Better Know Some Avengers! Part 2

Promo Assemble! Art by Gerald Parel

Last time, I discussed the historical comic book origin of The Avengers and how that source material may serve Marvel's "movie universe". With the theatrical release a few months off, it's hard to say what specifically will get borrowed from the 1963 classic, but it'll still have to reconcile with various established film-verse elements that simply weren't around back when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby kicked off the original franchise. How does this all work? This is the story of the other half of the equation...

The biggest difference, of course, is the right-outta-the-box presence of Captain America (whose own 2011 blockbuster was subtitled: "The First Avenger"- coincidence, hmmm?) and the peacekeeping taskforce, SHIELD- most notably Director Nick Fury and operatives Black Widow and Hawkeye. Is there some historical comic book context here, too? Strangely enough, yes. One word answer: reboot.

In fact, there have been two separate instances that the Avengers' beginnings have been recast with a few added twists and turns. And before anybody's head explodes from cries of "This is why I don't read comics!", I will say up front that both cases involve alternate realities that stuck. But hold on-- I'll walk us through slowly, 'kay?

The first scenario was something called Heroes Reborn. Conceptually a pimped-out "lifeboat", it's very much the poetically ironic byproduct of the 1990s industry-wide boom-to-bust cycle. Without launching into too much tangential history: in the throes of financial uncertainty and a rash of subpar publications during the mid-nineties, Marvel outsourced a handful of their titles to then-white hot upstarts of Image Comics, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee (no relation to Stan). A few years before, Lee, Liefeld and four other top Marvel artists jumped ship and created a huge stir with their new creator-owned enterprise. Now reaping something of the whirlwind they unintentionally created, Marvel appealed to their competitors to "Image-ize" what's essentially the core of the Marvel Universe (Avengers, Fantastic Four) as its own stand-alone thing easily plug-and-play accessible for a then-modern audience. Mission accomplished...sorta.

While generally bolstering the waning popularity of the properties, results of this endeavor were mixed at best; proving wildly controversial amongst the long-term fanbase with many decrying that the iconic characters they grew up with were rendered unrecognizable. Problems further compounded when mid-way through the project, Marvel tried to renegotiate contracts and lost Liefeld in the process. Lee's own Wildstorm art studio was brought in to pinch-hit the remainder of those issues. Fan reaction was slightly more favorable despite perpetuating its own mess along the way (gratuitous and ultra-confusing Issue 13s, I'm looking at you), eventually wrapping with everyone metaphorically waking up from their mass Wizard of Oz coma-fantasy and reinjected back into their old "classic" lives in the mini-series Heroes Return.

So what was the long-term gain from this proverbial dog's breakfast of a venture? Simple- it proved it could be done: total one-stop shopping. While The Avengers traditionally chronicled the collaborative intersection of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", for the most part, they were still respectively the stars of their own solo series. As such, the "BIG personal stuff" would rarely (if ever) happen in the team-up book. This meant buying more books so as to not be taking off guard when Tony Stark would show up in the latest Avengers issue rocking some new armor or knowing in more intimate detail how Ant-Man suddenly became Giant-Man. The fact notwithstanding that both Iron Man and Captain America retained their own respective Reborn spin-offs, the issue was forced on "How the heck do we get alll these heroes to hit the ground running in lock-step without the benefit of extra pages?" Easiest answer: make 'em a government-sanctioned strikeforce. Know why? It all comes back to a certain super-soldiered maguffin from "Dubya-Dubya Eye-Eye"...

As evident from the framing pieces of last year's Captain America movie, SHIELD's been looking for their Super-Soldier for some time. It would be somewhat naive to think, though, that in the intervening years since "The Big One" that the comic book global superpowers wouldn't be cultivating other super-agents as well- either by design or accident. Besides, nothing cuts through extraneous backstory and personal motivations like being dropped into the middle of an ops briefing with all the players amassed like "toyetic" eye candy. You can always get the skinny on everyone's individual secret origin later. And, so what if the ascribed historical sequence of events gets juxtaposed a little to facilitate this arrangement. I mean, really, what makes for a better opening move than the quest to revive the "o.g." of 'em all, huh?  (Robot Clown, anyone?)

It's been said (probably by current Avengers scribe, Brian Michael Bendis) that the team was like a good band just lacking that "it factor" until it found its "lead singer" (Cap) and that may very well be true. In its earliest incarnation, the title seemed like it was bound and determined to tear itself apart before it even truly got going. Formed out of a misunderstanding with the Incredible Hulk, the following issues centered around the worsening of that relationship as by #3, ol' "jade jaws" was blatantly adversarial with the group; himself forging an uneasy alliance with the amphibious Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner (Timely's original bad boy anti-hero). 

By the fourth installment, it may as well've retitled itself "The Continuing Saga of Nascent, Somewhat Amorphous Super-Club versus the Two Most Aggro Freaks of Nature Ever" if not for one very distinct difference...

The original. Cover-dated March 1964. Art by Jack Kirby (with George Roussos, inks)

I don't know if there's more to be read into this but Avengers #4 originally hit newsstands shortly after the JFK assassination and right around the time of The Beatles' debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Coincidence or speaking of something greater in our collective subconscious, I don't know- I wasn't around then. But what I do know is that The Avengers would never be the same again (and certainly for the better).


Now the unit had a focal point and by extension, a formula. From there, quite honestly, it didn't matter what craziness the team ran into from issue to issue-- subterranean lava men, time-traveling warlords, you name it-- Cap's weirded-out yet unswervingly righteous "man out of time" schtick was the audience's orientation. The trick came in keeping it fresh and somehow Stan, Jack and company kept this particular riff going for about a year and a half before changing gears entirely with the title (more on that later).


The time-honored simplicity of this blueprint, though, was again demonstrated when Marvel launched their "Ultimate Universe version" of The Avengers, The, err, Ultimates...

Here we go again for the first time. Art by Bryan Hitch

Cover-dated March, 2002, The Ultimates was the 21st Century reimagining of the team unfettered by their decades of history. In this respect, thematically similar to Heroes Reborn, however the two couldn't be further apart in tone and delivery. Written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Bryan Hitch, Ultimates doesn't dick around or pull punches like a "kiddie book" at all.

Among its lead qualities is its' gritty "real world feel", as it's undeniably the artistic yield of a post-9/11 world. While quickly hitting through all the "classic" beats (SHIELD's discovery and revival of Cap, the untried teams' first field assignment against the gamma-irradiated alter ego of scientist Bruce Banner), the book is heavily tied to the currently-topical while embracing its fantastical elements. I mean, ya can't storm the Middle East without having a good ol' fashioned alien spaceship invasion first, right?

The Ultimates proved to be such a huge success, in fact, that it sent some pretty palpable shockwaves back into the regular mainstream Avengers book. But that is definitely a story for another time...

[To be Continued]