Marvel’s The Avengers continues to pack them in at the theaters, so I thought it might be a good idea to provide folks new to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes a quick, three title reading list of some key (and by “key” I mean my favorite) stories in the team’s long existence.
Avengers. Legion Of The Unliving
This sweet collection offers stories from the late Silver Age (1970’s) to the post Iron Age (early 2000’s) and features creative giants like Steve Englehart and George Perez. The stories focus on ex-Avengers and Avenger foes returning from the dead to plague the current team. Before it was fashionable to make superheroes into zombies, these stories blazed the trail!
Nothing embodies the essence of the 1970’s era Avengers tales like this magical pairing of writer Roy Thomas and artist Neal Adams. The Avengers find themselves embroiled in an interstellar war between two alien races who both see the Earth as little more than a pawn in some grand cosmic game. Adams’ layouts and colors on these issues will blow you away.
This one ranks as one of the greatest epics in Avengers history! Writer Kurt Busiek and artist Carlos Pacheco take seven time-crossed Avengers from different eras of the book’s long run and throw them into a war for time itself! Classic foes, plenty of plot twists, and gorgeous artwork made this one an instant classic when it was released as a twelve issue limited series from December 1998 to November 1999.
Picking only three Avengers collections was not easy, but that assures a return engagement for this topic sometime in the not too distant future!
–Scott
Eleventh Stack 