cap_ironman | Pimping! Avengers: The Oral History

Entry tags:

recs

Pimping! Avengers: The Oral History

Okay, so apparently I’d been missing the (according to me, atleast) THE greatest Avengers thing coming out these days. The Avengers Oral History, is this running feature in the current Avengers and New Avengers books (written by Bendis) which is like chapters of an in-universe official biography of the Avengers, consisting entirely of interview quotes from the Avengers (explicitly given for the context of the book).

And it is brilliant! This feature had been missing in the Avengers *cough*scans*cough* I’d been reading and I’m not following NA right now, so this had completely flown under my radar. And, it has completely restored my faith in Bendis! The characterization is brilliant! Its full of stuff like what exactly our heroes were thinking during so and so event and what were their first impressions of each other (God, some are sooo unflattering!) And Steve and Tony are really brilliant, really present throughout- very obviously the ‘centre’ of the team. (Actually until now, Tony is very much at the centre of the whole thing- the thing which binds the team, surprisingly, even more than Cap, so I’m enjoying it a lot!)

Also very evident is how well all the Avengers know each other... All the interviews are happening in isolation yet the camaraderie and the knowledge is mind-blowing!

And then we have stuff like this-

Talking about the day they found Captain America in the ice...

Tony: My single greatest memory of that day was examining his vitals and discovering the strongest heartbeat I have ever heard in my life. It was like a big bass drum. It was like it was the sound- like nothing could defeat it. Boom-boom-boom. I imagine this is what the heart of Genghis Khan must have sounded like.

:D (Oh, Tony! Giant man-crush is very obvious!)

Talking about the whole Rick Jones as Bucky deal...

(Everyone including Steve, Rick, Jan, Hank think the whole thing was very weird)
Tony: The Rick/Bucky thing? No, I didn’t think it was weird. I like Rick. I understood the connection. It was someone he felt connected to.

*pfft* Really? ;d

Talking about reassembling the team after Cap’s Kooky Quartet was very briefly disbanded...

Steve: You're talking to the man who believes in the Avengers ideal more than any man outside of Tony Stark.... [It was very difficult]... But I turned around and stayed with the team. I made a promise- I made a promise to hold it together until Iron Man and the others came back. I made a promise and I kept to it.

Awww... Steve... So cute... You promised Tony?

Then there’s a very funny anecdote recounted by Hank, Tony and Steve about the time Tony ‘improved Captain America’s mighty shield’ and Steve didn't say anything because Tony had 'put in so much effort'!

Other interesting bits-

-- A whole 2 chapters about how Clint, Pietro and Wanda came to be Avengers. Completely brilliant characterization of the three and Tony.

-- Namor holds only two surface dwellers in equal regard - Captain America and... Victor von Doom!! Whoa! Seriously... what’s the story with those two (Doom & Namor), any idea?

-- Then, there’s a whole section about what Hydra and J. Jonah Jameson and The Mandarin and Count Nefaria and Dr. Doom have to say about the Avengers. Apart from the hilarious fact that Doom is the only one who doesn’t say anything negative about any Avenger, it seems that in-universe Tony is often centre of conspiracies as a ‘military industrialist monster dictator nightmare’.

-- You know all those early 60’s stories where the Avengers would be beaten and Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade would save the day? Yeah, apparently those really happened only *no-one* but Rick and the Teen Brigade remember them... So Rick keeps saying stuff like, “They don’t remember? I can’t believe they don’t remember!” *hahahaha* :D

I’m also curious about the time frame... There are references (one) to a secret invasion of Skrulls and Clint is alive but so is Jan. And Jan and Hank seem to be really really bitter exes right now. (I read their stuff, and it’s literally like ‘they’ think they’re talking into a vaccuum... As if no one is actually going to hear/read the stuff they’re saying... Wonder what’s with that...)
Anyway, so is this indication of Jan coming back soon? *hopeshopeshopes*

Also, can someone, who has read this feature tell me if the part featured in New Avengers #3 has 7 pages or 8, I'd be really grateful... Does it end with a art-page of The Masters of Evil or is there anything after that as well?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, these sound adorable. D'aww at Tony waxing lyrical over Cap's heartbeat! He's such a fanboy. I do love how Tony is simultaneously a huge fan and a sincere friend to Steve.

Doom and Namor both have a somewhat... ambiguously moral approach, although Namor leans hero while Doom leans strongly villain. They're both monarchs with a high view of honour (defined on their terms), sense of duty and entitlement to their countries, and who fiercely defend their status. They get on as they understand each other, I think. During Dark Reign, Doom offered the Atlanteans asylum in Latveria... I'm not sure how that played out, actually, Doom was simultaneously engaging in shenanigans with Asgard.

Yes, they are! I couldn't believe myself when I saw that thing about 'Cap's heartbeat'... Bendis really does ship them, doesn't he... :D

The whole thing actually has a lot of stuff about various personal motivations, philosophies etc etc... I personally think the guy's got them dead to rights, in terms of characterization...

Doom and Namor... Thanks, I didn't know about Latveria hosting the Atlanteans ... But it's still so strange... Namor obviously admires Cap from his days as an Invader... But where and how did he even get to know Doom? And what's the sitch from Doom's side? There's just a line about Doom *duping* Namor into a team-up in the wikis... *shakes head* Deeply deeply confusing...

(I'm actually loving Doom the more I read about him, though I don't get him at all! :D He's so hammy! And sometimes he'll save and/or team-up with his 'enemies' and then he'll turn around and do the most horrible things ever!?)

Bendis has had Hank and Jan more or less at each other's throats since he came onto the title to do Disassembled. Austen and McDuffie before him wrote Hank as a douchebag misogynist and Jan as a bitter abuse victim (which wasn't anything at all like the writers before them had characterized them), and he swung the pendulum the other way and made Hank a suffering soul who wanted to make it work and Jan a spiteful shrew (and occasional drunk, which, again, was something that had never happened before to my memory) who was looking for reasons to pick fights. His characterization of those two is a big reason I quit reading the oral history, because I hated it in the comics where Jan was alive and I didn't want more of it shoved on me as canon.

...Sorry, that came off way grouchier than I intended.

Oh! I didn't know that! I'd been assuming from all the fandom and what little I saw of them in Civil War (which okay was Skrull!Pym) and how Hank was totally broken up by Jan's death when he 'got back', that they'd been doing fine at that point... Plus, didn't Disassembled end with them getting back together and leaving for... England(?) to try to give it another chance?

Though I must say, I've been having fun (mostly) reading the Hank and Jan bits of the Oral History as, the reporter caught them *just* after one of their 'off' periods [possibly post another Hank!accident... I'm assuming this from some Ultron related stuff which came up (which was actually very very informative)] so they're spouting off without brain/mouth barriers... Then when the book comes out, they see the stuff they said and have a gigantic row at first but it also helps them understand each other better (and see that they really *do* know and love each other... Because that is still obvious in the book...) And then they get together again! :DD (And try to find ways to placate Hercules when he comes after them for calling him a drunken lout... ;)

Because, seriously... Have Jan and Hank actually dated anyone else seriously after they initially got together? Tony was explicitly a rebound guy who she dropped as soon as she found he was also Iron Man, one of Hank's friends...(And sleeping with Clint to make Hank jealous really doesn't count in this regard...)

... The difficulty of conveying tone over text is a grievous one and until this foul demon be vanquished, we must take every comment at the worst face value we can... NOT! ;p So no worries, lol...

No, they had broken up after one of Jan's drunken rages at the time that Hank was replaced by a Skrull. Basically:

- They're fighting over the Hawkeye thing (which I'm also pissed at because damn you, Austen) at the time that Jan gets drunk and spills the beans to Wanda. After getting put into a coma by a mind-controlled She-Hulk, Hank's all "Oh, you were a horrible wife and an even worse ex, but I'll forgive everything if you don't die on me." They leave for Oxford in The End.

-As we find out later, especially in flashbacks from Secret Invasion, their time in England was utterly miserable, and Bendis has it being mostly Jan's fault. Hank starts throwing himself into his work to get away from her, and expresses regret at the move, wondering if maybe going back to the states would be better. Jan, drunk, again (Bendis seems to love using alcohol when he needs her to do something stupid) picks a fight with him about it, and he wakes up the next morning to all her stuff gone and "Bye" on the mirror in lipstick. He later rebound-hooks-up with a college student (...oy), who turns out to be the first Skrull who replaces him. Jan and Skrull!Pym continue to snipe at each other until he bio-bomb kills her.

And Jan's only other relationships were either revenge (Hawkeye), rebound (Iron Man), or not entirely serious (Paladin), but Hank had a relationship with Firebird after she stopped him from killing himself, and a short friends-with-benefits with Tigra (which the Skrull copy later restarted, leading to Tigra's current little kitten kid).

:O ??? D: Where is all this stuff? I think I like my fantasy better... That's the better part of being a comic-fan, right? The ability to pick your canon? I think I'll prefer to exercise that right on this one.... D:

Hmmm... Skrull!Pym might actually be helpful in this regard... Wasn't everyone of the Skrull!Pyms supposed to have suffered programming breakdowns? So because he couldn't act totally IC anymore, instead he tried to alienate Jan so she wouldn't be able to realize something was wrong!! (= My new head canon *nods firmly*)

And Hank has had canonical suicide? o__O When? Where? Why? [Also, whoa! I didn't know the Tigra thing was started by actual Hank... It thought it was Skrull!Hank all along... <.<]

... attempt! I mean, 'Hank has had canonical suicide attempt?' *headdesk*

(posting from phone) the attempted suicide, first relationship with tigra, and relationship with firebird were all back during the first west coast avengers run in the eighties. skrull hank started the second tigra relationship.

and yes, they went through at least five skrull pyms because they kept becoming too much like hank. my personal canon is that the one who finally killed jan was the most heavily brainwashed.

Thanks! I've only read a bit of Iron Man from that era, but West Coast seems pretty interesting...

Yes yes, me like that fanon... =)

West Coast Avengers also has most of the pre-Secret Invasion Clint & Mockingbird canon in it, and some good Wanda and Vision bits. And immediately-post-drinking-arc!Tony.

(Not only was the one who killed Jan probably the most brainwashed, the "you must eventually kill Jan" element of the master plan was probably one of the things that drove the previous skrull!Hanks over the edge. At least, in my head-canon where the parallel dimension that's supposedly Jan's soulless body from ~~Mighty~~ Avengers WTF is actually a construct created in the shape/image of Jan by a grieving/semi-crazy Hank who was desperately deluding himself into believing it was her.)

I'm really loving all of the Avengers Oral History stuff. It appeals to the history buff in me.

If anyone is interested I've compiled the chapters to date from the Avengers and the New Avengers titles including the art pages. It's "missing" chapter 10; as far as I've been able to tell there is no chapter 10 - numbering error or something.

http://www.whatjanesays.com/files/Avengers_Oral_History_-_to_date_Dec_1st.cbr

Thankyou! I *knew* I was missing a page... (And what an awesome page that was...)

d^_^b

Steve and Tony's mutual fanboying throughout the oral history is super-adorable! Tony, in particular, manages to sneak in a mention of Steve's awesomeness no matter what the conversation is about. There was a great bit in one of the recent chapters where they're being interviewed about Black Panther, and Tony says lots of complimentary things about Panther, and then he's all "Hey, you know who else is awesome? Captain America!" It's just too cute.

I think at this point, not even the most oblivious fanboy can deny the strength of atleast Tony's man-crush on Cap...

(And of course he'd do that... After all Cap is the *benchmark* against which he measures awesome-ness...)

I actually saw at least one fanboy on the Marvel site forums proclaim during Secret Invasion that Tony couldn't possibly be a Skrull unless "he was a Skrull who also had a massive crush on Captain America."

Oh man! That is so awesome! Its nice to see fanboys able to acknowledge stuff like this, instead of automatically shutting eyes, ears, brains and shouting 'ewwwww...' instead... Hope for the world, still... ^_~

The bit with Tony rhapsodizing about Steve's heartbeat goes beyond starry-eyed crush and into the edges of creepy borderline-stalker territory. Yet somehow it's still adorable.

I'm desperately torn over whether to acquire current Avengers stuff and read these, because on the one hand, I love it when Bendis writes Steve & Tony because the shippiness is so epic, but on the other hand, I hate it when Bendis writes Hank and Jan because his inexplicable total loathing of Jan makes him write both of them OOC, especially Jan. Poor Jan, guilty of the ultimate sin of being a pre-Disassembled Avenger with boobs (Wanda, Jan, Tigra, the attempted killing-off of Carol... She-Hulk's probably lucky she wasn't on the team line up during Secret Invasion/Dark Reign).

Haha... you could definitely say that... (Didn't Edward listen to Bella's heartbeat too? ;D) But that quote mostly amuses me for the fact that Tony is comparing Cap to a) a mass-murderer and b) super-sexing ancestor of half the world... (AND Mandarin's direct grand^100 daddy)... Weird role-models much, Tones? ^.^;

Hmm... the link posted above in the comments has all of this feature (except the latest one from Avengers #7, I think...) So it's definitely a place to start... (And yeah, Hank and Jan do seem very bitter and bitchy to each other... but like I said above, I'm choosing to read it as interview taken *just* after a bad spat/break-up and instead taking hope from the fact that... Jan is ALIVE!! Plus the Hank Pym Jr. of Next Avengers has to come from somewhere, right?)

That treatment seems sad... It's always pretty weird when writers try to use their tenure to *break*/destroy characters they don't like, instead of just concentrating on making their faves more awesome , if they can't do a unbiased job... :( I know about Wanda, Jan and Tigra but what about Carol? *curious*

Oh Look! I've found the one of the shield!

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l88v1eBXaN1qcfhrxo1_500.jpg

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pimping! Avengers: The Oral History

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject