Avengers in the 1960s
The genesis of the Avengers began when Marvel’s then publisher, Martin Goodwin, saw how well Justice League of America was selling at DC Comics. He then told Stan Lee to create a hero book of their own using their stable of pre-existing superheroes. The original team of Avengers consisted of the heroes who made regular appearances in Marvel’s monthly horror/sci-fi anthologies. Ant-Man and the Wasp were taken from Tales to Astonish, Thor was out of Journey into Mystery, and Iron Man came from Tales of Suspense. Also included was the Hulk whose own book the Incredible Hulk was shuttered.
The first issue was written by Stan Lee with art by Jack Kirby. It featured a story where Loki’s attempted to manipulate his step-brother Thor into a fight with the Hulk. This inciting incident would lead to the formation of the Avengers. Also, since this was a Jack Kirby co-creation, it also saw the Teen Brigade a group of Ham Radio enthusiasts led by Rick Jones, previously the Hulk’s sidekick. If you know Jack Kirby’s work, you know that one of his tropes was trying to cram a team of kids into his stories (the Young Allies, the Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, take your pick) Thankfully, the Teen Brigade — just like the Ham Radio — wasn’t long for the Avengers. They were pretty useless anyway. Lee and Kirby also repeated some of the same elements that made their previous team book — the Fantastic Four — so successful in that the Avengers all fought with each other. However, instead of a team that was a family, the Avengers evolved into a team that would regularly change its roster, kind of like the Justice League. In issue #2, Ant-Man was upgraded to Giant-Man and the Hulk quit the team.
Issue #4 would be the most iconic issue of the decade as it saw the return of Captain America, a character Kirby created for Timely Comics back in 1941. Prior to this, Captain America had been on a hiatus after a failed attempt to revive the character in the mid-50s. In issue #4, Captain America is revealed to have been frozen in suspended animation since 1945, making him a man out of time. It also revealed that Cap’s wartime partner, Bucky Barnes, died tragically. This would cause some issues with continuity because of the Timely/Atlas Captain America stories that were published through to the 1950s, but that ultimately gets resolved in the pages of Captain America and we’ll get into that some other time. Another thing to mention about this issue, however, is how the death of Bucky defined who Captain America was in his early career. You also used to always rely on the fact that no matter what happened in the Marvel Universe, Bucky — just like Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben — would always be dead… That was until 2005, but again, that’s another story for another time.
Issue #6, Lee and Kirby also introduced the Avengers opposite, the Masters of Evil, which was formed by Baron Zemo, one of Captain America’s wartime foes. The addition of Zemo is interesting since Captain America’s greatest foe to date was the Red Skull, who doesn’t get reintroduced into the mythos until Captain America was given a regular feature in Tales of Suspense. Speculation on my part, but I wonder if the creation of Baron Zemo was because they hadn’t figured a way to reintroduce the Red Skull in a way that would appease censors at the Comics Code Authority, who — at the time — were at their most strict.
Jack Kirby’s last issue on the Avengers was issue #8 which introduced a new villain, Kang the Conqueror a time traveler from the distant future who would become one of the Avengers’ most enduring foes.
Starting with issue #9, Don Heck took over regular art duties. If you’ve read my primer on Tales of Suspense you already know I fucking hate Don Heck’s artwork. In my opinion, it is ugly, sloppy, unappealing, and that he was the worst artist in Marvel’s stable in that era. Still, despite this eyesore of an artist penciling the Avengers still hit quite a few milestones. Issue #9 introduced Wonder Man. Wonder Man is interesting in that there is a lot of manufactured drama around the character thanks to Stan Lee. Reading the story, he was clearly intended to be a one-off character. Lee once did an interview with a fanzine where he said they realized that DC Comics already had a character named Wonder Man (who appeared in Superman #163) In that interview, Lee decided to kill off Marvel’s Wonder Man after one issue. By 1978, Lee later claimed that DC Comics threatened to sue them for having a character named Wonder Man since it infringed on their Wonder Woman character. However, if you look to see if any such lawsuit was filed, you quickly discover that Stan Lee is full of shit. There was a Wonder Man lawsuit, in 1939, between National Comics (the precursor to DC Comics) and Burns Publications, Inc. over Will Eisner’s Wonder Man character due to his alleged similarities to Superman. Since a lot of Stan Lee’s creations were cribbed from the 30s (See Spider-Man), I wouldn’t be surprised if Lee took this story and repurposed it to create drama between Marvel and DC. The reason I suspect this is because in the 70s, Stan had this massive fear that other people were going to make female versions of popular Marvel characters. This prompted him to have creative teams create female versions of established heroes in order to prevent someone else from beating them to the punch. See She-Hulk and Spider-Woman. So I think that there was some projecting on Stan’s part. Regardless, Wonder Man was a one-note character until DC Comics came up with a Power Girl character when Marvel was promoting its own Power Man series, and all of a sudden, they had an excuse to bring Wonder Man back. This would come with its own challenges, which I will get into later. Needless to say, It’s my opinion that the whole Wonder Man issue was manufactured by Stan Lee to generate hype when the character came back, but I digress.
Another iconic character from this period was Immortus, who appeared in issue #10. Immortus, another time traveler, would later be revealed to be the older version of Kang and his interference in the lives of the Avengers would later be revealed as part of a massive time-spanning scheme. It’s way to complicated to go over here but see Avengers Forever.
From there, it was a low point. The stories were not all that memorable. They were one-note tales having the Avengers fighting previously established characters or shoe-horning the Hulk for no apparent reason. Issue #13 introduced the Maggia crime family and Count Nefaria. The Maggia, of course, is a play on the mafia. I guess they changed the name because they were afraid to be whacked by some mobsters? I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, most of these Don Heck stories can be skimmed because they aren’t very memorable. Things finally liven up a bit in issues #15 and 16. Issue #15 saw the final battle between Captain America and Baron Zemo that ends in Zemo’s death. This gave Captain America some sense of closure… At least for a little while, because writers would find other opportunities to have Cap lament over the “death” of Bucky. Issue #16 is also iconic because this was the first time that the Avengers saw reorganization. The founding members — Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp — decided to take a leave of absence from the team, leaving Captain America to form a new group. “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” saw an Avengers team that were all former criminals seeking to reform. It included Hawkeye, who got his start in Tales of Suspense who was so pussy whipped by the Black Widow he’d help her try and destroy Iron Man for Russia. Joining him were Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch who were former members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, even though they weren’t actually mutants, but that’s not something we learn until many, many years later. It was a surprise to everyone, including Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.
This new team saw Captain America in an official leadership role dealing with untested heroes who didn’t necessarily respect him — especially Hawkeye. The stories aren’t really that great. Heck’s artwork stinks and Stan Lee’s storytelling is strained. There were some new characters introduced here and there like the Swordsman (issue #19), and Power Man (issue #21) but there was not much to write home about. By this time, Giant-Man and the Wasp were the only characters from the original team who couldn’t sustain themselves in their own book. They were eventually pulled from Tales to Astonish, a book they shared with the Hulk, and were brought back to the Avengers in issue #28. This time, Hank Pym would change his name to Goliath because he ends up getting stuck at his super-human height, at least for a little while.
Issue #32 and 33 saw the introduction of the first African-American character in the Avengers, Bill Foster a lab assistant working for Goliath. It also saw the introduction of the Sons of the Serpent, Marvel’s answer to the KKK. While this could have been an interesting attempt to comment on the Civil Rights Movement, Stan Lee flubbed any profound meaning by revealing that the leader of the Sons of the Serpent was a Chinese operative trying to trick Americans into being bigots because …. communism? A common trope of that era of comics, but such a missed opportunity to say something profound. From there issue #34 introduced the Living Laser, Issue #39 also saw Stan Lee pass on writing duties to Roy Thomas, who would take the series to new heights. However, it would take some time for Thomas to find his stride. I’d like to think that although Roy Thomas wrote these stories, they were probably based on plots pre-written by Lee, but that’s speculation on my part. Issue #38 saw Hercules migrate from guest starring in Journey into Mystery alongside Thor into regular appearances in the Avengers.. At least for a little while.
The depiction of Hercules in this series is interesting because they clearly ripped off the look popularized by actor Steve Reeves, who appeared in a number of low budget Hercules films best known for their DEEP HURTING than any quality. They went from flat out pointing out the character looks like Reeves to later having the character shave his beard for no reason I can fathom other than making him look even blander under Don Heck’s pencils.
Things started getting better around issue #41 when John Buscema took penciling the Avengers. After Buscema got his stride things really picked up from there. Things started picking up and the stories go so much better. So many iconic Avengers characters and events happen. Issue #48 introduced the heroic Black Knight. In issue #52 we saw the Black Panther join the Avengers as well as introduced the Grim Reaper. Issues #54-55 brought back the Masters of Evil and introduced Ultron. The Vision appeared next in issue #57. Issues #59-60 had Goliath become Yellowjacket and marry the Wasp. Issue #63 saw Hawkeye become the new Goliath. The decade rounded itself off with one of the most epic stories of all.
It saw Kang the Conqueror enter into a contest with the Grandmaster, pitting the Avengers against other champions. In issue #70, they fought a rival group called the Squadron Sinister. The members of the Squadron Sinister looked very familiar. They were intentionally patterned after members of the Justice League of America. This would be the closest thing to a crossover between the Avengers and the JLA until Marvel and DC eventually agreed to work together and do an official crossover in the early 2000s.
The Avengers ended the 60s on a high note which they would continue to ride high into the 70s a decade that will have its own ups and downs for the team, but that’s a story for another day.
Note: I have included Avengers #1.5 in this index. Although published in 1999, this comic was intended to take place between issues #1 and 2. It paid homage to the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby era. I’ve included it here because it can fit in with the original Avengers run as though it was published in that era.
