Episode 1436 Talkback: Spotlight on The Avengers in the Chromium Age Part Two

Adam_Murdough

And Now: The Nineties! Travel with us back to that misunderstood decade, when came to pass some of the highest and lowest points in the fifty-year history of the Avengers. The menace of the Gatherers! The madness of Sersi! The multitude of cover enhancements! The momentousness of the Avengers' 30th anniversary! The malodorousness of 'The Crossing'! The mediocrity of 'Heroes Reborn'! And the renaissance that was the Busiek/Pérez run and the Avengers Forever maxiseries! Miss it not, frantic ones! (2:20:18)

Listen here.

John_Steed

I shall succumb to the aural bliss that is CGS spotlights.

bralinator

Resistance is futile.


I love clichés

mguy1977

I look forward to the spotlights in the NEAR future Jamie D. & the rest of the CGS crew. When the BOMC returns lets us know of if you can get us a discount on the selected book. Thanks to Jamie D., Chris, Murd & Shane sharing all the Avengers knowledge to a listener who was heavy into the other realm that is DC w/ Batman during Knightfall & the 5 Superman titles at the time.

Matthew

PS
Could we have a Murd & Chris time bubble duo crossover in the future? Thanks!

clubofheroes

I might sound like a broken record, but Great Episode! Like Shane, the Busiek/Perez run on Avengers was my first foray into the Marvel U outside of Spidey and the X-Books. Their run on Avengers and Mark Waid's Captain America really captured my imagination and it was the first time outside of the Capcom video games that I felt characters like Cap and Iron Man were "cool". There was also a #0 issue that came bagged with Wizard one month that was a prologue to Ultron Unlimited by Busiek and Stuart Immonen.
I'm glad BOMC is coming back! I wasn't a CGS listener for the majority of them, and listening to old episodes made me envious I couldn't follow along. Avengers Forever is one of the best Marvel series from that time and before I knew about stuff like OHOTMU, it read like a Monster Manual for the Marvel Universe (or at least the Avengers corner). I talked about it briefly on my own podcast a few months ago, but my meager plot synopsis did not do it justice. Can't wait to hear you Marvel Maniacs tear into it!
As for Bova and the Wundagore characters, I think Dan Slott last used them during his run on Mighty Avengers. The High Evolutionary and related characters are some of my favorite sci-fi concepts from Marvel, and the Evolutionary himself showed up in Hickman's Avengers not too long ago.
I've heard rumblings on these boards about an FF spotlight series next year and that's a team I know even less about that the Avengers, so I'm pumped for that. Keep up the great work guys and thanks for the long episodes. They help pass the time at work.

bralinator

Another great episode! Keep the spotlights rolling. I'll be looking forward to the eventual "Avengers Forever" Book of the Month episode as well. It was so dense, you could almost treat it like Crisis on Infinite Earths, although it had far less permanent impact on the characters or publishers. A veritable history book in and of itself. Speaking of which, will the Crisis Tapes ever be revisited or completed? I don't think you ever actually got around to the main storyline on that one!?

Chromium Age Avengers, In my recollection, went downhill fast and hard after Stern left and Buscema ended his run and didn't really pull up until Busiek came on-board. I have referred to this era as the "bomber jacket Avengers" era complete with light-saber wielding Black Knight. I agree with @JamieD that we should just flush it away quickly. You can tell that Jamie has a soft spot for the Avengers.

Some higher-than-mediocre points during this era were Galactic Storm, Blood Ties, and The Gatherers storylines, but after issue 379, when they changed the logo (why?!), the writing was on the wall that this first volume needed to be put out of our misery.

Now, since I seem to have a penchant for posting pics, I couldn't resist these, although I couldn't tell if this first one was featuring Cottonelle or Charmin :)

CHROMIUM AGE AVENGERS QUALITY CHECK

Remixed self-edit with art by Bobby Rubio


This pic was posted and quickly deleted from Charmin's Twitter feed earlier this week.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUdE6mWIjXw
And yes, this really existed in the 70's

clubofheroes said:

I've heard rumblings on these boards about an FF spotlight series next year and that's a team I know even less about that the Avengers, so I'm pumped for that. Keep up the great work guys and thanks for the long episodes. They help pass the time at work.

ditto!

Thanks again to Chris Eberle (is he on the forums?) and @Adam_Murdough with @ShaneKelly batting clean-up. This is a good lineup gentlemen. Looking forward to many more episodes! Thank-you again.

JamieD

bralinator said:

Another great episode! Keep the spotlights rolling. I'll be looking forward to the eventual "Avengers Forever" Book of the Month episode as well. It was so dense, you could almost treat it like Crisis on Infinite Earths, although it had far less permanent impact on the characters or publishers. A veritable history book in and of itself. Speaking of which, will the Crisis Tapes ever be revisited or completed? I don't think you ever actually got around to the main storyline on that one!?

Chromium Age Avengers, In my recollection, went downhill fast and hard after Stern left and Buscema ended his run and didn't really pull up until Busiek came on-board. I have referred to this era as the "bomber jacket Avengers" era complete with light-saber wielding Black Knight. I agree with @JamieD that we should just flush it away quickly. You can tell that Jamie has a soft spot for the Avengers.

Some higher-than-mediocre points during this era were Galactic Storm, Blood Ties, and The Gatherers storylines, but after issue 379, when they changed the logo (why?!), the writing was on the wall that this first volume needed to be put out of our misery.

Now, since I seem to have a penchant for posting pics, I couldn't resist these, although I couldn't tell if this first one was featuring Cottonelle or Charmin :)

CHROMIUM AGE AVENGERS QUALITY CHECK

Remixed self-edit with art by Bobby Rubio


This pic was posted and quickly deleted from Charmin's Twitter feed earlier this week.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUdE6mWIjXw
And yes, this really existed in the 70's

clubofheroes said:

I've heard rumblings on these boards about an FF spotlight series next year and that's a team I know even less about that the Avengers, so I'm pumped for that. Keep up the great work guys and thanks for the long episodes. They help pass the time at work.

ditto!

Thanks again to Chris Eberle (is he on the forums?) and @Adam_Murdough with @ShaneKelly batting clean-up. This is a good lineup gentlemen. Looking forward to many more episodes! Thank-you again.

You are welcome

BlackUmbrella

You guys are doing a great job with the new line-up. Really appreciate it.

NathanPMahney

I remember being blown away by Busiek's Ultron arc. I was especially taken aback by his revelation that Ultron's personality was created using Henry Pym's own brain engrams - it's one of those rare retcons that not only fits with prior events but actually enhances them.

Chuck_Melville

Excellent 'cast. I only have a couple of notes.

Concerning the Ultraverse... if I'm not mistaken (and I could be), the characters were at least co-owned by their creators, and that is what has kept Marvel from doing much of anything with them since absorbing Malibu, that they couldn't come to an arrangement with the creators. One of the things, anyway; I'm sure a general lack of interest on Marvel's part factors in as well.

It was Justice who wanted to be an Avenger, and not Firestar -- she only came along for his sake, though she did finally come to embrace it later on.

It's no surprise that the writing during the Heroes Reborn phase was either poor or non-existent, since that was the Image approach. Todd McFarlane himself (who was not involved in the HR books) was often quoted disdaining the writing aspect of comics, saying that the only thing the readers wanted was the pictures, and who cared anyway what went on the page so long as the readers bought the books? That philosophy permeated most of the Image titles of the time, one reason why I never bought more than a small handful of them (and usually by the non-founders), and that was pretty much how Liefeld (especially) and Lee approached the Marvel titles they were assigned: a story was nothing more than a framework for them to hang the pictures they wanted to draw, whatever way they wanted to draw them.

rebis

Regarding Triathlon. Is this the same character that showed up in the last Agents of Atlas mini? If I'm remembering correctly, that character was played as a 3-D Man legacy.

Adam_Murdough

rebis said:

Regarding Triathlon. Is this the same character that showed up in the last Agents of Atlas mini? If I'm remembering correctly, that character was played as a 3-D Man legacy.

Definitely the same character. And his evolution into the new 3-D Man is predicated on a connection between Triathlon and the original 3DM established by Busiek when he finally resolved the "Triune Understanding" subplot, near the end of his Avengers run. We'll touch on that in the next Spotlight.

Corwin

As always these Spotlights are gggggrrrrrrrreeeeaaaaaaaaat!

Last Exodus was seen is right after Regenesis in X-Men Legacy. He's currently being held captive at the Jean Grey School...I think. He first appeared during the Fatal Attractions crossover.

clubofheroes

I miss the Ultraverse. Mantra was cool! I got a bunch of Malibu comics at a garage sale. Aside from Archie digests, they might have been my first comics outside of Marvel and DC.

Corwin

As someone who has only read the Avengers from Bendis onwards jumping into Avengers Forever was a true adventure. And I forget all the examples I found but I get the eerie feeling that Hickman is referencing Avengers Forever in his run...look what's happening on different worlds during Infinity...



....I can't remember what else I pointed out but I think it had something to do with creation. Anyway most of that talk in the second part. Check out the podcast if you're interested in hearing about Avengers Forever in detail. We don't get Murdonian or Everly with our coverage but it's still worth checking out.

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

Concerning the Ultraverse... if I'm not mistaken (and I could be), the characters were at least co-owned by their creators, and that is what has kept Marvel from doing much of anything with them since absorbing Malibu, that they couldn't come to an arrangement with the creators. One of the things, anyway; I'm sure a general lack of interest on Marvel's part factors in as well.

The way I understand it, the creators don’t have any ownership of the characters per se—their names aren’t part of the copyrights, and they have no veto power over how the characters are used for example—but there is a royalty structure in the contracts that guarantees the creators certain percentages of any money made from “their” characters in any medium, and those contracts remained intact in the sale from Malibu to Marvel.

random73

come on! Who doesn't want more of The Ferret and the Protectors?!
:-\"

random73

Thor_El

@Corwin, I had that exact same thought about AVENGERS FOREVER and the "Avengers Worlds."

Honestly, having enjoyed AVENGERS FOREVER so much seeing the current series trend towards that future, even to the point of Captain America being essentially in charge of the Galactic forces against the Engineers and Thanos, creeps me out all the more.

I'm hoping this is something that gets addressed and is intentional on Hickman's part.

As for the Ultraverse, I read the occasional issue of Prime bu the real draw for me was Ultraforce. Perez was what made me buy that series and I enjoyed it.

Gentlemen all, great episode as always. I really enjoy any marathon episodes you do, they make the work day pass all that much more pleasantly.

And Chris...? Great to have you on-board on a pretty much regular basis as an official Geek.

Corwin

Avengers Forever #10



Who were the Infinites? At first I thought the image was the Star Brand but it seems different.

Corwin

It took me a while but I found it...

LibraryBoy

I'm pretty underread in this era of Avengers. though it doesn't sound like I missing a lot pre-Busiek. But what I have read of that Busiek run is outstanding, and I need to go back and read the whole thing one of these years.

And Avengers Forever is, of course, a masterwork.

I laughed when @Adam_Murdough brought up that series of Marvel annuals that introduced all of the new characters and their respective polybagged trading cards. The only annual I bought that year was Captain America Annual #12, which introduced... The Battling Bantam! I figured that if my first exposure to that particular initiative brought me a boxing chicken-themed character, then I was pretty much done with the Marvel annuals for that year. L-)

As for the Ultraverse, the only book from that line I've read any significant amount of was James Robinson's Firearm, which was about an ex-pat Brit P.I. (and former Special Forces op) whose work routinely brought him into contact with Ultras (most of whom he hated), and that book was all kinds of excellent. I've meant to explore a few more corners of that particular universe (particularly Prime) but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

tommysheroes

More Chris Eberle! Loving him being on the show so often.

alienal

Good job once again guys! I bought Avengers only sporadically pre-Busiek, but I do remember some of the story lines. I guess I either borrowed my friends' copies or I put together the storylines in my head even though I bought sporadically. Even so, I enjoyed hearing the summary and in fact I might go back and actually BUY some of the issues you mentioned, even those in the leather jacket era. Of course, the Busiek-era all the way to Ultron was immensely entertainly EITHER because of the artwork by Perez/Ordway OR because of the story by Busiek. I even enjoyed the Triathlon/Triune Understanding plot. I've never completely finished Avengers Forever. I have the 1st 7 issues and need to dig up the last few.

RobAnderson

I thought I was going to have a hard time getting through the "Chromium Age" episode...but it was well worth it for the latter half of the episode where you discussed two of my favorite runs/series of all time -- Busiek/Perez on Avengers Volume 3, and Avengers Forever.

Both books managed to recapture the joy of the Avengers from my childhood, but with an updated, more "modern" flavor.

Gotta' go re-read Avengers Forever in anticipation of the upcoming episode...(hopefully upcoming...)

Thanks for another great episode, guys!

GrayKnox

Am I right in thinking that Bob Harris wrote the Gatherers storyline wherein alternate universe evil Avengers come and kill their analogs in the 616 and that now that he's an editor at DC we're getting Forever Evil wherein alternate universe Justice Leaguers come and kill their analogs in DC's mainstream continuity?

I agree with Adam. Harris is a problem at DC. I just didn't know it had gotten so bad that he was making his own 20-years stale ideas from Marvel (which apparently were not that great to start with) the event of the year.