NOT A REVIEW 002

Another classic comicbook exploration

So, I did something like this in a previous newsletter, where I took a closer look at AVENGERS #158. Here’s exactly what I said at the beginning of that installment: I don’t profess to be a critic. I don’t want to be a critic. Hence, this is absolutely not a review. This is an exploration. Possibly a bit of an excavation. Certain comicbooks -- like this one -- are a deep part of my DNA. And so now I’ll attempt to discuss exactly how -- and possibly why -- they got there…

AVENGERS #194

“Interlude”

David Michelinie – writer

George Pérez – pencils

Josef Rubinstein – inks

Jim Salicrup - editor

The Internet tells me that this comicbook was released on January 15, 1980 (with a cover date of April 1980) and I have no doubt that I managed to snag a copy off the newsstand within mere days of its release. It was, quite literally, the dawn of the Eighties. I was extremely young. We’re talking single-digit young, with absolutely no inkling whatsoever of the decade I was entering… and how much it would mean to both the industry and the medium. At that point, I was simply a diehard Avengers fan. I’m not sure if there was anything that meant more to me at the time.

As I stated in the previous newsletter, David Michelinie was one of my favorite comicbook writers of all time. His approach to character, his style of dialogue, the way he constructed plot… all of it resonated with me, especially when I was a kid. And, as this issue shows, his work hasn’t dated that much at all. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it reads as particularly contemporary, it does read as timeless. To me, anyway.

Michelinie was also hand-picked by Jim Shooter to succeed him as the regular AVENGERS writer. I can’t think of a better choice. When he wasn’t writing Spider-Man (as he would, later in the Eighties), Michelinie had an authorial voice that seemed, like Shooter’s, once removed from the more personalized tongue-in-cheek narration that Stan Lee had so boldly pioneered. Instead, Michelinie brought a potent mix of seriousness and a deft touch that I know ended up influencing me as a writer.

Then there’s George Pérez. What can I say? An absolute giant of our industry. My first favorite comicbook artist. He was also a lovely man, exactly as warm as you could possibly hope he’d be from the humanity found in his work. I make it a point to give my heroes a wide berth, so I never really spent any time with Mr. Pérez. We sat together on a Marvel-themed panel at MegaCon in the late Nineties (when I was brand new in the business and he was riding high on a well-deserved comeback drawing AVENGERS again), and you better believe I was buzzing on the experience for weeks after. The depth of emotion he displayed in his art was unmatched, and this issue is a perfect example of that.

This was Pérez’s much-heralded “return” to the series after his first, classic run a few years earlier. Suitably hyped in the “next issue” blurb at the end of AVENGERS #193, this definitely lived up to the inordinate amount of anticipation that I remember feeling at the time. 

The issue opens with the reinstatement of Wonder Man to active duty. To this day, I still get a kick out of thinking about the more “procedural” aspects of the Avengers organization. When I was a kid, it was like the ultimate peek behind the curtain.

Something else about this opening scene that falls firmly into the irrational, “I Love This Shit” Department: the “living room” of Avengers Mansion. Originally depicted by John Byrne a few months earlier, in AVENGERS #189, Pérez obviously used that as reference for this scene. I mean, it’s obvious. The track lighting. The French doors. The coffee table. Effort was made to maintain location consistency. Or, in other words, it was another example of good, visual continuity. Admittedly, it’s a minor thing, but it’s something that I can’t imagine a lot of modern mainstream artists prioritizing in their own work. No offense intended, but I think it’s the truth.

At the end of this opening scene, the Falcon leaves the team. Not only is there a great shot looking straight down at the city (an angle probably lifted from Kirby, but Pérez sure as hell refined it), but as they watch him fly away, the Avengers gather on the front steps of the mansion. Seven seemingly disparate heroes -- Iron Man, Captain America, Wonder Man, the Vision, the Beast, the Wasp and Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) all standing together, shoulder to shoulder -- no one more or less featured than the other. A few different genres represented, but everything of a piece. To me, that’s the magic of the Marvel Universe in a single panel. That was the genius of George Pérez.

This was one of those rare “all character” issues, which means there were no Earth-shattering events taking place, no big battles and no super-villain antagonist. It was simply pure characterization from top to bottom. I loved issues like this. They were relatively rare in superhero comicbooks at the time, they were a break from the typical formula, but it was in these types of stories that a generation of readers really got to know these characters. I mean, c’mon… the “Mr. Muscles” scene is a classic…

Vision’s training exercise served as the issue’s requisite action scene (hey, it’s still a superhero story… gotta have at least one). I feel like history hasn’t been so kind to the Vision (for all sorts of reasons, both deserved and undeserved). However, for a significant period of time, he was undoubtedly the most identifiable Avenger (that wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man or Thor). In fact, the Vision occupied the cover corner box on the series for years (until the classic Byrne heads became a corner box staple).

The down shot of the Avengers’ meeting room is another iconic panel that, for me, visually encapsulates the fascination I had with superhero team books. It was just so cool to see these characters hanging out with each other in a more relaxed setting. It made them that much more real to me. About eight years later, that same “clubhouse” aesthetic was brought to the foreground by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire during their JUSTICE LEAGUE run.

Granted, the ending isn’t exactly a nailbiter. Not much of a cliffhanger, either. But it was enough to fire up my nine-year old imagination, so much so that I was soon hard at work in my trusty spiral notebook, diligently writing and drawing my own version of AVENGERS #195, ominously titled, “Assault on a Mind Cage”…

… which I’ll share with you in the next newsletter. For real.

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And finally…

RIP David Lynch. What can I say? One of the absolute giants in modern pop culture storytelling. A genius filmmaker. A champion of surrealist art. A unique and singular voice. An enormous inspiration to me on countless levels.

His passing leaves the rest of us living in a altogether different world, one that now and forever includes a Lynch-sized hole that can and will never be filled.

Joe Casey

USA