Favorite Scenes: The Avengers! (1973-1987)

 

The PPC's look at some of the finest moments of Earth's Mightiest Assemblers continues, as we pivot from the years 1965-1972 and flip the pages of The Avengers to find some of their most memorable scenes that saw the team through nearly fifteen years of Bronze Age history during the period between 1973-1987. And to get the ball rolling, we first circle back to their tradition of considering applicants with criminal records for Avengers membership, established in 1965 with the induction of Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Yet it wasn't long before that team of Avengers saw their trust abused when another prospective member sought to take advantage of their good will and betrayed them.

And now, eight years later to the month (our time), that man returns to the fold, claiming to be reformed--only this time, Captain America has strong reservations against laying out the welcome mat.

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.

Favorite Scenes: Mister Fantastic!

 

As the leader of the world's most famous super-team, Reed Richards--aka the one and only Mister Fantastic--is arguably the face of the Fantastic Four and front and center in the FF's dealings with both heroes and villains as well as the general public and the government. And so taking account of the fact that the PPC has already thrown a spotlight on Ben Grimm, the Thing, by profiling our favorite "Clobberin' Time" moments, Mister Fantastic was an easy choice for this sort of post which takes him out of that lab of his and lets him stretch his legs. (Ha ha! Get it?)

In addition, since we only rarely get to hear Mister Fantastic's action name in use when in the field (we can say the same for the Invisible Girl/Woman), we're only going to refer to him as Mister Fantastic for the duration, just to get an idea of how that might have looked and "sounded" in print. We may all become tired of it before long--probably because it's hard to imagine someone as level-headed and unpretentious as Re... whoops, Mister Fantastic to have chosen "Mister Fantastic" as the name for himself right out of the box. Let's also hope that it wasn't Mister Fantastic who coined his team's name*, since it conveys the disturbing implication that he wanted it to be "Mister Fantastic's Fantastic Four."

*It had to be one of the team, given that no one in the general public recognized the name when it appeared in the team's first flare which signaled that it was time to go into action for the first time. Michael France and Mark Frost, writers of the 2005 film, seem to think that person was Johnny Storm.

To cut to the chase, if I had to pick my favorite Mister Fantastic scene, it would be when a so-called monster was roaming the streets of New York, forcing Mister Fantastic to interrupt a critical experiment that involved returning the Thing to his human form in order to deal with the crisis. In this scene we get the complete Mister Fantastic package--decisively acting to save lives, assessing the situation, multitasking when one of his team is in danger, and setting his priorities on how to handle things from here.

Favorite Scenes: The Vision!

 

Today's rundown of favorite scenes could just as easily have been expanded to the Avengers themselves, and may indeed be the case at some future point; but for whatever reason, the Vision took precedence in my mind and must be served first, as one of their oldest and most unique members who was with the team in some of their most noteworthy and memorable stories. My own recollections of this character will likely omit certain scenes which for some of you come to mind just as meaningfully; for myself, I chose to focus more on scenes featuring the character in the classic sense, the time when he still struck a chord for readers of the book and seemed to be at his most prevalent within their ranks.

In this brief collection, you'll find my choices see-sawing between displays of the Vision's amazing abilities, and snapshots of his developing character. Fortunately, a good deal of attention was paid to each by his writers of the time, while his artists obviously enjoyed featuring him either in action or in interaction. As an example of the former, we start with a crisis which has a Wakandan ship in a nosedive toward Avengers Mansion, and an attempt by Hawkeye to halt their plunge brought to near-disaster by, of all things, a broken bowstring.

Favorite Scenes: Doctor Doom!

 

This new series came about from doing what any comics reader might find him- or herself doing when a certain character comes to mind--reminiscing about those scenes in which that character appeared, which often led to pulling out those issues and thumbing through those pages once more. In the case of Dr. Doom, arguably one of the most memorable characters in this medium, it seems like he and I are thinking along the same lines. (Though the comparison stops there.)

This armored man, once called a "living enigma" by the Sub-Mariner, became shaped by the tragic and harsh events of his past, going on to become one of the most dangerous figures in Marvel's line of comics. Following are some of the more memorable moments of his nefarious life which stood out for me, though you'll no doubt have a few of your own to add to this digital "scrapbook" of the good Doctor's exploits.