Doug: Today (and in future posts like this one) we're going to give you a specific comic book title and then ask you to make some positive choices. We're looking for elements of the book that you liked, but then asking you to pick a top dog. So this isn't like "Who's the Best..." -- here we're asking you to pick two things you like and then give a rationale as to why one's just a bit better to you than the other. Today's book is the Avengers, and it's all fair game -- storylines, creators, villains, heroes, covers, you name it! I'll start, as an example.Doug: I really like Roger Stern's run on the book, particularly after John Buscema came back aboard for the penciling (you can have the Al Milgrom years). It's a pretty key run for me personally, as Stern was the writer when I got back into regular comics buying. I enjoyed Hercules and Namor on the team, and pretty quickly gravitated to the new Captain Marvel and her mentor-mentee relationship with Captain America. But... I don't like it as much as I like Steve Englehart's run a decade earlier. If Stern's run was formative in my re-entry, it was Englehart's work that was formative, period. I came aboard as the "Celestial Madonna" arc was beginning, and really loved the book from first glance. Reading that era, with the art of Dave Cockrum, the Vision and Scarlet Witch, and the scope of that Kang/Immortus/Rama-tut saga gave me such a sense of awe each month. And reading those issues alongside the reprints in Marvel Triple Action made me a fan for life. Follow it up some months later with the Serpent Crown/Wild West/Squadron Sinister epic, and I owe it to Englehart -- he hooked me.
Doug: Your turn!
