Following their close-shave victory over the mad Titan Thanos in Avengers #125 and Captain Marvel #33, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes barely got a breather before they were beset by the newly teamed super-villains Klaw and Solarr in Avengers #126. This was a one-off story, and frankly not one of the Assemblers’ most memorable adventures — although it did mark a couple of significant changes in the team’s active roster worth noting before we proceed to the main topic of today’s post.
The most obvious and expected one of these was the departure of Captain America, who, after all, had just renounced his costumed identity over in issue #176 of his own series — a series which, like Avengers, was written by Steve Englehart. But the leave-taking of the Black Panther was arguably just as necessary, and probably overdue. Ever since the second installment of T’Challa’s new solo feature, published in Jungle Action #6 almost a year earlier, writer Don McGregor and his artistic collaborators (primarily Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, and Billy Graham) had been chronicling a dense, ambitious, multi-part epic, “Panther’s Rage”, which took place entirely within the hero’s African kingdom of Wakanda. After a time, it simply stretched reader credulity to the breaking point to have the Panther continue to appear every month with the New York-based Avengers — especially since it seemed unlikely that McGregor’s storyline was going to be wrapping up any time soon. (For the record, the final full chapter of the epic would see print just over a year later, in Jungle Action #17, with an “Epilogue” following two months later in #18; alas, your humble blogger didn’t have the good sense to pick up this run of comics back in the day, so you won’t be reading too much more about “Panther’s Rage” on this blog, regretfully.)
In any event, as a result of these adjustments, it was with a reduced roster of six — or five, if you discount Mantis, who still had no official status with the team at this point — that the Avengers embarked on a crossover with their fellow superhero team, the Fantastic Four, in the June of 1974. This project was almost certainly designed to capture some of the excitement occasioned by the previous year’s “Avengers-Defenders War”; and while as a one month, two-issues-only event it couldn’t really compete with the summer-long, multi-part extravaganza that its forebear had been — not even with a whole third super-group, the Inhumans, added to the mix — it still made for an enjoyable couple of comic books.
Behind a cover by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito (and maybe John Romita, too, according to the Grand Comics Database), the splash page credits for Avengers #127 announced the debut of a new art team:
Sal Buscema was of course no stranger to the pages of Avengers; in addition to two relatively short consecutive runs as the book’s penciller (issues #68-72 and #88–92, respectively), he’d either pencilled or inked a few other one-off issues as well. Joe Staton, on the the other hand, was a new name to find in the 
credits of Avengers — or, indeed, of any Marvel comic, despite the fact that the then-26-year-old artist had been a comics industry professional since late 1971. For most of that time, Staton had been contributing full artwork to a variety of titles for Charlton Comics; a group of titles which, as of August, 1973 included E-Man — a light-hearted superhero feature he’d co-created with writer Nicola Cuti, and which he’d continue to draw for most of his ’70s tenure at Marvel, which would extend through 1976. (Oddly, Staton found it difficult to get pencilling gigs from Marvel during this period; other than for a few stories in its black-and-white magazine line, the publisher used him only as an inker throughout this decade.*)
Not being a Charlton reader, my younger self wasn’t familiar with Staton’s name or work prior to picking up Avengers #127 — but, if I recall correctly, I warmed up to his inking pretty rapidly. Staton’s rendering style may have leaned towards the “cartoony” side of things, but it wasn’t the least bit flat, or simplistic. His finishes lent a distinctive, lively flair to Sal Buscema’s solid, straightforward graphic storytelling that I, for one, found very appealing.
The Avengers might have been taken by surprise by the announcement of Crystal and Quicksilver’s wedding, but it’s doubtful that many Marvel readers of June, 1974 would have been. You could even make a case that such an outcome had been all but inevitable ever since the initial revelation of the two characters’ romance back in Fantastic Four #131 (Feb., 1973); after all, neither of them was appearing regularly in any series at that time, and their remote location in the Inhumans’ Himalayan Great Refuge made it less than convenient to feature them as guest stars with any frequency. Why not go ahead and get ’em hitched, and use the happy occasion as an excuse for a crossover story featuring Crys and Pietro’s two former teams, the FF and the Avengers?
But to get on with our narrative… the short-tempered Gorgon having predictably responded to being unpleasantly surprised by stamping one of his super-seismic hooves, thus endangering the very structure of Avengers Mansion as well as the safety of those inside, it’s up to Iron Man to attempt to settle him down with a well-placed repulsor ray-blast before he can follow up with a second one…
Speaking of Iron Man, wouldya take a look at that profile? Since when does the Golden Avenger’s face-plate sport a visible metal nose?
Panel from Iron Man #68 (Jun., 1974). Text by Mike Friedrich; art by George Tuska and Mike Esposito.
Well, since Iron Man #68 (Jun., 1974), actually. Readers of that issue (which had hist stands in March) had seen Tony Stark redesign his mask “to allow a bit more expression to show — and so perhaps increase the fearsome aspects” of his superhero persona. And, yes, these changes came with the addition of a nose.
That’s the ‘in-universe” backstory, anyway. As for why Marvel instituted the change in the first place, it all seems to have come about through a failure to communicate. Here’s the version of the oft-told tale that was recounted by Jim Shooter (who joined the Marvel editorial staff a little after this, in early 1976) for a 1980 interview published in The Comics Journal #60:
One time somebody showed Stan some Iron Man artwork, and he said, “Shouldn’t he have a nose?” That’s what he said: “Shouldn’t he have a nose?” What he meant was, George Tuska was drawing his mask so flat that there looked like there couldn’t possibly be a nose under there. So the little mice scurried and for years after that Iron Man was drawn with a nose until finally one day Stan was looking at an Iron Man comic and he says, “What’s this with the nose?”…
The nose lasted through Iron Man #85 (Apr., 1976), so I’d say it had a pretty good run, all in all.
And now, back to our story…
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll likely recall that the last time we checked in with the Fantastic Four, some nine months ago, we left them at what was perhaps their lowest ebb to date. To save the universe, Reed Richards had been forced to wipe the mind of his young son Franklin, deepening an already existing rift between Reed and his wife (and Franklin’s mother), Sue — and prompting both of the FF’s other OG members, Johnny Storm (Sue’s brother) and Ben Grimm (Reed’s oldest and best friend) to walk out on him. Clearly, a lot has gone down since then — but rather than bog down this Avengers post with a long digression concerning recent events in Fantastic Four, we’ll table that recap until we cover the second half of the current crossover, one short week from now.
Okay, I know I just said we wouldn’t be dealing with past FF issues in this post; nevertheless, I’m obliged to make note of the fact that, notwithstanding Reed’s casual introduction of Agatha Harkness to the Avengers as being Franklin’s current caregiver, she actually hadn’t made an appearance in that title since the end of the previously referenced Fantastic Four #141, when she cast a spell to send everyone back home to Earth from the Negative Zone. It seems clear that FF writer Gerry Conway had pretty much lost interest in the character after that; Steve Englehart, on the other hand, had big plans for her, as we’ll see in the months to come.
(If perchance you need a more detailed recap of the two-issue Alpha Primitives/Omega storyline, please be advised that we covered the whole thing back in our FF #131 post. You’re welcome.)
The above tableau of the three super-team leaders having an informal summit is pretty cool — although I don’t think that Thor’s evident current chairmanship of the Avengers has been explicitly stated on panel, either in this or in any other recent issue. (Though it’s entirely possible that your humble blogger simply missed it.)
It’s grimly ironic, of course, that Pietro — who has been discriminated against for being a mutant for virtually his whole life — is himself bigoted against the Vision, whom he denigrates by calling him “a machine”.
For those of us aware of how the marriage eventually turns out, Crystal’s silent query in the last panel above has an ironic poignancy. Steve Englehart was probably just leaning into the soap-opera vibe of the Johnny-Crys-Pietro triangle here, but from the perspective of latter days, he appears to have been prescient.
And speaking of soap opera…
Speaking on behalf of Black Bolt, Triton asks the Avengers to go to the Alpha Primitives to question them about Omega, on the assumption that the former slaves will be more likely to listen to them than to the Inhuman Royal Family, or the FF, who fought them before. Quicksilver asks if he can come along, and Thor says sure thing: “Once an Avenger, always an Avenger!”
Quicksilver doesn’t rise after being downed by Mantis, despite her not having hit him all that hard; a few moments later, she collapses as well. And then, the Alpha Primitives, understandably provoked by Pietro’s aggression, attack those few Avengers still left standing…
There’s no question that it really sucks to be the Swordsman these days. Alas, the worst is yet to come…
The heroes fight on, but even as they do, another two out of their dwindling number — Triton and Karnak, this time — suddenly collapse into unconsciousness, just like the Swordsman, and the others before him…
Back in the day, this final-page twist absolutely floored my sixteen-year-old self. Sure, contemporary comics fans have since seen Ultron return from certain “death” many, many times; in 2024, it’s pretty much the definition of old hat. But in 1974, Henry Pym’s deadliest invention had only ever been seen in two, count ’em, two previous storylines — the second of which had concluded almost exactly five years previously, in issue #68. In the context of a “Marvel Age of Comics” that had only begun a mere thirteen years ago, with 1961’s Fantastic Four #1, that half-decade represented a huge chunk of time. Trust me, this was a big deal.
Beyond the sheer stunning surprise of it all, the unexpected return of Ultron helped to subtly shift the balance of this crossover, which, aside from the subplot-level familial conflict between the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, had seemed until this point to be functioning pretty much as a direct sequel to FF #131-132 — in other words, as a Fantastic Four story in which the Avengers were essentially glorified guest stars. Now, with the addition of a second, and Avengers-centric, “familial conflict” — that between the Vision and his “father”, Ultron — a conflict that was most definitely functioning on the level of the story’s main plot, this two-parter at last felt as though it belonged to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as much as it did to the stars of “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”. And the fact that the pair of Avengers most tied into the crossover’s two distinct narrative threads — i.e., the Vision and the Scarlet Witch — were the same romantic couple who were at the heart of Steve Englehart’s ongoing Avengers continuity helped give the whole business a greater thematic unity and significance.
Of course, unlike with the Avengers/Defenders crossover of the summer before, for which he’d been the sole scripter, it wouldn’t be up to Steve Englehart to bring the storyline home. That job belonged to the regular writer on Fantastic Four, Gerry Conway — who, teamed with artists Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott, would need not only to explain how Ultron had survived his demolition in 1969 and then subsequently got involved with Omega, but also to provide a satisfying victory over them by our three heroic combos — and then, to get Pietro and Crystal to the altar on time. All within seventeen pages. Could they do it? We’ll find out next week.
Additional art credits, per the Grand Comics Database and Mike’s Amazing World:
- Avengers #126 (Aug., 1974): cover by Ron Wilson and either Frank Giacoia or Mike Esposito.
- Avengers #126 (Aug., 1974): panel by Bob Brown and Dave Cockrum.
- E-Man #1 (Oct., 1973); cover by Joe Staton.
- Fantastic Four #131 (Feb., 1973): cover by Jim Steranko and Joe Sinnott.
This week, I learned that one of this blog’s most faithful followers and perceptive commenters, David Torsiello, passed away earlier this year. If you’re a regular frequenter of the comments section, but still can’t quite place that name, that’s because we knew him here as “crustymud”. David also produced a fine comics blog of his own, The Crusty Curmudgeon’s Comics Classics (not in service at its original address at this writing, unfortunately, but thankfully archived by the Wayback Machine here). I’m sure I’m not alone among the members of our community in feeling that David’s contributions will be very much missed in this space, and in offering condolences to his family and friends.
*In the interest of complete accuracy, we might add a qualifier to that last sentence: “under his own name.” According to several interviews Staton has given over the years (including this 2020 one from the Comic Book Historians web site), he was also working as an assistant to Gil Kane during this time, and several Marvel comics credited to Kane were actually pencilled at least partially by him.
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 
Much saddened to learn of David (Crustymud) Torsiello’s passing. I much enjoyed reading his comments, here and in his own site. I turned 62 yesterday and having worked at the Probate Department at the county courthouse for 21 years now, I’ve dealt with thousands of decedent’s cases and over the last few years I’m seeing more and more cases over decedent’s who are right about my age — born, like me, in 1962, or a few years before or several years later. A rather grim reminder to me of my own mortality, despite not having any serious health issues, but we can never know. Sympathies to David’s family and friends on their loss.
As to Avengers #127, while not exactly a classic, was still entertaining and intriguing enough to my 12 year old self, and was my introduction to Ultron. It’d be a couple of years or so before I’d reprints featuring his earlier appearances and a few more years would pass before Ultron really took on the mantle of the Avengers’ more or less usurped Kang’s role as their prime recurring baddie. Re-reading this again here, it occurred to me that in his half of this wedding story, Englehart weaved scenes of the fraying of the bonds between Wanda & Pietro and Swordsman & Mantis, as well as growing tension between Wanda & Mantis, and Johnny’s acceptance of having lost Crystal to Pietro, but Crystal also silently wondering if she’s made the right choice. Maintaining the sterling example of Lee & Kirby in the very first issue of Fantastic Four that relationships, whether romantic or between friends can be complicated, as much in real life as in fiction. Admittedly, in 1974, I didn’t yet understand the relationship between Vision & Ultron, or even an inkling of that between Ultron and Henry Pym! Even aside from the conflicts of the three sets of heroes with the Alpha Primitives and Omega/Ultron, Englehart packed a lot of drama into this issue. Another fun overview, Alan!
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Yes, at our age seeing people we know, even distantly, die, is depressingly frequent. I lost two of my comics-nerd friends during the past five years, one reason I’m so glad for blogs like this one.
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I have loved Staton’s work since E-Man and even put up with Dick Tracy during his tenure. He’s one of the best Buscema inkers ever, right up there with Dave Hunt and an amazing penciller on his own.
I have to say though, in retrospect, I think this wedding was a mistake. Englehart would later tarnish both Crystal and Pietro, making the former an adulterer and the latter a madman. Crystal as The One Who Got Away and Pietro as an Avenger would have been a better legacy for both.
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My initial thought was Marvel was trying to institutionalize something like DC’s JLA/JSA Team-ups with 1973’s Avengers/Defenders Clash with this story. (My guess is that JLA 100-102 had sold really well and Roy was a big JSA guy anyway.) Unfortunately, this was Marvel’s last thing of this type until both Marvel and DC started to do these “big event” things (like Super Powers and Secret War) in the mid-1980s.
I was a big fan of the Staton/Cuti E-Man and really liked Staton’s work. However, I really missed Cockrum. In my opinion, Cockrum was the best inker in comics and would have been best served doing character and cover designs and inking. Like Michael Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson, Cockrum was probably too slow a penciller to survive in mainstream comics. However, he (like his mentor, Murphy Anderson) probably could have had a fine career as an inker.
It is sort of funny, I thought Cockrum (like Anderson and Ditko) was at his best when he inked his own pencils. I thought Joe Staton’s work looked good with a variety of inkers but Staton’s own inks looked best on his own pencils.
After having a rotating back-up feature model its first year or so, E-Man settled down in its last year to one back-up feature (Rog-2000) by Cuti and John Byrne. (The initial take was this Byrnes guy was a Staton clone, just like people initially saw George Perez as a Buckler clone.)
I wonder if part of how Quicksilver treated the Alpha-Primitives came out of the fact he had just (temporarily) found out he was not quite a Mutant, in the same sense as the X-Men since he had inherited his father’s acquired powers (or, less Lamarckianly, his father’s genetic pre-disposition). I may be the only fan who liked the idea of Wanda & Pietro being the children of The Whizzer and Miss America and Wanda marrying The Vision (who had been her father and mother’s All Winners Squad Teammates. I was sorry that was retconned.
Marvel does not have a good (pun not intended) track record with super speedsters. (The Whizzer’s name later made me think that, if he had his own series, the Corner Box needed to be an homage to that Calvin bumper sticker that was common in the 1980s & 1990s. Yes, I remember that “Whizzer:” was a nickname for fast people, like former Associate Justice Byron “Whizzer” While of the US Supreme Court.) In any case being about as fast (and having a bit more endurance than)_ a Cheetah is not that formidable a power. In addition to having the worst temperament of any Marvel superhero, his powers are not that interesting or formidable. Which is why Thomas modified his powers for a while (making him more like Johnny Quick and less like the Flash) and gave him Whirlwind as an enemy,
By the way, Cheetahs are NOT big cats and CAN be domesticated like House Cats and other Felids. However, considering they can run at 70 MPH, you would need a BIG yard.
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There’s a parody of Whizzer’s origin in one issue of Flaming Carrot where he mentions a hero who “became the world’s 17th fastest man after drinking radioactive cheetah blood as a fraternity initiation prank.”
I like Joe Staton’s art, odd as I find it. Interesting trivia note, it was Staton pushing for more women in the Bronze Age JSA that led to Paul Levitz creating Huntress.
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Joe Staton is the only person in any field whose autograph I sought.
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In Marvel, of course, being a mutant refers to having a functional X-gene rather than a genetic break from your parents — Pietro having inherited Daddy’s X-gene (even if the specific expression is different) wouldn’t make him a mutant in real-world science.
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It really was never emphasized when it was canon. but Quicksilver might have been a more interesting hero if he were a second generation super hero, whose folks were from a foreign country and whose father he only met as an adult.
That Bob Frank, based on his few modern appearances, seems to be a more family-oriented, salt of the Earth kind of guy than Pietro also seemed promising.
With how the Quicksilver/Crystal relationship ended, the idea that Pietro was divorced and his dad was a Widower who never re-married also had dramatic potential.
Another interesting point, as The Whizzer was a home front hero, Liberty Legion guy. He is analogous to comics pos who served in WWII but were not sent overseas (Stan Lee, Bob Kanigher, Mort Weisinger & Mickey Spillane).
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Sorry to hear about crustymud. Dave and I had corresponded once or twice outside of this blog and I always found him to be gracious and kind. Condolences to his family.
As to the Avengers/Inhuman/FF crossover we’re discussing, why was Gorgon so surprised that Pietro didn’t invite Wanda and the Avengers to the nuptuals? It’s quite common to omit family members you’re feuding with from the guest lists of weddings and holiday events and other parties, isn’t it? Even if it’s strange for Pietro to not want to include his sister over his hypocritical bigotry toward Vision (complaining a bit to much there, Mutant?), it’s certainly understandable that Crystal wouldn’t want an old boyfriend like Johnny to show up at her wedding.
As to the whole deal with Omega and the Alpha Primitives, I only know what’s already been covered by you in this blog, Alan. so when we’re told that Black Bolt has instituted massive reforms to allieviate the suffering of the Alphas, I believed it. Frankly, it sounds like something BB would do. Was there every any specific checklist of things the Alphas were still pissed about, or was it just that some of the Alphas were too comfortable in their victimhood and in blaming the royal fam for everything that had ever gone wrong in their lives to appreciate the fact that things had changed.
The arrival of Ultron was interesting. Despite his power and thirst for revenge, he was a rare Marvel villain that hadn’t been over-used during this time period, and though it was a suprise to see him, it was a welcome one and promised an interesting story to come. Thanks, Alan.
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The Inhumans (being the Royal Family of an insular offshoot of the Kree who are into genetic tampering just a little too much) might not have human family customs;.
Think the Habsburgs with designer babies (or, at least, children). (and less pronounced chins.)
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Interesting that during the first decade of the Avengers, they had fairly few prominent recurring villains. Zemo and the various members of his Masters of Evil from issues 6 through 16 the main baddie during the first year and a half. The Enchantress made a few appearances afterwards, but very sporadically and often indirectly, as when she sicced the original Power Man on them and then later disguised herself as Valkyrie to gather several heroines to take on several male Avengers. Kang showed up in 4 separate stories over 7 issues, 4 of those issues within the 1st 30, before returning several years later taking part in the contest with the Grandmaster trilogy. Of course, Englehart made him the Avengers prime baddie during the latter part of his run, showing up on in 4 different multi-part story lines between issues 129 – 148, including 3 of the Giant-Size mags. The Grim Reaper also showed up several times but while the stories featuring him were usually compelling enough, he just didn’t have quite the same level of high-stakes gravitas as Kang or Ultron, IMO.
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This was my first exposure to Ultron which undercut the punch of the final reveal.
I bought this back then and didn’t think of it as Avengers/Defenders Mark II, just a standard crossover. I still don’t, but it’s not a hill I would die on.
John Byrne, of course, adopted Quicksilver’s take that the Vision is just an emotionless machine faking emotions, even though that was clearly never Roy Thomas’ take. Byrne’s piffle about how he wants to get back to the original concept of the original creators was always baloney.
I can’t say the A-plot gripped me but the character bits, as always with Englehart in this era, are good.
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Some cognitive scientists and computer scientists working on AI might say we are all “just an emotionless machine faking emotions.”
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I came to these issues later than you, via back issues and collected editions in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Sal Buscema and Joe Staton are two of my all-time favorite comic book artists, so I really enjoyed discovering that for a time in the mid-1970s they worked together as a team. I love the combination of their two styles.
By the way, I know it’s silly, but I’ve always wondered where exactly Ultron found a giant rubber mask so that he could disguise himself as Omega!
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Ultron was able to find the same shop that provided trunks for Fin Fang Foom and other giant-monsters of the late Atlas very early Marvel era. Cost quite a bit more for the special order, but Ultron could afford it, evil A.I. robots made of adamantium having means to accrue illicit fortunes.
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he also has metal protuberances from the side of his head that I’m not quite sure how they didn’t destroy the contours of his Omega shaped head. I think being young and how easily we could suspend our disbelief was a wonderful thing!
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A bit like the Golden Arrow being unmasked to reveal — Clint Barton, with his Hawkeye mask on. That sort of thing happened often enough in the Silver & Bronze ages (and likely before and since) that even if I noticed the ridiculousness of it, I just shrugged it off as part of the inherent fantasy element of comics. Like, even as a pre-teen kid, I knew that no spider bite, radioactive or not, was going to give anyone any sort of super-powers, but comics fans of all ages just go along with the ride as long as the overall story is entertaining enough.
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This was yet another excellent issue by Steve Englehart. It’s hard to believe that by this time he had only been writing for Marvel for a little over 2 years, but he was at this time (at least in my opinion) one of Marvel’s top writers and equaling Roy Thomas as an outstanding Avengers writer. I also liked the combination of Sal Buscema and Joe Staton very much and was previously unfamiliar with Joe’s work but would become a big fan of his work. He is a very nice man who I got to meet at a convention and have an autographed poster of the JSA from him that he penciled and inked.
A few interesting facts: Crystal and Quicksilver had previously appeared with the Inhumans in Hulk 175 in February 1975 and were discussing preparing for their wedding then. Otherwise before this issue of Avengers there was talk in letter columns about the “long awaited” wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver. I don’t think this wedding was long awaited by anyone. I never cared for Quicksilver as a character and since Crystal had dumped Johnny Storm in a pretty unpleasant way, I really didn’t care much about her either. I guess this wedding was just an excuse to get all these characters together. However Johnny’s characterization here by Steve (where he wishes Crystal well) does not match up at all with what Gerry writes in FF 150 (where Johnny is pretty down in the dumps..which is perfectly understandable). In fact, looking back on this now, why would Johnny go to the wedding of an ex-girlfriend he wanted to marry who dumped him? Did the rest of the FF convince him to go? Not sure that makes much sense. A few other minor points: Reed says Medusa is an unofficial member of the FF, but she was wearing an FF costume and certainly seemed to be an official member of the FF since January 1973. And there are shots of Little Franklin smiling and happy…isn’t he supposed to be in a coma? Yes I know…that is something that Gerry does remember in FF 150. Also regarding Iron Man…on page 1 how was he planning to eat dinner with the rest of the Avengers? through a straw? through his nose? Yes I had heard the story about the nose on Iron Man’s mask. Certainly one of the strangest behind the scenes stories. But I did not remember that part of the logic (at least in the comics) was that the nose would help his mask to look more “fearsome.” Really? Sorry but..no. Also I could be mistaken but it appears that John Romita did some touch up work on the first few pages of certain characters such as Wanda. Unfortunately, we had been waiting for a big confrontation between Wanda and Pietro for a long time but we never really got it, and Pietro would continue to be an obnoxious character for many years.
I did find this to be a very good story, and had the same reaction as you Alan. The story was very suspenseful and I was completely stunned by the revelation of Ultron at the end as he had not been seen in 5 years and I really thought he was gone (foolish of me). The first Avengers comic I ever bought was Avengers 68. Yes, I know the last part of the 3 part Ultron story. But Roy did a great job of catching readers up on past events and I enjoyed that issue very much. I was able to get about a year’s worth of Avengers back issues from friends so caught up quick on earlier Avengers stories. I had started buying Marvel books about a year and a half before AV 68 (early 1968) but for some reason Avengers took me longer to start (it actually might have been because there were no familiar characters there like Thor, Cap and Iron Man…so yes Stan I think you made a mistake by taking them out). It’s possible that Thor being on the cover with the other Avengers (and it was a cool cover) got me to buy AV 68…but what cemented my interest in the Avengers was the excellent 3 part Kang story in AV 69-71 and I was then an Avengers fan. I had started buying comics in 1966 with JLA…but by June 1974 I had dropped JLA but was still buying the Avengers.
I was very much looking forward to the conclusion of this story (started in AV 127) in FF 150, but…. well I’ll reserve those comments for when you discuss FF 150. Thanks Alan.
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It is rather funny to consider that opening scene with Jarvis about to serve dinner. Did Vision need to eat or drink at all? Did he have senses of taste and smell suffienct to even enjoy eating? And how could Iron Man possibly take part in dining at all without removing his iron face mask? Maybe his mouth hole was just wide enough to fit a fork with small bits of food through, although I also wonder if it would have been uncomfortable or awkward for him to chew his food while wearing his head armor.
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I thought about that too…
c’mon Jarvis! You’ve seen soooooo much in your time at the mansion, surely your grip on reality (and the turkey) should be able to handle a little inter-dimensional apparition!!
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At least Lockjaw got a few good munchies out of Jarvis being surprised!
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Can’t believe I never noticed that before. Great comedy moment in an otherwise tense, dramatic scene, having Lockjaw scarfing up the turkey that Jarvis dropped. I wonder if that was in Steve Englehart’s plot, or if Sal Buscema threw it in all on his own.
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IIRC Vizh can eat and drink and has been shown doing so.
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I am very sorry to read of Crustymud’s passing, but appreciate knowing. I will miss his comments and his blog. My condolences to his family and loved ones.
This issue had to have been my first encounter with Ultron, but I don’t recall being disappointed by the reveal, probably because they sold the Vision’s reaction so well. I remain confused about how he went from normal size to giant, though. I don’t recall if they ever addressed that.
Count me in as someone who liked the Whizzer and Miss America as Pietro and Wanda’s parents. If the writers had done more with that concept, it might have stuck, but Magneto clearly offered a better ongoing conflict.
Any appearance of the Alpha Primitives makes me squirm nowadays. That concept definitely makes Black Bolt and company live up to the Inhuman name. Possibly one reason I have never really appreciated the Inhuman’s various attempts at their own series.
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I see that Sal followed his brother John’s lead in having Quicksilver in the tuck position bouncing off
of people and walls, something no one else that I can think of did.
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