The first Avengers Omnibus is being sold, and according to descriptions, either version of the cover contains #1-30 of the first volume of Marvel Comics' Avengers....
That would include the originals, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man and Wasp, plus Cap, and then the kookie Quartett of Hawkeye, Pietro, Wanda and Cap...and eventually, Goliath and Wasp return. I think that's all the line-up changes for the first 30 issues.
But I want to know if they are also reprinting the letters pages along with the issues... or if there are any back-up feature included.
Based upon the FF OMNIBUS, this would be true.Does anyone know when the letters pages started over in the Avengers? That view of early silver age fandom would be worth the price of admission.
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I would guess they will include the letters columns (which started in #5) and any back-up features or pin-ups, as all the others have, from what I know. So leaving them out at this point would be a change, and buyers are probably expecting them to be there.
I'm always surprised when they don't give this kind of information in the solicitation. They often don't even mention which issues are reprinted in a collection. Why do they not consider this stuff important to let potential buyers know about?
I also don't understand why DVDs refuse to list the running time for extra features, but that's another story.
-- MSA
And why doesn't Disney list the copyright date on their movies, so you can see when the movies first came out? All that does is force us to go to IMDB to look it up. Do they think little kids wouldn't want to watch "Cinderella" because it came out in 1950? Do they think little kids even look at copyright dates?
The odd thing is that I just won a "cover price" copy on ebay for about $66 bucks.
With issues #5-30 containing letters pages, which is what I'm really after, I figure that I've paid about $3 bucks per letters page to go back in time...not counting the actual stories.
I hope it's worth the new JRJR variant cover that I ordered.
Does anyone know how many different covers there are going to be?
The original Jack Kirby cover, JRJR, and ......any others?
Surprise, Surprise!
My very own birthday present to myself arrived 30 seconds before I left the house for work this evening.
The mailman said "Thank goodness you're home... Now I don't have to figure out how to wedge this behind your screen door, like it says on the package."
I thanked him and told him it was the Avengers Omnibus collecting the first 30 appearances of the team, just in time for the new movie to come out. He seemed impressed and didn't know that they did that kind of thing!
I can't wait to get home tonight and read up in the letters pages...cause that's all I really bought the darn thing for... I've got virtually all the Marvel masterworks volumes, with the exception of #10 (#137 in variant cover) which has the overpriced collection of the Kree-Skrull war in it!
Dave Blanchard:
"And why doesn't Disney list the copyright date on their movies, so you can see when the movies first came out? All that does is force us to go to IMDB to look it up. Do they think little kids wouldn't want to watch "Cinderella" because it came out in 1950? Do they think little kids even look at copyright dates?"
What I always thought was funny was how they didn't even want to admit they had anything to do with SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. "Disney" is NOT mentioned-- ANYWHERE-- in the opening credits, and not in the closing credits, until the VERY LAST LINE of text-- the copyright notice, which is in very small print. It's like, they made this FANTASTIC, brilliant, well-written, watchable film-- and they were EMBARRASSED to admit it! (It was one of, I've since learned, only 3 films they ever made that were rated "PG". Right after that, they formed "Touchstone Films", so they could exploit the "PG" market, without dirtying the image of "Disney". They later created "Hollywood Films" for the "R" market, but somehow, that didn't last long.)
OK, so here's a little update on the contents of the Avengers Omnibus. Tonight i'm flipping through it, and reading only the letters pages.
First, there are no letters pages until at least issue 5, the invasion of the Lava Men, when the Hulk makes his last appearance.
Second, there's a full page ad/preview at the end of issue 2, The Space Phantom, that I had never seen before. The artwork featuring a center figure of Namor, is used again in the splash page for issue 3... but the floating heads that surround him have changed. That is, instead of the old Iron Man head, the new Iron man is used... ditto, the other members of the team are redrawn and repositioned for the splash.
Third, the letters pages frequently feature a nameless respondant (probably Stan) who alternates between baiting the letter writer or making lame jokes or frivous complaints about how hard it is to write or create the stories, or keep the characters in line, or to satisfy readers, etc. There's not a lot of info or answers shared, and the club-house feel of the MMMS and bullpen isn't there yet (by issue 9, where I've paused) but there is a great sense that readers are reading ALL the marvel mags that are coming out, and are pleased with the innovation, but displeased with the Hulk being blamed and painted as a villian. There are calls for cap to get his own strip, and the same for the Hulk.
But there is also a tremendous sence of continuity that the readers pick up on, running between the FF, the Avengers and the X-men... and the long story arc of the Hulk, running from the Avengers over to the FF and back again is very clear. This is something that I had never been aware of, having only owned FF #25 but reading reprints of the other books separately....either in FF annuals or other Marvel Tales reprint books, etc.
Apparantly as the books were originally coming out, the Avengers were bi-monthly and the FF was monthly, and there was a great sense of one long continued story.
So, thanks to whoever pointed this out to us elsewhere. You were absolutely right! More later as I read through history.
PS: The letters' page is called ""All About the Avengers" (not "Avengers Assemble" which comes later). And the letters page expands to two pages with issue 9 "Wonder Man", but does not feature any panels or artwork yet.
"there is also a tremendous sence of continuity that the readers pick up on, running between the FF, the Avengers and the X-men... and the long story arc of the Hulk, running from the Avengers over to the FF and back again is very clear. This is something that I had never been aware of, having only owned FF #25 but reading reprints of the other books separately....either in FF annuals or other Marvel Tales reprint books, etc.
Apparantly as the books were originally coming out, the Avengers were bi-monthly and the FF was monthly, and there was a great sense of one long continued story."
This is why I was so thirlled to be able to do my "re-reading project" a few years ago. Buying and reading so many books over decades, totally out of sequence, and FINALLY to be able to read them all IN THE ORDER THEY CAME OUT-- what a difference. Now, it's been pointed out that the cover dates for certain books (AVENGERS, X-MEN, DAREDEVIL, SGT. FURY, I think) were one month out of synch with the rest. When I assembled a month-by-month schedule so I'd know what to read when, I took this into account. Imagine my surprise when more than once, I found out just how accurate this was, as several time, little bits of continuity between books fell right into place. I wish I could remember examples, but I know at least one of them involved AVENGERS.
For many, many years, I had no idea that FF #24 came out maybe 2 weeks after AVENGERS #4. When Rick Jones ponders whether or not to accept Cap's offer to become his partner, and what will The Hulk think about it, I figured, probably some months went by before we found out. NO! More like 2 weeks.
Hulk was really acting irrationally (more than usual). He leaves Rick behind. Rick goes searching for Hulk. Suddenly, Hulk hears on the radio that Rick is WITH The Avengers. "Rick betrayed me!!" What gave him that idea? So he goes all the way to New York City JUST to exact revenge on Rick. You know, maybe some people don't deserve to be "understood". Rick must have really come from some kind of abusive home life to put up with what he did from Greenskin.
Well, I wasn't planning on doing a play by play of what I found in the letters pages of the earliest Avengers, but I find I'm doing some sort of summary about every ten issues or so. But now that they've expanded to two pages each issue (and yes, they announced when they were starting two page letters pages in most of the other books as well.) I find it's slower going.
The first reprinted artwork in the lettter pages was in issue #13, which took a small portion of the cover of #8 (Kang) and zoomed in (framed) only the Avengers attacking/cowering from Kang. The interesting thing fo rme is to note that while it's cropped to frame the Avengers, the figure of the Wasp has been moved, AND a hood/mask has been added. That got me looking at her cover appearances and I noticed up to the eighth issue, she was frequently shown without mask with curly brown hair flowing free. But when reprinted, that's been covered under a black hood, though the pose is the same, but she's been moved up to above Cap's raised sheild.
That's the only example of reprinted art for a good long while.
There are continual requests for Cap to have his own title (and constant replies that he's sharing tales of Suspense). However there are a rotating cast of complaints about (pick your choice: Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, Cap, Hulk) being too bossy, inconsiderate, or out of team character. Most letters compliment Jack Kirby's art, or the appearance of Don Heck drawing the Avengers.
And the title of the letters pages changes to "Avengers Assemble" with issue #20 (second half of the Swordsman saga), but still no new artwork. One wonders why the artwork was ever added, or what rhyme or reason was behind it's inclusion. (It just seem to my memory that the artwork was more regularly interior pannels without lettering or word balloons over in the FF letters pages.)
Oh, and when the descriptive blurbs for other Marvel Mags starts to appear in a box, (the start of the Merry Marvel comics Checklist, although not called that yet) the answers start to plug the MMMS and are less antagonistic of the reader's, and more thankful, inclusive and supportive.
Also of note... the very first mention of Marvelmania appears ina letter from an Austrailian fan who says that all of Austrailia is being swept by marvelmania... to which Stan replies they like that, but if the beatles sue ("Beatlemania", get it?) they're going to turn him in.
And there's one woman who asks about back issues and how to order them... and stan totally ignors adressing her request.
"Most letters compliment Jack Kirby's art, or the appearance of Don Heck drawing the Avengers."
I'm afraid that Don Heck's debut on THE AVENGERS was quite a come-down from Jack Kirby, or, for that matter, Don Heck on IRON MAN. Not sure why this was, exactly. Don was the regular artist on IRON MAN, and had also been the regular on ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (back in the early days, he was probably involved with more pages featuring The Wasp than any other artist). But then again, Don's THOR was always pretty 3rd-rate, both in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY and AVENGERS. Things got much better when the line-up shifted. Not only had Don been just about the only artist to draw Hawkeye up to that point, I feel Don's Scarlet Witch was a HUGE improvement over Kirby's! Of course, when they finally got someone other than Dick Ayers inking Don, that was a big step in the right direction. (Wood, Romita, Giacoia-- all damned good stuff.)
Oops! Just as soon as I said there were no other examples of reprinted artwork, something shows up to challenge that. As I mentioned before, the MMMS is being promoted, or at least mentioned in every letterspage. At the very end of issue #14 letter page, there's a panel or internal ad for the MMMS. It's the classic image of the Thing's face in the orange box (or bumper sticker)"The MMMS Wants You!"
There had been a letter complaining that in the Immortus adventure, that Thor had been shown with naked legs, instead of blue tights. I checked back through the book, and every example page listed no longer had that problem (coloring had been altered) with the exception of the page where Thor struggles hand to hand with "hercules". It's easy to see how a colorist might have either been confused about who had the naked legs, or decided that they might have stripped down for the fight. But why the fix wasn't applied to that page also, seems odd.
There is a call for an Avengers Annual....for three pages of letters...for the book to expand to 30 pages...for the death of an Avenger (this in an issue where the Wasp is mortally wounded).. for the Wasp to leave in protest that she's the only female member... for Rick to get powers.... and for each of the Teen Brigade to gain different powers, and to be trained by Cap!
At least one fan complains that Giant-Man shouldn't grow by mental effort...and calls for the return of growth/shrinking capsules!
And I've noted that Giant-Man appears to have changed into his final blue helmet for the final two Avengers appearances in #15 & 16 before the big shake-up that brings Wanda, Clint and Pietro on board.
There's also a interesting inset at the start of #14's letters page that lays claim to Stan writing six consecutive pages in the current issue. They might be the first six in the beginning, middle or ending, but theres a contest to pick out his pages. In light of our recent *ahem* discussions of Stan's contributions and credits, it's ironic that it sounds like he's stating for the record that he wrote at least six pages, and credits Larry Leiber and team with producing the rest of that issue.
I wonder if this is an example how Stan was feeling overwhelmed with the success of all books, and needs to make a change? Also, there's a writer who points out that iron man can't be in the Avengers, when he's been elsewhere in his own title. Continuity problems like these (that Stan ignored) may also have driven Stan to reshuffle things. Though they claim that the reshuffling issue #16 was taking so long to write (and plan/plot?), I wonder if Stan's absence from "he writing" (dialoging?) of most of #14 helped to convince him that he need a break or that a change was necessary. It's at least a thought.
**I've been having a really hard time trying to answer the contest question about which six pages Stan wrote, and not because the contest ended more than 40 years ago! I'm looking for something that's more subtle or obvious that one could point to. At first, I looked at the first six pages, and the last six pages suspicously, thinking that he either set up the issue, and left due to health or the press of time....or returned to craft the ending. But it's not that obvious.
Then I looked at how many pages had thought balloons that conveyed what the regular stars were thinking. I thought maybe either Stan would be the only one who wrote these in correctly, or visa versa, that he would be so rushed that he didn't do any. Does anyone have any idea which six continuous pages were Stan's work? Or was this contest ever answered? I also found that I started looking at the artwork, thinking that the artist might have left me a clue...but that way lies madness.
I have finally looked at the issue in a combination of ways. (It's a dreadful issue, no matter how you look at it).
I looked to see how many words or word balloons period appear per page. And I think that I've discovered that pages 2-3-4-5-6-7 have more words packed into them than any others. Also, the Avengers depart or separate at the end of that page, each to demonstrate their own skill or adventure, and it seems logical that it would be a good break point, for Lee to leave the writting to Larry Leiber and Larry Ivy at that point, having established the general tone and thrust of the adventure. I wonder if he had also told them how to conclude the issue, since it ends on a very Lee-like resolution/ne cliff hanger. Given that he might have written the story just before, and the one just after, I guess that he may have supplied the plot, but left it to the others to finish for him.
Finally, the appearance of the watcher on the last page giving his comments, seems extremely Lee-like. and if Stan did "write" that last page, that would mean that he had to have done the final six pages.... if we can believe the premise that he did ONLY six pages continously. Maybe he returned and didn't like the ending, or else he returned and wanted the story to wrap up in one issue, and so sped up the resolution. Perhaps the Wasp's recovery was going to spill over into the next issue, but Stan wanted to "get on with it" and move Cap ahead to the logical conclusion of his long arc.
Does anyone know?
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