Essential Avengers, Vol. 1 (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Comic Book Quiz Time: True or False - the Fantastic Four appear in the first issue of The Avengers.

The answer is TRUE. In fact, Marvel's First Family play a very large role in the formation of Earth's Mightiest Heroes becoming a superhero team. 

The Norse god of mischief, Loki, would like nothing more than to defeat his boastful half brother Thor. However, due to being banished to a forbidden zone within the Seven Realms, Loki has to use a proxy via his magical inclinations to defeat the god of Thunder. The chosen lackey is none other than the Incredible Hulk who is duped into destroying a train track after Loki used an illusion spell to make the green behemoth believe there was dynamite about to explode.

Using a ham radio, the Hulk's teenager sidekick, Rick Jones attempts to summon the Fantastic Four for help, as they had dealt with him previously. However, the Fantastic Four must decline and they recommend Jones summon Thor, since he's a heavy hitter. You'd think this is just what Loki was hoping for. Only his ultimate trap is far from set. So when Rick Jones attempts to radio Thor, his transmission is received instead by Iron Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp. 

Eventually, Thor joins the fight against the Hulk with the other heroes. Rick explains that the Hulk is innocent of the mass destruction and Thor with assistance from the All Father, defeats Loki. Enjoying their adventure together, the heroes, along with the Hulk, decide to make this a regular thing. With suggestion of the Wasp, the team take on the name of the Avengers and comic book history is made.

Marvel characters had already been interacting with each other for a couple of years prior to the debut of The Avengers. As mentioned earlier, the Fantastic Four attempted to defeat the Hulk in issue #12 of their first series. Spider-Man asked the FF for a job in his first solo issue. With each of these crossovers, Marvel developed a cohesive universe which was a delight to readers.

As fans were demanding more of such adventures, Stan Lee got the idea to develop a group team title that would hopefully introduce readers to some of the struggling (in popularity) heroes and hopefully enticed them to pick up their solo books as well. Besides, DC has been having similar success with it's flagship group title, Justice League of America. Thus in Stan's mind, what was good for the goose must be good for the gander.

By issue #4, the Hulk departed the Avengers feeling hated and unwanted by his teammates and the remaining Avengers added the World War II legend, Captain America, since frozen in an iceberg, to the roster. Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man now going as Giant Man, the Wasp and Captain America: they may not have been the original lineup. But they are considered by many to be the most iconic membership of the team's 60 year plus history.

Jack Kirby was Stan Lee's go-to artist and collaborator whenever a new project arose. Kirby was allowed to select the original roster of the Avengers. When asked in interviews years later why he went with the 5 characters that made up the Avengers by the end of issue #1, the King responded 'they were all characters that I had created' and was comfortable drawing. Plus, Kirby felt that he'd receive a higher working wage if he used only characters that he had created previously at Marvel. Familiarity and money might have been the reasons why The Sub-Mariner became a one-time adversary of the Avengers as well as the return of the Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America.

By issue #8, Kirby became bored with the title, as he often did, and went on to plot and pencil other projects at the House of Ideas. Don Heck took over as the series' regular artist. The co-creator of such Avengers stalwarts as Iron Man and the Wasp, Heck would oversee the team's biggest roster shake up in Avengers #16 when Captain America would now lead the team, comprised of former baddies Hawkeye, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Heck would stay on until issue #40. Dick Ayers inked a majority of the first 2 dozen issues with lettering completed by Artie Simek at Sam Rosen. 

Completing this review completes Task #14 (A Volume of Marvel Essentials or DC Showcase) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #48

After about 4 dozen issues, Spider-Man is finally given the chance to star in his own multi-part series and what do you know? He's gotta share the spotlight with smelly old Wolverine. It's all part of MCP's new plan to have Logan play host a la Marvel Team-Up or Marvel Two-In-One with members of the Marvel Universe. I'm all for a team-up. They're one of my favor genre of superhero comics. But enough with the Wolverine already!

As for this story's plot- a mutant girl and her father are targets of a gang of baddies. Both Spider-Man and Wolverine have history with the pair. So cue up the team up!

The two 8-pagers were fan-dam-tastic! The Wasp comes face-to-face with an obsessed fan with tragic results that come with a twist. Then the mistress of meteorology Storm is reunited with, of all people, Doctor Doom. Apparently, the two have a platonic history to which puts Storm up there with Reed Richards and Doom himself, as the only people who share the Latverian leader's respect.  

My thoughts of these 2 stories. 1) Give Wasp her own mini in this book! Just make sure that the creative team is Dwight J. Zimmerman (Sensational She-Hulk) and Rodney Ramos (Transmetropolitan) 2) Where can I find that Storm/Doctor Doom first meeting? This issue has piqued my interest so badly!

Rounding things out, the Devil-Slayer story keeps getting more bizarre and I love it! The characters change should be only temporary, hopefully. But for now, I really dig it!

4 great segments. Even if Wolverine continues to steal the show!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Tales to Astonish #1: featuring the Hulk, Wasp, and Hank Pym

While on a working vacation to Scadanvia, Hank Pym and ex-wife, Janet Van Dyne are recruited by the local authorities to look in on a madman who beleive’s he is Loki, the Norse god of Mischief, incarnate.

Adding to the mix is the Hulk, who makes a livesaving appearance, literally in the nick of time. This Hulk is coherent, with the brain of Banner having taken over. So, don’t be surprise that the Hulk is dressed and flying airplanes.

The art work is pretty darn good, with painted scenes that are gruesome and beautiful at the same time. The plot is really good and reminded me a little of CSI or Kolchak, the Night Stalker. The ending got a little too dragged out and I didn’t like one of the twists involving the Hulk. Regardless of this, the book was very good and very much worth consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Ant-Man & Wasp #3

Turns out AIM didn’t want “Heaven” after all. They just stole it in order to recruit Hank Pym to their criminal organization. Now trapped by AIM, Pym endures the weirdest job interview of all time as he must escape over 100 traps in order to free Ant-Man from the Sleepwalker and save the universe from a temporal displacement.

Excellent stuff. I think Marvel did a fantastic job for once. But, they missed a great opp to have an ongoing Wasp/Ant-man title. However, that doesn’t stop the book from being very much Worth Consuming. Also, the background characters have influenced me to give Avengers Academy a very serious glance.

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Ant-Man & Wasp #2

Using a Sleepwalker/ human hybrid, AIM has kidnapped one of Hank Pym’s inventions. I say kidnap because the invention is a computer simulation of Heaven that houses the soul of Pym’s deceased lab assistant Bill “Goliath” Foster.

It’s up to Pym as the Wasp and the latest crony to bear the mantle of Ant-man to team up and rescue Foster before AIM reverse engineering of the device causes paradise to collapse.

Great mini-series. Very much Worth Consuming.

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Ant-Man & Wasp #1

Ant-man and the Wasp have reteamed for the first time ever! It’s not your father’s Ant-man and Wasp and ironically, the book actually mentions that fact! I love it.

Here Hank Pym is now bearing the mantle of Wasp, in honor of his deceased lover, Jan Van Dyne. Ant-man is an upstart SHIELD drop-out who makes Guy Gardner look like a choir boy.

I thought this book was going to be in typical Marvel fashion with the two heroes fighting each other, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, there is a great buddy cop vibe and the banter is funny.

Did I say that I love it?

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Secret Invasion: Requiem

Janet Van Dyne, AKA The Wasp, has died and now ex-husband and long-time lover Hank Pym finds himself in charge of clearing her estate. Wanting to make amends for her death as well as how poorly he treated her over the years, Pym reflects over his love life in hopes of finding a way to honor the fallen Avenger.

In Requiem, we see the beginning of Pym and Janet’s relationship with the Wasp’s origin, reprinting Tales to Astonish #44 and then we see the end of Hank and Jan’s marriage with his epic court-martial as Yellowjacket in an early 80s reprint of the Avengers.

The two reprints, along with the filler story are superb. I really enjoyed the ending. There’s also a Official Marvel Handbook entry on the life of Janet Van Dyne. Though it’s very extensive, there’s some omissions that I wish were explained further. For instance, her bio sheet lists her as once being known as Doctor Spectrum and the Invisible Woman. I wanted to know how she took up those monikers, but the author doesn’t touch those subjects.

Lastly, it’s said Janet wore about 200 different outfits in her illustrious career and the book closes with a 3-page spread that tries to capture everyone of those costumes.

Great work, Marvel!

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Avengers: The Origin #2

What a fantastic cover. No wonder Iron Man created his Hulk Buster armor!

In issue 2, Thor thinks he knows whose behind the Hulk’s rampage and returns to Asgard to investigate. Already way down in the manpower department, Ant-Man, Wasp, and Iron Man use the latest in hi-tech to track the Hulk’s movements. In terms of the Hulk, he’s made some new friends who make him seem normal in comparison.

Fantastic Art. I mentioned the cover, didn’t I? There’s a great sequence that involves the Hulk on a rampage, but I won’t let on to what happens. I will say, it’s gory and kinda morbidly fun.

Worth Consuming, but it still doesn’t add much to the content first presented in 1963’s Avengers #1.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars,