Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

Glad we got that one out of the way quickly.

thoth,

This comment threw me, as I'm not sure how to take it. You seem to be implying something, but I'm not sure what.

Yes, Rhodey was an established supporting character before he donned Iron Man's armor, and yes, Steel and Ferro Lad (as conceived by Shooter) were black characters who wore full masks (so, for that matter, is the Black Panther), but that comment seems to be reading too much into my joke about discussing comics' treatment of Caucasian characters. (I suppose any joke I might have used in that context would have a countering example to show that non-white characters have it just as bad or worse. If I had suggested that DC gave the Flash super-speed so his whiteness would be blurred, what about XS?)

My original point was and remains that Rage might have been intended to be a positive black character in spite of certain obvious stereotypes in his depiction. Perhaps he was ill-conceived in that regard. I always like to give creators the benefit of a doubt, however, and to focus on the positive qualities of a character--in this case, the fact the Rage was a well-read, well-spoken African American (as opposed to African) who came out of poverty and had a strong family role model. Few black characters in comics before him were depicted this way.

One might argue that those traits should apply to all characters and not only black characters--and one would be right. Historically, though, black characters haven't been depicted that way in comics. The examples you give, ironically, illustrate this point. It might be significant (or it might not) that Rage's arms and portions of his face were visible. There was no doubt about his race.

Well if you don't know, how am I supposed to be able to tell? Skips back...no..not skipping..ambles casually...yeah, that's it...back to the post above.

>stares down at crime scene of previous post with little white outlines around the words< Looks like a tangent to me Lt He Who, and I don't mean the rather poor DC run of Elseworld characters.

I think the perp tried to use the Stark acne line to set up a humorous tone and nod to a previous post. These posters run in gangs. Lt. One after another. Always out to spray our fine city in HTML.

That's when I figure he got distracted. Right there. It's all about other characters encased in armour. Mrs Flutterlash at number 22 was putting out her cat and swears there was something about how some of those armoured guys weren't white either. But the cat seems to have peed on that text over there so we can't be sure.

It's the randomness I don't like Lt. If we're lucky it's some random serial poster. But if it's worse. If it's really bad...we could be looking at Morrison plots before the year's out. And that's something that's going to send me straight to Mrs Flutterlash's gin.

I'm going to chime in but have to admit right out that I'm very behind on this thread. I'll reread the reviews and maybe post some additional comments, but I’m not too bothered by that for one major reason: though I’ve said numerous times that the Harras / Epting era is tied for my all-time favorite Avengers era (and I’ve read every single issue of Avengers ever, most of them more than once), I don’t really ever consider the Collection Obsession to be a part of the era.

Let me back up. I have reread this run many times but the truth is, when I start the run, I don’t start it until #343. To me, that’s when the magic happens. The Collection Obsession deals with too many lingering plotlines and characters and has Harras jumping in to “fill-in” on the title before he really felt he had a sturdy enough footing to get rolling. I read it once, and liked it well enough, but I don’t love it like I love #343 – 375 & change.

I also find the Larry Hama issues dreadful, and find Rage to be one of the most annoying characters in Avengers history. I get where some of HWW’s positive comments are coming from, but for me personally, I don’t find any enjoyment in those issues. The fill-ins between CO and #343 are issues that I don’t feel much for at all: don’t hate them, don’t love them, don’t really care about them in general. I don’t hate fill-ins by nature, and think that once in awhile they can be brilliant one-offs that remind me how powerful a single small story can be. All of the issues reviewed thus far don’t fit that bill.

Now…once you get to #343, I think you’ll notice an immediate difference. If you don’t, I will unfortunately be forced to sentence you both to internet death, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet. Art is in the eye of the beholder and all that. Except when I deem it otherwise.

Kidding aside, I think you’ll immediately notice a few things: the tight, definitive handling of the various Avengers by Harras and Epting; the crisp, beautiful artwork with vibrant colors yet moody shadowing; the overall large scale plotline that begins with the intro of the Swordsman that is fascinating and develops gradually without ever dragging on; and most importantly, an utterly fantastic romantic storyline involving numerous players—most important of all (to me) the Black Knight and Crystal.

I do have to take a moment to say that the comment about Crystal never being more than a supporting character is one I wholeheartedly take issue with. One can say the same about numerous characters over the years. Specifically about Crystal, whose introduction came in the Silver Age, I refer back to my 30 years of intricate knowledge of the Silver Age to tell you point blank that Crystal was no less a supporting character than the Wasp, Invisible Woman or Scarlet Witch. She was an active participant in the FF from her introduction onwards and while she never rose to stardom, neither did any of her contemporaries in the Silver Age. Only later in the 70’s—which I know was HWW’s era, which assuredly has jaded his viewpoint—did Wanda & other heroines get to have better treatment by writers, and unfortunately at that point Crystal had been stupidly written out of the FF for no reason and then ever worse, married off to Quicksilver in what I consider a classic Roy Thomas “let’s write out a few characters and give them a status quo changing way to do it…without ever bothering to follow-up on the longterm implications”. None of that matters, in retrospect, though. Because Bob Harras and Steve Epting stepped in, wiped the slate of the entire past and made Crystal the star she was always meant to be.

In fact, I think one of the great things of this era we’re about to embark on is that Harras and Epting are so very present in the title. The past is important but it is not one of the *most* important things. They were cutting their own path forward and that made the title feel exciting and refreshing. If only modern comics could embrace that spirit instead of going to either extreme.

Also, I'm not sure how you'll approach the Operation Galactic Storm issues. For me, personally, I don't include them in my rereads when I do them.

They are, however, quite fantastic. But I've always preferred to read O:GS as one full sitting, rather than just reading individual parts of the whole that apply to the series I'm rereading at the moment.

Any way you do it will probably be a lot of fun, especially since you're enjoying reviewing the individual issues. My normal way of doing it is #343-344, then #348-375.

I know there are some other fill-in issues along the way. Hopefully they don't kill the momentum for you too much before Harras & Epting really are able to rock & roll starting with issue #355.

How did I get signed up to this again?

Cheers, Cobie.

Re: Operation Galactic Storm, I think the Avengers tie-ins are easy enough to follow without the rest of the story.

That said, Operation Galactic Storm is my favorite event in superhero comics history, so if you can find a cheap trade (trades, actually, it's two volumes) on Amazon or Ebay, then by all means go for it.

I'm trying to think of marvel event I've not backed quietly away from shaking my head, so this will be interesting.

Acts of Vengeance, Evolutionary War, Secret Wars... not that DC is much better but Event comics ...meh... we'll see...

I figure I can hit the next two at once so we can get on with 343 and what Fanfie and Cobie tell us is the golden era of Harras/Epting . . .

Avengers 341-342 (Nov-Dec 1991)
“Rage of Angels”/”By Reason of Insanity?”

Summary
Rage interrupts a protest that has gathered in the wake of the police beating a young man. At the rally, he argues with a racist who turns out to be the leader of the Sons of the Serpent. When the Sons attack another group of protesters, the New Warriors intervene. However, the young heroes find themselves at odds with the Avengers—the two teams’ animosity fueled by a mysterious being called the Hate Monger, who feeds off their emotions. After the Hate Monger becomes satiated and leaves, everyone calms down and the Avengers lecture the New Warriors on using their powers wisely.

Independently, the two teams track the Sons of the Serpent to their warehouse headquarters and battle both the Sons and the Hate Monger. Rage decides there are “better ways” to deal with hate than fighting, so he stands down, prompting a bored Hate Monger to leave. Meanwhile, Cap and the Falcon have learned that the newest Avenger is only 14 years old, so Cap removes Rage from the active lineup while leaving the door open for him to continue his training with the Avengers. The New Warriors also give Rage their card.

Elsewhere, the Hate Monger continues to fan the flames of citizens’ hatred.

Thoughts
Whenever Marvel introduced a black character, said character, it seemed, had to go through a “baptism of racial fire” by having to fight the Sons of the Serpents, a thinly veiled KKK. The Sons were introduced back in Avengers 32-33 when they attacked Goliath’s research assistant, Bill Foster (the future Black Goliath). The Black Panther fought the Sons in Avengers 73-74, and wasn’t Luke Cage with the Defenders when they fought the Sons back in the 20s or so of their book? In any case, now it’s Rage’s turn to get his baptism of sorts.

This by-the-books story is drawn baldly from the racial tensions of the time (e.g., Rodney King) and which are sadly still relevant today. Following the shooting of Michael Brown last month in Ferguson, MO, and the resulting protests, this story feels oddly contemporary. Yet it also plagiarizes “The Day of the Dove,” a classic Star Trek episode in which the Enterprise crew and a group of Klingons are pitted against each other by a similar energy vampire. In that story, like this one, the heroes win simply by refusing to play along.

The villains, however, are incidental to this story. It’s mainly about Rage coming to terms with his, well, rage—and it’s meant to be his swan song as an Avenger. In this respect, the story is clunky and obvious: Why was it necessary to reveal, for example, that Carmello Martinez—the young man who was beaten by the police—was a friend of Rage’s? People rioted in the wake of Rodney King’s similar beating and protesters have marched in Ferguson without having known King or Brown personally. Such incidents fuel tensions which already exist within the community, and Rage, whose primary goal is to better his community, could have reacted just the same if Carmello were a stranger. This revelation suggests that guest-writer Fabian Nicieza either didn’t understand the dynamics of racial protests or he didn’t trust his audience to understand the same.

Likewise, the presence of the Hate Monger diminishes the very real tensions which exist in such situations. Nicieza had an opportunity here to show how even super-heroes can get caught up in volatile and very real situations in which there are no clear-cut answers, yet he chose to go the easy route by giving us a one-dimensional and unexplained villain who (I believe) had never been seen before and, if we’re lucky, would never be seen again.

The inclusion of the New Warriors unnecessarily complicates the story. I did not read their book, so I was unfamiliar with them (except for Namorita). I had no idea who Dwayne Taylor was or why we were given an interlude with him sparring with his trainer, Chord. I did, however, rather enjoy Cap’s pompous lecture about using powers wisely, and the New Warriors provide Rage with a place to go after the Avengers sack him. As with the Brethren story line, however, it once again feels like the Avengers are guests in their own book.

It is little surprise, perhaps, that the only scenes I really like in this clunkfest are those involving Granny Staples. I still admire the sway she holds over Rage, and how he returns to her positive influence time and again to help him through difficult choices.

I’ve mentioned earlier the lack of tight editing in this run so far, and here we’re given another egregious example when Granny Staples calls her only grandson Eldon instead of Elvin. Perhaps she was so caught up in having two Avengers in her house that she tripped over her tongue.

So, Nicieza accomplishes what he needs to do: get rid of Rage. It’s a shame, really, because the character wasn’t given a chance to shine in The Avengers after his creator, Hama, left. The most memorable comics characters—such as the FF, Spidey, and the Hulk—challenge our perceptions of what a super-hero can be. Rage had similar potential, though maybe he went too far in the direction of appearing to be a stereotype at a time when racial tensions in the real world were high. In any case, by writing him out so soon, Marvel essentially retreated from bold risk taking and gave us more of the same old same old. And that is indeed a shame.

What about the conversation between Falcon and Rage? I thought that was a great scene, one of Falcon's best in his entire existence.

And no words about Steve Epting's rapidly improving art?

The Falcon's speech ("I'm a social worker . . .") was a good one. I think his inclusion here was brilliant as he provides a different perspective on being being black and "coming from the streets," like Rage does. Of course, Rage ignores that perspective.

However, Falc pretty much blends into the background afterwards. He might as well have gone home after delivering his obligatory speech.

I almost said something about Epting/Palmer, but, in general, I'll leave the art comments to those of you who are better versed in art than I am. I do think the action sequences are quite fluid and push the story along.

I forgot to mention before that I always laugh out loud when a Hate-Monger influenced Namorita calls Rage a "hyper-thyroid side of beef."

I quite highly recommend the first 25 issues of New Warriors. Rage didn't get to do much in those issues, though. By the time he started getting more face time, and developed a bromance with Speedball, the book was on a downward spiral.

Avengers 341-342

Like HWW, the first thing I thought about when seeing the opening page was Rodney King. Considering the freshness of the event, the opening had a lot of promise to be a hard hitting, socially relevant comic. It was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.

It fell apart in stages for me. Rage "lives these streets" but oddly is sitting above them to make his grand entrance. I wasn't too impressed when the group of whites brought out weapons and yet managed to walk off with nearly all of them.

Falcon hasn't made an appearance in the issues I've read in this segment of re-reads. So, I can only conclude he's been brought in because a) he's black and b) they need a black character to make this speech. Which, for me, is why the Falcon was always on the team. Because he was black. A token character, on the team not due to any great ability but because of his colour.

Here, he diffuses Rage's aggression because he's a social worker and still lives in the area. Hand in hand with police brutality down the decades has been negligence by social services. It comes across as utterly patronising.

Falcon's "age and experience" have given him "patience and tolerance" which in comics parlance means that he's moved slightly away from being an angry black stereotype into a token black stereotype accepting of his role. I wonder if his next appearance will conveniently coincide with a race issue that needs discussion.

So we have a kid whose beating Rage feels may need avenged rightly or wrongly. But apparently the team "as a concept" don't go in for that sort of avenging. There must be an avenging chart in the mansion I've not seen. Heaven help them if the super villains become authority figures. They would be immune from Avenging. Fortunately Cap will keep an eye on Rage if only to maintain the status quo that's doing such a good job for everyone. Does every Avengers writer make him a clown?

I hadn't know of the Sons of the Serpent history. It was disappointing that the racist group had to be super villains. It removes and distorts the real issues that every party portrayed in the first few pages had. To muddy the waters even more, everyone is being controlled by a master villain.

I've not seen much of the New Warriors, but they come across as an effective team here. Perhaps the Avengers can pick up some tips. Since they're out there trying to help, I prefer the New Warriors to the Avengers immediately. Both team names have always struck me as well...silly. Does Justice have a habit of breaking bones? The last I saw him was with his broken leg in the Avengers.

Bracing myself for the second part...

It starts off as a standard super hero fight. But there's some interesting dialogue from both the Avengers and New Warriors on how they feel the situation should be dealt with. There's enough depth for the characters to wonder if it should or can be dealt with.

If I had a dollar for every time a character says "...in/on the streets..."

The Serpents are taken down all too easily, which is probably about right considering their power levels. It's just a shame that their squad leader wrote the address on a notepad for the Warriors to find.

I thought we'd get more from the Hatemonger, beyond a device to let Rage overcome his inner anger. I'm still not sure what it is he has to rage about and now he's off the team. Considering the childish rants of Thor and Hercules, Rage probably seemed comparatively quite mature at 14. But there wasn't the same level of tension between the two teams as there was in the last issue.

The Hatemonger escapes very easily. No doubt to further plague other titles that can't quite deal with real life issues on their own merits. In the end we see that the Hatemonger is Marvel's direct pinch of Randall Flagg from the Stephen King novels. An ever changing agitator for all groups and needs.

In summary, the two parter veered away from dealing with the consequences of the first couple of pages. To illustrate this, we never find out what happens to the kid who was beaten or the actions taken against the police officers involved. That would have helped to resolve the issues between the various viewpoints. But it's nowhere to be seen.

I'm also left with a bit of a sour taste due to the racial slurs being used throughout the comic. Yes, racial tension was central to the story and yes there was a villain amplifying those tensions.

However, partly since the inciting incident was never resolved, and the book reverted to a standard super hero fare, these words remain after the closing page. I'm not sure that anything positive or educational about their inclusion was gained.

Thoth, I think you've definitely provided some good insights which are causing me to re-evaluate this story.

Glad you had a positive impression of the New Warriors. As I said before to He Who, I highly recommend the first 25 issues.

And again as with He Who, I'm surprised you didn't comment on the art, as you were quite critical of Epting/Palmer's work on Collection Obsession. Did you think they improved at all on 341-342?

Yes, Id say that the art improves the further it gets away from a pseudo-image look.

Epting's real style was more like a cross between John Buscema and Steve Rude. Palmer's inks definitely emphasized the Buscema aspects, not a bad thing, but I think it made Epting look more derivative than he was.

Excellent points, thoth.

My feeling is, if comics are going to tackle relevancy, they need to go all the way, not just use it as a backdrop for a standard super-hero plot.

Otherwise, it's just badly used window dressing.

Avengers #343
The team look pretty angry on the cover, even when it's fairly obvious who the shadow is likely to be. Well, obvious because Black Knight is already on it. Yes, it's the return of Toothpick Man.
We start back on the Avengers roof, where we left off a few issues ago. I guess they have a rota. Thor seems to be a bit of a jerk, and his voice if off. Verily it dothest be off.

Oh, I see. The Avengers have to build into continuity elsewhere, much as the JLA had to learn to do.
I'm stunned that Lockjaw isn't granted membership. He's incredibly useful. It looks as though pretending to be a half dog/ half human rodeo employed ancient cursed archer is his only chance! I trust that doesn't only apply to the Legion. I'm also stunned that Crystal can walk, let alone fight, on those heels.

We not only get Crystal and Lockjaw. We get a child staying in the Mansion That Becomes Rubble on a frequent basis. We also get a comedy sidekick in the same vein as the ethnic sidekicks that comics were forced to leave behind decades ago.

Eight pages in, and we get to leave the roof. A page later and the team are besieged by ACME robots that have strayed from someone's danger room. It's clearly designed to introduce us to the team. "Design" turns out to be just the right word, as it was a training session. What have I learned about the new team?

Thor is just like the old one, about as grumpy, but can leave the horrible pseudo-speech patterns to ... Hercules, who is still a pompous jerk. He's consistently a pompous jerk, so the writing is fine. He's just not a character I could care less about. It's no surprise he nearly got New-Thor killed after the incident with Rage. Clown.

The Black Knight finally has a weapon he can stab people with. Hurrah! Crystal may be powerful, but some of them are duplicated by Thor. It's like having a powered down Zatanna in the same team as Red Tornado, so not impossible. We even got some teamwork here which was a nice change from running blindly at things.

Speaking of Reddy, Harras is consistent with the Vision's non-personality, making his visual error all the more jarring. Now I know why Black Widow is on the team. Secretarial work for Cap. He' can't carry the clipboard himself.

Harras picks up on Cap's thoughts about the team issues ago. As I mentioned in that review (I think) he is going through the same process as Aquaman did, prior to forming the Justice League Detroit. Members like Thor (and possibly Sersi) involved elsewhere, and the book having to change to reflect that. Members such as Rage and Sandman simply leaving. Neither are in the same class as Atom or Green Lantern, but Cap's worry about priorities is still the same.

There's a nice couple of pages between Crystal (who looks as though she's someone Harras is keen to develop) and Quicksilver. It's not nice because of Crystal's seeming guilt. It's nice because the Vision reminds her that it's not only her fault, as Quicksilver is involved. I liked to read this as "Quicksilver is an emotionally stunted character who has never been written to be capable of having a mature relationship with anything outside of his ego."

Thankfully, the issue has a sufficiently high page count that Harras can introduce characters, develop subplots and then get to have some Avengering too. The Vision is in charge, and it's noticeable that the team go in with a plan. That's more than we got with Cap. They still get blasted, but the writing is better and leads to more tension.

So, our villains can tap into Avengers/FF communications and realistically impersonate a battle and one of their members (specifically the one closest to Crystal. Could it be that our character from the cover and the cliff hanger page isn't who he says he is? Or could it be zombies? I'm unfamiliar on where the revealed character has been since way back, so I'm not quite sure how much of an impact this should have.

In summary, it's a fairly solid foundation issue. We have a number of new cast members and Harras takes his time letting us get to know them. The danger room experience may be a cliche, but it does provide a familiar setting and a decent, easy introduction.

While there's only action towards the end of the issue, the pages aren't wasted as we get some subplots developed instead. Crystal and Vision come out strongly here individually and through interaction with each other. Black Knight's biggest handicap may be over. Cap's worries are perceptive and shows that Harras is well aware of things he'd like to see changed in the book. The Epting/Palmer art team is also developing nicely.

Oh, I forgot to add that seeing Vision use his density powers in a hurricane is exactly the way Blok should have been used more in the Legion.

Glad you're finding more to like about the book as this run continues, Thoth.



Marilla. Yeah, she was a bit much, but I quite enjoy her sparring with Jarvis. Harras seemed to really like Jarvis. A few years before he took over the Avengers, Harras wrote a wonderful fill-in issue (280, to be exact) where Jarvis reminisces about his time working for the Avengers at the same time that he's considering quitting after having been tortured by the Masters of Evil. Harras used Jarvis more extensively than any Avengers writer before him, and I think he's to be commended for that.



Thor Substitute only worked for me in his Avengers appearances. In the solo book, he was insufferable. And at least with a less worldly, more insecure Thor, we didn't get Thor-as-Deus-Ex-Machina, which previous Avengers writers like Jim Shooter were guilty of.

As for Hercules and the neo-Shakespearean speech patterns, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I love Hercules, especially during this run. He blusters much less here than before being beaten into a coma during Roger Stern's Masters of Evil epic, providing some nice continuity by showing that he has changed and become (relatively) more mature as a results of his experiences.

To all Hercules skeptics, I would recommend reading Avengers Volume 1 #49-50. Those issues are the reason I love Hercules (and also the reason I'm glad he shaves his beard off during the Harras/Epting run.)



I think she's more than that. She's equal parts den mother and designated politician. I like to imagine she did a lot of the boring dealing-with-the-government stuff behind the scenes. And I love the conversation between her and Cap.



She was indeed. Crystal was the only established character whom Harras brought into the team. He felt she was the Marvel Universe's "six degrees" character, a female Kevin Bacon with elemental powers.



The original Swordsman died years earlier and stayed dead. There were no legacy characters or pretenders. I can't say much yet about the Harras Swordsman without spoiling stories that lie ahead.

I meant to add sounding board for cap in addition to clipboard carrier.;) Perhaps it's my limited knowledge of the character. I was thinking deadly, focused super spy. Yet, she just hasn't been proactive that I've noticed so far. I think she deserves more in front of the scenes panels, from what I've read so far.

She might have become more proactive if Harras hadn't been forced by TPTB (I think, I can't confirm this, but I strongly believe it) to bring Cap back into the book a year after he'd written him out.

As it is, I think she does have her shining moments, but they're a ways off.

I reckon she could decapitate someone with the clip board, for a start.

I guess it's like waiting for the Legion Espionage Squad to turn up...

Thoth, I think Herc may grow on you as an interesting character over the course of this run (though whether you like him or not, I'll be interested to see). There is a lot of good stuff to come for he, Viz, and well, just about everyone. In this issue, Harras is clearly establishing Point A, so he can start taking them to points B, C, and elsewhere.

Well the only way is up when it comes to Herc.

For me that is. For Herc, his own teammates didn't bother stopping him plummet from a great height in the last issue. I think that's secretly telling.