The Avengers Project - Vol. 1 No. 9
Oct. 4th, 2006 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jkcarrier
AVENGERS Vol. 1 No. 9
October 1964
"The Coming of the... Wonder Man!"
Sensationally written by: Stan Lee
Superbly illustrated by: Don Heck
Selectively inked by: Dick Ayers
Sufficiently lettered by: Art Simek
As the other Avengers look on, Captain America lashes out, hurling his shield at the giant figure of Zemo. He vows that the villain won't escape this time. But his fellow heroes restrain him and inform him that he's attacking a blank wall; Cap's obsession with Zemo is causing him to hallucinate.
But where is Zemo? After Thor sent their ship through a space warp, Zemo, the Enchantress, and the Executioner became stranded somewhere "between the sixth and seventh dimensions". Inside the ship, we see that the villains are starting to get on each other's nerves, as Zemo nags the two Asgardians to find a way back to Earth. The Enchantress casts a spell, and the three of them are soon back at Zemo's hideout in South America. Immediately, they begin formulating a plan to get revenge on the Avengers.
Weeks later, the New York newspapers carry the news that inventor Simon Williams has been arrested for embezzlement. Williams blames Tony Stark, whose inventions made his own obsolete, for causing his financial downfall. A disguised Enchantress and Executioner show up at Williams' hearing, pay his bail, and offer him a chance to get revenge on Stark. Penniless and with nowhere to turn, Williams is in no position to refuse.
Meanwhile, the Avengers are each attentding to their own affairs. Iron Man notes that Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts have been eyeing him suspiciously ever since Tony Stark disappeared, not realizing that he and Stark are one and the same. Thor transforms into his mortal identity of Dr. Don Blake in order to see to his patients. Giant-Man is hard at work in the laboratory, while the Wasp wishes he would take her dancing instead. And as usual, Captain America is brooding over the death of his old sidekick, Bucky.
In Zemo's South American hideaway, Simon Williams is brought into the laboratory, where he lays on a platform surrounded by advanced machinery. Zemo pulls a switch, and Williams is bathed in ionic rays, causing his strength and durability to increase to amazing levels. Williams rises from the table, and says he's ready for anything. As a test, Zemo fires a revolver at him, and the bullets bounce off. He gives Williams a colorful costume, and tells him that he will now be known as Wonder Man. The Enchantress is quite impressed with the super-powerful human, causing pangs of jealousy on the part of the Executioner.
The villains go outside, and Wonder Man demonstrates his prowess further by uprooting a tree and smashing rocks to smithereens. Small rockets built into his belt allow him to fly. He even out-fights the mighty Executioner, knocking him into a nearby lake. The Executioner wonders how they can even control such a mighty warrior, and Zemo reveals his trump card: The process that gave Wonder Man his powers is also killing him; without regular injections of the antidote, he will die within a week.
Their plan unfolds some days later, in New York. Zemo, the Enchantress, and the Executioner stage a daring payroll robbery. The Avengers arrive within minutes, and the battle begins. The two groups seem evenly matched, until a new figure arrives: Wonder Man! Wonder Man knocks out the Executioner with a single punch, crushes Zemo's ray gun, and sends the Enchantress spinning. Zemo thinks to himself that his pawn is playing his part perfectly, and then throws up a smokescreen that allows the villains to escape. Afterwords, Wonder Man introduces himself to the Avengers, and states his desire to join their team.
Back at the Avengers' headquarters, Wonder Man tells the heroes that he was captured in South America by Zemo and experimented on against his will. But Captain America is skeptical that he could've escaped from Zemo's clutches so easily. The villains are watching the scene via a camera hidden in Wonder Man's costume, and the Enchantress says that she can take care of Cap's suspicions. With her magic, she plants the idea in Captain America's mind that Wonder Man is dying of a rare disease, and that he came to the Avengers for a cure. That's good enough for the heroes, and they begin working on a cure via their various specialties -- Henry Pym with biochemistry, Tony Stark through technology, and Don Blake with medicine. Even Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade pitch in by fetching medical textbooks. Initially, the heroes have no luck, but promise Wonder Man they'll keep trying. Wonder Man muses that Avengers are the ones who's time is running out.
A few days later, Wonder Man arrives at Zemo's South American hideout to begin the next phase of the plan. He has captured the Wasp and brought her along, and he broadcasts a distress call to lure the Avengers into a trap. Wonder Man isn't crazy about the idea of holding a woman captive, but Zemo dismisses his petty qualms.
Iron Man is the first to arrive, and is immediately immobilized through the use of a giant magnet. Captain America follows, tossing his shield at Zemo and then slamming feet-first into the Executioner. Thor sees Wonder Man and lets his guard down, allowing the phony "hero" to sucker-punch him and toss the thunder god down into a pit. Wonder Man rolls a giant boulder over to block the pit, inadvertently separating Thor from his hammer and causing him to revert back to Don Blake.
Wonder Man is glad that the truth about him is out; he'd rather fight the Avengers directly than use trickery. An angry Giant-Man grabs hold of his arm, demanding to know where the Wasp is. Wonder Man knocks his opponent back, and Giant-Man retaliates by hurling a boulder at him. Wonder Man swats it aside easily, sending it careening back into Giant-Man, knocking him out. But the ricocheting rock also smashes the controls of the magnet, setting Iron Man free. Meanwhile, Zemo takes out Captain America with a sneak stun-ray blast from behind.
Iron Man and Wonder Man clash, and Iron Man wonders why Thor hasn't freed himself from the pit by now. He sees Thor's hammer lying nearby and, although he doesn't know the exact nature of Thor's dual identity, he can tell that something must be wrong (shouldn't the hammer have turned back into a walking stick, though?). Iron Man feigns being knocked back in order to get near the boulder covering the pit. But his power reserves are low, and before he can muster the strength to move the rock, the Enchantress casts a spell that causes him to sleep.
The Avengers lie defeated, and Zemo says this is their chance to kill them once and for all. Wonder Man balks at the idea of committing murder, but Zemo reminds him that without the antidote, his own life will be forfeit. Wonder Man thinks to himself that the Avengers treated him with kindness and respect, and that he has repaid them with betrayal. He decides that even his own life isn't worth such an evil act, and he throws a rock at Zemo's control panel, smashing it. "The Avengers shall not die!" Wonder Man races towards the pit and shoves aside the boulder covering it. The Executioner tackles him, and Zemo stuns Wonder Man with his ray gun, but they are too late; the slender arm of Don Blake slips out, grasps the hammer, and he is Thor once more.
The Enchantress notes that the other Avengers are regaining consciousness as well, and conjures up a mist to cover their escape. Zemo and the Enchantress race down a tunnel, knowing that the Avengers will follow. Zemo activates a bomb that will blow up the tunnel behind them, killing the heroes. But before the Avengers can run into the trap, Giant-Man grabs them from behind and pulls them to safety. As they watch the tunnel collapse, Giant-Man tells them that they can thank the Wasp for the warning; she had flown ahead and saw Zemo set the trap.
The Avengers see the fallen Wonder Man and go to his side. Without Zemo's injection, he is dying. Iron Man asks him why he switched sides at the last minute, and Wonder Man tells him that he wanted to do at least one decent thing before the end, so that his life wouldn't be totally wasted. Then he is gone. Giant-Man laments that all their power couldn't save him, and Cap says that he knows better than anyone that sometimes power alone isn't enough.
--
Don Heck takes over as artist this issue. With Dick Ayers inking, his style actually looks fairly close to Kirby's, but there are some differences as well. Kirby tended to use mostly standard variations on a 6- or 9-panel grid; Heck does this too, but this issue also has several pages that break away from that pattern. Page 9, where Wonder Man shows off his new strength, has 4 large panels. Page 13 has a row of 5 narrow panels on top, followed by a row of 4 panels with curved borders, and finally a single square panel inset in the bottom corner. Heck was obviously well-versed in drawing Iron Man and Giant-Man, but he does a good job with Thor and Cap as well. And, while I don't agree with the conventional wisdom that Kirby couldn't draw women, I have to admit that Heck draws one heck of a fetching Enchantress!
Wonder Man manages to come across as a pretty interesting character in a short amount of space. His motives are initially selfish, but eventually his conscience takes over and he redeems himself at the end (not unlike the Thing imposter in "This Man, This Monster"). He dies here, but his story is far from over. In a later story, his brother turned up and became a recurring villain called the Grim Reaper. Simon himself was indirectly involved in the origin of another Avenger, the Vision. And in the 1970s, Wonder Man got a full-blown ressurrection, and has been with the Avengers off and on ever since.
Wasp Watch: Janet doesn't make much of a showing this issue. Both her capture and her rescue take place off-panel. She does make a contribution at the end by spotting the booby-trap, but otherwise her only role is to nag Giant-Man while he's trying to work (which makes her look exceptionally selfish and callous, when she seems to think that Hank taking her out to dinner is more important than trying to cure Wonder Man).
The letters page expands to two pages this issue. Roger Gilman of Massachusettes wins a No-Prize with his convoluted theory explaining why Rick Jones was called "Rick Brown" in a previous issue (when was the "No-Prize" first introduced, anyway?). Greg Hendricks of Indiana wants to know how all the Avengers fit into one helicopter (Stan likens it to college students stuffing themselves into a phone booth). Gary Rafferty of New York wonders why the letterers don't get "fancy titles" in the credits like everyone else, and Stan encourages readers to send in suggestions. Jim Costantini of Ohio complains about the poor paper and printing in the comics; Stan puts the blame on the fact that they're always running late, which in turn puts the engravers and printers in a time crunch (ironically, this issue itself has a lot of pages that are badly out-of-register). Interestingly, Stan doesn't say anything about trying to fix the problem, but simply asks for the readers' understanding.
In the "Special Announcements Section", Stan seems to imply that Don Heck is only meant to be a temporarily fill-in on AVENGERS, while Kirby gets caught up with his other assignments. In fact, Kirby is basically gone for good (he continues to provide covers for a while, and draws #16), and Heck will be the steady artist for the next couple of years. There are short blurbs for FANTASTIC FOUR #32, SPIDER-MAN #18, X-MEN #8, DAREDEVIL #4, SGT. FURY #11, THOR #109, SUSPENSE #59, and ASTONISH #61. Stan challenges the readers to guess what the mysterious initials "M.M.M.S." stand for, and lets us know that AVENGERS #10 will be called "The Avengers Break Up!" and feature a new villain called Immortus.
October 1964
"The Coming of the... Wonder Man!"
Sensationally written by: Stan Lee
Superbly illustrated by: Don Heck
Selectively inked by: Dick Ayers
Sufficiently lettered by: Art Simek
As the other Avengers look on, Captain America lashes out, hurling his shield at the giant figure of Zemo. He vows that the villain won't escape this time. But his fellow heroes restrain him and inform him that he's attacking a blank wall; Cap's obsession with Zemo is causing him to hallucinate.
But where is Zemo? After Thor sent their ship through a space warp, Zemo, the Enchantress, and the Executioner became stranded somewhere "between the sixth and seventh dimensions". Inside the ship, we see that the villains are starting to get on each other's nerves, as Zemo nags the two Asgardians to find a way back to Earth. The Enchantress casts a spell, and the three of them are soon back at Zemo's hideout in South America. Immediately, they begin formulating a plan to get revenge on the Avengers.
Weeks later, the New York newspapers carry the news that inventor Simon Williams has been arrested for embezzlement. Williams blames Tony Stark, whose inventions made his own obsolete, for causing his financial downfall. A disguised Enchantress and Executioner show up at Williams' hearing, pay his bail, and offer him a chance to get revenge on Stark. Penniless and with nowhere to turn, Williams is in no position to refuse.
Meanwhile, the Avengers are each attentding to their own affairs. Iron Man notes that Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts have been eyeing him suspiciously ever since Tony Stark disappeared, not realizing that he and Stark are one and the same. Thor transforms into his mortal identity of Dr. Don Blake in order to see to his patients. Giant-Man is hard at work in the laboratory, while the Wasp wishes he would take her dancing instead. And as usual, Captain America is brooding over the death of his old sidekick, Bucky.
In Zemo's South American hideaway, Simon Williams is brought into the laboratory, where he lays on a platform surrounded by advanced machinery. Zemo pulls a switch, and Williams is bathed in ionic rays, causing his strength and durability to increase to amazing levels. Williams rises from the table, and says he's ready for anything. As a test, Zemo fires a revolver at him, and the bullets bounce off. He gives Williams a colorful costume, and tells him that he will now be known as Wonder Man. The Enchantress is quite impressed with the super-powerful human, causing pangs of jealousy on the part of the Executioner.
The villains go outside, and Wonder Man demonstrates his prowess further by uprooting a tree and smashing rocks to smithereens. Small rockets built into his belt allow him to fly. He even out-fights the mighty Executioner, knocking him into a nearby lake. The Executioner wonders how they can even control such a mighty warrior, and Zemo reveals his trump card: The process that gave Wonder Man his powers is also killing him; without regular injections of the antidote, he will die within a week.
Their plan unfolds some days later, in New York. Zemo, the Enchantress, and the Executioner stage a daring payroll robbery. The Avengers arrive within minutes, and the battle begins. The two groups seem evenly matched, until a new figure arrives: Wonder Man! Wonder Man knocks out the Executioner with a single punch, crushes Zemo's ray gun, and sends the Enchantress spinning. Zemo thinks to himself that his pawn is playing his part perfectly, and then throws up a smokescreen that allows the villains to escape. Afterwords, Wonder Man introduces himself to the Avengers, and states his desire to join their team.
Back at the Avengers' headquarters, Wonder Man tells the heroes that he was captured in South America by Zemo and experimented on against his will. But Captain America is skeptical that he could've escaped from Zemo's clutches so easily. The villains are watching the scene via a camera hidden in Wonder Man's costume, and the Enchantress says that she can take care of Cap's suspicions. With her magic, she plants the idea in Captain America's mind that Wonder Man is dying of a rare disease, and that he came to the Avengers for a cure. That's good enough for the heroes, and they begin working on a cure via their various specialties -- Henry Pym with biochemistry, Tony Stark through technology, and Don Blake with medicine. Even Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade pitch in by fetching medical textbooks. Initially, the heroes have no luck, but promise Wonder Man they'll keep trying. Wonder Man muses that Avengers are the ones who's time is running out.
A few days later, Wonder Man arrives at Zemo's South American hideout to begin the next phase of the plan. He has captured the Wasp and brought her along, and he broadcasts a distress call to lure the Avengers into a trap. Wonder Man isn't crazy about the idea of holding a woman captive, but Zemo dismisses his petty qualms.
Iron Man is the first to arrive, and is immediately immobilized through the use of a giant magnet. Captain America follows, tossing his shield at Zemo and then slamming feet-first into the Executioner. Thor sees Wonder Man and lets his guard down, allowing the phony "hero" to sucker-punch him and toss the thunder god down into a pit. Wonder Man rolls a giant boulder over to block the pit, inadvertently separating Thor from his hammer and causing him to revert back to Don Blake.
Wonder Man is glad that the truth about him is out; he'd rather fight the Avengers directly than use trickery. An angry Giant-Man grabs hold of his arm, demanding to know where the Wasp is. Wonder Man knocks his opponent back, and Giant-Man retaliates by hurling a boulder at him. Wonder Man swats it aside easily, sending it careening back into Giant-Man, knocking him out. But the ricocheting rock also smashes the controls of the magnet, setting Iron Man free. Meanwhile, Zemo takes out Captain America with a sneak stun-ray blast from behind.
Iron Man and Wonder Man clash, and Iron Man wonders why Thor hasn't freed himself from the pit by now. He sees Thor's hammer lying nearby and, although he doesn't know the exact nature of Thor's dual identity, he can tell that something must be wrong (shouldn't the hammer have turned back into a walking stick, though?). Iron Man feigns being knocked back in order to get near the boulder covering the pit. But his power reserves are low, and before he can muster the strength to move the rock, the Enchantress casts a spell that causes him to sleep.
The Avengers lie defeated, and Zemo says this is their chance to kill them once and for all. Wonder Man balks at the idea of committing murder, but Zemo reminds him that without the antidote, his own life will be forfeit. Wonder Man thinks to himself that the Avengers treated him with kindness and respect, and that he has repaid them with betrayal. He decides that even his own life isn't worth such an evil act, and he throws a rock at Zemo's control panel, smashing it. "The Avengers shall not die!" Wonder Man races towards the pit and shoves aside the boulder covering it. The Executioner tackles him, and Zemo stuns Wonder Man with his ray gun, but they are too late; the slender arm of Don Blake slips out, grasps the hammer, and he is Thor once more.
The Enchantress notes that the other Avengers are regaining consciousness as well, and conjures up a mist to cover their escape. Zemo and the Enchantress race down a tunnel, knowing that the Avengers will follow. Zemo activates a bomb that will blow up the tunnel behind them, killing the heroes. But before the Avengers can run into the trap, Giant-Man grabs them from behind and pulls them to safety. As they watch the tunnel collapse, Giant-Man tells them that they can thank the Wasp for the warning; she had flown ahead and saw Zemo set the trap.
The Avengers see the fallen Wonder Man and go to his side. Without Zemo's injection, he is dying. Iron Man asks him why he switched sides at the last minute, and Wonder Man tells him that he wanted to do at least one decent thing before the end, so that his life wouldn't be totally wasted. Then he is gone. Giant-Man laments that all their power couldn't save him, and Cap says that he knows better than anyone that sometimes power alone isn't enough.
--
Don Heck takes over as artist this issue. With Dick Ayers inking, his style actually looks fairly close to Kirby's, but there are some differences as well. Kirby tended to use mostly standard variations on a 6- or 9-panel grid; Heck does this too, but this issue also has several pages that break away from that pattern. Page 9, where Wonder Man shows off his new strength, has 4 large panels. Page 13 has a row of 5 narrow panels on top, followed by a row of 4 panels with curved borders, and finally a single square panel inset in the bottom corner. Heck was obviously well-versed in drawing Iron Man and Giant-Man, but he does a good job with Thor and Cap as well. And, while I don't agree with the conventional wisdom that Kirby couldn't draw women, I have to admit that Heck draws one heck of a fetching Enchantress!
Wonder Man manages to come across as a pretty interesting character in a short amount of space. His motives are initially selfish, but eventually his conscience takes over and he redeems himself at the end (not unlike the Thing imposter in "This Man, This Monster"). He dies here, but his story is far from over. In a later story, his brother turned up and became a recurring villain called the Grim Reaper. Simon himself was indirectly involved in the origin of another Avenger, the Vision. And in the 1970s, Wonder Man got a full-blown ressurrection, and has been with the Avengers off and on ever since.
Wasp Watch: Janet doesn't make much of a showing this issue. Both her capture and her rescue take place off-panel. She does make a contribution at the end by spotting the booby-trap, but otherwise her only role is to nag Giant-Man while he's trying to work (which makes her look exceptionally selfish and callous, when she seems to think that Hank taking her out to dinner is more important than trying to cure Wonder Man).
The letters page expands to two pages this issue. Roger Gilman of Massachusettes wins a No-Prize with his convoluted theory explaining why Rick Jones was called "Rick Brown" in a previous issue (when was the "No-Prize" first introduced, anyway?). Greg Hendricks of Indiana wants to know how all the Avengers fit into one helicopter (Stan likens it to college students stuffing themselves into a phone booth). Gary Rafferty of New York wonders why the letterers don't get "fancy titles" in the credits like everyone else, and Stan encourages readers to send in suggestions. Jim Costantini of Ohio complains about the poor paper and printing in the comics; Stan puts the blame on the fact that they're always running late, which in turn puts the engravers and printers in a time crunch (ironically, this issue itself has a lot of pages that are badly out-of-register). Interestingly, Stan doesn't say anything about trying to fix the problem, but simply asks for the readers' understanding.
In the "Special Announcements Section", Stan seems to imply that Don Heck is only meant to be a temporarily fill-in on AVENGERS, while Kirby gets caught up with his other assignments. In fact, Kirby is basically gone for good (he continues to provide covers for a while, and draws #16), and Heck will be the steady artist for the next couple of years. There are short blurbs for FANTASTIC FOUR #32, SPIDER-MAN #18, X-MEN #8, DAREDEVIL #4, SGT. FURY #11, THOR #109, SUSPENSE #59, and ASTONISH #61. Stan challenges the readers to guess what the mysterious initials "M.M.M.S." stand for, and lets us know that AVENGERS #10 will be called "The Avengers Break Up!" and feature a new villain called Immortus.
