawkeye to go from being one of my least favorite Avengers to becoming my second favorite Avenger. It’s also here where we begin the confusing and ever-changing origins of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch… And there’s a new costume for Wasp! What’s better than the previous one… How many Wasp costumes do we already have? Many more are coming…
Although the adventure in South America was boring and forgettable, jajajajaja. It’s strange how the pairings of Pym/Wasp and Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch are rarely together on an Avengers team. That is, always when Quicksilver and Wanda come to the Avengers; Pym and Wasp leave the group shortly after… And vice versa!
Another thing I like in these issues is the dynamic of Power Man and Swordsman. It’s not very common for villains to make friends with each other; They usually only team up to betray each other; and even the duos of this era like Cobra and Hyde don’t seem to get along particularly well. While Swordsman and Power Man do become friends, they will end up working together on several occasions and even in the current comics, Erik Josten (who walks the fine line between a hero and a villain) continues to remember Swordsman as one of his best friends. and gets angry when other people take his deceased friend’s name.
Seriously, your Avengers collection is that big?! I congratulate you, I consider myself a big fan of the Avengers, they are my favorite Marvel group. As for Bendis… He has his ups and downs, but if you can read Heroes Reborn without abandoning the series, then you can get past the Bendis run xD.
Lots of good points, though I’ll note most of them apply best to issue 30, which was pretty good and dedicated a lot of time to the subplots and character work. This one spends most of its time on the Forbidden Land stuff.
And yeah, Heroes Reborn… but it was only 13 issues. I gave Bendis 33 issues before giving up. Since then I’ve read a good chunk of Hickman’s and very little else Avengers-wise.
Avengers was my favorite comic once. But we mostly went our separate ways 17 years ago. This happens.
The Simpsons was my favorite show, but we split up about 20 seasons ago.
I remember how you and I talked about Bendis when we visited my local comic book shop in Wuppertal together. We agreed that his team book were unreadable, but you were a bigger fan of his Daredevil run than I was.
He recently got to write my favorite ever franchise, the Legion of Superheroes, and I found it unreadable. So I feel your pain.
(I recently got the “complete Dan Slott Mighty Avengers” trade it he did manage to write a good Avengers story picking up when Bendis left the book.
I do tend to like Dan Slott. Spider-Man, She-Hulk, etc. Maybe I’ll give his Avengers a try one day.