“Avengers assemble!”
Well well well, what can we say about the first avengers omnibus. A lot of credit should go to the Avengers because if it wasn’t for all the hype surrounding the new ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ movie, I may have never taken the plunge into actually reading the comics themselves. The Avengers omnibus volume 1 collects The Avengers #1-30
Well I guess we should start at the beginning. The team in issue #1 consists of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp. Loki tricks the Hulk into smashing a train bridge and makes it look like the Hulk is a villain. Thor returns to Asgaard to collect Loki while the other Avengers try track down the Hulk. Naturally they accomplish their goals and the Wasp proposes they become a team… The Avengers. The team is formed but it doesn’t take long before the Hulk ends up leaving over feeling mistreated after being framed by Loki.
The Avengers decide to go looking for the Hulk but instead end up in a battle with Namor the Sub-Mariner. Meanwhile a native tribe is found praising a man in a block of ice, who turns out to be Captain America. The Avengers end up rescuing him and realizing who he is pretty quick (Captain America has been in comics since the 40’s). He ultimately ends up joining the team.
This omnibus also introduced me to Rick Jones who started out as a side-kick to the Hulk but ends up being Cap’s right hand man. Cap is afraid to let Rick get too close to the excitement though because he often reflects on his old partner Bucky Barnes and how he couldn’t save him.
Then we get some top notch villans in Kang the Conqueror a time travelling mastermind and Baron Zemo a German that Cap battled with during WW2 and the man who killed caps best friend Bucky. Don’t worry though, Cap got to ‘avenge’ the death of his friend.
Some things that happen in these older issues seem completely silly by today’s standards. For instance, the avengers call a meeting that iron man doesn’t make it too because he is busy dealing with his own problems in his own comic. The avengers decided this was unacceptable and suspended iron man for 1 week so he could think over if he really wants to be an avengers or not.
Ultimately, Thor has to return to Asgard and Iron man, Ant-Man and the Wasp decide they need a break from the Avengers. At this point Cap takes over the role of leader and ends up recruiting three new avengers; Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.
The new avengers team doesn’t exactly have the best chemistry and while Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch stand by Cap being the leader, Hawkeye is always questioning caps leadership and causing a fuss. After several issues he finally decides Cap is a sufficient leader for the squad and the bickering cools down.
The omnibus concludes with a story arc about Ant-Man and the wasp doing studies on the Sub-Mariner and the wasp gets caught. Ant-Man goes to the Avengers for help and finds that he can no longer shrink in size and is stuck as 10 foot tall giant man, he then begins to go under the alias ‘Goliath’. As you might have guessed they end up saving the wasp and Goliath and the Wasp rejoin the team.
Sorry if this review is a bit dry and missing some details. I read the book over two months ago and have read a bunch of Spider-Man and Fantastic four issues since so the stories here aren’t exactly fresh anymore. I promise soon these reviews will get much better!
Thanks for reading!