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This eighth volume of Marvel Masterworks Avengers collects issues 69-79, which spans October 1969 to August 1970. All of the eleven stories here are written by the great Roy Thomas, with art by John Buscema (#’s 74-77 & 79), Sal Buscema (#’s 69-72 & 78) and Frank Giacoia (# 73). Roy Thomas writes the introduction and he’s very insightful in talking about working on these 11 issues, including tidbits like the reason Giacoia worked on only one issue (he was too slow, and thus worked only on inking) and the Squadron Sinister being based on the JLA. Thomas always did great intros on the Golden Age books, but reading his insights on things he wrote is just awesome.
The great thing about Roy’s stories is that he’s great at writing team books. This cast of the Avengers was an ever-rotating cast with stories featuring certain characters and ones that aren’t needed just weren’t used. Roy would use characters that would fit the story and not vice-versa. The main line-up consisted of Captain America, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Vision, Black Panther, Wasp, Goliath (Hawkeye), Thor and Iron Man. Not all of these characters would always appear in the 11 issues. Thor and Iron Man were only in a handful, and even Captain America was absent in an issue or two. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Black Knight would join the ranks during the 11-issue span. The 11 issues could really be broken down into 6 stories.
Spoilers Ahead
We start with a three-issue arc, #’s 69-71 that started off the volume and featured the first appearance of Grandmaster, a supreme being who took to playing games with human pawns in high stake games. Kang is the opponent of choice, as he gambles that if his team (the Avengers) wins the love of his life will be saved. Grandmaster uses the Squadron Sinister to battle the Avengers and then the original Invaders. Kang wins and he can choose either life or death and his ego gets to him, as he chooses death to the Avengers instead. Well, there are more issues in this collection so we know he fails, thanks to Black Knight, who becomes the newest member, albeit reserve, of the Avengers. This was a great three-parter with a nice use of action and the use of characters in the issues.
#72 was a standalone issue where the Avengers take down Scorpio and the Zodiac gang with the help of Nick Fury who was in disguise. This seemed like too much to condense in one issue. There’s an appearance by eventual hero Rick Jones in here, too. We continue the volume with a two-part story that is very racially themed. #’s 73-74 saw a big black vs. white gang war starting thanks to two bigoted mouthpieces and the urging of the Secret Serpent Society. Black Panther ends up captured and the Avengers must stop this race riot from occurring. They do, and the two mouthpieces are revealed as the two leaders of the Serpent Society. This was definitely something that probably would’ve been controversial at the time, though reading it now causes some eyebrow raising, including Panther telling a woman in the story that he was a, “soul brother.”
We don’t even take a break before going into the next two-parter that was featured in #’s 75-76. Arkon arrives on earth to take Scarlet Witch as a bride and take atomic energy and cause the Earth’s destruction to light his planet. The Avengers, with the aid of trouble brother, Quicksilver, save the world and save Arkon’s world, too. Arkon was a very Conan-ish character, with shades of magic (the lightning bolt arrows) thrown in. I liked the character of Arkon. I know he appeared in an X-Men annual, but I don’t think he was in much else. #77 was our second standalone issue of the volume and was a simplistic story of a man named Van Lunt paying the Avengers to do work for him in order for the Avengers to get closer to the Stark competitor. I didn’t really dig this issue, as again, maybe it’s just not what I am used to, but condensing a large story like this into 20 pages was jarring.
We end the collection with #’s 78-78, a two-parter that sees a bunch of B-list villains called the Lethal Legion (Man-Ape, Living Laser, Swordsman, Powerman and Grim Reaper) try and capture the Avengers. They get as far as whipping boy Black Panther before succumbing to the mighty team. Vision does leave at the end of the story, though. We’ll have to see where that goes next time.
-The Bottom Line- This was a very interesting collection in the run of the Avengers. The first three issues I thought were very good. I loved the Squadron Sinister here, they were perfect foils to the Avengers. The rest of the collection bordered on adequate, though the race stories are good as a period piece, to see what tensions were like in the late 60’s. I liked Arkon but that story didn’t have any lasting impact and the rest of the stories were just there. I don’t know what the next volumes of Avengers have in story. I know the Kree-Skrull War begins in issue #89, so what will be in Vol. 9 of Masterworks, just #’s 80-88? If they throw in an annual that would work, but Vol. 10 would be a waste of money if it was just the Kree-Skrull War, since I have the $20 trade of that already. This is a good collection of stories, but not great or timeless classics. If you’re a diehard Avengers fan and can’t afford the Silver Age issues, you should get this, but I can’t recommend this for the price outside of the really good opening story (one issue which was reprinted recently in the Avengers/Invaders comic). There’s not enough bang for your buck here and is mildly recommended.
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