Symbolic Splash Pages: Avengers/X-Men

Wrapping up our look at symbolic splash pages which were featured in Marvel books from the early 1960s to the mid-'70s, we come to two team books which separately may not have offered much in this area but, combined, "assemble" an interesting collection to close out this series in the PPC.

In the case of the Avengers, like myself you may find their set of symbolic splash pages rather a mixed bag in terms of creativity and quality--a far cry from Steve Ditko's offerings in Amazing Spider-Man, though, in all fairness, we're talking about apples and oranges in terms of not only the characters but how the two books were being presented to the reader. It also has to be said that, unlike Fantastic Four, which had its own share of SSPs, The Avengers and X-Men were often in a state of flux with not only their artist teams but more importantly their direction, and as a result struggled to find their footing (and their readership)--whereas the FF and Spider-Man had the benefit of stability, which perhaps helped contribute to the look of their respective SSPs. Aside from the X-Men's color-coordinated uniforms, which were consistent for much of the title's run before it went on hiatus, neither The Avengers nor X-Men in their early days generated the sense of familiarity that a symbolic splash page could take advantage of.

Some Avengers/X-Men pages which did stand out for me in certain respects were the following (and your mileage may vary):

As opposed to the Avengers, however, I can't say there's a single page from the X-Men group that I would mark as disappointing in the context of our main theme here. (You'll note that the page for X-Men #26 even takes a moment to explain what constitutes a "symbolic splash.")  All were nicely presented and piqued my interest while doing a good job of nudging me to continue to the story within. (Though I had second thoughts on the X-Men page featuring Lucifer--apparently we should be feeling tense or apprehensive about that device he's hoisting over his head, but the page does little to nothing in getting us there.) But as for the Avengers, there were some exceptions for me, followed by some brief takeaways on each.

• Avengers #9: If we didn't know better, we might think that Zemo was Wonder Man with all the fanfare the character receives in the captions.  Besides the Avengers, wouldn't you have assumed that the only other figure here would be the same character whose name is being announced like thunder?  And doesn't Cap's dialog seem conspicuously added to avoid such confusion?
• Avengers #13: The Avengers certainly don't look like they're trapped in a castle--it's really the charge of treason that's the main draw here.  For maximum effect, let the title reflect the shocking image we're looking at.  The machinations of Count Nefaria, a new character we know nothing about, can wait for the story to elaborate on.
• Avengers #s 17-18: So the new Avengers lineup is already reduced to fighting a mythical monster--is that what they or we signed up for, or isn't there more to this story? As for the Commissar, as a foe for the Avengers he appears at first glance a poor substitute for the Mandarin.
• Avengers #61: Granted, it's a John Buscema two-page spread; but unlike a similar opening rendered by Gene Colan, Buscema's is a symbolic representation and isn't directly relevant to the succeeding page. With apologies to Surtur, Ymir, Mr. Buscema, and letterer Sam Rosen, we need a little more than a "fold-out" title to better represent the events we'll be reading about.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this brief series.  Coming up at a later date, the PPC is already rounding up symbolic splash pages from other titles for a follow-up presentation--and if you have some examples of your own from the titles which were featured but didn't appear here, feel free to point them out. We're all ears (and eyes)!