Mighty Marvel Masterworks The Avengers volume 4: The Sign of the Serpent


By Stan Lee, Don Heck, Roy Thomas, Frank Giacoia, George Roussos & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5430-7 (PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before but here we’re enjoying another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics. The notion of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket had made the Justice League of America a winner and subsequently inspired the moribund Atlas outfit – primarily Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko – into conceiving “super-characters” of their own. The result – in 1961 – was The Fantastic Four

After 18 months, the fledgling House of Ideas had generated a small successful stable of costumed leading men (but still only 2 sidekick women!), allowing Lee & Kirby to at last assemble a select handful of them into an all-star squad, moulded into a force for justice and soaring sales. Cover dated September 1963, and on sale from early July, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men. This edition collects The Avengers #31-40 (cover-dated August 1966 to May 1967): groundbreaking tales no newbie or potential lover of superhero stories can do without…

Here the team consists of Captain America, Hawkeye, mutant twins Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch (who had replaced big guns Thor and Iron Man) and recently returned Giant-Man (AKA Goliath) and The Wasp, looking for a way to enable Henry Pym to regain his size-changing powers and his normal six-foot height. The revised team was already proving a firm fan-favourite. Spectacle had been nudged aside in favour of melodrama sub-plots, leavening the action through compelling soap-opera elements which kept readers riveted…

Of course, the founding stars regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which meant that most issues included somebody’s fave-rave. The increasingly bold and impressive stories and artwork were no hindrance either. Once Lee moved on, the team was left in the capable hands of Roy Thomas who grew into one of the industry’s most impressive writers, guiding the World’s Mightiest Heroes through a range of adventures ranging from sublimely poetic to staggeringly epic.

With this fourth collection the hero alliances rise to dominance truly began and resumes on a cliffhanger yarn that began when Goliath – tragically trapped at a freakish ten-foot height – sought a cure south of the border only to be embroiled in a futuristic civil war amongst a lost south American civilisation. Here the concluding chapter threatens global incineration in the ludicrously titled yet satisfyingly thrilling ‘Never Bug a Giant!’ as Wasp, Hawkeye and Cap track down their massive missing man and face escalating atomic armageddon…

The company’s crusading credentials are enhanced next as ‘The Sign of the Serpent!’ and sequel ‘To Smash a Serpent!’ (#32-33, with Heck providing raw, gritty inks over his own pencils) craft a brave, socially-aware epic. Here the heroes tackle a sinister band of organised racists in a thinly veiled allegory of the Civil Rights turmoil then gripping America. Marvel’s bold liberal stand even went so far as to introduce a new African-American character, Bill Foster, who would eventually become a superhero in his own right.

It’s back to crime-busting basics as Roy Thomas officially begins his long association with the team in #34’s ‘The Living Laser!’, although second part ‘The Light that Failed!’ again assumes political overtones as the light-bending supervillain allies himself with South American – and, by implication, Marxist – rebels for a rollercoaster ride of thrills and spills.

The team’s international credentials are further exploited when long-absent Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver return, heralding an alien invasion of the Balkans in ‘The Ultroids Attack!’ and ‘To Conquer a Colossus!’ (#36-37). Along for the ride and a crucial factor in repelling an extraterrestrial invasion is newly cured and reformed Natasha Romanoff: the sinister, merciless Black Widow

Thomas clearly relished juggling a larger roster of characters as he promptly added Olympian godling Hercules to the mix, first as a duped and drugged pawn of the Enchantress in #38’s ‘In our Midst… An Immortal’ (inked by George Roussos) and then as a member from the following issue onwards, when The Mad Thinker attacks the assemblage during ‘The Torment… and the Triumph!’.

No prizes for guessing who was throwing the punches in ‘Suddenly… the Sub-Mariner!’ as the team battle the Lord of Atlantis for possession of a reality-warping Cosmic Cube; a riotous all-action romp to end a superb classic chronicle of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights fables.

Augmenting the narrative joys is the cover gallery by Heck, Jack Kirby, Frank Giacoia, Gil Kane and Roussos plus Heck’s unused cover for #37.

Unceasingly enticing and always evergreen, these immortal epics are tales that defined the Marvel experience and a joy no fan should deny themselves or their kids.
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