Avengers featured in a M*A*S*H faux pas

I've noticed a gaffe in my favorite TV show of all-time for many years now -- something only a true Marvelite could catch. Check out these two images of "Radar" O'Reilly asleep in his cot:

See what that red arrow is pointing at? Look closely. Yep, that's an issue of Avengers #60 from 1969. Check it:


So tell me: How can Radar be reading a comic from at least sixteen years in the future?? (The Korean War lasted from 1950-1953.)

Talk about a rough time!

I've been a fan of the Squadron Supreme since my grade school days. How come? 'Cuz that's when those fantastic issues of The Avengers came out -- y'know, the first George Pérez Marvel issues, #s 141-150 ('cepting #s 145-146) -- where Earth's Mightiest took on the SS in an all-out donneybrook that took several issues. (If you're a Vision fan like me, Avengers #147 is pure android action GOLD!) I even had one of those Marvel notebook binders with the classic cover of Avengers #141 on it (check out the lower left of the pic). But it wasn't until years later that I realized that the SS's first appearance took place in the pages of The Avengers way before -- specifically issue #85.

No, no, NO! Not issue #70, as you may be thinking! Cripes, even Marvel's own writers could not keep the Squadron Supreme distinct from the Squadron Sinister. Look at the cover to Avengers #85 -- it says "Featuring the sensational return of the Squadron Sinister!" NO! The Squadron Sinister, whose first appearance was, again, in issue #70, was a creation of the cosmic gamester the Grandmaster -- to use against the Avengers who were fighting for Kang the Conqueror. The Squadron Supreme are earth's mightiest heroes of an alternate dimension. Marvel made this boner again with the classic #141 cover, and of all people Steve Englehart didn't know the difference as evidenced by Iron Man's battle with Dr. Spectrum in #148: as Shellhead zaps Spectrum with his ultraviolet beam, he says "I'm sure you remember it!" But how could he? Iron Man had only fought the Squadron Sinister's Doc Spectrum previously (in Avengers #70 and in Iron Man #63-65)! The ironic thing is, back in #141, Englehart has Hyperion telling the Avengers that "That's Supreme, not Sinister, Avengers. Just so you'll know who creamed you!" Sheesh!

Now that that's straight(!), back to the topic of this post. The Squadron Supreme's earth has had one rough time of it over its sporadic history at Marvel. Not so subtlely a copy of DC's Justice League, the SS's first planet-threatening hassle came in the aforementioned Avengers #85. A mutant child named (aptly enough) Brain Child (at left) had grown fed up with the taunts and ridicule of humanity, and planned to launch a rocket into the sun -- causing it to go nova and destroying all life on Earth. The Squadron Supreme thought they were merely assisting with the launch of a solar exploration vehicle; however, thankfully, a quartet of Avengers (who were dimension-traveling back from Arkon's dimension) got sidetracked to the SS's earth -- but a couple days after Brain Child's rocket had done its job! After witnessing the extreme destruction and before they completely materialize, the Scarlet Witch throws a hex in the proverbial nick, and the quartet is whisked back to a day before the missile's firing.

After the usual "let's fight because we don't believe each other" scrap, the four misplaced Avengers manage to convince the SS's Nighthawk of their pending predicament. Of course, to get even more action into the mag, the three members of the SS overseeing the rocket launch -- Hyperion, Dr. Spectrum and the Whizzer -- don't believe the Avengers, nor their own team member. Eventually, though, the Avengers manage to halt the rocket launch, and then the teams join forces against Brain Child. (The WTF moment at the end is when Dr. Spectrum uses his power prism to turn BC back into a normal kid; like, why couldn't he have done that previously? Like, y'know, give him the appearance of a normal kid, yet allow him to retain his enormous intellect? Sheesh ...).

We next see the Squadron in the aforementioned Avengers #141. This time, the United States of the Squadron's world had been overcome by the influence of the Serpent Crown, essentially turning it into a fascist state. (The Whizzer tells Captain America in #147 that their United States is "more advanced, socially," which I take to mean a form of socialism.) The Crown's representative on our earth, Hugh Jones, had summoned the Squadron to help dispatch of the Avengers on our world; however, when they became too big a threat, Jones shunted both teams to the Squadron's dimension (Avengers #144). Remarkably, it merely took the Beast, disguised as the Squadron world's US president (Nelson Rockefeller, of all people), to illuminate the Squadron as to just what had happened to their own country! In the waning panels of Avengers #148, we see various Squadroners pondering all they "to worry about right here."

Things get a lot worse by the Squadron's next Marvel appearance. The ultra-powerful Overmind has discovered the Squadron earth (henceforth "Earth-S") and has taken over the mind of the new US president, Kyle Richmond, who was the Squadron's Nighthawk (see Defenders #112-115). As Richmond summons the Squadron, the Overmind attacks -- and quickly take control of the team, save the mighty Hyperion. Hyperion flees and manages to enlist the aid of our earth's Defenders. Eventually, the Defenders manage to defeat the evil mentalist as well as Null, the Living Darkness, which had occupied Overmind. But this victory shows just how insidious the Overmind's influence was: the planet is now is total chaos as the United States had attacked and plundered the rest of the globe while it was under the control of the villain. Without this control, anarchy ensues.

The acclaimed Squadron Supreme Limited Series by Mark Gruenwald picks up almost right after the Squadron's victory over the Overmind/Null. The team is distraught over the world situation due to their brainwashing, and they're determined to do something about it. They ultimately decide to institute a "Utopia Program" whereby they promise to eliminate crime, disease and even death! However, several team members, notably Nighthawk (the recently resigned President Richmond), are horrified by the program saying it will be a dictatorship led by the Squadron. Since he's outvoted, Nighthawk decides to quit the team rather than be part of another authoritarian government, however beneficient. Eventually, Nighthawk recruits allies to his cause, especially after witnessing the Squadron's "behavior modification" of criminals -- a procedure which literally brainwashes people and removes whatever degree of free will the programmer wants.

Richmond and his "Redeemers" ultimately face off against the Squadron, resulting in several deaths -- including that of Nighthawk himself! Hyperion and the surviving Squadders decide to abandon the Utopia Program, albeit incrementally so as not to lead to anymore chaos.

Such was not to be. Shortly after the Squadron renounces their program, a cosmic threat appears! A massive "hand" has appeared near the sun and will extinguish it in a matter of hours! As detailed in the "Death of Universe" graphic novel, the team has to join forces with their arch-enemy, Master Menace (Emil Burbank) in order to defeat the cosmic entity! The entity turns out to be the Nth Man, who was shunted from our own dimension. He's already consumed numerous whole universes, and the Squadron's is next on his list. The Squadron's Arcanna ends up sacrificing her youngest child, with whom the Nth Man trades places, to save her universe!

But before the surviving team members can return to [their] Earth, the dastardly Master Menace (who fled the Nth Man by shunting himself to another dimension) quickly forgets their recent teamwork and shunts the SS to another universe -- our own! (This act was revealed in the Squadron Supreme: New World Order graphic novel.) The Squadron hooks up with the hero Quasar, and ends up shacking up at Project: Pegasus (see Quasar #13-17). The head of Pegasus turns out to be the mind-controlling villain Corruptor, and so for a third time the Squadron falls prey to mental manipulation! The Corruptor, who's working for old Avengers baddie Imus Champion, uses the Squadron to tarnish the reputation of the newly-back-in-action Avengers (having just returned from the "Heroes Reborn" pocket universe; see Avengers volume 3, #5-6). The Avengers eventually thwart the Corruptor's machinations, but Champion isn't through yet. He manages to get both teams to meet him on his own terms (Avengers/Squadron Supreme Annual 1998) with the threat that if they do not defeat him, millions across the globe will die. Thankfully, Firestar yuks it up with some ants -- which quickly inform Hank Pym, aka Giant Man, and he shuts down Champion's various death devices.

Iron Man discovers an "Nth Projector" among Imus Champion's acquired artifacts, and soon programs it to send the Squadron back to their own dimension. But upon arrival (as chronicled in "New World Order"), laser satellites blast the team's craft out of the sky! Huh?? Dr. Spectrum hauls Squadders the Shape and Skylark to a hospital for help, only to discover that the government is a fascist dictatorship! Hyperion discovers that a "Global Directorate" was elected -- yes, elected -- to power after the Squadron failed to come back to Earth and continue to dismantle their Utopia Program (because, as noted above, Master Menace had shunted them away to our universe). The people of the world "chose order over chaos," a member of the GD informs Hyperion. In addition, the GD had captured Menace upon his return to Earth, used an old Squadron "behavior modification" device on him, and forced him to invent technological wonders for them. The Nth Man, now in the form of an entity dubbed Mysterium, informs the Squadron that they need to get the original members of the team back together in order to defeat the Global Directorate. Indeed, Hyperion, Dr. Spectrum, Power Princess and the Whizzer seek out the disillusioned Amphibian (who, like Nighthawk, had quit the team over the Utopia Program) and the meek Skymax the Skrullrian Skymaster, and implore Nighthawk's son, who's taken up his father's mantle, to join them.

In The Exiles (#77-78), we learn that the Squadron had defeated the Global Directorate and a new democratic government had been elected. However, the Exiles inform the Squadron that the new government had engaged in massive, worldwide vote fraud. The two teams then oust this new government and the Squadron reasserts their role as the world's leading super-team, continuing to assist with the reconstruction of society.

The latest appearance of the Squadron Supreme was in the pages of the "Ultimate Power" series. The story intersected the "Ultimate" universe and the "Supreme Power" univese (or "Supremeverse"), the latter being a reimagining of the Squadron Supreme. However, the original Squadron -- from Earth-S -- also make an appearance, declaring that one of Ultimate Reed Richards' interdimensional probes has laid waste to their planet, just like one did to their reimagined dopplegangers!

Whew! So folks -- you think the "standard" Marvel Universe (our own) has it bad with threats from Doc Doom, Galactus, and the Skrulls? Just thank the Maker you're not in Universe 712, home of Earth-S. To recap, there, a small hyperintelligent child almost fried the planet, an alien crown clandestinely subdued the United States, an alien super-telepath took over the world and caused mass anarchy, a cosmic entity threatened the entire universe, a fascist cadre of corporate heads took over shortly thereafter, the subsequent government came to power through massive fraud, and then an interdimensional probe wiped out your planet.

Ouch.

Simply ... the worst

Back in 1996 Marvel did something which certainly increased sales, but certainly degraded comics storytelling. They "leased" out four of their characters' titles (The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America) to Image's Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. This, as you're probably familiar, was known as "Heroes Reborn." Lee's responsibility -- FF and Iron Man -- did well, and their stories were ... well, OK. Liefeld, on the other hand, proved again how vastly overrated a "talent" he is.

Example: Avengers volume 2, #1. Rarely has there been a combination of piss-poor storytelling whose artwork is supposed to "compensate" for it. I mean, c'mon -- all you have to do is weave a slightly modified story of established characters and backstory -- and you still manage to f*** it up? That takes some talent. Or rather, serious lack thereof. To start with, who the hell came up with the choice of team members? And their outfits? Let's see ... Captain America, the Vision, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and ... Swordsman?? Hellcat??? WTF?? Why go with two characters who were at best very marginal characters in Avengers lore? Oooh ... is this how Liefeld staked out his ... "originality" on the title? Cheeyeah, right.

I mean, whoa. What is up with Wanda's costume?

This looks even worse than her original one -- to which this is an homage. Albeit a very lame one.

Then there's Hawkeye:

Kurt Busiek busted on this pathetic outfit in early volume 3 Avengers, having Clint Barton himself remarking that he looked like a "brown Plantman."

Then there's the Swordsman. Hilariously, in an early panel we see him primping in front of a mirror saying "Face it, Swordsman, you do cut one mean figure of a man!" Well, if Chap Yaep or Liefeld himself are on art chores, you can be sure that any "figure" will be grossly exaggerated so as easily to be "mean." But c'mon -- how attractive can a guy be when he wears his hair like Moe Howard, for cripe's sake?

Then there might be the biggest "heresy" of all -- Liefeld changing the "A" on Cap's headgear to an eagle logo. And indeed it was a heresy -- so much so that later on in the volume two issues of the Hereos Reborn characters the "A" found its way back to the Captain's head!


But back to what I stated at the onset: Heroes Reborn degraded comics storytelling. Yep, that's what I said. Overall, but especially with the Liefeld-helmed titles, big "flashy" panels with ridiculously exaggerated physiques filled the pages, and actual written text was diminished by several orders of magnitude. For example, back in 1997, Bill Egan, former editor-in-chief of Advanced Iron -- the online Iron Man fan magazine -- did an analysis of the average number panels per page, total number of panels in the book, as well as the average/total number of words per page/book. He compared volume 2 Iron Man to Acclaim's X-O Manowar. Here's what he found:

Average # of panels per page: IM: 3.18; X-O: 4.5
Total # of panels: IM: 70; X-O: 99

Average # of words per page: IM: 38.9; X-O: 136.23
Total # of words: IM: 856; X-O: 2997.

As Bill wrote then (in Advanced Iron #34, by the way, if you're interested in downloading the issue -- as you can with any issue of the ultimate Iron Man fan experience),

"For a 28% increase in price (X-O Manowar), we're getting a 41% increase in the number of panels (with possibly better artwork) and a whopping 250% increase in the number of words!! Any way you slice it we're getting way more bang for the buck with X-O Manowar than in Iron Man."

Liefeld's story and Jim Valentino's script in Avengers vol. 2 #1 are so basic, so cliché ridden, and so devoid of character development as to be a prodigious head-shaker. They can't decide whether to make the Swordsman a smart aleck like Hawkeye, or some well-spoken elitist. Hawkeye's snappy patter is childish and forced. Hellcat and Wanda are such a waste of time as to be virtually insignificant. And how does the team accept Thor immediately into the team after he's been "on ice" for millenia, not to mention having fought the team ferociously a few seconds upon his "awakening?" I'd expect this from a shortly-after-the-birth-of-Marvel 1960s Stan Lee penned book, but not a 1996 reimagining.

And then there's Yaep's and Liefeld's ... "art." It's miserable. (See this past post of mine for more on Liefeld's "talents.") Liefeld has long been the butt of jokes for his ridiculous anatomy (and rightly so) and he doesn't disappoint us here. For example, check out the panel at left of the Enchantress. What -- did she have stilt implants?

And WTF is up with the two-page spread (Image-ites never do anything small) of Thor attacking Cap? Where is Thor's torso? His legs appear to be growing directly out of his neck! That's not to mention the ridiculously shaped fists and inane angle of attack:

Lastly there's the panel that's really beyond parody: Thor's hammer (Mjolnir) with its inscription ... in English!!

Avengers volume 2 #1 -- simply the worst!

The greatest of all Marvel epics

(Here's a post I wrote almost two years ago at my other blog. But I just reread the K/S War again, and felt compelled to "reprint" this ...)

Don't be shanghaied into believing that wannabe comic "greats" like Mark Millar and/or Bryan Hitch and their Marvel works are some of the "best of all-time." Take Marvel's recent "Civil War" er, "epic." Great? Yuck. It wasn't even good. The only reason such "events" are dubbed "epics" is because they include virtually every title in the Marvel catalogue and they make a ton of dough as a result. The storytelling? Well, that's another matter. Hell, today's creative teams don't even have the term "deadline" to deal with anymore. You can wait months for an issue that used to take a mere 30 days. The only modern creator worth his salt is Kurt Busiek (more on him later), but he hasn't done anything for Marvel in a few years.

Ah, the halcyon days of the Marvel Comics Group. Take me back to ... the early 1970s ...

... and the truly epic "Kree-Skrull War." Written by longtime Marvel stalwart Roy Thomas and drawn by the phenomenal Neal Adams and John Buscema, the KSW featured the Marvel Universe's two biggest alien races "battlin' it out for the Earth" (to quote former Hulk and Capt. America sidekick Rick Jones). The issues have all been collected in what's known as a "trade paperback;" however, Marvel also put out a two-issue "special edition" back in 1983 (somewhat more streamlined than the modern trade paperback) and that's what I own. I actually prefer these two issues instead of the TPB because it features a perfect commentary by writer Alan Zelentz in the prologue. He says that the KSW "is an epic so grand, only the comics could bring it to you!" And back in 1983 (and for many years thereafter), he was right. (Today's relatively cheap CGI could probably do a nice version of it and go right to DVD. Hey ...!!!) You can read all of Zelentz's commentary here.

Smack dab in the middle of the Kree and Skrulls -- Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers! Actually, the very Earth itself is "smack dab in the middle" -- in the middle of the two intergalactic empires (um, that's the Kree Empire and the Skrull Empire, natch.) In true astronomical terms, this is highly improbable as the Kree Empire is located in the Greater Magellanic Cloud (approx. 160,000 light years distant), and the Skrulls are HQ'd in the Andromeda Galaxy (some two million light years away). But hey, why let such a piddly detail spoil all the fun? The KSW had been going on for untold millenia, and now that humans on Earth were evolving at a more advanced pace than either Kree or Skrull suspected, both races were determined to either possess our planet -- or destroy it.

Thomas' writing is utterly impeccable as he weaves through various [past] Marvel storylines with perfection. Adams' artwork is so realistic you feel as if you're actually a living witness to the events. Science fiction movie aspects abound with a hat tip to the classic "Fantastic Voyage" and a foreshadow to the then still-to-come "Star Wars." But perhaps best of all, it's one of Marvel's regular joes that saves the day. Rick Jones, teenage wannabe rock star, Incredible Hulk sidekick, and former Capt. America confidante, is abducted by a Kree soldier and taken back to their home planet. The Kree Supreme Intelligence -- a monstrous grotesque head composed of the greatest minds in Kree history -- awakens in Rick dormant mental powers which allow the Avengers -- and Earth, as a consequence -- to be victorious, and the Kree-Skrull scuffle to end (for the nonce).

The aforementioned Kurt Busiek added to this awesome epic almost three decades later in what is in my opinion the second greatest Marvel epic of all-time -- "Avengers Forever" (premiere issue at left). Busiek uses Jones' mental powers -- now dubbed the "Destiny Force" -- as a prize fought over by long-time Avengers foes Immortus and Kang the Conqueror. It helps if you're an Avengers fan to really enjoy Kurt's tale, but if not, Busiek's affection for continuity is sure to make you one. That, and artist Carlos Pacheco's pencils are truly spectacular.

"AF" plucks various Avengers from the Marvel timestream to deal with the threat of Immortus who, it turns out, has the means to erase whole timelines that he has deemed "dangerous." Again, Busiek meticulously weaves aspects of Marvel yore throughout the twelve-issue tale, including even lesser known "What If?" tales (most intriguingly for me, one that included an apocryphal 1950s Avengers team).

Both the "Kree-Skrull War" and "Avengers Forever" are available as mass market trade paperback collections and are easy to find. I highly recommend them.