Space Phantom Opera
The greatest heroes of the day gather for the first time since founding for… a meeting, meanwhile in the far reaches of space the dreaded Space Phantom tears towards earth on a scouting mission for his people. He shall test the will of the Avengers, should he defeat them then his people shall come forth and conquer the earth!
I quite enjoyed this issue of the Avengers. The Space Phantom looks sort of lame but his ability to pose as anyone while sending the original into Limbo is pretty cool and Stan Lee gets a lot of mileage out of it, by having the Phantom sow seeds of distrust between the Avengers. They are constantly chasing down their own members and having to test their strength against their repurposed team mates. It’s pacy and fun and only a little silly towards the end (God help us all if Iron Man needs to stop a villain in the rain). My one complaint is The Wasp spends pretty much the whole issue swooning over Thor, when she is ostensibly seeking the affections of Hank Pym. It doesn’t make much sense for the character.
This is a vibrant and vivid comic book. Kirby and Reinman bring a great deal of flair to the story, the page detailing Space Phantom’s descent to earth is a series of gorgeous detailed panels. More panels have backgrounds than not and there is a constant stream of stylised effects. Particularly the transformation of Blake to Thor is quite wonderful.
This is an early Avengers comic through and through. There’s a bit of team building, not a lot of time for character development (that is largely left to series for each of the heroes/heroines) and a good deal of fighting. Each of The Avengers show their worth and we get a bit of setup for next months issue which is always a plus in these earlier more episodic days. Definitely worth a look.
For The Torrential Rain Has Rusted You… Completely!
Thor
