Mantis (Marvel)

Giant-Size Avengers #4 (Jun., 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in August, 1974, after laying the necessary narrative groundwork for many months, Avengers writer Steve Englehart had inaugurated his “Celestial Madonna” story arc with a pair of issues that came out within a couple of weeks of each other: Avengers #129 and Giant-Size Avengers #2.  Half a year later, in February, 1975, the saga would reach its conclusion in a parallel fashion, with the final chapters appearing in that month’s issues of both the regular monthly Avengers title and its giant-sized quarterly companion.  Read More

Avengers #134 (April, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

While it may say “Avengers #134 (April, 1975)” on the title line above — and, yes, that is that very issue’s cover (pencilled by Gil Kane, inked by Joe Sinnott, and probably touched up by John Romita) that’s displayed right above that — we’ll actually be beginning this post by looking at the preceding issue, Avengers #133 (whose cover by Kane, Dave Cockrum, and Frank Giacoia is shown at left).  That’s because the last time we checked in with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was in November’s post about Giant-Size Avengers #3, which, as you may remember, ended right in the middle of the extended storyline that today is generally known as the “Celestial Madonna Saga”.  And while covering more than one comic in a single blog post is hardly anything new around these parts, your humble blogger feels moved to point out that, even more than with most continued stories of this era, this one happens to be so information-dense, particularly at this juncture, that a brief synopsis could never, ever cut it.  Read More

Giant-Size Avengers #3 (February, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #131, which ended with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes being transported against their wills to the realm of Limbo, where they were set to face off against a Legion of the Unliving assembled by their long-time foe, Kang the Conqueror.  This month, we’ll be discussing the “two-part triple-length triumph” which that comic’s final page promised as a follow-up… a story which, following a pattern that had been set the last time that an issue of the quarterly Giant-Size Avengers rolled around, doesn’t actually begin in the book whose Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover graces the top of this post; but, rather, in the one whose cover by Ron Wilson and Giacoia is shown at right: the latest (as of fifty years ago) issue of our assembled heroes’ regular monthly title, Avengers #132 (Feb., 1975).  Read More

Giant-Size Avengers #2 (November, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

For the most part, the comics that came out as part of Marvel’s “Giant-Size” line in 1974 and 1975 featured stories that, while generally understood to be in continuity with those in the regular-size titles, didn’t directly lead into and/or out of those books.  Such had been the case with Giant-Size Avengers #1 (Aug., 1974), a standalone that was written by Marvel’s editor-in-chief (and former Avengers scribe) Roy Thomas, rather than by the man who’d been authoring the monthly adventures of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes since August, 1972, Steve Englehart.  But with the second issue of the Avengers’ new quarterly vehicle, Englehart was given the reins — and he decided to treat the book as an extra, if plus-sized, issue of the monthly title.

Of course, that didn’t mean that the contents of the “Giant-Size” version of the series shouldn’t be special.  And with Giant-Size Avengers #2, Englehart and his artistic collaborators definitely delivered on that idea, giving readers a twenty-nine page epic that stands to this day as one of the all-time Avengers classics — perhaps even, as writer Kurt Busiek (author of more than a few great Avengers yarns of his own) said in 2014, “the uncontested, anyone-who-says-otherwise-is-sadly-mistaken best single issue of AVENGERS”.  Read More

Avengers #129 (November, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last saw the Avengers, it was at the end of Fantastic Four #150 — the second half of a crossover with Avengers #127 in which both of Marvel’s premiere super-teams came together in the Great Refuge of the Inhumans to celebrate the wedding of the one-time FFer Crystal to the inactive Avenger Quicksilver.

The next issue of Avengers, #128, picked up directly from that two-parter’s events, as behind a cover by Gil Kane and John Romita, writer Steve Englehart and artists Sal Buscema and Joe Staton opened with a scene of the Avengers and Fantastic Four arriving together back in New York, via Avengers quintet.  (Just why the two groups were now traveling together, when Avengers #127 had clearly established that they’d made the journey to Attilan separately, was never explained.  Maybe the FF lent their own ship to the newlyweds for their honeymoon?) Read More

Avengers #127 (September, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

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.)  Read More

Captain Marvel #33 (July, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Behind a cover both pencilled and inked by Jim Starlin (his first such since coming on board the Captain Marvel title with issue #25), this issue featured the conclusion of the epic “Thanos War” storyline that the creator had inaugurated a year and a half earlier with the 55th issue of Iron Man, and which had since woven through the previous eight issues of Captain Marvel itself, while also spilling over briefly into Marvel Feature, Daredevil, and Avengers.  Read More

Avengers #125 (July, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I suppose that Ron Wilson and John Romita’s cover for this issue of Avengers might be taken as misleading by some readers, since, as we’ll soon see, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes never directly confront Thanos himself anywhere within its pages (indeed, the Mad Titan only puts in a personal appearance on a couple of them).  I’m pretty sure, however, that that fact didn’t bother my sixteen-year-old self very much (if at all) when I first read this comic back in April, 1974; after all, the story is unquestionably a part of the “Thanos War” saga that had been being told by artist-writer Jim Starlin and others for the last year and a half, mostly (though not entirely) in the pages of Captain Marvel.  If you took Avengers #125’s cover as “symbolic” of our heroes’ struggle against that epic’s Big Bad, as I was happy to do, you’d have to admit it was pretty much on the money.  Read More

Avengers #124 (June, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

It’s been a minute since we last checked in what the Avengers were up to half a century ago — since the aftermath of the Avengers/Defenders War, in fact, and we put that multi-issue epic to bed back in September.  Given that consideration — as well as the fact that the issue we’re focusing on today is the second half of a two-part story, which itself has been spun off from the conclusion of the three-issue story arc preceding it — you might guess that we have a good amount of recapping to get through before moving on to our main event.  Read More