I had to give it up for some of my favorite Shooter moments: 1. Linnea mourns her husband while blasting flirtacious Iron Man (#212) “A flying man in armor! Gorn would have marveled! But he is dead!” “That does it! I have GOT to do all my flirting as Tony Stark…and keep my mind on fighting when I’m Iron Man!” 2. Ghost Rider grabs Thor’s returning mallet for surprise attack (#214) 3. Thor exits men’s room into a restaurant after transforming ("By Odin! The window's too small! I cannot get through!" "There was a god in the men's room!"(#215) 4. Don Blake punches Molecule Man! (#216) 5. Tigra talks Molecule Man into seeing a therapist (#216) 6. Yellowjacket fights the Avengers to save Trish Starr (plus the Wasp turns the tide) (#217) 7. Ann Nocenti thinks Steve Rogers has jumped out a window to his doom while waiting to have his portfolio seen (#219) 8. The naked Wasp wears a handkerchief to answer Moondragon’s summons (#219) 9. The Wasp puts on Don Bla...

I love writing these things from memory, so I can emphasize the most memorable parts and keep emphasis on the characters, rather than plot summary. It IS good to check back when I have the issue on hand (thanks, Joe Braband and David Holt, again!)---that way, we don’t miss bits like “Mechano-Marauder.” We could make this small role a spotlight, too; after all, he re-appears in #221 in the middle of the membership drive! I don’t think Assistant Editor’s Month would’ve been complete without him, either; it’s there we discover he’s an inventor who won the lottery. Here, he attacks Avengers Mansion in his exo-skeleton. Iron Man casually engages him in combat while the Wasp, Captain America, and Thor arrive! (It’s this meeting where the returned Wasp nominates herself as chairperson in “an election that’s long overdue.”) Shellhead greets them each in turn while addressing the ranting would-be…what IS he trying to accomplish, anyway? So if he beats an Avenger, he will get a rep? I ...

Now, the remaining two in our quartet both made their comic book names with molecules; the founding blocks of any chemical identity, smaller than the eye can see, yet a part of all things! In these stories, both are quite psychologically troubled, as well. It’s no accident Jim Shooter suggests therapy strongly in the sagas of both Hank Pym, a.k.a. Yellowjacket and Owen Reece, a.k.a. the Molecule Man. Both suffer from mental illnesses exacerbated by their fantastic powers. Their contrast is extremely instructive: despite their similar alienation and the soft science fiction basis of their powers, one, Hank, feels he is not truly powerful enough, while Owen’s driven crazy by the nearly unlimited abilities! By the end of these stories, one’s on his way to hope, while the other, in trying to do the right thing under duress, falls deep into the belly of the beast---an accused traitor to the United States Tigra’s the star of the first pages of #215, with her misadventures at the bank and...

Courtesy the Tigra Picture Page http://www.thetigrapicturepage.com/ FALLEN ANGELS Tigra the Cat Woman, demon hero Ghost Rider, emotionally-backwards Molecule Man, and Hank Pym, hero no more: these four center our next discussion of Jim Shooter’s 1980’s run on THE MIGHTY AVENGERS by Marvel Comics Group. Specifically, we’re examining these four in light of issues #214-217, published in 1981. First: the Ghost Rider. Johnny Blaze is so emotionally troubled at this point, he’s brooding out in the desert, homeless, aimless, hopeless. It’s no accident we meet him on the heels of Hank Pym’s breakdown chronicled over the two months before. Shooter really nails this character: in his despair, his envy over the speeding playboy with the girl and the two hundred mph beautiful auto sparks anger at the injustice of his now- nowhere life. So, he unleashes the Ghost Rider, flame-skull vigilante now virtually free of human influence. He still has Blaze’s champion rider skills and uses them to f...

Tragic Linnea. Quirky Tigra. Emotionally stunted Molecule Man. Troubled Ghost Rider. Comical Stankowitz. Imperious Moon Dragon. One volatile mix of core Avengers, set against the perils of Pym. Shake well with renderings by Bob Hall, Alan Weiss, and embellish it with Brett Breeding. Drink in Jim Shooter’s 1980’s Avengers. I found an absorbing depiction of Pyrrhic victory in the guest-filled Michael Korvac saga, but when Shooter returned three years later, working with sub-plots and strong characterization, the stops were truly pulled out! I haven’t made it through every issue of the late 1970’s incarnation of AVENGERS---I found the entirety of the 1980 issues sadly unreadable, with art that looked like its figures are melting and one fill-in writer after the next. Mr. Shooter himself has detailed the end of Gene Colan’s run, coinciding with the membership shake-up that began a year of Jim Shooter’s Avengers. Everything fundamentally funky 70’s about the title starts to vanish...