The Avengers: A Back Story

It took 18 issues for the Avengers to assemble...

Avengers issues #1, #4, #16 and #18

The Avengers movie was fantastic. Bright, smart, powerful CGI but with some terrific acting and a story that held together really well. Now the third top-grossing movie of all time (and no DVD yet) it still has some life in it yet. I didn’t read the original comics when they first came out (too young and in the wrong country) but I did find them later as re-issues and collector’s items. Of course the movie reinvents the origins of this band of super heroes to meet the demands of modern taste and tie up some loose ends that hadn’t even been thought of in those early pioneering years of the 1960s. Although Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk fought Loki in the very first Avengers’ appearance, Iron Man didn’t have his fancy red and gold suit, Captain America did not appear until issue 4, Hawkeye came around in issue 16 and Natasha Romanov was introduced as Hawkeye’s devious beau in issue 18. Incidentally, the Goliath of issue 18 was a souped-up version of the original Ant Man who appeared in the first issue.

How times have changed! For more info on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s epic comic creations being turned into big-time movies there’s more here, and for details on Don Heck who took over the illustration work on the Avengers from Kirby by issue 9, and pencilled many of the original stories for Iron Man, Daredevil and the like, see here.

I hope you like this stuff! I’ll be looking at some more movie posters next.