One of my all time favorite series is Volume One of the Avengers. Thanks to back issue bins, ebay, and the Essentials series, I have almost all of the first 285 issues. That may seem like an odd place to stop, so let me explain. Avengers #285 was what I consider Roger Stern's actual last issue. His name appears in the credits in the next few issues as plotter, with Ralph Macchio doing the scripting. You see, after the classic "Under Siege" storyline (#273-277), Stern did a few done in ones, and then a wonderful five parter dubbed "Assault on Olympus" (#281-285). Soon after, he was fired from the book, and left Marvel for DC. Stern was - and is - one of my all time favorite writers. I continued to follow the book for about a year afterward, but the loss of Stern made me sour. The issues I did buy after #285 are no longer part of my collection.
I haven't heard too much about the rest of Volume One, so I'm wondering what the Legionnaires have to say about these comics. What say you?
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There wasn't much to like after Stern, from what I recall. I found Walt Simonson's aborted run to the be the best of the bunch, which I doubt is a popular opinion. I don't think people cared for his drawn-out deconstructing of Stern's team (before reconstructing it with his own team), so he immediately lost his audience. But I'm a big fan of Simonson's writing, and anything with John Buscema-Tom Palmer art rates highly in my book!
Buscema left about the same time as Simonson (issue 300), and I don't think things ever recovered. John Byrne's run as writer felt secondary to his work on the West Coast book. Then we had some combination of (pulling from memory here) Bob Harras, Larry Hama and Harras again as writers until the title was rebooted. Just not a lot to love. Somewhere in there you have early art by Steve Epting, but it had little punch compared with his recent Captain America work.
I really enjoyed the camaraderie that Stern was developing between Hercules and Namor, and I was very disappointed that it's been all but forgotten the Namor was an Avenger in good standing for a while there.
I agree that the Stern run was probably the final great period of the first volume. After Assault on Avengers Mansion, I didn't have much time for the book all the way until the Busiek/Perez run.
The 50 or so comics up to that (most of which I got later as back issues) seemed to be everything you could ask for in a team book starring a company's major heroes.
Great Byrne and Perez artwork, some epic storylines, the right mix of references to really old comics - Wonderman and the Whizzer - and brand new stuff.
Part of the reason I bailed was that Marvel UK stopped reprinting them, I moved away from Marvel to the more hard-bitten 2000AD and then the Avengers became unrecogniseable to me with the Black Knight and the female Captain Marvel and God knows who else. My favourite character and his deep-running passion for the Scarlet Witch became a pale automaton and Hank Pym took to wearing some kind of overalls. Bah! I think my love for the pre-200 Avengers was so deep that I couldn't stand seeing them be replaced.
I did read some late 80's/early 90's reprints in German collections (in German!) while I lived in that country. It was good to catch up. Like remeeting old friends when I was a long way from home... (Which was the case, in a way)
There was a guy called Rage, who was all about being black. Then it all morphed into Galactic Storm (or Sturm auf die Galaxie, as I read it!) There was a lot of editorial tinkering in their own books that affected the team. Iron Man was pretending he wasn't Tony Stark, for some reason. Thor was an invalid without his armour
I only got around to reading 'Under Siege' a year ago, but still have to read the end of it. I was following it in a UK reprint, but left England before it finished. It was ok. I see why people who read it when they were wee would love it.
I think that after #200 the comic just spiraled further and further from the core concept until they had to put in place the Busiek/Perez reboot. Of course, the fact that the reboot seemed to take up where I (and Perez) had laid off around issue 200 didn't hurt, from my point of view.
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Buscema left about the same time as Simonson (issue 300), and I don't think things ever recovered. John Byrne's run as writer felt secondary to his work on the West Coast book. Then we had some combination of (pulling from memory here) Bob Harras, Larry Hama and Harras again as writers until the title was rebooted. Just not a lot to love. Somewhere in there you have early art by Steve Epting, but it had little punch compared with his recent Captain America work.
I agree that the Stern run was probably the final great period of the first volume. After Assault on Avengers Mansion, I didn't have much time for the book all the way until the Busiek/Perez run.
The 50 or so comics up to that (most of which I got later as back issues) seemed to be everything you could ask for in a team book starring a company's major heroes.
Great Byrne and Perez artwork, some epic storylines, the right mix of references to really old comics - Wonderman and the Whizzer - and brand new stuff.
Part of the reason I bailed was that Marvel UK stopped reprinting them, I moved away from Marvel to the more hard-bitten 2000AD and then the Avengers became unrecogniseable to me with the Black Knight and the female Captain Marvel and God knows who else. My favourite character and his deep-running passion for the Scarlet Witch became a pale automaton and Hank Pym took to wearing some kind of overalls. Bah! I think my love for the pre-200 Avengers was so deep that I couldn't stand seeing them be replaced.
I did read some late 80's/early 90's reprints in German collections (in German!) while I lived in that country. It was good to catch up. Like remeeting old friends when I was a long way from home... (Which was the case, in a way)
There was a guy called Rage, who was all about being black. Then it all morphed into Galactic Storm (or Sturm auf die Galaxie, as I read it!) There was a lot of editorial tinkering in their own books that affected the team. Iron Man was pretending he wasn't Tony Stark, for some reason. Thor was an invalid without his armour
I only got around to reading 'Under Siege' a year ago, but still have to read the end of it. I was following it in a UK reprint, but left England before it finished. It was ok. I see why people who read it when they were wee would love it.
I think that after #200 the comic just spiraled further and further from the core concept until they had to put in place the Busiek/Perez reboot. Of course, the fact that the reboot seemed to take up where I (and Perez) had laid off around issue 200 didn't hurt, from my point of view.