Essential Avengers, Vol. 3

Essential Avengers #3

by Roy Thomas, John Buscema (Illustrator)

Good

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes

520 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 1969

About the author

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

271119: this is different. i think most fans of graphics start with superheroes and get complex as they mature, i went the other way round, for as mentioned when my brother and me could read word books my mom would not let us read comics. we were pleased to be adults but because of this, i have a gap of years (decades...) of boy-culture and never knew many superheroes but by movies. thus there is no appeal of sentiment here...

i am sometimes impressed by art, not so much stories, and it is interesting to see the entire universe of marvel characters, though there seems to be continuing stories to keep readers coming back, not to offer resolution or meaning etc. perhaps this work is best read in monthly issues. it is exhausting in one read. i do learn now more who is who but as spectacle is extravagant in movies, i do not know why these stories are best in this medium (riley says...), and the proliferation of word balloons seems excessive: monologues, interior and expressed, dialogues, challenges and laments... i feel one can just look at the pictures to get the ideas etc...

i do find it engaging that the ‘avengers’ are a ‘team’ and there are roles for each, there are conflicts, every once in a while some mystery, some miscommunication... then i was surprised that what i had thought minor heroes got a lot of screen time (ant man, the wasp, hawkeye) and maybe there are some great sequences (capatain america back in time, hercules fighting titan, collector captures team, magneto etc...) but the section that interests me most is the x-men... so this is three but sometimes less, because despite some lines of flight there is not much that draws me to read more ‘avengers’...

[Printable Tire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I said after volume two I’d quit but I plowed ahead anyway and I have to say this volume is markedly better than the previous ones, or maybe I'm just happy to see a finish line (this is the last Essential Avengers volume I own). The art and writing has greatly improved, which puzzled me at first since it’s mostly by the same team as before, but then I realized Roy Thomas was like 27 or so when he wrote the first issue in this volume so he was literally growing up alongside the comic book medium itself.

This is the sweet spot in comic book design history where the pages are not suffocating in over-explanatory word balloons (I'm lookin' at you, Stan!) but not so captionless they take 5 minutes to read (and cost upwards of $5, or every comic book made now).

Artist Gene Colan and others take more advantage of the urban setting and the nutty denizens of the city, and including Jarvis the Butler adds a nice human element. I loved the randomly psychedelic splash pages, and especially Barry Windosr Smith’s too-short run. Also, after years of fighting bad guys who said stuff like “I’ll beat the Avengers first to impress the Fantastic Four” and “I thought Thor would be with you, he’s the one I really want!,” The Avengers finally have their own worthy, or at least team-specific foe, Ultron, who also looks pretty cool.

Stray thoughts:

-The initial Magneto story arch is a bit TOO modern for my taste- the Avengers never really even fight him, and it’s not resolved until several issues later (and, if you’re not reading every comic Marvel put out at the time, you’d never find out what happened to Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, who leave the Avengers so disturbingly).

-So glad the dull Hercules epic comes to a close here. There’s only so much “thee” and “thou” wordage a guy can take.

-The Grim Reaper has a cool costume/power and an intriguing backstory (in so far as he doesn’t really have a backstory) and I liked the “murder-mystery” aspect of this issue. But more importantly, it’s a great introduction to the Black Panther, who I’ve gotta admit lives up to his fanfare and kicks a lot of ass.

-The Masters of Evil would make a great tag team wrestling group. In modern comics, do they still use this name ironically?

-Is Whirlwind still the Wasp’s chauffeur? Maybe he should quit being a villain and stick to that, it probably pays better.

-The initial time travel story is really bizarre and rewrites comic book history for no reason and once again the one woman character, the Wasp, is literally reduced to sitting in a waiting room. BUT it sets up a really GREAT alternate timeline / time travel story in the Avengers second annual. Typhon was just battling a battleship and other bad guys only want revenge, but here it finally feels like something is at stake- the very bend of reality itself! Though, c'mon, it’s hard to believe the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp (so really just Thor and Hulk) could kick EVERYONE in the Marvel Universe's ass.

-Scarlet Cowl, Scarlet Centurion- pretty thoughtless names, Roy.

-So The Vision is an artificial simulation of the memory makeup of Wonder Man (who was sort of created by Zemo) and is brought to life by Ultron, who himself (itself) was created by Goliath/Giant Man/Ant Man/Yellow Jacket when he was working with the android Dragon Man, who might've been created by Diablo(?). Hope that clears everything up. I wonder what writers do with the Vision when Wonder Man comes back. I’ve never really cared about the Vision before but here he’s an interesting, sensitive character, undoubtedly the most interesting Avenger.

-Likewise, I never realized how totally unlikable Hawkeye is. What a cynical, quipping douchebag. When he’s not complaining about somebody stealing his thunder he’s blowing dates off with the Black Widow. He kinda reminds me of a cross between Dale from King of the Hill and Raphael from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by way of Dennis Miller. I can see him wearing a camouflage baseball hat going hunting. I guess I’d like to read that newish Hawkeye series just to see what someone did with this character.

-But then Hawkeye becomes Goliath because the Avengers creators erroneously equate giving him new (old) powers with improving his personality. Hawkeye by the way is conveniently told to stay home on a mission (where he’s free to steal his new vaunted powers) because he’d let his personal feelings get in the way (even though the team is called, y'know, the AVENGERS).

-In my review of Volume One I griped about how I wanted the villains’ motivations to move past revenge and into more proactive things, like putting “a laser on the moon or something.” Well, I guess Rascally Roy read my missive from the future because there does indeed appear in this volume a story called "Like a Death Ray in the Sky" with a similar-enough premise.

-This volume also includes excerpts from the Marvel Universe Encyclopedia, which are always an unintentionally amusing source for the quotidian aspects of comic book reality, for example: “[Mantis] was elected to full membership after learning she was the Celestial Madonna, but she immediately resigned from active duty to pursue her destiny in space."

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

We've been playing Avengers Academy on our phones and Black Knight is our favorite character by far (many Monty Python references). He's a character here, which was fun to see, and probably what tipped my review into four stars.

In other news, women are weirdly clothing-obsessed, unreasonable, demanding, flighty, extremely under-powered for being, you know, AVENGERS. Wasp also faints at least twice. The Avengers, instead of asking to see a resume or a recommendation like normal people, attempt to fight potential new hires to the death to see if the new guy is worthy to join them. Nearly every character follows the rule of one witty one-liner per punch, which must seriously impair fighting speed. People trying to get help from the Avengers habitually break in, spurring another attempted fight to the death, instead of, maybe, knocking at the front door? Black Knight is the exception - he just gets shot at on the approach for being an enemy in a previous iteration (which, okay, I can kind of see where you're coming from, Hawkeye, but couldn't you wait until he was doing something more threatening than flying by?).

So, ridiculous, but in a mostly hilarious way?

[Eamonn Murphy]

‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron’ being the big movie of the moment. I thought I would dive into my extensive ‘Essential’ archives and dig out the source material. This is conveniently located in Essential Avengers Volume 3. I have read the stories oft times before but reviewing them was a pleasure only slightly ruined by the work of Mikhail Bortnik. Who he? He’s the man given credit for ‘interior design and retouch’ on the inside cover so presumably the vandal who thought that in a black and white reprint, John Buscema’s beautiful art needed grey tones. It does not. Instead, it is almost obscured by the heavy-handed imposition, like a sunny day suddenly gone overcast. It’s as if a child got hold of the book and decided to colour it in with a pencil. Weirdly, this vandalism is applied to some issues while others, most, thank God, have been left mercifully untainted.

That’s the bad news over with. The good news is that this volume contains excellent art by three of Marvel’s finest. John Buscema tended to go for bigger panels in these early years and to be honest it seemed to suit him. No one draws the human figure better than Big John and his super-heroes look truly fit. He’s great with females, too, but you have to look at his ‘Conan’ work to see that to full advantage. There are a couple of issues by Gene Colan, also fairly early in his Marvel career and again using big panels but with striking page designs and his usual dynamic figures and subtle shading which, alas, even the best inkers found hard to translate from the pencil. Perhaps best of all is the young Barry Smith doing his Kirby riff on an adventure in which the aforementioned Ultron is the bad guy. I always loved these two issues. The beautiful inks by Syd Shores and George Klein make this unusual artwork even more interesting than it might otherwise have been. I should mention that Don Heck turned in good pencils for Avengers King-Size Special # 2.

The writer is Roy Thomas, who, I hear, was satisfied with the cheque he got from those movie moguls as creator of Ultron, which is nice. Thomas was always one of the best Marvel writers and the stories in this bumper bargain book show off his talents well. They also show his roots, reading pulp fiction and Golden Age comics. Scanning this stuff again, I was struck by the melodramatic dialogue of the villains and the slightly purple prose in the captions. But all this is great when you’re young and he did make it literary by putting the whole of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ on the last page of Ultron’s first defeat in issue # 57, accompanied by very apt drawings from John Buscema for added poignancy. Ultron’s first appearance was in issue # 54-55 but he was in disguise. He is a presence in issues # 57-58 but in a flashback sequence concerning his origins and those of the Vision. He makes his spectacular comeback in issue # 66. However, there are many other villains to be enjoyed in this collection from old favourites like the Collector and the Swordsman to the magnificent Magneto and the gods themselves, Greek Typhon and Asgardian Ymir and Surtur. There’s a guest appearance by the X-Men, too. That’s the original X-Men, not the more famous ones who came along later.

‘Essential Avengers Volume 3’ is not published this year but can be obtained second hand from various bookish websites for about £12.00. It contains some of the greatest stories produced in the Silver Age of Marvel Comics and is well worth a look, even if you’re one of those Johny-come forty-seven year latelys only interested because it’s all on the big screen now. What? You weren’t born in 1968! What sort of feeble excuse is that?

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/

[tony dillard jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume 3 of Essential Avengers sees yet more roster changes. BIG SHOCK there. The King of Wakanda and the android Vision joins the ranks of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. With that last inclusion, that also means we're introduced to the robotic menace: Ultron!

This volume covers issues that first debuted from 1968-70. I knew that the Vision makes his debut during this period of time. But I thought we were at least 5 years, maybe more, away from Ultron coming into being. So having him pop up was a real surprise. Too bad that Ultron is probably my least favorite Marvel villain of all-time. Here's a character perfectly designed to destroy humanity and yet, Ultron always loses- seemingly destroyed. But no! Ultron keeps coming back in a new, bigger and badder upgraded body. Why won't he just die?!

The addition of T'Challa adds a touch of royalty along with a heavy hitter to the ranks of the Avengers. Why the Black Panther doesn't use his political clout more during this time period is beyond me. Instead, T'Challa takes on the secret identity of Luke Charles, a inner city school teacher. Towards the end of this volume, we do experience the struggles of the Civil Rights movement through the Panther's eyes when those slimy racist goons of the Serpent Society rear their ugly heads back onto the seen. They're not as scary as the original version of the group seen in the previous volume. Still, it doesn't make their message of hatred and bigotry any less palatable. Beating DC Comics to the punch with relevant comics by almost a full year, I don't know if making the Black Panther the champion of the battle of inner city racism and inequality was Roy Thomas' idea or that of editor Stan Lee. Whomever it was, they were visionaries whose contribution should never be erased from bookshelves!

Another major character undergoes a change; although their metamorphosis is less internal and very much overt! Clint Barton hangs up his purple tights and arrows and takes on Dr. Henry Pym's mantle of Goliath, the giant Avenger. No, Hank hasn't retired from superheroing. But now a married man and operating as the schizophrenic superhero Yellow Jacket, Pym doesn't have time for seeing the sites of the Big Apple from 20 feet in height. After the death of his brother, Barton needs a change. Losing the love of his life, the Black Widow, to her career as a SHIELD operative may have something to do with the change in identity...

Compared to the last volume, there's a lot more of original members Thor and Iron Man as well as Captain America in this book. They're all still on reserve status. But it's nice to see them in action when things look their bleakest like in the alternate reality thriller of Avengers, Annual #2 in which the original Avengers killed off all of the other heroes in order to usher in a Golden Age of Peace and tranquility under the benevolence of the Scarlet Centurion.

It seems that with the loss of new recruits balanced with the assistance of the Big Three, the more things change for the Avengers, the more things stay the same.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Avengers continue to grow from strength-to-strength in the third volume of the Essential series.

As I said in the previous volume, Roy Thomas and John Buscema's arrival on the creative team definitely benefitted the comic book, and it only gets better in this one.

Thomas' storytelling remains quite strong, with the introduction of new Avengers Black Panther and personal favourite The Vision, as well as villains such as the Grim Reaper, Ultron, and Black Panther's nemesis M'Baku. Thomas really isn't scared to be a lot more experimental in his work.

Buscema bows out midway through this volume, with other greats such as Gene Colan and Barry Windsor-Smith stepping in for a handful of issues before John Buscema's very own brother Sal becomes the comic's primary artist. His work is very underappreciated I think, forever living in the shadow of John, but he is extremely capable and his art is very clean. One noticeable change in this volume that I found was the increase in number of splash pages. There are so many more gorgeous full-page works of art.

Highly recommended!

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great stories in here! I enjoyed this much more than I expected!

The Avengers face several changes here, and there is some good character development going on (you know, for a silver age comic book).

[H.L. Sudler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now we're cooking with gas: Ultron, The Vision, Magneto, Man-Ape, The Black Panther, Goliath, Ant-Man, and Yellowjacket all appear. The stories get more deep and dangerous and epic.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints Avengers (1) #47-68 and Avengers (1) Annual #2 (December 1967-September 1969). The Avengers continue to change as they meet a new Black Knight, welcome the hero of Wakanda known as the Black Panther, and meet a mysterious being called the Vision. As they battle the evil in the world including villains like Magneto, the Grim Reaper, and Ultron.

Written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by various artists (primarily John Buscema), Essential Avengers—Volume 3 showed a change in the title, and like many team books a big shake-up that most see as a positive thing. Like all of Marvel’s Essentials, the book is black-and-white reprints of the original comics (minus ads), but I always feel that DC’s Showcase Presents have better quality paper.

The biggest thing in this volume is the introduction of the Vision in Avengers (1) #57 (October 1968) and Avengers (1) #58 (with the famous title “Even an Android Can Cry”). Until this collection (and even the beginning of this collection, it felt like the Avengers was kind of meandering. It wasn’t a bad team book, but other than Fantastic Four, Marvel’s team books at the time were all almost second tier. The Vision really was something different and Roy Thomas obviously liked writing him so the stories seemed to improve plus it introduced the whole Vision—Simon Williams—Ultron—Wasp relationship conundrum which later of course added Scarlet Witch and Jocasta.

Another big add was the Black Panther who joined in Avengers (1) #52 (May 1968). While the Black Panther was the first black superhero in mainstream comics when he first appeared in Fantastic Four (1) #52 (July 1966), by joining the Avengers, the African king became the first black superhero on a major team. It was a big step for T’Challa and that is one thing that Marvel always did great…it was progressive for the time and didn’t seem too afraid to make political statements. (The first Marvel African-American hero was Luke Cage who got his own solo book in 1972…in contrast to DC’s Black Lightning who first appeared in Black Lightning (1) #1 (April 1977).

There are a number of first appearances in this collection in addition to the Vision. Vision’s “creator” Ultron first appeared in Avengers (1) #54 (unnamed) and Avengers (1) #55 (August 1968) in his first full appearance. Frequent team-member and ally Black Knight was “reborn” in Avengers (1) #47 (December 1967) and Simon Williams’ brother the Grim Reaper made his first appearance in Avengers (1) #52 (May 1968). Black Panther enemy Man-Ape appeared in Avengers (1) #62 (March 1969). Hank Pym adopted the new identity of Yellowjacket in Avengers (1) #59 (1968) while Hawkeye became Goliath in Avengers (1) #63 (April 1969).

The art of the series also is very classic. I know that Kirby is considered king, but I really love Buscema’s Avengers too. The artists are starting to break out of the panel art and developing a more stylized art which makes the book not only more visually appealing but more readable.

Essential Avengers—Volume 3 is a fun read. It isn’t the peak of The Avengers, but it continues a steady climb that helped make The Avengers one of my favorite team books later in the series. It constantly picked interesting characters and is much better than the current trend of simply picking the most popular characters. Avengers Assemble!!!

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects Issues 47-68 and Annual #2 of the Avengers as well as Marvel Superheroes #18 and X-Men #45. For the most part, this book has little of the biggest name Avengers. Iron Man guest stars in a couple issues. The book actually kicks off with Captain America quitting, although he returns briefly just before the Annual to set up a time travel adventure in that issue.

The core of the team in this book is Giant Man/Yellowjacket, the Wasp, Black Panther, and Hawkeye/Goliath, with Hercules departing early on and Vision joining the team later. The characters do develop and are fairly interesting, even though the presence of Hank Pym and Clint Barton on the same day means a lot of ego.

The stories themselves are fine. For the most part, they are standard villain of the month fare but do get quite interesting in plot lines involving Vison and Ultron, as well as the coming of Yellowjacket.

Overall, this is a pretty good volume of Avengers comics that fans of Silver Age Marvel will enjoy.

[Natalie Cannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

My friend Hillary already wrote a more cohesive feminist review of this book, here's a list of my favorite things about ESSENTIAL AVENGERS, Vol 3.

1. The Black Knight is not only in this book, but is literally princess-carried by T'Challa, the Black Panther and Prince of Wakanda
2. Hawkeye's endless nicknames and obviously big heart for his team. I much, much, much preferred Hawkeye's Pym nicknames (High Pockets, Man-Mountain etc).
3. Steve!!! Just constantly!!! Thinking about Bucky!!!! Like there is a whole issue where Steve has the team go back in time to observe Bucky's demise with him. Just to confirm...Bucky's death and I... *clutches heart*
4. Stan Lee and the creative team's narration
5. The one issue where there's approximately 58137208 references and quotes from Hamlet
6. T'Challa. Just... T'Challa. Constantly bringing it.
7. The fact that no one ever just stands like a normal person: they're either posing or doing ridiculous fighty, flippy stuff. There is no in-between.

Big things I didn't like:
1. Hawkeye calls T'Challa "Blackie" which COULD be construed as a reference to Black Panther, but it's icky.
2. Wasp, the Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch being so underused and constant references to weak=feminine
3. The Vision somehow counting towards diversity when he's obviously??? A white dude???? Literally every Avenger is a blonde or brunette white man except Black Panther and Wasp. I was kind of hoping for more diversity from a Stan Lee headed comic after reading THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA, where diversity is a big point.

BUT! I mostly liked it and would be interested in picking up more. In the meanwhile, Avengers Assemble!

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

With the stories collected in this volume, Roy Thomas proves himself to be one of the most prolific quoters of Shakespeare in the history of comic books. There are literally dozens of quotations, most not acknowledged, but a few are. Some of these are from the character Egghead, who quotes Shakespeare in most panels in which he has dialog. There are also quotes or allusions to Donne, Shelly, Yates, Poe, Scott, and others, but together they do not come close to the number of quotes from Shakespeare.

Here is the rub: I don't like the stories very much. It isn't that they are actually bad, and I am told they are above average for the comics of the time, but I don't think they are especially compelling or interesting. I tire of the constant fight scenes, as if a fight were a plot, and the constant boasting by hero and foe alike. Ugh. Perhaps this is the problem with being a researcher and not a fan. Were it not for the quotes that I study, I'd give this book two stars. It does have some entertainment value, but it is not really very good.

[Rexhurne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The birth of vision is great and truly essential marvel. Ultron here is a lot more menacing than the one in the mcu movie, and for the silver age that is saying something.
The Black Knight is a nice addition to the team, an while i did like Hercules, he felt a bit out of place for while now. It was a good decision to write him out. Black Panther works as a temporary member, since back then he didn't have his own comic yet. I wasn't a fan of Hawkeye trading in his bow for Hank's powers. Was a archer not cool enough anymore? Was Hank Pym to old for the super hero roll and he needed a younger replacement? At least it was only for a while.
Surprised to see so many famous quotes from classic literature, i thought that was a trend more modern comics invented.
This volume was as good as the last one if not better.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this a year or two back. I've just been picking it up once in a while, and reading an issue or two. I finally finished it today.
This is a pretty good run of Avengers comics. All written by Roy Thomas, with art by John Buscema, Gene Colan, Barry Smith, and a couple of other guys. I'm a big fan of Buscema, Colan, and Smith, so I really liked the art in this volume.
The stories are a mixed bag. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make much sense here, particularly the Pym/Van-Dyne wedding, but it's all in good fun.
I'm not that fond of the black & white reproduction in these Essential books, but it's a necessary compromise in reprinting so many issues at such a low cost.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of good nostalgic fun (although these issues are about seven years before I starting reading Avengers). You've got the introduction of the Black Panther, the Black Knight, and the Vision. You've got Barry Windsor-Smith doing a killer Kirby imitation on an Ultron story. And you have the Hank Pym/Janet Van Dyne wedding --- in which you either believe Janet is willing to wed the murderer of her former love or is exploiting the poor mental health of her current love. (Hint: it doesn't look good either way...)

[Ilsa Bonaparte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay. It was really, really, corny, hilariously so.

I technically skipped two issues because they had an insanely stupid premise, but the rest of it was extremely interesting, especially the plot twists, which often made little to no sense. It was especially fun because it had the first Ultron story and stuff, and Avengers: Age of Ultron is coming out in a few weeks.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Avengers are still fight orientated but some character is now coming in to it. The wasp and Hank finally get married. The vision is introduced. Now if only it could be a bit more character based.

[Devero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo volume raccoglie albi che non solo furono dei capolavori del fumetto del loro tempo: lo sono rimasti anche oggi.

[Christopher Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big fun from my first era as a comics fan. Love Roy Thomas' work. Better in the full color Marvel Master works editions.