Essential non-Avengers Avengers stories?

[woodside]

As I'm sure some of you are aware, I've had a running blog called the Uncanny X-Periment, where I've been reading all of Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, New X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, and X-Treme X-Men -- as well as key stories in other titles, such as Wolverine, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, Cable, etc.

In theory, if I were to do this for the Avengers, then the obvious choices would be Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Force Works, Avengers Forever, Young Avengers, New Avengers, and Mighty Avengers. But what are essential stories in Avengers-related books?

To clarify, if I wanted a well-rounded Avengers saga experience from the beginning, what do you suggest I read from Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, etc.? What are essential stories?

[Bored Yesterday]

The Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel?

[dlw66]

As long as we're talking graphic novels, The Vault was pretty good, as was The Living Monolith. I'm not sure if those are the titles proper, but the Avengers were prominent in both stories.

Of course, both Secret Wars minis should be included.

Some Silver Age crossovers that should be considered include FF 25-26, X-Men 10, and Avengers 53/X-Men 45.

[Shiryu]

Right... I would definitely say Secret Wars and the "Deathtrap: the Vault" GN. Revenge of the Living Monolith and Death of Captain Marvel are both awesome, but I wouldn't classify them as essential.
The Amazing Spider-Man annual where Photon makes her debut and joins the Avengers is rather important too, and also the Avengers vs X-Men mini.
Can't think to anything else on top of my head, but there will probably be some important FF crossovers too.

[scottharris]

My general rule of thumb for collecting is, if the Avengers appeared on the cover, then I should probably check it out. This is more true of silver and bronze age stuff than later books, where they really started throwing people on covers and in crossovers as cheap marketing ploys instead of as well thought out marketing ploys like the old days. Here are some highlights:

What I would consider essentials would be the major early crossovers in FF #26 (the story, with the Hulk, is continued from #25 but the Avengers don't appear in that issue) and X-Men #9; Amazing Spider-man Annual #3; Captain Marvel #26-34 (or so, the original Thanos storyline) and MTIO Annual #2; and the Avengers-Defender War.

Other crossovers of note would be Hulk #128, MTIO #75 and Justice League of America #87. The Avengers play a key role in a mostly forgotten Kang story that takes place just prior to the beginning of the Celestial Madonna arc; this can be found in MTU #9-11.

As far as the Avengers-related books you mentioned, the Avengers don't figure too heavily in Thor's solo book. They make a couple of cameos of just one or two pages right after Avengers starts, but once Thor left the team in #16, they sort of dropped out of the book for a long time. The mansion and Jarvis appear a lot more often in Thor than the Avengers do. I'd say the only big things for Thor you might want to check out would be the Ragnarok story by Simonson, as the FF and Avengers have some nice appearances around 351-353. Also, there's an Avengers related cover on #390, which is the issue where Captain America lifts the hammer.

The ToS books -- Tales of Suspense itself and later Iron Man and Captain America -- feature more Avengers material. I'd suggest ToS #57-59, three classic issues featuring the 1st Hawkeye, an Avengers cameo and the 1st issue of Cap's solo book. There's a couple more Avengers cameos in later ToS issues that aren't major but help fill in some flavor for the team; one of them (#72 maybe?) is a flashback done in the form of Cap telling a story to the Kooky Quartet. A later issue also features the first appearance of the Avengers-copying villain Adaptoid.

Once the books split, Iron Man has a nice Avengers crossover in #18, which continues into Avengers #69; they also appear in #114, which is connected to the Arsenal story in Annual #9, and #39 which features some of the worst Herb Trimpe art of all time. The Avengers are featured on the cover of Captain America #116. They also feature in a much later story around... 221?... that was pretty good.

[woodside]

Exalts to you, Scott!

I'll be going on the hunt soon for some of those.

[scottharris]

Also, I accidentally left out X-Men #45, which crosses over with Avengers #53. Dr. Strange #178 doesn't have the Avengers in it, but the story is continued in Avengers #61. And Sub-Mariner #35 is notable for an Avengers cover appearance and battle between the Avengers and the Titans Three -- Hulk, Namor and Silver Surfer -- who were later renamed and spun off into their own title as the Defenders.

I've spent quite a lot of time tracking down all the Avengers appearances in other titles prior to around 1985, so I might think of more. But I wouldn't call most of them essential reading, though many have events important to individual characters, such as Quicksilver's wedding to Crystal in Fantastic Four #150, which crosses over into Avengers #127.

[sharkar]

scottharris said:

Also, I accidentally left out X-Men #45, which crosses over with Avengers #53.

Right...Doug mentioned these very issues earlier, and I'd add a mention of X-Men issues #43-#44. Wanda and Pietro appear in these X issues and at the time they were still Avengers, even if hanging on by a thread! (In X-Men #43 they come across as very confused and weak-willed.) At any rate, the story sequence was this: Avengers #47-#49, X-Men #43-#45, then circling back and concluding in Avengers #53. Though I'm sure as an X-fanatic, W, you're already aware of this arc.

The following are probably not all "essential" crossovers/appearances, but may be of interest:

Tales to Astonish #59--Giant Man and Wasp tale vs. the Hulk, the Avengers appear briefly.

Tales to Astonish#78--by this time Namor's feature had replaced Jan and Hank's. Ironically, H and J appear in Namor's story here, and this leads directly to their appearance in Avengers #26...after which they rejoin the Avengers.

Captain America #113-#114: the Avengers appear, mourning Cap's death (!!). Yellowjacket also appears in #115, leading to the appearance Scott cites in #116.

Daredevil #99: the bridge between Avengers #110 and Avengers #111.

You may want to invest in some Essentials, especially Cap #1-#3 and Iron Man #1-#2; these volumes will give you a nice sense of the blossoming Marvel Universe.

EDIT: typos

[scottharris]

sharkar said:

Daredevil #99: the bridge between Avengers #110 and Avengers #111.
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Daredevil #99 is a must have for Hawkeye fans, as it features him tracking down his former girlfriend, Black Widow, and getting in a slapfight with her then-boyfriend Daredevil over her. It's kind of fun to follow Hawkeye around after he left the Avengers in #109; he also briefly joins the Defenders just in time for the Avengers/Defenders war.

[sharkar]

Though I always wondered why Clint comments about her new, "different" look in that DD issue...since he'd seen her new sleek costume (and red hair) back in Avengers #83. Were we to assume he was too busy bantering with Wanda (at the end of #83) to notice his ex-love Natasha?

(Even Marvel asked this question of itself, in a letter column a few issues after #83!)