#MyFirstAvengersLineUp

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Doug: Here's a fun drill for Marvelites of all ages. About a week and a half ago one of our Twitter friends was asking folks to mark time by events within the pages of Earth's Mightiest Heroes -- specifically, the Avengers line-up when you started reading the book. So many thanks to Greg A. (@garaujo1) for today's post idea.

Doug: For this guy, my entry to the Avengers on an ongoing basis was around #119-120: the adventure against the Collector in Rutland, Vermont and then on into the Zodiac arc. You can see from the cover below (Jazzy Johnny Romita had a hand in that one, ya think?) that our Avengers at the time were Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Black Panther, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, and Mantis and the Swordsman. That's a great line-up, certainly one of the best in the history of the team.

Karen: That's a powerhouse line-up, and very similar to my first team of Assemblers, from way back in issue #92. Anyone who's been around here for more than a few months knows that I came aboard the Marvel train with the Kree-Skrull War and never shut up about how great it is. But my first exposure to the Avengers had a team divided: there was the active team composed of the later generations of Avengers, namely the Scarlet Witch, her brother Quicksilver, their comrade Clint Barton, once Hawkeye, now playing the role of Goliath, and the Vision. The Big Three -Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor -show up at the end of the issue to disband the team -although they were really Skrulls posing as those heroes. But by the next issue the real McCoys would be back, along with a brief visit from Ant-Man. So I always think of the Big Three, plus the Vision, and Wanda, as mainstays.

Martinex1: As I've mentioned before, at a young age my cousin gave me a box of various comics and my favorites amongst those were a smattering of Avengers books ranging intermittently from Avengers #45 to Avengers #91. So I received in that gift a pretty broad view of the team's assembled heroes. My favorite though was the team gathered in the battle with Grandmaster and Kang in issues #69 to #71. The final page of that arc had a marvelous Sal Buscema pin-up that defined the team for me; it included the big three plus Vision, Clint-Goliath, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Black Knight, and the Black Panther. When I purchased my first Avengers comic with my own money, it was at the start of the Nefaria Saga at issue #164. Amazingly the team had not changed much despite the big gap in issues. The main difference was that the Scarlet Witch and the Beast were in, but Clint and the Black Knight were absent. So those were essentially my Avengers! I do have to say though that I thoroughly enjoyed the second kooky quartet that Karen mentioned of Goliath, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver; their battle with Brainchild in issue #86 remains one of my guilty pleasures in following the team.

Redartz: My introductory Avengers lineup is quite similar to Doug's, as we joined the Assemblers during the same era. Specifically, I began with issue # 127, the crossover with the Inhumans and the Fantastic Four. Actually, I bought the issue because of the Fantastic Four appearance, and was immediately hooked (and why not -- what a cast of characters, and Ultron to boot!). So that would be Thor, Iron Man, Wanda and the Vision, Mantis and the Swordsman. Honorable mention goes to the Beast, who joined shortly thereafter, and became my favorite Avenger.

Addition Through Subtraction - Comic Edition

Doug: Personally, the Avengers became a better magazine when they were no longer literally "Earth's Mightiest Heroes". Let's face it -- if you were going to pick up some Silver Age Avengers to read or re-read, you probably wouldn't go for the first 16 issues as your primary choice of entertainment, would you? I wouldn't. I'd start with issue #19 and then move forward. From that point on, the book went through a pretty incredible run all the way through the 1970's (with a "miss" here or there). Over in the Fantastic Four, the replacement of Vince Colletta on the inks over Jack Kirby's pencils allowed that book to really blast off visually. Joltin' Joe Sinnott arrived, and the rest is history, from the mid-#40s over the next three years. Top notch stuff. And nothing against Vinnie at all -- over on the Thor mag, one could make the argument that it was his feathery inks that gave the God of Thunder and friends that signature look.

Doug: So that's today's topic, and it's not in any way mean-spirited or denigrating to any creator or character. What we want to know is, when did a comic catch fire for you after the removal of a character or characters, or right after a creator change? Again, there's no need to bash anyone, but it would be helpful if you stated just what it was that "now" put a given book over the top for you. Above, I think the Avengers became more accessible to me, a young child, when they weren't quite so godlike. Additionally, the dynamics between the various members of the Kooky Quartet created a real soap opera-type feeling. Heck, those characters behaved like people I knew! And then when Hank and Jan rejoined... Now we had a founding founder (as opposed to Cap's ex post facto anointing) back in the fold and that created another set of interesting circumstances. Of course I'm speaking of reading those great Silver Age stories in the pages of Marvel Triple Action and ragged original copies, while reading the #120s on as off-the-rack fare.

Doug: Feel free to cover comics from any genre, any company, any era. We'll open this one up as wide as you want it to be. And come back in a week, when we'll do the same drill but in the entertainment industry!