Featuring: Avengers
Release: September 29, 1999
Cover: October 1999
250 cents
Written by: Roger Stern (filling in for Stan Lee)
Art by: Bruce Timm (filling in for Jack Kirby)
24 pages
The cover promised us a mystery villain, but I feel like the opening page spoils the surprise a bit by putting his name in the title. Even if I missed that clue, the villain would be revealed by page 3. Spoiler: It’s Doctor Doom.
Roger Stern is a nerd who grew up reading and obsessing over these same comics we have been reading, so the comic of course slides perfectly neatly into our continuity. It references stories we’ve recently read, and has all the characters right where they should be in their various arcs.
In particular, it references Dr. Doom’s attempt to use terrorist tactics to gain a Cabinet position. I’m not sure how things worked back in 1963, but today Dr. Doom could buy himself a seat in the White House Cabinet and it would cost way less than all the gadgets he used to try to extort his way into the White House.
While the continuity is tight, the comic does introduce things that are new to us. We haven’t yet met the butler at Stark’s mansion where the Avengers will be meeting. His name is Jarvis. It nonetheless makes sense for him to be present in this issue.
We also haven’t yet learned that Thor’s hammer has a name. He always calls it his magic hammer. In this comic, he calls it “Mjolnir”. He frequently refers to it as such, even though he never has before. Again, it’s not an inconsistency. That is the name of his hammer. We just haven’t learned that yet.
We get to see the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man react to the formation of the Avengers.
I think this is a funny scene.
We get some interesting letters from Ty Templeton, Kurt Busiek, Burt Kusiek, and Mark Waid.
Wonder if Ed Brubaker read this letters page? Young Mr. Kusiek suggests Bucky could be alive as an amnesiac working with the bad guys. Change Circus of Crime to the Commies and that’s basically the Winter Soldier arc from 5 years later.
Burt also recommends some villains the Avengers could fight, drawn from the villains are heroes have faced so far. Nightmare was not on his list. I guess he wasn’t interested in Nightmare fighting the Avengers.
The Kindle edition sadly leaves out some of the great retro ads in the comic.
Before signing off, I’d like to take this opportunity to have a bit of an aside and discuss PRELUDE and POSTLUDE posts. Mostly, what I want to be doing is going month by month through the Marvel Age superhero comics. We’re up to 1963 in our attempts to do that. However, we began our reading in 1961, and Marvel began (under a different name) in 1939. Sometimes the characters and stories from Marvel’s earlier days affect our reading, so we do PRELUDE posts. PRELUDE posts are any Marvel Comics from between 1939 and 1961 that seem relevant. We’ve looked at the early adventures of Sub-Mariner, the original Human Torch, the original Angel, the two original Gorilla Men, Venus, Marvel Boy, and Captain America. I’m planning to run through an assortment of old Captain America comics soon. We’ll also be meeting the original Black Knight in the near future.
POSTLUDE comics are Marvel Comics published after 1991 (the furthest I could possibly get with this blog, though even that is optimistic by a decade or two) that have some relevance to our reading. Often, these will be new takes on stories set in the past. After reading the origin of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15, we looked at a modern take on the same story in Ultimate Spider-Man #1-5. Why? Because I wanted to, in part because I love Ultimate Spider-Man.
We’ve also read Marvels #0, and we will read the main 4 issues of Marvels as they become relevant. We’ll probably be doing #1 soon, once we read a bit more early Captain America. We’ll read #2 once we’ve covered all the stories it references.
There is only one other POSTLUDE comic I have definitively decided on including. We’ll reveal it when we get there.
Beyond that, there is a lot I could do or could have done. No shortage of future Marvel series telling tales set in this era: X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men: Grand Design, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, Daredevil: Yellow, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Avengers: The Origin… to name just a few of many, many series. Too many, really. And I plan to skip most. They’d just slow me down.
A reader NES Boy wrote a comment asking about this particular issue, a 1999 comic set (as the numbering implies) between issues 1 and 2 of Avengers. My blog doesn’t get very many comments, so I’m partial to addressing those I do get. I went back and forth on whether to include it. I originally decided I would since I have the comic– then decided I wouldn’t when I couldn’t find the comic.
I have about 70 long boxes in a storage unit far away, so there is a good chance it is there. It is also possible it is simply misfiled in my boxes; there are about 100 long boxes in my apartment, so a comic in the wrong spot may as well be lost. It’s a bit of an odd comic to find a place for, so it’s not obvious where it should go, but I think I flipped pretty well through my Avengers boxes in all the places I could have put it.
I went ahead and bought myself a Kindle copy, even though I am old-fashioned and much prefer to be reading physical copies of these books. We’ve mostly between reading them in Omnibus/Marvel Masterworks/Epic Collection formats. Soon enough, we’ll reach a point where I have mostly all the original issues.
Of course, I was quite happy to reread this comic. It had probably been 20 years since I last read it. Roger Stern is one of my favorite writers, and the art is by Bruce Timm, responsible for the look and feel of my favorite superhero cartoon, Batman: The Animated Series.
One final note. I am a mathematician and feel really weird calling this comic Avengers #1½. Could I call it Avengers #3/2 instead? I’d feel a lot better about it.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 54/100
I read this comic on Kindle.
Characters:
- Human Torch
- Mr. Fantastic
- Thing
- Invisible Girl
- Spider-Man
- Doctor Doom
- Major Bowman
- Jarvis
- Ant-Man/Giant-Man
- Wasp
- Iron Man
- Hulk
- Thor
Story notes:
- Avengers received a charter from the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
- Takes place 1 week after Avengers #1.
- Takes place barely a year after Fantastic Four formed.
- Takes place a couple months after Fantastic Four #12.
- Invisible Girl thinks she recognizes the Wasp.
- Spider-Man references attempt to join FF in Amazing Spider-Man #1; he considers trying to join the Avengers.
- Avengers will be meeting at Midtown Manhattan mansion of Anthony Stark.
- Dr. Doom references battle with Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #5.
- This seems to be the only appearance of Major Bowman of the National Security Council.
- Jarvis notes rest of mansion staff quit when it was announced Hulk would be a regular visitor.
- Reference to Hulk’s pardon in Avengers #6.
- Thor questions Hulk’s clothes. This will also happen in Avengers #2.
- Major Bowman describes Dr. Doom as an international terrorist of concern to the President and Joint Chiefs.
- Ant-Man references his last battle with Dr. Doom in Fantastic Four #16.
- Dr. Doom (disguised as Major Bowman) references Dr. Doom’s demand for a Cabinet post in Fantastic Four #17.
- Military lends Avengers Comanchero X-19 helicopter.
- Dr. Doom’s floating fortress is 1,000 feet long and 250 feet across at its widest.
- Ant-Man removes helmet to reveal original Giant-Man costume (pre-suspenders). This costume was introduced in Tales to Astonish #49 and also seen in Avengers #2. It will be altered by Tales to Astonish #50.
- Thor refers to hammer as Mjolnir. He has always just called it his “magic hammer” in our reading. No hint it has a name.
- Thor references battle with Radioactive Man in Journey Into Mystery #93.
Next: Avengers #2
Previous: Journey Into Mystery #98, Story C
