Avengers Epic Collection, Vol. 10: The Yesterday Quest

Avengers Epic Collection

by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie (Writer), George Pérez (Illustrator)

Writers Jim Shooter and David Michelinie and avenging artists George Pérez and John Byrne bring you the Avengers at their best! And it begins with the cosmic "Korvac Saga" - co-starring the Guardians of the Galaxy! Possessed by the Power Cosmic, Korvac seeks to create a utopia on Earth. His godlike power may mean the end of the Avengers - and everyone else on the planet! Then, bookending this volume is "The Yesterday Quest" - a storyline with deep revelations for the Scarlet Witch, including her first encounter with the evil power of the Darkhold! In between, new heroes join the team, battles with the Absorbing Man and Count Nefaria will shake your fillings, and you will see why the Avengers will forever be called Earth's Mightiest Heroes! Collecting AVENGERS (1963) #167-188 and ANNUAL #8-9, and material from THE KORVAC SAGA TPB.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Comic Book

496 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2023

About the author

James Charles Shooter was an American writer, editor and publisher in the comics industry. Beginning his career writing for DC Comics at the age of 14, he had a successful but controversial run as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, and launched comics publishers Valiant, Defiant, and Broadway.

Reviews

[Sean Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the storytelling to the characterization to the plotting to ALL THAT GORGEOUS PEREZ AND BYRNE ART, this is an absolutely delightful collection of classic Avengers tales. Even if I still don't love Avenger Beast (far inferior to X-Men Beast).

[Jimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Korvac storyline with guest stars, the Original Guardians of the Galaxy, plus the Chython/Darkholm/Scarlet Witch stories, are classics in this collection. Also, the "new" origin story of Wanda and Pietro fills in the stories.
Government control of the Avengers pretty much starts here and leads to the Civil War comics, while Wanda's helps lead toward House of M. Connections, connections, connections.

[Shawn Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect Epic. If you bought only one Epic ever. This would be a good one to start with.

[Michael Emond · Rating 5 out of 5]

First I'll do my quick review and then I want to do a deep dive on how much I hate the Korvac Saga which is contained in this book.

My quick review: It speaks to how great the rest of this collection is that it contains the Korvac saga and I still gave it 5 stars. It contains art by three of my favourite 70/80's artists, John Byrne, George Perez and Don Newton. While George's art hasn't reached its full glory yet it is still great. And Byrne and Newton are in fine form. It contains two of my favourite Avengers stories of all time Avengers annual 8 and 9. Usually annuals were kind of throwaway stories but these two were shining examples of how great they could be. Two stand alone stories with amazing art that are just fun adventures. No soap opera long running stories - just fun. It contains Yesterday Quest one of my fav avengers multipart stories with are by Byrne and story by Michelinie. It isn't perfect (it gets a tad confusing because of some ret coning) but it is an exciting look into the past of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver...although it stops short of naming their true father - Magneto. A nice Ultron story and some interesting character development. There are some fill in story duds (a Beast story, a two parter about a living Island) and a WAY too confusing Thor side story (he pops in but doesn't seem to be from the current time) that gets explained away in a page 8 issues later in a way that made me feel nobody thought it through.
Overall a great Epic collection from a great time in the Avengers era.

KORVAC KOMPLAINT:

The reason I feel the need to rant about the Korvac saga is because it always gets brought up by fans as a "great Avengers story" and I need to be clear why I think this is a horrible story. Jim Shooter does a lot of the writing and - true to form - I feel this person who would terrorize other writers for not meeting his impossible standards (when he was Editor in Chief of Marvel) proves that he had a lot of weaknesses as a writer. this is a guy who ran John Byrne and Roger Stern off Captain America because of his insistence that every story was self contained and no more multi-part stories. Here we get an ugly mess of a multi parter gone wrong. What a hypocrite.
Let me summarize the story - the Guardians of the Galaxy (GoG)come from the future to prevent Korvac from killing young Vance Astro (a member of the team) in "present day" 1970's. Korvac wants to do this because Astro Vance and the Guardians prevented him from ruling the galaxy in the future. Really basic premise, right? If it had stuck to that and been a 3 part story - no worries. Now let me summarize what ends up happening:
- GoG come from future and meet the Avengers (after the prerequisite "we attack each other because we don't realize we are all good guys") and explain the situation. COOL
- In that issue we meet Korvac for the first time - he is no longer half man and half machine he is now (we will find out later) a God. That is underselling him. He is more powerful than all the most powerful Gods of our Universe combined. NOT COOL. How Korvac ends up being the most powerful being ever is...stupid. He ended up on Galactus' space station - plugged into the computer and became a God. How do you become more powerful than Galactus by plugging into his computer? Also - wow - it's that easy to become a God? More people should randomly teleport onto Galactus' space station (which apparently has less security than a 7-Eleven) and download his computer. Guys, I know this is comics - but I would rather the big baddie be something like the Beyonder (an unknown being from another dimension) than explain how this random baddie form the future became more powerful than Eternity itself.
- We meet Korvac who meets Carina and they instantly fall in love. NOT COOL So much about this little scene at the end of the issue is stupid. So...Korvac is there to kill Lance Astro (which, BTW he does not really seem to care about and even though that takes up a lot of the heroes' time - Korvac could not care a whit about killing Lance Astro another NOT COOL)...but he takes time to dress up in a tux and attend a random fashion show? Wha?? Then he sees a pretty model, Carina, and decides she is his lifemate that he would be willing to die for? Wha?? Also women just have to fall in love with the creepy guy who stares at them. Ick. I guess Jim Shooter thinks love is 100% based on looks. Even worse (for me) is we find out 8 issues later Carina is the daughter of the powerful God The Collector and was sent to spy on him. this makes ZERO sense...she was sent to spy on him by becoming a model and Korvac just happened to go there and fall for her and because he did she just quickly abandons her father and mission? This to me is the entire Korvac saga. Bad writing decision after bad writing decision.
- Next issue the main thing is Starhawk (a GoG) tracks Korvac down and has a battle on the astral plane which he loses and Korvac decides to rehsape him back to life (we did say he was powerful) but he is unable to perceive Korvac). NOT COOL. Hey Starhawk - maybe let the others known you found Korvac? Hey Shooter - why is Starhawk half woman and half man - casual readers are very confused by this. Hey Korvac - why not reshape Starhawk so he is your loyal servant? Hey Korvac? Why are you doing any of the things you are doing?
- Next issue - fill in issue that ignores everything that happened in the previous issues. Nothing says "good editing" like breaking up your multi part saga with a really bad story about a guy who attached a bomb to his hear tto destroy the world when he died (why have I seen that premise 4 times in comics?)
- Next TWO issues - we are back to our regular writer and artist but we get a two part tale with Ultron, again ignoring Korvac. I love this story but...why the hell is it in the middle of the Korvac saga? Archie Goodwin - are you even editing this book?
- Next issue - fill in issue with Hawkeye. Really? What is happening at Marvel?
- Next 2 issues - finally back to Korvac. The Collector is kidnapping all the heroes one by one because he knows Korvac is going to do something and he wants...the superheroes as...things?? I really don't get his motivation. But he likes collecting things. And he is worried about Korvac. And maybe worried his daughter totally failed in her mission.Also - Korvac spends this issue holding off all the other powerful beings of the Universe.
- The next 3 issues - we are in the home stretch. The Avengers finally thnk "hey, I know we spent 8 issues not thinking baout Korvac - but let's try to find him now". They find Korvac. They take a BUS to get to Korvac (I can't even). They easily get killed by Korvac. But then Korvac sees Carina have a look of doubt on her face about what is happening and decides to kill himself and bring all the heroes back to life. So...10 issues and big lead up and this all powerful being is stopped NOT by the 20 heroes who came to stop him but because the girl he started dating a week ago looked doubtful. And he doesn't think "okay I'll stop this and just live a nice life somewhere else" he thinks - "I'll kill myself". I should also add, Moondragon (worst Avenger ever) is all upset by this and sees it as a tragedy that Korvac died and didn't get to take over the Universe - he was just misunderstood. He had just killed all her friends but hey, he was a great guy.

So ends the stupidest comic book story I ever read. Yes - there were worse written tales but none took this long to be this stupid.

[Barry Bridges · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the Yesterday Quest is only 3 issues in this 24 issue compendium it’s the biggest reason to buy the book. Shame the cover isn’t from the titular saga!!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the Epic Collections compile everything, there are a fair number of filler issues in here. There are also a lot of heavy-hitters though. The Korvac Saga and the Yesterday Quest are the two plotlines of note here, as the former pits the Avengers against a near-omnipotent being and the latter shines a little light onto Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's past, but other highlights include encounters with Ultron, the Absorbing Man and Arsenal.

For me, the low point of this volume (and one of the low points of the entire Avengers run so far) is the Tom DeFalco-penned story featuring Bloodhawk and the Monolith. Firstly, Bloodhawk is just an awful character, so much so that I think DeFalco realised while writing the story and decided to kill him off in the issue following his debut. Secondly, Iron Man acts incredibly out of character. The way he disregards Bloodhawk's story as superstitious nonsense is utterly stupid. I mean, come on. In all the years he's been a superhero, plus the fact that he works with a mutant witch, he refuses to believe that a stone totem might have magical properties? That's just poor, poor writing.

As for the art, well it's pretty wonderful. George Perez, John Byrne and David Wenzel's work is gorgeous. I often had to stop reading issues just to admire the pages.

Despite the aforementioned low point, this volume of the Avengers Epic Collection is mandatory reading for those interested in the superhero team.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cover, with Hank slamming Charlie, is one of my all time favorites, evidenced by #167 on a stand within eyesight as I type this. This collection includes two of the great story arcs of the era, Korvac and The Yesterday Quest, and lots of other good stuff. I read every one of these issues in real time and looked forward to the next one every month. It was a great time to be comic reader.

[The_J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing pieces of artistic creation, from a whole host of genius artists. The end of the 70s had some sparkling moments.