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]

Better Know Some Avengers!

Coming Soon...

Well, the Super Bowl is this weekend and outside of the obligatory bells and whistles that go into "The Big Game" itself, another tradition of the event, of course, has become the orgiastic barrage of advertising that permeates, underscores- and sometimes undercuts- its programming block. This year will undoubtedly be no different. And while I'm really not the biggest sports guy, I'm particularly mindful of this one because a new trailer will be debuting for the eagerly-anticipated film adaptation of The Avengers. In interest of pre-empting the mass blow-up of text message questions I'll be getting in the next few days and months, I figured I'd make this "101 series". So, in some paraphrase mash-up of Stan "The Man" Lee and Stephen Colbert: "Face front, true believers-- 'cuz you Better Know Some Avengers"...

If you've seen any of Marvel Studios' previous releases, you can get a general gist of where this is all going as those movies- as much franchises unto themselves- ultimately all serve on another level as preamble to what's coming next. From a logistical standpoint, it's an unprecedented move having all these hitherto self-contained Hollywood icons share equal billing as co-stars in something greater than the sum of its parts. In keeping with the historical lore and ethos of the Avengers comic book, though, this feat is nothing short of utter wish fulfillment nerdgasm of the highest order!

Art by Jack Kirby (with Dick Ayers- inks)

Cover-dated September, 1963, the first issue of Marvel Comics' The Avengers saw the banding together of disparate characters from various established solo series as "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" (as they would subsequently be so modestly tagged); fighting the foes no single hero could take alone. While from today's perspective, the notion of cherry-picking a "best of the best" combat unit might sound pretty frikkin' sweet, there really wasn't as much material to work with back in the day. As a result, writer/editor Stan Lee and artist/co-genius Jack Kirby's "Version 1.0"- while very powerful- comes off a little "misfit weirdo remainder bin". However, if the constituency seemed a little wonky on paper, they did have some very effective branding with the most bad-ass moniker around, easily giving them a leg up against the more recognizable heavyweights over at DC Comics, The Justice League of America.

As strategically contrived as it may seem, it is very much this overt spirit of jockeying for market placement that saw The Avengers come about. Five years prior, DC had begun successfully revitalizing and updating a number of heroes from their "Golden Age" (World War II-era) heyday, ushering in renewed interest in the "superhero genre". By 1960, they had built themselves a nice stable of titles and began showcasing the meet-ups of their most popular characters as the aforementioned League.  

Charged with chasing this particular trend by his uncle/publisher, Martin Goodman, Stan (along with Kirby) instead scored an offbeat hit with 1961's The Fantastic Four. This new offering was born more out of a last-ditch "Hail Mary" of creative whimsy than a direct response to the challenge, as Atlas (Marvel's 1950s incarnation) was still heavily steeped in one-and-done sci-fi/monster and romance comics, having long-since mothballed their own circa-WWII Timely "mystery men" properties. While there is more than a passing wink and nod to the greater pedigree of the art form in those initial FF issues, Stan's greatest, most sustaining achievement would be the attitude that he imbued into these new creations: heroes with feet of clay- a modernized spin on Greek tragedy wherein the superhuman is in some way made more vulnerable as a consequence of their new ability. One doesn't really need to look any further than the monstrously-transformed FF member, The Thing or the Amazing Spider-Man as prime early examples of this mindset. The next step was really just to wash, rinse, world-build and repeat ad infinitum.

For the next few years, the ideas just proliferated in this vein. Ostensibly, the body of this inaugural "class" would become the nucleus of Lee's new "supergroup"- yet none of them had quite the same marquee draw that other more-established "solo title" heroes brought to their respective "team" books. Hell, even in their own evolving House of Ideas, the closest thing they had was The Amazing Spider-Man; though either by virtue of Spidey's on-panel multiple chainsaw juggle of a life or co-creator Steve Ditko's implied desire to not share all the toys in the new toy box, it was readily evident the wall-crawler couldn't play well with others. From there, essentially, it shakes out to be less about "the best of the best" and more about "You go to war with the army you have"...

It's right about there that the original comic book series separates from what will no doubt become the "Movie Origin of the Avenger Initiative's 1st Field Mission", although many of the core tenets will assuredly remain intact. In the traditional story, Loki (yep, that Loki. Norse God of Mischief- y'know, from the Thor movie) attempts to use the Incredible Hulk as a pawn in a revenge scheme against his hated adopted brother, the ubiquitous God of Thunder (and Rock and Roll). As Loki tries to leak word and bait Thor, he accidentally draws the attention of additional heroes: Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man (apparently before the turned-to-steel-in-a-great-magnetic-field incident you hear so much about) and the insect-themed duo of Dr, Henry Pym (the Astonishing Ant-Man) and Janet Van Dyne (the Winsome Wasp), whose appearance in the movie, of this writing, remains a point of speculation and easter-eggery. 

Once all the "lone gun" heroes converge and momentarily beat their chests about how they work alone (except the Wasp, who takes this as a chance to super-speed date!), they get down to the wacky business of pursuing the Hulk, who has pulled it together enough to disguise himself as a-- I shit you not-- robot clown in a nearby traveling circus until the heat dies down on his Loki-induced public catastrophe.

ooohh-- I  sure hope they work this into the movie somehow...

Another classic misunderstanding-amongst-heroes dust-up ensues until they collectively smoke out the real culprit. Before parting ways, their smallest members suggest that they should regularly meet up as a thing-- and even spring that killer name off! And that was how it was for all of two issues...

Sounds pretty weird, huh? It may come off a bit hokey by today's standards, but the stories-  outside of their sheer historic value- are not without their own innate awesomeness. I couldn't even begin to think where we our modern mythology would be without the output of Marvel's Silver Age Bullpen. And for those uninitiated, I recommend any of this stuff (but put on your Ed Wood googles 'cuz the less said about the three-toed/eight-toed Hulk variance the better, shhh).

Move over Mr.T, Hulk in on pitying racket since '63!

By the same token, though, you may be saying: "Where's Cap? When does the whole SHIELD para-military angle come into play?" Hold on, I'm getting there...

[To Be Continued]