This next issue of AVENGERS was also a book that my younger brother Ken bought his own copy of, though in this case that copy vanished somewhere over the years and never made its way to me. It’s a well-remembered issue, with the narrative getting back on track after a trio of fill-in jobs due to new editor in chief Jim Shooter’s new duties preventing him from keeping up on the plotting of this series. From here on out, Shooter would pull back more and more, leaving it to other hands to write AVENGERS, sometimes with his story input, other times not so much. In this instance, new Marvel arrival David Michelinie is the only writer credited, so we must assume that the essence of the work is his, even if he was following up on plot situations that Shooter had set into motion during his tenure.
It also has to be said, AVENGERS had consistently nice artwork throughout most of this period, thanks in large part to the rotation between George Perez, who had produced this issue’s cover and who would continue to return over the course of the next year to do issues here and there, and John Byrne, who was quick enough to work on multiple titles simultaneously, especially if he was only called upon to provide breakdowns, as in this case. Inker/finisher Gene Day provided an attractive final sheen to Byrne’s work in this issue. Oh, and to point out the obvious, these days you could never get away with repurposing a still from an old movie in this manner. But it makes for a very attractive opening splash page.
The opening sequence of this issue focuses on the burgeoning friendship between Wonder Man, who had spent several years seemingly dead and who consequently felt a bit out of step with the times, and the Beast, who was a fun-loving party animal with a jois de vis for life. They were an odd couple pairing that is fondly remembered and referenced to this day, and their interactions gave AVENGERS a bit of the same sort of fun personal snap that readers were seeing in X-MEN and other such titles. But the big plot point of this story is a showdown between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the Government overseer who has been dogging their tracks for months now: Henry Peter Gyrich. This isn’t the cartoonish bigot the character developed into over the years as he moved more concretely into the world of the X-MEN, but neither was he a nice guy. He was a hard-ass bureaucrat, and it was always a bit fun to see him cross swords with super heroes who approached their job differently than he would have. (Fun fact: apparently, Gyrich was intended to be a grown up version of an obscure Marvel character, Peter the little Pest, a Dennis the Menace knock-off. But this never got confirmed anywhere in print.)
The scene that really made this issue memorable to fans was this one, in which, in order to get back their Priority Government Clearances, the Avengers are forced to prune their membership roster back to a team selected by an oversight committee. And that team includes the Falcon, who was not a member at all before this point, but who was required to join so as to adhere to government policies concerning affirmative action. Regardless on where your personal position on such legislation might lay, this is a very fun and relevant twist to play out in the pages of a comic book story. In particular, Hawkeye takes his ouster in favor of the untested Falcon very badly, as you’d expect from his personality.
Hawkeye isn’t the only one to voice his objections to this bit of forced diversity on behalf of Gyrich. Quicksilver gets in his face as well, stating that the Avengers should be above the interference of any single government–until he suddenly seizes up and keels over mysteriously. The Avengers rush him to a med lab, where Thor’s alter ego Dr. Don Blake is able to examine him. Blake has no idea what may have struck the speedster down, but he’s got tests that he can run. In the meantime, the assorted Avengers and hangers-on who have been a part of the series depart. This includes the Guardians of the Galaxy, who intend to return to their home in the 30th Century, and also Yellowjacket and the Wasp.
As this is all going on, we get a couple of cut-aways to a mysterious old man who has been making his way to Manhattan and the Avengers for several issues now. it hasn’t been clear, but it becomes more apparent that this strange guy has a particular interest in Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Which perhaps makes it unsurprising when, a couple of hours later, Wanda keels over just as he brother did, and in equally mysterious fashion. Dr. Blake is flummoxed. Quicksilver’s vital signs and now those of the Scarlet Witch appear to be in a sort of stasis–their hearts aren’t beating and they aren’t breathing but their bodies aren’t decaying either. Any explanation defies all rational medical science.
And as the issue wraps up, we follow that sad old man as he returns to a run-down boarding house in which he’s taken a room. And he reveals that he’s got puppets of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, puppets that appear to be alive. What’s more, he addresses them as their father. To Be Continued. The lineage of Wanda and Pietro was a complicated thing from the start, and has been revised and re-revised several times over the years. At this point, writer Roy Thomas had revealed them to be the children of WWII-era heroes the Whizzer and Miss America–but clearly, there were some creators who didn’t love that reveal. What’s more, it flew in the face of a few random comments the pair had made of the years concerning their upbringing and the fact that their father made puppets. So this story was intended to clear all of that up. As we will see once we get to the following issue.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I have fond memories of this issue, of the art and story. As for Henry Peter Gyrich being turned into a bigot elsewhere, at least he was a real one unlike the we only hate mutants fake bigots ( Gyrich hated all super-powered beings not just mutants — as he proved when he tried to rid Earth of all super-powered being using technology created to banish the Dire Wraith ). Are there real world bigots who only hate one group? Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver went from being the Whizzer & Miss America’s kids to Django & Marya Maximoff’s kids to Magneto & Magda’s kids ( I could have sworn a writer undid this parenthood ).
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This is actually the beginning of the plot that reveals that Magneto is their father, so I don’t think anyone involved in this issue intended Django to be their biological father.
And yes, who the twins’ parents are got messed with a few more times since then. Hopefully, someday it’ll be back to them being the kids of Magneto, since that fits so well.
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For me, Wanda fit nicely as Magneto’s daughter but Petro was always being given half-assed heel turns because apparently eeevil runs along the male genes. We all know the un-retcon will happen someday but I also like Wanda’s current birth mother being the previous Scarlet Witch of a line of Scarlet Witches. Maybe Magda was a third sister and inherited the title? Or maybe it could be like Discworld magical inheritance where Susan is the granddaughter of death even though her mother was adopted?
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I remember now, the 2 of them accompany Django back to Transia and the storyline that follows shows a flashback of Magda who face appears in the page of the X-Men that Magneto is watching on his computer’s screen ( I think he deleted her photo ).
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Now this one’s a Saladino-lettered splash page, with the rest of the issue by the credited Elaine Heinl.
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Gaspar Saladino was the uncredited Page 1 letterer for most of the Marvel line in the late 1970s–while also working more or less full time for DC. One of the best in the field since his debut in the early 1950s. His display lettering was especially fine.
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I don’t think it rose to “most,” but they certainly called on him often. They had a number of letterers they thought didn’t have the chops to do enticing title lettering and others who were developing but maybe not there yet.
On occasion, they had Gaspar letter a splash before they knew who the rest of the book would go to, and then they’d wind up giving it to John Costanza or some other excellent, experienced letterer, because he was available and here was a job that needed lettering. But that wasn’t the intent — they knew Costanza could do excellent titles — just the vagaries of scheduling.
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Peter the Little Pest was a repackaging of the late 1950s Atlas series Melvin the Monster, I recall–himself a Dennis the Menace clone.
Peter Gyrich as a grown-up version? I had never heard that before, but the resemblance is striking! And Steve Englehart had recently grafted Patsy Walker into the Marvel Universe as Hellcat, so it’s not out of the question.
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Not to be confused with MELVIN MONSTER, a Dell series by the great John Stanley about a monster child. Comics!
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Good stuff. I’m not the biggest Byrne fan, but I actually prefer his Beast over other artists’ versions, including George Perez’s. I think Tom prefers George’s. I like Alan Davis’s Beast a lot too. And Gene Colan’s.
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This was a great issue and I loved the Byrne/day pairing. Perez’s cover slightly beats Byrne’s splash for no other reason than managing to show so many characters but only one foot.
I can never decide what larger comment is being made exactly by the Falcon being forced into the Avengers. We’re certainly not supposed to be rooting for Gyrich making Falcon a member due to governmental decree. Michelinie handles the back and forth well throughout though I think Ironman angrily equating mutants and superheroes to real-world minorities is a little cringe. It makes sense in-story, but these are still a bunch of all-white characters to the audience with the only person of color in the room being an African king. I suspect this same scenario of resenting government policy where it intersects with race would be an even bigger hot potato in these more partisan days.
It was nice that the team noted they’d miss Falcon once his tenure was up even if they resented how he got on the team.
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I’m a bit surprised Gyrich didn’t consider Bill Foster (Black Goliath). He at least had a bit of history with the team, as Hank Pym’s colleague and assistant.
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The cover shows Black Panther with eyes through the white slits. The interior scenes don’t. I much refer the blank, white, “Batman eyes”.
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Gene Day was a real talent, His early death was a major loss. He added a lot to anyone’s work.
This work kind of reminds me of George Klein;’s Avengers work,
David Michealine qAa solid writter and he was imporatnt to Marvel in this period, especialy for his Iron Man work with Bob Layton..
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How amusingly ironic… that movie still on the splash page is from The Adventures of Robin Hood – a color release, not black-and-white as the greytone suggests.
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Interesting how Hawkeye seems to think that the Falcon was taking “his” spot, as if he’d definitely be the choice if the Falcon hadn’t been chosen.
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That’s how much he wanted on the team. I like Hawkeye, but I wouldn’t have him on the team, either. He adds more in personality than he does in ability. And he’s been part of several important stories. I think he’d be better working w/ Daredevil level characters. I liked that he clashed w/ Bullseye. There are plenty of other low or non-powered villains he could face off against.
There’s a lot to be said about a guy w/ only honed human skills going up against supervillains. On his own, I don’t think he’d last long against that threat level. But as part of the Avengers, he has back-up, coverage. And in return, he gives them his endless courage, wits, resourcefulness, and sheer determination.
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I managed to suspend disbelief with Hawkeye until the first Avengers movie. Seeing the character in live action shooting sticks at alien craft and not dying has made me unable to accept the same thing in comics.
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@SteveMcBeezlebub Agreed. MCU Clint was dispatching the Chitari in hand to hand combat as successfully as a super soldier. It didn’t ring true. I also don’t see MCU Hawkeye as the same personality as Marvel 616 comicbook Hawkeye.
I’ve always compartmentalized the comicbooks away from other media adaptations. I could think Ennis’s MAX Punisher was one of the best things I read, w/o paying any attention to the live action movies around that time (Tom Jane vs. John Travolta).
Or Batman in JLA while Joel Schumacher was embarrassing the character in movie.
The comics have always come first.
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I see adaptations (The MCU, True Blood etc) in the same vein as Earths One and Two.
I also like the character of live action Hawkeye better. Comic Clint’s defining characteristic is he’s a jerk, albeit a heroic one with a very well-hidden heart of gold. That has meant too many stories which take it too far and he’s either an idiot or a flat out asshole.
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I had a bigger problem with Natasha just shooting them — if that’s all it took, why do we need the Avengers to deal with them? The Chitauri have never interested me either in comics or in the movies.
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@Fraser Sherman good point, I totally agree.
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I don’t read Hawkeye there as claiming he’d still be on the team but for Falcon. Rather, he’s objecting that he’s being cut, yet they are bringing in someone who both has never been a team member and isn’t very powerful. That’s not the same thing.
But I think Redwing is not fully appreciated, because we don’t have much falconry in popular culture. Falcons and similar are essentially fast flying attack-dogs. Having one which could operate fairly intelligently (due to a mental link) has a lot of combat possibilities.
“Talking with birds” is combat underrated too, even keeping to nonlethal uses. For example, being able to ask/tell a flock of pigeons “All of you, fly over to that guy and crap on his head”, and they do it, would put quite a few villains off their game. Even if it’s not physically harmful, the possible sight-blocking and disgust reaction may be enough to lead to defeat (sometimes a moment of distraction is all that’s needed, and a personal rainstorm of pigeon-crap certainly counts).
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Well, Hawkeye specifically states “B-But why him, and not ME?” as opposed to “B-But why him, and not one of the rest of us?” To me at least, he clearly saw what he perceived as being HIS spot on the team being taken by the choice of the Falcon as opposed to “a” spot on the team being taken.
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I’d say that’s imposing an “excluded middle” framework on his statements, which isn’t there in that particular context. That is, something like “Why are you dumping (proven) ME in favor of (unproven but power-equivalent) HIM“, isn’t an assertion that there are only two possible choices for the last slot – doing so is what I mean by imposing it as a framework. Hawkeye can both be upset that he’s being cut and think the Falcon is a poor choice in comparison without any claim that if, e.g. the Falcon were to be injured and thus unavailable, then he (Hawkeye) would remain on the team. Trick-arrows human guy can hardly think he’s got an unassailable seat on a super-team. But what he does have going for him is a long showing that he can play in that major league – which, at this point, the also basically-human Falcon really doesn’t have. To put it another way, asserting “I am a better remaining choice than him” is not “There is no better remaining choice in the group than me”.
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Bought this one right off the spinner rack, probably on the basis of Byrne’s involvement and stayed with the book for a while. The Byrne/Day team is really nice here, and hey it was colored by Françoise Mouly! Comics was/is a small world!
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Thor to Wonderman circa Avengers # 162: ‘When thou hast proven thyself 1000 times then you can question the worth of the one called Hawkeye.’
Hawkeye is an exemplar of the super-hero trope of the underestimated guy who doesn’t seem to bring much to the table power-wise being the potential team MVP….even more so than Cap. From a character standpoint he’s an excellent foil balancing reliability, competency and decency with impulsivity and temper.
In contrast, Wonderman is only generally useful if he can out muscle someone…. which is nothing to sneeze at, but he can’t be counted on to not fold when he’s overwhelmed. Sometimes you need the guy with the trick arrows. Emphasis on the trick.
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Wonder Man’s evolved from that status quo of 45 years ago. But I agree w/ your assessment of Hawkeye.
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A controversial issue but one with a surprisingly intelligent plot for a late-70s superhero comic: If your group is going to receive privileges from the federal government, you have to abide by federal laws, and that includes the Civil Rights Act.
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Love that cover. Gyrich was great, and the problems he caused was something I had never expected to see in comics at the time. We were lucky to pick this one up off the comic rack, one of our great intros to John Byrne’s work.
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Classic Cover by Perez!!!
Byrne at his Peak IMHO, and Day’s incredible inks/finishes. From Cover to Cover art in the Comic Book medium simply does not get any finer.
181 also contains the 1st Scott Lang appearance!
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I just finished a read-through of the original Spider-Woman series, and it amused me to see the Django Maximoff plotline seeded in a Gruenwald-penned issue of that book, connecting him with Mister Doll/The Brothers Grimm.
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Though I liked a lot of the Roy Thomas stories with Hawkeye as a regular– even if RT sometimes had to reach to make him relevant in stories– the character actually worked better as the team leader of Thunderbolts. In that position he emulated the history of Captain America with the group: an ordinary, well-trained guy (which Cap was, when he didn’t have super-strength) with a good tactical sense and a spiffy weapon.
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So guessing Wonder Man was not a movie stuntman yet, judging from his puzzlement as to why people enjoy movies.
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That was an odd comment for Micheline to write. Were readers supposed to think Simon Williams was such a stick in the mud that he’d never enjoyed movies even as a kid? I know the comment was just a setup for Beast to do his hipper than thou rap, but still.
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Gyrich was great as the ultimate bureaucrat, less interesting as an over-the-top mutie hater.
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On the subject of Wonder Man, I’ve just this week bought “Wonder Man: The Early Years” omnibus (which actually contains this issue). From my sixty-odd year old perspective, it is wonderfully enjoyable – I am trying to limit myself to reading / savouring just three issues a day – but also gives the reader a nicely balanced insight into the development of the Wonder Man / Simon Williams character. Wholly recommended.
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