Non-stop entertainment ......
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Starting off with what was perceived as a weak line-up Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch this set of stories starts off with them battling Doctor Doom in his homeland and gets even better.
In rapid succession we have a 2 parter featuring Attuma which paves the way for the return of Giant Man (now known as Goliath) and the Wasp.
They battle The Collector and The Beetle, Power Man with Swordsman and the Black Widow, the Keeper of the Flame, The Sons of the Serpent, the lovestruck Living Laser, the alien Ultroids and then.....Wham, Hercules is introduced, under the control of the Enchantress he battles the Avengers before he sees the error of his ways and shacks up with them. With Hercules they quickly see off the Mad Thinker and 3 buffoons and even the cosmic cube bearing Sub-Mariner.
Issue 41 marks the start of John Buscema's artwork which is outstanding even in black&white. Two great 2 part stories follow with Diablo and Dragon Man, the Red Guardian featuring the Black Widow and ends with a battle with the Super Adaptoid in Central Park and the Whirlwind.
As if that's not enough there's Avengers Annual 1 included which is a superb 49 page classic featuring the original Avengers joining forces with their new cohorts to battle Power Man, Swordsman, Enchantress and the Executioner, the Living Laser and the Mandarin spread across three continents and ending in earth orbit. The Annual has some stunning full page spreads that impress even in black&white.
The Sons of the Serpent is a classic early example of Marvel's stand against racism, at this time 1966 only a few years after Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..." speech and at a time when America was still coming to terms with dealing with the fact that it was racially divided.
Marvel were never afraid to have strong female and ethnic characters.
The Black Widow undergoes the change from villain to hero in this collection working undercover for SHIELD.
Again Stan Lee and Roy Thomas don't gloss over the tensions that are inherent in every group and include some bouts of infighting involving almost all the male members memorably Hawkeye and Goliath. At the end of this collection the mutant Quicksilver picks up on mankind's mistrust of mutants, or by allusion anyone who is different, and hints are dropped of a change coming and the final words announcing Magneto is to start off the next issue Essential Avengers no 3 will start off as this book did with a bang.
There's everything here action, comedy and romance, and Stan Lee's legendary footnotes by the dozen, what more do you want?
THIS REVIEW APPEARS AGAINST ESSENTIAL AVENGERS 3 DUE TO A COMPUTER GLITCH THAT CAN NOT RECOGNISE SEPARATE REVIEWS.
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