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Post by Marvel Boy on Aug 12, 2014 22:06:59 GMT -5
What are some of your favorite Avengers moments involving female members?
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 13, 2014 17:35:12 GMT -5
Wasp taking the gavel as the first female chair of the group.
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 13, 2014 17:35:58 GMT -5
Stature kicking tail at the climax of Secret Invasion.
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Post by spiderwasp on Aug 13, 2014 23:41:37 GMT -5
There are many and this is a small one but... I loved when Tigra talked Captain Marvel through her fears by telling her how scared she was against the Molecule Man. It was just a nice human moment.
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 14, 2014 6:48:41 GMT -5
There are many and this is a small one but... I loved when Tigra talked Captain Marvel through her fears by telling her how scared she was against the Molecule Man. It was just a nice human moment. This is a good one! While we're on human moments, how about Espirita talking Dr. Pym back from the edge of suicide in West Coast Avengers? |
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Post by bobc on Aug 14, 2014 7:40:15 GMT -5
I liked when the Scarlet Witch brought down the meteorite on one of Kang's robots in that Giant Size Avengers annual.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 14, 2014 19:52:38 GMT -5
Wasp taking the gavel as the first female chair of the group. My frame of reference is--surprise!--the Silver Age, so when you mentioned Jan as the chairperson I immediately thought back to #38, in which she's the chairperson and running the meeting. Back in those old SA days, I guess the Avengers chairperson was supposed to be a more or less rotating position. But I know you're referring to much later on when she became the official "chair"/leader, and you're right--it was a great moment for Jan. And speaking of the wonderful Wasp: not only did she come up with the team name and the Vision's name  , but she plays a prominent role in one of the most classic panels in Avengers history. It's from the epochal issue #4, when the dumbfounded team is gathered around the frozen figure they've just discovered in the sea. It's Jan who cuts through all the confusion and sets everyone straight: "Wait! Don't you recognize it? It's the famous red, white and blue garb of Captain America!" Man, I still get chills whenever I see that panel. A truly unforgettable scene. A few later years later, another of my favorite moments is when the Black Widow saves the day by threatening to kill the enemy (Ixar) in #37, much to his--and Hawkeye's--shock. But as she coolly informs them, she's not bound to the Avengers code against killing, since she isn't a member of the team (at that time). Brains, beauty, and a bad-ass attitude...Natasha has it all! |
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 15, 2014 7:19:14 GMT -5
My frame of reference is--surprise!--the Silver Age, so when you mentioned Jan as the chairperson I immediately thought back to #38, in which she's the chairperson and running the meeting. Back in those old SA days, I guess the Avengers chairperson was supposed to be a more or less rotating position. But I know you're referring to much later on when she became the official "chair"/leader, and you're right--it was a great moment for Jan. Interesting. My Silver Age knowledge is sketchy at best, so I never knew it had happened before. Getting some collected editions of issues 1 - 75 or so has been on my to-do list for a while. Maybe I can find good deals on some at Baltimore Comic-Con next month. |
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Post by humanbelly on Aug 15, 2014 21:24:13 GMT -5
I liked when the Scarlet Witch brought down the meteorite on one of Kang's robots in that Giant Size Avengers annual. Rats, rats, RATS, bobc-! You done swiped the very first one I thought of-! It was a great moment, as Wanda at that point seemed to tip-toeing around the edges of fury-driven insanity. IIRC, the robot shell was the one that was powered by an encased Thor. And didn't Iron Man make some comment about wondering why she even needed the rest of the fellas around anymore-? I mean, geeze. . . a METEORITE. . . out of ORBIT! With a GESTURE--!! This was one of those, "Oh MAAAAAAAAN--!!" moments for my buddy and I.  HB |
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Post by humanbelly on Aug 15, 2014 21:39:13 GMT -5
And one that I enjoyed, even though it wasn't particularly important, was Tigra's delightfully in-character reaction to inadvertently discovering Thor & Iron Man's secret identities. The whole grinning, star-struck, giggly, chatter-box aspect of it was hilarious-- although possibly not quite in synch with Greer's original personality template from her CAT days. But. . . I can't say I have any memory of what she was like then, exactly. . .
Many years later, Jan's musing over who she should turn the chairman-reigns over to was a neat, neat look inside the mind and amazingly pragmatic, competent nature of a truly admirable character. It conveyed a welcome, rare level of very recognizable, true humanity in a character we were already very fond of, and achieved the goal of making her seem just like anyone else in the real world.
HB
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Post by bobc on Aug 16, 2014 8:41:40 GMT -5
Hb--In that moment, Wanda went from being a character who could make a framed painting fly across the room at somebody, to an uber powerful female more in the class of Storm. It was exciting to watch. I think I posted this before, but some silver age writer (who was leaving the title) told the guy who was taking over "never let Wanda get too powerful." I never understood that thinking--making Wanda more powerful made her more exciting! It wasn't like she wasn't still vulnerable on a physical level. Anyway--I don't have that issue in front of me, but I thought Hawkeye said something "this ain't the Wanda I used to know" and Iron Man said "If that's what one night with Agatha Harkness looks like, I'd hate to see you in a week." Something like that. IM was right!
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Post by sharkar on Aug 16, 2014 12:09:59 GMT -5
I liked when the Scarlet Witch brought down the meteorite on one of Kang's robots in that Giant Size Avengers annual. Rats, rats, RATS, bobc-! You done swiped the very first one I thought of-! It was a great moment, as Wanda at that point seemed to tip-toeing around the edges of fury-driven insanity. IIRC, the robot shell was the one that was powered by an encased Thor. And didn't Iron Man make some comment about wondering why she even needed the rest of the fellas around anymore-? I mean, geeze. . . a METEORITE. . . out of ORBIT! With a GESTURE--!! This was one of those, "Oh MAAAAAAAAN--!!" moments for my buddy and I. HB And how about when Wanda unleashed her hex/fury at Ultron in #161--not too shabby a showing , right?  |
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Post by sharkar on Aug 16, 2014 12:19:43 GMT -5
Hb--In that moment, Wanda went from being a character who could make a framed painting fly across the room at somebody, to an uber powerful female more in the class of Storm. It was exciting to watch. I think I posted this before, but some silver age writer (who was leaving the title) told the guy who was taking over "never let Wanda get too powerful." I never understood that thinking--making Wanda more powerful made her more exciting! It wasn't like she wasn't still vulnerable on a physical level. Yeah, I've seen quite a few versions of this story online and elsewhere, about different writers. Here I think the "some silver age writer" you're referring to is Roy Thomas, when he handed over the Avengers writing reins to Englehart. While Thomas didn't really make imaginative use of Wanda's powers (IMO) back then, my interpretation of this instruction is that he may have been cautioning Englehart not to fall into the trap of making Wanda a dea ex machina. I'd like to think that Thomas would have said the same thing about, say, Dr. Strange or Franklin Richards. |
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Post by humanbelly on Aug 16, 2014 20:55:07 GMT -5
Rats, rats, RATS, bobc-! You done swiped the very first one I thought of-! It was a great moment, as Wanda at that point seemed to tip-toeing around the edges of fury-driven insanity. IIRC, the robot shell was the one that was powered by an encased Thor. And didn't Iron Man make some comment about wondering why she even needed the rest of the fellas around anymore-? I mean, geeze. . . a METEORITE. . . out of ORBIT! With a GESTURE--!! This was one of those, "Oh MAAAAAAAAN--!!" moments for my buddy and I. HB And how about when Wanda unleashed her hex/fury at Ultron in #161--not too shabby a showing , right? It was mightily impressive, yes indeed it was. Although from the standpoint of pure theatrical spectacle, it maybe didn't quite have the same over-the-top "ooomph", y'know? What I thought was interesting is that it showed a particular obvious vulnerability in Ultron that hardly ever got exploited after that-- that he could be defeated by magic (or it's probability-altering equivalent). Dr. Strange therefor would be of great use against Ultron. Heck, the Juggernaut might be able to go toe-to-toe w/ him physically. Does anyone out there remember that in one of the early Kooky Quartet outings, Wanda got into a "magical" shoot-out w/ the Enchantress (half-powered, admittedly), and that the two of them were locked in an energy-discharge stalemate? I think it was very shortly after this that her endless power-instability dramas began to take the stage. Hey, I know a lot of folks hated her, but the scene where Mantis first encounters the group and sort of does a one-woman ambush and takes everyone down for a minute was pretty impressive. Her taking Thor down w/ a nerve-punch is still pretty hard to swallow, though. . . HB |
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Post by bobc on Aug 17, 2014 11:36:45 GMT -5
HB--I remember an annual where Wanda fought the Enchantress to a standstill, another great battle! I think it was when Goliath and the Wasp came back though--could be wrong.Yeah Wanda's powers were all over the place back in the day. It was so annoying when she'd practically pass out after one useless hex. She is way more interesting these days.
Anyway, speaking of the Wasp, in yet another annual,she had a great moment. I'm talking about the time the Avengers were fighting the Super Adaptoid, and for a few pages the Wasp fights him solo! She shrunk him down, stung him and then threw him at a tree! It was one of the few times the Wasp really stepped up to the plate in the good old days.
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Post by bobc on Aug 17, 2014 11:37:10 GMT -5
PS: Hi Sharky!
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Post by sharkar on Aug 18, 2014 14:10:35 GMT -5
Hiya Bob! It's always great to hear from you--hope you're enjoying the summer. And that moment you refer to about the Wasp and the Super Adaptoid, it was actually in Avengers #45 (not the Annual that was puiblished at around that time, Avengers Annual/ King-Size Special #1). But no matter--I always love to read your comments about Wasp and Wanda, two of my all-time favorite Avengers. Btw Avengers #45 was the first Avengers comic I ever owned/read, so apart from being a good all-around issue, it's also a sentimental favorite of mine. |
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Post by bobc on Aug 18, 2014 17:10:08 GMT -5
Hey--no one has ever accused me of being good with dates! I stand corrected! But was I right about the Enchantress/SW fight being in an Annual? I think it was in the one you mentioned.Anyway--the first Avengers I recall buying was #102, which featured the Vision being offered the body of Simon Williams. I still think that was a great storyline. I really started seriously collecting the Avengers with issue #105.
Back to favorite female Avenger moments! One of my all time favorites is the She Hulk mainly because of her fun personality and the fact that it was never made very clear how strong she was. That made it interesting to me.I can't think of a single great moment but I loved when she and the Avengers took on Zeus and the other Olympians in the 80's."Under Siege" got all the headlines but that Olympus storyline was just as good IMO. What a great era! Of course when you have John b and Tom P on art, I'm going to love it!
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 19, 2014 7:53:08 GMT -5
. One of my all time favorites is the She Hulk .... Ditto this! How about the long-running saga of Jen's personality triumphing over her awful early costumes? Remember the pink, frilly thing? Yechh. |
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Post by sharkar on Aug 19, 2014 18:18:29 GMT -5
Hey--no one has ever accused me of being good with dates! I stand corrected! But was I right about the Enchantress/SW fight being in an Annual? I think it was in the one you mentioned... Yes, you're 100% correct, Bob --Wanda certainly held her own in that great battle with the Enchantress in that Avengers Annual/Special #1 (1967)--even if ol' Hercules had to step in and save the day! This was when Roy Thomas seemed to be setting up a romance between Wanda and Herc. But almost immediately within a few issues Thomas proceeded to disassemble "my" Avengers team: Hercules returned to Olympus, Wanda and Pietro left, and Natasha gave up her Black Widow identity for a while and stopped appearing in the Avengers comic. Of course it wasn't long before T'Challa and then the Vision joined the team (with Vizh becoming one of the longest-tenured Avengers)...but I remember being sooo angry when the team's composition changed so drastically back then. |
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Post by spiderwasp on Aug 19, 2014 20:33:45 GMT -5
Back to favorite female Avenger moments! One of my all time favorites is the She Hulk mainly because of her fun personality and the fact that it was never made very clear how strong she was. I love She-Hulk too. One of my favorite moments was when she and Hawkeye had their initial run-in concerning her car in her first appearance. |
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Post by bobc on Aug 20, 2014 7:56:45 GMT -5
Not to be "ants at a picnic," but the Wasp's worst moment IMO was when the Avengers fought the Sub-Mariner back in the 60's. Jan attacked him and thought to herself something to the effect of "Talk about wishful thinking--I hit him with everything I've got and all I got out of it was a bent stinger." And, indeed, her "sting" was just a needle on a wrist band and it was bent! Now maybe I'm crazy, but you don't go up against the Sub-Mariner with what amounts to a glorified push pin as a weapon! You're just asking for it! The Wasp has come a long way since those days.
Hey, speaking of, which female character do you guys think has come the furthest since her beginning few years? For me it's a toss up between the Wasp and Scarlet Witch, with the Invisible Girl/Woman coming in at 3rd place. My GOD she was useless in the beginning--she was kidnapped almost every issue! I was reading one of the early Essential FF editions that had the first twenty something issues all put together, and I was laughing at how often Sue was taken prisoner! The Wasp was also kidnapping bait for several years.
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Post by humanbelly on Aug 20, 2014 21:06:31 GMT -5
Not to be "ants at a picnic," but the Wasp's worst moment IMO was when the Avengers fought the Sub-Mariner back in the 60's. Jan attacked him and thought to herself something to the effect of "Talk about wishful thinking--I hit him with everything I've got and all I got out of it was a bent stinger." And, indeed, her "sting" was just a needle on a wrist band and it was bent! Now maybe I'm crazy, but you don't go up against the Sub-Mariner with what amounts to a glorified push pin as a weapon! You're just asking for it! The Wasp has come a long way since those days. Hey, speaking of, which female character do you guys think has come the furthest since her beginning few years? For me it's a toss up between the Wasp and Scarlet Witch, with the Invisible Girl/Woman coming in at 3rd place. My GOD she was useless in the beginning--she was kidnapped almost every issue! I was reading one of the early Essential FF editions that had the first twenty something issues all put together, and I was laughing at how often Sue was taken prisoner! The Wasp was also kidnapping bait for several years. Any of them, bobc-- ANY of them. When you read a lot of those earliest issues of most of these titles, it's painfully clear what a product of the hopelessly sexist, chauvinistic times Stan was. His writing and handling of them seems to reveal an opinion that women are not exactly "people" the way that men are, but are rather this "other" type of creature that is certainly dear and wonderful-- but are also inherently fragile, delicate, and easily overcome by their emotions; that are incapable of surviving any kind of physical demand; and that have (as a race) this depth of unfathomable, nigh-mystic "intuition" that they can rely on to help them survive in moments of extremis. Really, I'm not joshing-- I've found myself feeling sorry for Stan, because it seems like he couldn't possibly have had any women friends back then, as he seemed to keep them on pedestal even as he had them figuratively locked in an ivory tower (so to speak). HB (whose best pals are women, which is why it makes me crazy. . .) |
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Post by wundagoreborn on Aug 21, 2014 7:19:22 GMT -5
Second this. The changes in treatment of female characters from the early 60s to the early 80s were not so much character development as cultural development. Character development began when the women were conceived as real people to begin with.
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Post by starfoxxx on Aug 21, 2014 16:23:21 GMT -5
It's hard for me to pinpoint ONE particular favorite moment without a little research......and I'm REALLY busy in summertime....but I think my moment would be an interaction with She-Hulk.
My initial love of the Avengers was from the ages of 9-14, so that's probably why I've always counted Shulkie and Tigra as favorites (they were Avengers in the 80s and they were sexy.....Wasp was past her "sexy" costume stage by the 80s, her most unappealing phase being that nightmare look from Secret Wars, IMO).
I always liked the looks of Hellcat and Moondragon, too. Go figure!
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Post by starfoxxx on Aug 21, 2014 16:34:55 GMT -5
[/quote]Any of them, bobc-- ANY of them. When you read a lot of those earliest issues of most of these titles, it's painfully clear what a product of the hopelessly sexist, chauvinistic times Stan was. His writing and handling of them seems to reveal an opinion that women are not exactly "people" the way that men are, but are rather this "other" type of creature that is certainly dear and wonderful-- but are also inherently fragile, [/quote] Well, at risk of p!ssing off the hardcore Stan Lee lovers on these boards, I feel Stan might not have been in a "60s" misogynistic "phase". Anyone ever heard of "STRIPPERELLA" (circa 2003)  I'll always give credit when it's due, but IMHO, Stan is a business shyster whose actions would even make Gene Simmons blush! A fantastic storyteller though. |
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Post by humanbelly on Aug 21, 2014 22:03:30 GMT -5
Any of them, bobc-- ANY of them. When you read a lot of those earliest issues of most of these titles, it's painfully clear what a product of the hopelessly sexist, chauvinistic times Stan was. His writing and handling of them seems to reveal an opinion that women are not exactly "people" the way that men are, but are rather this "other" type of creature that is certainly dear and wonderful-- but are also inherently fragile, [/quote] Well, at risk of p!ssing off the hardcore Stan Lee lovers on these boards, I feel Stan might not have been in a "60s" misogynistic "phase". Anyone ever heard of "STRIPPERELLA" (circa 2003) I'll always give credit when it's due, but IMHO, Stan is a business shyster whose actions would even make Gene Simmons blush! A fantastic storyteller though.[/quote] Yeah, that abomination was nothing short of jaw-dropping in its clue-free, misogynistic poor taste. Sure, the character was being developed by, I think, SpikeTV at the time-- so it was aiming for a low-brow, sophomoric demographic. . . but come ON. It's not like it was being created in secret?!! And the fact that it was being "created" by an 80 year old man just made it all the more nauseatingly creepy. Joanie Lee needed to grab Stan by the scruff of the neck at that very moment and pull him off the playground with an unanswerable, "That's it-- you're DONE!!!" HB |
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Post by bobc on Aug 22, 2014 14:48:33 GMT -5
Stripperella? Huh?
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Post by Marvel Boy on Aug 24, 2014 10:30:30 GMT -5
Wow, some great moments listed so far, really awesome to see how far Jan and Wanda have come over the years.
Myself, the two moments that spring to mind foremost come from one of the earliest Avengers issues that I'd ever read, Annual #10.
During Destiny, Mystique, and Rogue's prison break of the rest of the Brotherhood (preceded by the awesome spectacle of Rogue using a paralyzed Iron Man as her own personal missile), Wanda taking out the Blob by herself. Michael Golden's art of that scene was electrifying, Wanda wielding her hex energies to stop a nigh-unmoveable foe, it left a young me awestruck over how powerful she is.
The second moment comes near the end, Carol's dressing-down of the other Avengers over their failure to help her with Marcus. I hadn't read #200 yet so I didn't know the whole entire backstory but it was intense, personal, and a powerful moment. If anything, it showed the younger me that this team perhaps isn't as happy-go-lucky as say, the Justice League normally is. So my interest in the team and their adventures only increased after reading that Annual.
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Post by bobc on Aug 24, 2014 11:36:59 GMT -5
That was a real standout issue, Marv. I thought the art was fantastic and am still surprised that guy didn't go on to become really big. I think he did The Micronauts but after that I don't think I ever heard from him again.
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, but she plays a prominent role in one of the most classic panels in Avengers history. It's from the epochal issue #4, when the dumbfounded team is gathered around the frozen figure they've just discovered in the sea. It's Jan who cuts through all the confusion and sets everyone straight: "Wait! Don't you recognize it? It's the famous red, white and blue garb of Captain America!" Man, I still get chills whenever I see that panel. A truly unforgettable scene. 
