Favorite Scenes: The Avengers! (1965-1972)

 

With the Vision already having rated his own Favorite Scenes post, we turn our attention now to his long-time partners, the mighty Avengers, who have chalked up a few dramatic and memorable moments over the years and doubtless have many of you recalling your own.

For myself, this journey began with the original Avengers lineup, though not with any adventures they had; rather, I was struck most by the original team's exit, a development which brought more focus to their chemistry and internal deliberations than any crisis involving the Masters of Evil, the Sub-Mariner, the Lava Men, et al. Technically, the Avengers meetings began in their second issue in a rather austere meeting room with the founding members (sans Captain America, as yet) seated at a small table in an effort to get to know each other better; but when, a year and a half later (our time), that team disbanded, we can look back on that changing of the guard scene with a mixture of nostalgia and, of course, history being made.

Three years later, the ranks of the Avengers have been shuffled considerably, with two of the replacement members having departed, Giant-Man (as Goliath) and the Wasp returning to the fold, and the Black Panther filling the gap of Captain America's departure--some of those developments as well as others we'll see from this point on stemming from Roy Thomas, who became the series' regular writer at the end of 1966. As it happened, Thomas had just concluded his run on the X-Men title--and by the time of this classic meeting between the two groups of heroes, he was in the process of making his own distinctive history as a Marvel writer.

True, with two females on opposing sides, an artist seldom thinks to match up one of them against a male (say, Marvel Girl against Hawkeye)--or, better yet, have these "teams" switch opponents throughout their battle. It looks like pretty close quarters for these people to not trip over each other in a fight.

As we can see, it's four against four, with the Angel sidelined in the Avengers quinjet for the time being and the remaining X-Men having turned murderous under the mental sway of Magneto. But even without the Angel present (or maybe because of it), there's enough action going on for the battle to become a page-turner.

Eventually, the time comes for the Avengers to receive a new and, in this case, unique member in the form of the Vision, who is inducted with nearly all members present. (Would have been something if the Hulk had shown up to vote, eh?)

Surely a moment of upheaval for the team came with the arrival of Yellowjacket, a new hero on the scene who shows up with no shortage of arrogance expecting to be granted Avengers membership based on his growing reputation in the city as a crimestopper. He also has shocking news as to Goliath, who is unusually late (as it turns out, in more ways than one):

We wouldn't learn the circumstances involving the deed until the end of this two-part story--but for now, Yellowjacket's recounting of how he managed to defeat and kill Hank Pym naturally stuns everyone in the room, a tale full of clues for those of us with the benefit of hindsight.

A later eye-catching battle in its own right takes place back in the 1940s, which sees three Avengers who have agreed with their comrades to fight on the behalf of Kang the Conqueror sent to the past to face three others during a "contest" between Kang and his opponent, the alien gamesman known as the Grand-Master--in what would technically be the first appearance of the Invaders.

Yet it's the denouement of the contest which carries the most drama, for both Kang and the Avengers, when the former is forced by a technicality to choose which power he wishes to claim as the victor--but in doing so, fails to "read the fine print" of the Grand-Master's offer.

Another moment of internal strife (but, thankfully, doesn't involve a fatality) is experienced with the return of the Vision (who had departed the Avengers for personal reasons) and the man in his custody, Red Wolf, whose own situation forces the Avengers to come to terms with their own mission statement--one member in particular having already given the matter thought. It's a welcome exchange behind closed doors that raises pertinent questions and gives everyone a voice in the matter.

It's perhaps overdramatic to imply that we've seen "the beginning of the end of the Avengers" based on one meeting and one decision that makes sense under the circumstances, nor would it be the only time the team is forced to split its forces in order to tackle two separate missions. In all likelihood, however, the scene was to facilitate a later revelation that each group had been working at cross-purposes on essentially the same case vis-à-vis Cornelius Van Lunt.

During the named time period of these recollections, there of course remains one significant event which didn't occur on the scale of the first incursions of Thanos in his search for the cosmic cube and the reckoning that followed but nevertheless stands out as one of the team's most memorable adventures--a conflict involving Captain Marvel, two captive Avengers, and a war which broke out between two galactic empires.

BONUS! From 2005, a closer look at the original team's exit from the Avengers' ranks.

NEXT: More favorite Avengers scenes, circa 1973-1987!