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Aug 11, 2017

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 898: Avengers v.1 #233, July 1983

https://www.comics.org/issue/37588/

It turns out I didn't really have to read yesterday's issue of Fantastic Four. The crossover with the Avengers is more in service of the story being told in that series than the story being told in this one. Which means I'll more than likely not read the next issue of FF tomorrow, and instead keep on truckin' with the Avengers.

It is, however, always nice to see the two big New York supergroups teaming up. And of course when the Fantastic Four are in trouble, as they were in this particular tale, the Avengers are the first people they'd want helping them out.

I'm quite enjoying the focalization of this run of Avengers through Monica Rambeau. We're seeing a lot of action for the new Captain Marvel, but the most telling moment is when she's reflecting on the 6 hours since she became a full-fledged Avenger, rather than a trainee, the events of which cover the last 2 issues. It's that strange cognitive dissonance of reading comics that 3 months of publication time can equal 6 hours of narrative time. But she muses on whether or not this is considered a busy time for the Avengers (the kidnapping of the President, the pursuit of Plant Man, the arrival of Starfox, the mysterious barrier in Manhattan), a question that I've often asked myself when looking at the seeming non-stop action within these pages. Often I'll think that we need an issue between issues, one that's not part of the ongoing action, but that simply depicts each of the Avengers just chilling in their houses, or going to the gym, or, in this day and age, watching something on Netflix. We get some issues like that, but it takes a remarkable writer to narrate 20-something pages of story in which there's little to no action. If I can think of an example, I'll add it in an edit to this post.

So, a focus on the Scarlet Witch tomorrow. To be continued!

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