Avengers #125 (July, 1974)
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