The Avengers 4

So posting will slow down a bit, moving to just on Friday's except on special occasions. I have tried to post more than once, and just can't most weeks. I apologize for not being able to, but my reviews are fairly long, and to top it off I do significant amounts of research and hunting to find the issues I feel are important. 

Anyways, The Avengers became one of the signature superhero teams, with most of the iconic and interesting heroes in the Marvel Universe eventually becoming affiliated with or members of the team. The first to join the original team of Ant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk was Marvel's most famous golden age creation Captain America. While originally published by Timely Comics, Marvel became the home for Captain America, and in many ways Captain America reflects the most positive aspects of the Marvel Universe, much like Superman does for DC. He is heroic, courageous, closer to a mortal than the rest of the team, and upholds positive values with few flaws, unlike Iron Man's drinking, Thor's arrogance, or Ant-Man's beating of his wife(Yes it's still a big deal in comics, and yes I will get to it eventually).

Instead of having Captain America come back in his own series, he came back as an Avenger, partnered with a popular title to help get interest in the character. The cover is pretty standard moving into an action pose with the whole team in the shot, but otherwise is pretty typical Silver Age fare. So is the plot. It is filled with weirdness and is over the top and wacky for what would now be a pretty seriously treated event. In the last issue of The Avengers 3, which is quickly recapped, the Avengers fought Namor the Sub Mariner, king of Atlantis, and overall powerhouse. Namor was forced to flee and came upon a tribe of "Eskimos" worshipping a human figure frozen in a block of ice. Angered at all of humanity he breaks the ice, and the block falls into the ocean. The Avengers are heading back to civilization, and discover the body frozen in the block of ice. 

Man frozen in Ice revived decades later. Comic book science at its finest!

Captain America wakes up in shock, and he tosses a god, a metal man, and a giant around with a single body tackle. His rage subsides quickly as he regains his bearings, and he dons his shield and mask. The other heroes are incredulous that this is the real Captain, so Thor does the best thing he can to test him by throwing his hammer at full force. If it wasn't the real captain, they would be hit full force with a hammer to the chest. Perfect test to see if he is the real deal right?

We learn that Captain America would never hit a girl when Wasp jumps in front of him, and he calms down and tells them his story. He and his young sidekick were on their way to stop a drone plane loaded with explosives from taking off. Bucky was able to get onboard as was Captain America, but they were unable to stop it from exploding, which killed off Bucky until he was brought back as the Winter Soldier in 2005, which I will try and get. He fell into the icy water of the Atlantic ocean, and thanks to the super soldier serum survived being frozen. 

As the Avengers reach land, they are photographed by a crowd of newspaper photographers, but become frozen in stone.  Captain America walks right past them after emerging out of the submarine, traveling New York and making comments about how things have changes. After Stever settles into a hotel room, he sees a figure who looks like Bucky, but learns that instead the teenager is Rick Jones, an ally of the Avengers and the Hulk. 

The look at pictures of the event, and see someone pointing a mysterious gunlike object at the Avengers in the crowd of photographers. Captain America decides to go after him, and through Rick's TEEN BRIGADE, are able to get a location of the man. Captain America goes after him, busting into his room,

Captain America takes out 7 guys with a single whirlwind attack.  

So Captain America beats them up, and learn that their master is a green skinned, yellow mop haired, alien, who was mistaken for the Gorgon of ancient Greece when his space ship crashed. If the alien turned the Avengers to stone, Namor promised to help the alien get his space ship. Captain America has the alien return the rest of the team to normal, while Namor prepares to attack the Avengers again. Thor uses the magnetism on his swiss army hammer to pull the spacecraft up, but the avengers are attacked by Namor and a squad of his troops. After much fighting, with the team holding their ground, the space ship of the alien launches, distracting the heroes from Namor and they welcome Captain America to the team, but Bruce Banner, the human side of the Hulk worries about Hulk's jealousy. 

Hulk... Not Hulk Yet. Hulk Confused

So Captain America proves he can still beat people up for justice, which I enjoyed, but the comic's fight scenes are kind of confusing, Thor's hammer can still do anything it wants, and Wasp hasn't contributed anything to the fight. The medusa alien and teen brigade really show their age in this kind of story. I like the personality and figure of Captain America but am still not sold on the Avengers as Earth's Mightiest Heroes. 

This was a tough comic for me to find. I know that Masterwork Marvel: The Avengers has the story, but had a tough time finding a copy, so I ended up purchasing it at comixology.com. This in my mind is more of a historical piece, although the quick backstory of Bucky's death and the freezing of Captain America are very useful and important bits that still resonate through the character. 

Captain America Comics No. 1

As the 1940's began, many superheroes became quite popular. Some such as Superman have withstood the test of time. Others not so much. Captain America was one of the first major characters published by Timely Comics, the company that would eventually become Marvel comics. Some of the first charachters were Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the first Human Torch, an android covered in flames. While I will circle back to them, I think it is more important to talk about one of the first "patriotic" superheroes, and one who has become among the most influential in modern media. Captain America was the creation of Jack "The King" Kirby, who is famous as one of the premier comic book artists with titles ranging from Silver Surfer, The Fantastic Four, Thor. and The New Gods. His partner was Joe Simon created many comics, and helped Kirby create many comics such as Young Love, the first major romance comic, creating a genre that lived for many years, and while virtually unheard of today, they helped cement comic books major role in the 1950's.

Adolf socked in the jaw!

Captain America was written before WWII began in late 1940. The comic got a huge reaction, with over 1 million copies sold, but also provoking a mob of nazi supporters to threaten Kirby and Simon. It took the mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, to protect them with Guardia ordering police protection for Timely's offices. The comic itself was created very quickly, so some of it does look a bit rushed. Since the comic itself has four Captain America stories and two supplements I am going to cover the most important two, Meet Captain America and The Fantastic Tale of the Red Skull. 

 

We start our comic with something that I thought I wouldn't see again. That is a story without introducing the main character in the opening story. Just like both Batman origin stories, we don't get to see Captain America first, but instead get a weird intro. We see a bad guy at a munitions plant and then the next page he blows it sky high. In response Franklin Delano Roosevelt the current POTUS is commissioning a program to deal with the Nazi sabotage. We learn that the Nazi's have filled the armies ranks, and so the president has decided to deal with it. We then learn that the current head of the F.B.I. has arranged some sort of experiment. 

How many B-movies have this premise go horribly wrong?

The experiment is some sort of serum combined with Vita-Rays. The person in charge is a a Professor Reinstein. He has figured out how to make a man into a perfect specimen, increasing strength, reflexes and even intellegence. His guinea pig is Steve Rogers, who has been rejected because of his scrawny physique. The serum works and he grow bigger. This amazing serum however is about to vanish because a spy bursts out, shots Reinstein and shatters the serum. Many origin stories are actually very similar, with the results being unreplicatable. In recent years many comics in the Marvel continuity have even used this serum to explain the origins of other heroes, most notably the Ultimate Hulk, something that even made its way into The Avengers.

Because thats the definition of covert

Captain America is so named because he will safeguard America and represents America's strength. He demonstrates that, taking the assassin and punching him all over the building, eventually making the assassin land in some equipment which fry him to death. Steve sees no problem with this, and it shows the fact that Captain America is a soldier. He is willing to kill to get the job done, but doesn't go out of his way to kill people. He quickly does his job, smashing spy rings and keeping America safe from the Nazis. He is assigned to a military base undercover, namely Camp Lehigh. Bucky Barnes the camp mascot is enamored with the Captain. He wishes to meet him and he does, visiting Rogers at night and finding out that Rogers is Captain America. Of course Rogers decides to make Barnes his sidekick to keep his secret, because no Golden Age comic would be complete with a peppy young sidekick sent against firearms and thugs.

This comic is a good origin story, establishing why Captain America does what he does, as well as how he got his superpowers. Its a much more complete origin than Batman or Superman gets initially. This makes me much happier than the initial issues of Superman and Batman, even though I don't like Captain America quite as much as either of those, because I think he is a less interesting character.

Doomy Doom Doom Doom!

While I may like the first story for its excellent origin for the character, this one doesn't do that. We start with the cover image along with two panels inserted in the comic. I find this very frustrating, but it does get us into the story. Rogers is working with a Major Croy at the base, and has been threatened by someone called the Red Skull. Rogers and Bucky drive back to the base, leaving Croy to go to bed. As he is in the house, Croy is ambushed from behind. He is grabbed around the neck by what I can only assume is the Red Skull. The Skull stares him to death, and leaves him. The next day we learn that no one has been able to figure out why Croy is dead, and so Captain America and Bucky leave to go after the Skull, with Bucky deciding to go by himself. The Red Skull tells his henchman of his plan to go after officials while his team robs banks to fund the sabotaging efforts. Bucky eavesdrops but is caught and beaten up. The Skull having failed his evil overlords 101 class decides to use him as a hostage. The Captain bursts through the door and knocks out the thugs although the Skull escapes.

Private Rogers the next day witnesses a plane crashing on manuvers. The owner of the plane Mister Maxon laments the loss of the plane but not the men onboard. The general of the base gets a visit from the skull, who kills the general despite having a gun, and the Skull shows us a list of targets including Captain America and Bucky. The general's wife sticks up Red Skull, and instead of shooting the man with a red skull for a face and a swastika on his chest, she rushes over to her husband. Captain America bursts in and beats the Skull a bit before getting hit with a chair. Buck comes to save Captain America. They beat on the Skull, with Captain America breaking the red mask and learning that it is the airplane owner. I imagine this in about the same tone of voice as Velma from Scooby Doo. We learn that Maxon had used a hypodermic needle to inject people with a poison while he stared at them. This would create a myth about the Red Skull having a look of death. Maxon struggles to get his weapon but he rolls over his needle injecting himself. The next day military police learn that Maxon had been promised a position of power if Germany took over America. 

Why is this disappointing? Well Maxon isn't the actual Red Skull we know today. That goes to a Johann Schmidt, who is the Red Skull that we know today as Captain America's archnemesis. So the story serves as a bit of fake out for those who would expect an origin story for the Red Skull.

Overall I enjoyed these comics. They come in pretty large issues, unlike what I got with the Superman and Batman Chronicles, as they skip over any issue without those charachters. These have all the stories so include stories about Tuk Caveboy a pulp fantasy in stone age times and Hurricane, a character who looks like Hermes from the Greek mythologies, who is descended from Thor and yet is "the last living Greek God." While this makes no sense and he comes of as a copy of the early flash, it's not a terrible read.

I would recommend this comic for it's historical value and not really the artwork, but the writing is solid as well. It moves quickly, the plot is fairly reasonable. and they have a lot of ideas that will become really popular for the genre in the future, such as experimental superpower, superpowered prototype and a costumed villain rather than someone with an ominous name like Dr. Death. It's a pretty good read, and a good enough origin that I recommend this comic. I got my copy in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Captain America.