Featuring: Avengers
Release: May 11, 1965
Cover: July 1965
12 cents
Slyly written by: Stan Lee
Smoothly drawn by: Don Heck
Suavely inked by: Dick Ayers
Superbly lettered by: Artie Simek
Stoically read by: You (if you’ll ever turn the page…!)
20 pages
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| Sgt. Fury #20 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #41 |
| Avengers #17 | Avengers | Avengers #19 |
I thought our purpose was to battle crime! Why need we concern ourselves with international affairs?
Of all the stories in the early Marvel Universe, these Cold War stories are the worst across the board. The very worst are the Cold War stories set in Asia, as they tend to mix in racism with the blatant US government pro-war propaganda.
It’s awful because they are aimed at children, with the seeming intent to indoctrinate them into supporting the war in Vietnam or whatever else.
If you remove all the ways they are plainly awful jingoistic racist propaganda, they still tend to be pretty awful narratively. The closest thing to an exception is the recent Thor story, which did have an actual narrative about a conflict between brothers and a family divided because one brother joined the Viet Cong.
But maybe this story where the Avengers invade an Asian nation at random to battle their Communist leader and overthrow the government will be the exception.
Spoiler. It won’t be.
This story is interesting because it’s both forgettable and forgotten… at least mostly forgotten for about 55 years… until 2019 when someone decided it should be one of the foundational cornerstones of the entire history of the Marvel Universe.
Continue reading “Avengers #18”