Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume 4

/ Alex Good

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume 4

I read this shortly after reviewing the Marvel Epic Collection containing The Avengers #1-20. What we get here are issues #31-40, and while the line-up of heroes is mostly the same as at the end of the Epic Collection volume, and I think the spirit of their adventures is similar, things were under different management. Jack Kirby had been replaced by Don Heck and Stan Lee was in the process of letting Roy Thomas take over writing duties. And as much as Lee and Kirby are justly lionized for being two of the creative giants who got Marvel started, I don’t think there’s any falling off. In fact, I prefer what we get from Heck and Thomas over any of the Lee and Kirby collaborations. Comics were growing up fast.

The earlier issues have more of Lee’s hyperbolic salesmanship. “Read this yarn slowly – carefully! It’s just possibly one of the most deeply-moving, off-beat thrillers of the year, and we want you to savor every prize-winning panel!” I wonder what prizes he was referring to. Or there’s this: “Caution! Whatever you do, wherever you go, be sure to hang on to this irreplaceable ish, for it’s certain to become one of the most talked-about collectors’ items in the annals of comicophilia! We kid you not!” Lee said “I kid you not!” a lot, and I think it’s where I picked the expression up.

We’re also still in the days when The Avengers actually weren’t the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Captain America’s shield is just a regular metal disc that is easily bent or destroyed and then replaced. The Scarlet Witch only seems to know a few basic spells, and her “hex power” is underwhelming. The Wasp is pretty much useless, as always, and forever swooning over the hunky boys she meets. Goliath starts off being stuck in his giant size and one of the storylines has him having to figure out a way to get small again. And he still needs to work on other things. In the final issue the Wasp has to give him a ride because she has wings and he doesn’t and she asks an obvious question: “Why don’t you give yourself the power to gain wings when you shrink?” His lame reply: “Y’know, I’ve been so busy on other projects, I never thought about it! Maybe I will, one of these days!”

As a result, they need to focus on teamwork to fight off the bad guys they face. Especially the mighty Ixar (“the Invincible”). Or the Thinker and his team of B-listers. I kind of liked how the Thinker wasn’t some superhero but just a computer nerd who tries to calculate the best way to take down the Avengers. A computer nerd must have seemed cutting edge at the time. Then in the final issues Hercules unofficially joins the team and he adds some much needed muscle given that Thor and the Hulk are out. Giant Man never seems to pull his weight as a clean-up hitter.

So this is quite entertaining in the mid-‘60s Marvel way. I enjoyed seeing the word “sawbuck” for the first time in a long time, and then realized I’d never had any idea what a sawbuck was. It’s a $10 bill, in case you were wondering, so called because the Roman numeral X looks like a sawbuck, which is a style of sawhorse. Timely trivia aside, the Avengers were on their way here to becoming the franchise they would become but they still needed a lot of work before they’d be fully assembled.

Graphicalex

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