The Avengers, Volume 1

Volume 1 of "Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers" represents what I would consider the weakest stories in the history of Marvel's answer to DC's Justice League of America. Collected in this volume are full-color reprints of the first ten issues of "The Avengers," which covers the first two lineups to answer the call, "Avengers Assemble!" These two lineups represent the strongest and weakest Avengers lineups. Originally we have Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, with the Hulk being replaced by Captain America and Ant-Man deciding being Giant-Man is more interesting. In other words, you basically have all of the first generation of Marvel superheroes who were not the Fantastic Four or Spider-Man. The initial problem with these stories is simply coming up with somebody for the Avengers to fight who could actually provide a challenge to the lineup. Remember that Marvel did not have the decades long accumulation of supervillains that DC could throw at the JLA. The first three issues offer Loki, the Space Phantom, and Namor the Sub-Mariner as the opponents. After finding and thawing out Captain America in issue #4, the Avengers start going up against multiple enemies in each issue, such a whole bunch of Lava Men (#5), which were followed by Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil (#6), with the Enchantress and Executioner joining the fun (#7). But even then, it is really hard to pretend that these are even contests when you have Thor and Iron Man running around (either one of them should be able to defeat most of these opponents without help). Completing this first volume you have the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror (#8), Baron Zemo's creation Wonder Man (#9), and Immortus (#10). So there was a definite bent towards gods (from Asgard anyway) and god-like mortals for the Avengers to fight. It was not until the end of issue #16, which you get to in Volume 2 of the Marvel Masterworks collection, when all of the original members leave and Captain America becomes the leader of a new quartet made up of Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch that you have a shift from strength to skill in the group that helped with the storytelling. Stan Lee does the scripting with Jack Kirby doing the pencils for the first eight issues of "The Avengers," and then Don Heck takes over, which I never considered a good thing because he was my least favorite Marvel artist (although to be fair when Wally Wood and John Romita, Sr. did the inking in issues #20-24 they were the best Heck drawn comics ever. There is an improvement in the issues of "The Avengers" over the years, but for me you do not get to the real Avengers until the Vision comes along. Still, everything starts here as the Avengers assemble for the first time.