For Today’s Comic book review, i Read and review Avengers #1 from 1963.  This classic Tale features The Mighty Thor, Iron Man,  Ant-Man and the Wasp, and The Incredible Hulk, and though the action’s of this 22 page story, they come together to form the Avengers!

Our Story begins out with Loki,   plotting his revenge against Thor, and  then searching the earth via his magical powers for a way to get even with the God of thunder.  It is in this search that he comes to the hulk, and decides to set him up to draw Thor out.

As fate would have it, his action’s get the attention of  much more than just  Thor, but also Iron-Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp.  All of whom respond to the Teen Brigade call for help for The Hulk.  But can the 4 hero’s  help the hulk or will they be forced to capture him, and Can Thor deal with the menace of Loki?

Be you a classic avengers fan or even just a comic book fan; or perhaps your here because of the upcoming Movie Blockbuster. Avengers #1 is a must read, read on to see why:

Story

I quite liked the story, as I felt that all the pieces fell together at just the right time and pace to make it an interesting and enjoyable comic book. I also feel that it would have read quite well even for people whom may have only knew some or even none of the hero’s from there solo adventures.

The Story starts out with a picture of Loki looking upward and just some simple text,  but this one box of text set the tone for the whole story and set things off right, it read:

The place: Asgard, home of the Norse Gods!
The Time: The Present!
The Man: Loki, God of Evil! A Prisoner on the dreaded, Isle of Silence… Plotting awesome revenge against his mighty enemy, Thor, the Thunder God!

Avengers #1 By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

These words written combined with that opening frame stated everything off right. and the story never let me down as I continued though the pages.

Art

I feel that Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers deserved a lot of credit for how they handled this issue artistically, it was well drawn and  did a good job of bringing each hero to the forefront of the action at least for part of the story.

One thing that I feel worked real well was size and perspective, perhaps nothing shows this better than the frame I put in, but in general having hero’s like ant-man and the wasp work with  Thor and Iron man, and then the massive Hulk, size gaps come into play, and this was handled quite well artistically.

Jack Kirby’s drawing also seemed to have great dimension to it in this issue.  as i show in Iron Man Flying in  a panel here.  not just the uses of shadows but foreshortening was top-notch.

Perhaps most of all, no hero or detail was left out, Giving great attention to each star of the comic and making them all in their own part stars.

 Originality & Continuity

Unlike the Fantastic Four who came onto the scene a couple of years earlier or the X-men who appeared the same month as the Avengers. the Avengers are all hero’s already in their own right, they all have had their own comic tales and most of them still did at this point.

I feel that bringing the heroes together like this is quite original as well as a difficult exercise, and i feel comfortable still staying this knowing that DC had done Justice league before marvel did the avengers.

Characters & Development

Just as i feel that this was original, i found this a great work in character development for each of our hero’s as they bring together the team, and in fact each join the team.

But it is also a great work in world building,  establishing hence forth a collection of the greatest hero’s ever, all whom fight alone, but also will stand together in the face of evil.