I’m back! With most of 1967 finished now! I’m really starting to get into the reading more now, and am enjoying some of the stories more then before.  I really think I just needed to get acclimated to the ’60’s style of writing. Or,  I just needed to get to a point that Roy Thomas was writing everything. LOL.

In all honesty, I think that has a lot to do with my increased enjoyment. My husband, C, put it perfectly when I was trying to explain why I prefer Thomas’s writing to Stan Lee’s. He said that Stan Lee is a lot like George Lucas. He’s AMAZING at world-building, big idea stuff. But when it comes to the details and the human relationships, he’s better when he has help. I think C nailed it. Stan and Jack Kirby created an amazing world with amazing characters within the Marvel 616. But when it comes to writing the day-to-day stories of those characters, Stan is better as an editor and not the writer.

With that said, let’s talk Avengers. I’ve now read through Avengers 42, but we’re only going to talk about Avengers #39 & 40 today. Like I said earlier, I’ve read most of the way through 1967, and I think we need to break it up over multiple posts! So…here we go!

In issue 39, the Avengers are captured by the Mad Thinker and his Triumvirate of Terror (Hammerhead, Pile Driver, and Thunder Boot). Cap is still gone, and everyone thinks Black Widow is a traitor. (We knows she’s not, obvi! But poor Hawkeye isn’t too sure.) Anyway, Mad Thinker succeeds in capturing all the Avengers and is holding them prisoner in Avengers Mansion. Just when it looks like he’s won, Hercules returns from a night on the town and saves the day. Guys, I love Hercules. He’s so powerful, and so full of himself. It’s like having Thor around, but with more self-importance. Where 60’s Thor can sometimes pull his punches literally and figuratively when dealing with mortals, Herc is always Herc. He goes full boar always, demolishing anything in his way (including Goliath’s training equipment) and constantly complaining that he’s not being challenged by the mortals and super-villains he fights. It’s what I imagine hanging out with Kayne West is like. Dude is totally in love with himself, but he’s so good, you kind of can’t fault him.

Another thing I love is the attention to continuity and the timelines paid in the early years. Right now, in Tales of Suspense, Cap is off chasing a lead that may take him to Bucky, and is undercover pretending to work with Red Skull. So, he’s missing from the Avenger’s adventures and they make mention of his exploits. It’s nice. It seems that so often with current comics, the timelines don’t add up, or characters are everywhere at once when stories are supposed to be taking place simultaneously. Wolverine, for example, spent years on the X-Men or Uncanny X-Force, but was also an Avenger, and had a least one current continuity solo series going on. No way he’s in all those places at once. It gets confusing…

I know it’s harder to do now that there are so many monthly on-goings. I get it. But it’s refreshing to read this older stuff and have the characters only on one adventure at a time. It grounds the 616 in a bit more reality. And that’s the end of my little rant.

Let’s talk about X-Men 31, shall we? Here, the X-Men battle Cobalt Man, and we get to see a bit more of our teenagers’ lives outside of their costumes. The Professor tries to play match-maker with Scott and Jean (You go, Chuck!!) by asking Scott to take some library books back to Jean at school on the boy’s night off. Warren offers to drive him (because, you know, dumb love triangle. GRR). Bobby and Hank head to the Village to see their girlfriends.

Meanwhile, Jean is on a date of sorts with Ted. They’ve met up with his older brother Ralph. Ralph is a scientist who is trying to create armor like Iron Man’s to give to the government. The three of them meet up with Scott and Warren for dinner, and then they go to Ralph’s labs. Warren doesn’t go, clearly seeing how into each other Scott and Jean are, and decides to go out on his own. (*insert happy dance here*)

While at the labs, Ralph, who has a concussion, tries on his suit for Ted and he loses it a bit. He goes crazy, and decides to go after Iron Man. Scott and Jean rush into action, and the Prof telepathically sends the other three to help them. They manage to stop Ralph before his suit blows up from radiation, and he comes to with no memory of what happened after he hit his head. But, in the last panel, Ted hints to Marvel Girl that he may know she’s really Jean Grey!

We’ll see how that revelation plays out going forward, especially if Ted begins to see Scott as a threat for Jean’s affections (which he should!) It’s a lot of fun to see Cyke and Marvel Girl fight together. We get to see the beginning of the spark these two grow to have on the battle field. They become a seamless pair in many ways, and this seems like a nice beginning. It’s also about time that Warren moved on from Jean, and it’s nice to see that happening. He meets up with his old friend Candy in this issue, and they seem to hit it off right away.

So, with that thought reassuring my Cyclops-loving heart, let’s head back over to NYC and Avengers Mansion, shall we? Avengers 40!  Cap is still gone, “working” with Red Skull. Widow is still undercover in the “Far East”. Wanda is bed-ridden. (The Mad Thinker caused her hex power to kind of back-fire on her last issue, and it’s messed her up a bit.) The Avengers receive a message from Cap that they need to try to go find the Cosmic Cube (for those who’ve seen the Marvel movies, this is what they call the Tesseract in the MCU). They head off towards the coordinates Cap left them, but meanwhile, Namor is headed there too. It seems there have been submarines in his neck of the ocean, and he’s not happy about it. He’s headed to the naval base to destroy all the subs. When the Avengers (plus Hercules) arrive, they battle Namor thinking he’s after the cube as well. Namor manages to get his hands on the cube, and is winning the battle, when his pride kicks in. He wants to fight Hercules on even terms to prove he’s better. During the battle, the Wasp manages to get him to drop the Cosmic Cube, but it falls into a crack in the ocean floor before anyone can get it. It lands near the Earth’s core, where it is discovered by Mole Man, who just as quickly tosses it away, not realizing what it is!!

This was a fun issue. I always love seeing Namor, and it’s fun to watch he and Hercules battle. They’re basically evenly matched strength-wise, and Namor’s ego could give Herc’s a run for it’s money. This is also the last issue in this trade, so we’ll be moving on next post!

X-Men #32 is the beginning of a two-issue arc, so we’ll talk about that next time. Just know, I’m about to get really excited about the return of a certain giant bad guy!

So, until next time, my lovelies…keep searching!