Avengers 21-30... Me and My Friends

Avengers #21 through to #30 could very well be seen as the start of “Marvel’s Amazing Cosmic Opera” Stan stumbled on a good thing an ran with it…the concept of duality.

You see each and every story now has at least two subplots, one is the “cosmic” part , the other the “soap-opera”. Let the Avengers battle ever more powerful and outlandish villains, armed with impressive weaponry and crazy contraptions. And take them away from this island earth, lead them to a far distant planet, in the far-flung future and have them battle…battle hard.

But at the same time leave room for the little interpersonal relationships. While each Avenger is fighting Doom, Kang, Attuma or Baron Zemo, have them worry if they’ve really lost the love of their life or if there really is a place for them among the Avengers. Make it so that the protagonists really get on each other’s nerves but deep (way deep) down inside they idolise each other and would willingly lay down their life so the other could go on.

And the roster shuffling continues, as the Wasp and Giant-Man return to the membership of the team, except not through the best of circumstances,.Giant-Man, aka Hank Pym, has some serious problems going on, mainly getting stuck at ten feet when sizing down. The "stuck at ten-feet" subplot would continue for a while, and includes some of the kitschiest dialogue the Marvel Universe would ever produce. Poor Hawkeye has the hots for ‘bad-girl” and Soviet-spy (dirty RED traitor) The Black Widow and Cap is still missing Bucky. Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch still feel like outsiders and most of the time seem to call each other “brother” and “sister” instead of “Pietro” and “Wanda”…weird mutants

I didn’t really care for the Atlantis storyline in #26 & #27 and the Goliath drama in #28 through #30 was weak, but the Doom + FF crossover in #25 was excellent, as were the first four issues with Space- and timetravelling Kang and the Enchantress.

Don Heck is still Don Heck, meaning the art is adequate but easily forgotten, Stan is really starting to find a flair for the team, but the plotting is still far, far better than the dialogue which is pretty dire. At least the verbal bouts between Cap and Hawkeye were amusing.

Letter pages were great as always, lots of questions and lots of errors pointed out. I also spotted a letter by Bronze Age comics-writer and plotter…Mike friedrich in Avengers #29

This time I’ve chosen the cover to issues #25 and as an extra bonus, here’s a Marvel House ad from issue #24…isn’t it FAB !!!