Avengers (1968) Issue 54 and Infinite Crisis

A few weeks ago, I went to see the second Avengers movie – Age of Ultron and I really enjoyed it. It really kindled in me the desire to start reading comics again so I figured I would start by looking into the evil nemesis of that movie and see where Ultron got his start. After a bit of a search online, I found a few references and decided to follow the list from Comic Book Herald – Best Ultron Comics to Read Before Marvel's Age of Ultron. So I started with…

Avengers (1968) Issue 54

…And Deliver Us from — The Masters of Evil!

Editor – Stan Lee
Writer – Roy Thomas
Artist – John Buscema
Inker – George Tuska
Letterer – Artie Simek

Published: July 1968

Synopsis – From Comixology – Jarvis, Iron Man’s loyal butler, betrays the Avengers for the new Masters of Evil. The Black Knight attempts to warn the Avengers about the security breach.

I'm not too familiar with the Avengers of this time period (or anything other than from the movies) so I am not too sure who I see on the front cover, but it certainly looks as though the bad guys have captured at least 3 of the team, and I'm not sure if the guy on the horse with the lance in the back of the scene is good or bad.

Characters:

The Good: Hawkeye, Goliath (Hank Pym), Black Panther (T'Challa), The Wasp (Jan Van Dyne), Aragorn, Bill Foster, Iron Man, Thor, Black Knight

The Bad: Crimson Cowl, Klaw, Whirlwind, The Radioactive Man, The Melter, Jarvis

This issue is jam packed. We learn something of the origin of Klaw, and why The Radioactive Man hates Thor and Iron Man, along with introductions to the bad guys – Whirlwind, The Melter, and Crimson Cowl. We learn that the Avengers Mansion has been broken into multiple times and that Hank Pym (aka Goliath) fashioned a security system to repel anyone not invited. And we see Jarvis turn information over to to the Masters of Evil so that they can bypass the new devices and capture the Avengers.

I'd have to say my favorite scene is when the Crimson Cowl introduces himself. I can totally hear the dialog boxes spoken by Stan Lee.

With the secrets Jarvis passed on to them The Masters of Evil break in and subdue the Avengers, even though The Black Knight tries to, and his horse Aragorn actually does, warn them of the impending attack. After the dust settles with the Avengers in chains, the ultimate secret is revealed – the Crimson Cowl the bad guys had been following was in fact a robot and the mastermind behind the whole plot was…Jarvis himself.

I am pretty impressed with this issue. The art is similar to what I expect from classic comic books with bright colors and lots of action scenes. The flow of the panels seems intuitive, although I had a little difficulty separating the thought bubbles from the dialog bubbles – that was probably just my unfamiliarity.

Interestingly though, I came to this issue to see the origin of Ultron and he really is not presented in the issue. The robot shown on the last page certainly looks like what I expect Ultron to look like, but his name is never brought up. I suspect issue 55 will clarify things.

You can purchase this from Comixology (digital), Amazon (subject to availability), or read it digitally on Marvel Unlimited like I did (they also sell the print issue).

Infinite Crisis shutting down

Along with my exciting delve into comic book reading, I also ran into some sad news in the comic book gaming world…Infinite Crisis is shutting down after barely being out of beta. I guess the game went live a few months ago, but my primary experience with it was back in beta. The game seemed to be a fairly standard MOBA, and I had some fun in it while dealing with the typical toxic community that seems to spring up for any MOBA (not sure why this always happens – other game types don't always create such toxicity). While I liked the idea of a superhero style MOBA and am always looking for super powers in games since City of Heores shut down, the game never really snagged me like LoL or HotS has.

I think part of it was the champions they offered. Based on the premise that a number of the DC worlds were colliding, there were copies of superheroes for each of those worlds. This lead to a major confusion for me in that I was not sure how Nightmare Batman differed from Gaslight Batman or just plain old Batman. While it was kinda neat to play one batman against another, it made learning the champions and roles much more perplexing. And I was really bewildered how the costumes they asked $$$ for were supposed to work. I mean, the gaslight and nightmare version would be cool costumes I could see paying for, but they had their own separate costumes from plain old Batman. To top it off, while Batman was an assassin type champion, Nightmare Batman was a bruiser and Gaslight Batman was a marksman.

On the whole, I liked the concept, but think the execution left much to be desired. I am still sad to see it go, but perhaps it will reinvent itself into something casual players and comic book fans can get involved with.

#Avengers #InfiniteCrisis #Comics