Monday, January 14, 2013

Avengers #41

"Let Sleeping Dragons Lie!"

writer:   Roy Thomas
penciller: John Buscema
inker: George Bell
letterer: Artie Simek

our take opens with the Avengers and Hercules working out.  Hercules is melancholy and this leads to some slight personality interaction with Hawkeye.  both of them stalk off to leave Wanda on monitor duty.

meanwhile, the Black Widow returns to  China, only to find out they don't think she's actually returned to "their" side.  she gets locked into the dreaded Psychotron because they are rightfully suspicious of her return.



the inert Dragon-man is delivered to the Pym laboratory, where Hank has become the android's legal guardian.  apparently Reed Richards recommended this whole situation.  Hank wants to find out why and how the world's most powerful android works.  this is interesting foreshadowing, if Roy actually planned it that way.  we get a small flashback to Fantastic Four #35, where Dragon-man was created and defeated, along with Diablo.of course, Diablo revives the Dragon-man and he does battle with the Avengers.  he kidnaps Hank and Jan for nefarious purposes to be revealed next issue. 

it's a good battle scene, and new artist John Buscema does a great job on his premiere issue.  he's going to be around for a while and becomes "the" Avengers artist for many people in this time period.  hard to argue with that!

next: "The Plan -- and the Power!"

here's hoping it won't be 3 months again before I review another issue.

3 comments:

C. Elam said...

I am not sure if he already had that story in mind, but he absolutely references Dragon Man in the origin of that particular character in Avengers #58. In fact, Hank's lab is depicted as being partially trashed from the battle with Dragon Man!

Unknown said...

Somebody got a job being a letterer.
Frakking jealous.

X7 said...

someone has to do that sort of thing. I think they are all lettered by computer now.