Essential Avengers, Vol. 2 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book marks some turning points for the Avengers, collecting Issues 25-46 and the First Annual. It sees Stan Lee's departure as writer after Issue 34 (replaced by Roy Thomas) and Artist Don Heck is replaced by John Buscema in Issue 41.

The Avengers team changes, though mostly through addition. It begins with a team of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. In the course of the book, GoTliath (formerly Ant Man), and the Wasp are added to the line-up as well as Hercules, though Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch leave in the middle when the powers are on the wane,.

The feuding between Captain America and Hawkeye comes to an end thankfully. When Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch leave and are replaced by Goliath and the Wasp, he figures he has no chance of gaining leadership of the Avengers plus he seems to have developed a genuine respect for Captain America. He still manages to push back and challenge every other male to come on the team including Goliath and Hercules who could tear him apart.

This book also reprints the origin of the Ant Man from Tales to Astonish #27 and that's because Henry Pym plays such a "big" role in the book. He goes through a period where he can't shrink at all and is 10 feet tall and becomes the real muscle on the team prior to Hercules joining the team. He also takes on a leadership role when Cap has to disappear to deal with a long adventure in his own book. Pym is a central character and this has to got to be a high point for Pym in the role of Goliath.

Overall, the book has two big moments. The first is the first appearance of the Sons of the Serpents in Issues 32 and 33 and they make a great appearance as a sort of extension of the hatemonger character. Then, the Annual #1 is written by Roy Thomas. Those who have read the DC Archives know Thomas was a huge fan of the Golden Age All Star comics in which heroes would come together and the break up to go and fight individual evildoers and that's what he does in this story as the Mandarin heads up a team of supervillains, the Avengers split into smaller squads to take on the villains. It works really well here because they took nearly 50 pages to tell the story and split the Avengers and villains into three squads. It also featured the return of the "Original Avengers" which was silly as a gimmick because only Thor and Iron Man were returning for the issue and it was still a very fun and enjoyable issue.

Also, there's a plot regarding the Black Widow and her status that works its way throughout the book in a fairly interesting way. Beyond that, the Avengers take on a stable of solid Silver Age villains including Doctor Doom, the Super Adaptoid, and the Mad Thinker as well as battling Submariner.

Overall, these are enjoyable stories. They're certainly not on the same level as the Fantastic Four, but they're still solid tales for fans of the Silver Age of Marvel Comics.



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