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Post by Shiryu on Jan 29, 2008 20:04:37 GMT -5
Let's see if we can manage to make the board a bit more lively. I take the idea straight from Dr.Bong's great polls, hope it's fine for him. This is a poll to rate Avengers #1, the 22 pages that gave birth to everything. How do you rate that issue overall? plot, art, characterization, making sense etc. The choices are 1 (very low/abysmal) to 8 (very high/perfect). Obviously discuss your opinions here, so we can have some constructive talking  |
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Post by Engage on Jan 29, 2008 20:51:51 GMT -5
One. This feels like comics blasphemy but that thing is unreadable.
Its got the Stan Lee insanity with none of the Stan Lee awesome. The thing makes no sense, even for the Silver Age.
Every character is boring and two-dimensional. They refuse to stay in the same dimension for more than a page at a time.
The book feels about a hundred pages long. It feels like five pages stretched to twenty.
The moments with the juggling Hulk and the ants bringing him down are pretty cool, but they can't save it.
It just doesn't hold up at all from my perspective. Nothing pops out to me in this one.
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Post by scottharris on Jan 29, 2008 23:17:02 GMT -5
I gave it a two. Not close to anybody's best effort here. The plot serves its purpose -- it gets everyone together. Otherwise, it's pretty haphazard and weird.
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Post by Tana Nile on Jan 29, 2008 23:46:57 GMT -5
Put me down for a three. It's just a weak story all the way around. The whole group doesn't really come together til the end, Thor's off doing his own thing, and the others are all fighting the Hulk. To be honest, I don't think the book really hit its stride til the kooky quartet era.
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Post by dlw66 on Jan 30, 2008 8:39:47 GMT -5
To be honest, I don't think the book really hit its stride til the kooky quartet era.  Tana, I just said the same thing over in Nutcase's "mind-numbing reading" thread!! Great minds think alike! I'd say a 3. Not so hot overall. But, each issue got a little better, and things really started clicking once Cap arrived. The book really get rolling (at least for me) with issue #19. Consistent quality art and story after that. |
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Post by Shiryu on Jan 30, 2008 11:39:45 GMT -5
It's a 4 for me, but it would be 1 or 2 if not for the importance that this issue had for the Avengers. The art is overall ok, even though I've seen Kirby do better, but the plot was... blah, and feels more like a crossover between different series than the origin of a team book (Thor wanting to work with Ant-Man regularly is like Galactus starting a partership with the Black Widow... what would he need her for?).
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Post by Tana Nile on Jan 30, 2008 13:21:55 GMT -5
Thor wanting to work with Ant-Man regularly is like Galactus starting a partership with the Black Widow... what would he need her for?. ;D that's hysterical, but totally right on. Is it any wonder Pym has always had a huge chip on his shoulder. I mean look at that first meeting: Ant-Man: Hi everybody. I'm Ant-Man. I can shrink to the size of an ant, hitch a ride on flying ants, and I can also order ants to obey me. And who are you? Thor: I am Thor, the God of Thunder, son of Almighty Odin of Asgard! I am superhumanly strong, nearly invulnerable, and I possess my mystic hammer, which allows me to fly, control the weather, project energy beams, and anything else the writer wants me to do at the moment. Ant-Man: uh, I need to go to my lab. |
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Post by spiderwasp on Jan 30, 2008 23:39:35 GMT -5
I gave it a 3. Certainly not the best of stories but it served its function. Luckily, as has been pointed out, things continually got better. Major improvements started with the arrival of Captain America and the book took an even bigger jump with Cap's kooky quartet. Soon after that, when original members started coming back, it really hit its stride. That stride continued for quite a long time with only short term setbacks until Onslaught and Heroes Reborn when it hit a low that was far below issue #1. The roller coaster went back to the top like it was shot out of a cannon (Kind of like the Hulkcoaster at Universal) with the return. There were loops and dips in the years that followed until finally Bendis sabatoged the track and it jumped it altogether.
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Post by Bored Yesterday on Feb 5, 2008 8:55:33 GMT -5
I gave it a 3. It's a pretty terrible plot. I mean ... the team is assembled practically by accident. The only reason I didn't give it a 1, is because as a prelude to greatness, it can ride the coattails of its successors a little bit. That, an that awesome panel of Hulk dressed up like a clown, juggling elephants. T-shirt request!
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Post by starfoxxx on Feb 6, 2008 13:00:28 GMT -5
I gave it a 2, mostly because I love me some Jack Kirby. But after reading the original Ultimates series, Avengers #1 seems like one of those crappy "Marvel Fairy Tales" comics.
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Post by ultron69 on May 8, 2009 7:49:56 GMT -5
Call me a softie. I gave it a 4. Largely because of its imporance, but we must also judge it against the poor standards of 1963. Most team book back then had little characterization, and pretty run-of-the-mill plots. True, their reason for getting together was weaker than most teams, but Kirby makes up for that somewhat.
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