Comics Corner: The Avengers 237

   

Title: The Avengers
Issue Number: 237
Release Date: November 1983

Highlights

• The camaraderie of Electro, Moonstone, Blackout, and Rhino is falling apart before it's even started
• Electro doesn't want to go up against the Avengers and Spider-Man, fearing they are far outnumbered
• Rhino accuses Blackout of siding with the Avengers
• Spider-Man is again offered the opportunity to become an Avenger trainee
• Starfox realizes that him hiding his special powers from the Avengers could become problematic in the future, and ponders if he should keep it a secret indefinitely
• The Avengers ask the government for approval to sign on Spider-Man as a trainee, and are told no

Low Points

• Spider-Man seems to only be interested in joining the Avengers for the $1,000.00 paycheck - other than that, he has no interest in being part of the team

Oddities

• TBD

Rating (based on a 1 through 5 Stans grading system)

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Comics Corner: The Avengers

   

Title: The Avengers
Issue Number: 236
Release Date: October 1983

Highlights

• Spider-Man breaks into Avenger's headquarters, and tells them he's there to join up
• The Avengers decline his offer, telling him he's missed their recruitment period, and have a six "man" team limit
• The Avengers do offer him an opportunity to join the trainee program as a potential backup - Spider-Man declines, almost arogantly
• Reference is made to The Avengers 5, 221, The Amazing Spider-Man 243, Marvel Two-In-One 42, Captain America Annual 7, Marvel Team-Up Annual 5, Iron Man 109, and Nova 19
• The alarm goes off at the Avenger's headquarters, and despite offering to help, Spider-Man is sent on his way
• Spider-Man hitches a ride, unknowingly by the team, to the bottom of their Quinjet as it takes off
• The Avengers aren't happy when they find out Spider-Man tagged along to Project Pegasus, and Captain America informs him he's breached a high security facility by doing so
• Spider-Man doesn't follow Captain America's orders, causing a bigger issue by using his webbing on the lava men, instead of making barriers as instructed - Cap chastises him for not following orders, and reminds him as a team everyone needs to do as they're told
• As the scientists of Project Pegasus continue to analyze the Croit Stabilizer, they inadvertently free Blackout from it
• Blackout releases Moonstone from her prison at Project Pegasus, and in turn the two free Rhino and Electro
• The lava men call Captain Marvel the lady of light, and bow down to her
• The lava men tell Captain Marvel that when the Earth people drilled into their home that they saw it as an attack, and were retaliating
• The four villains decide to take over the nuclear reactor of the facility to extract their revenge for being imprisoned there

Low Points

• Generic lava men are the villains of the story
• Spider-Man really doesn't feel necessary to the story, and just comes off as arrogant

Oddities

• None

Rating (based on a 1 through 5 Stans grading system)

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Comics Corner: The Avengers 235

   

Title: The Avengers
Issue Number: 235
Release Date: September 1983

Highlights

• First appearance of Raymond Sikorsky
• Scarlet Witch joins The Avengers
• Reference is made to Fantastic Four 257, The Avengers 16, 221, 232, 233, Thor 334, and The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 16
• Spider-Man learns that The Avengers pay $1,000.00 a week - That's over $3,300.00 now!

Low Points

• Spider-Man's appearance is brief
• Not really worth reading for Spider-Man's chronological story

Oddities

• None

Rating (based on a 1 through 5 Stans grading system)

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Marvel Age Comic Spectaculars (Golden Records)

Marvel Age Comic Spectaculars
Golden Records
1966

You like comic books? You like books on tape? You like comic books on tape...but instead of tapes, they're vinyls? Then perhaps you'd be interested in the Marvel Age Comic Spectaculars from 1966.

The records were released by Golden Records, a subsidiary of publisher Simon & Shuster. It was established for the purposes of popular books with accompanied vinyls that were sometimes read by narrators or fully acted out like your favorite serials, with sound effects and all. The stories released with some of the most popular comic books of all time fall into the latter category.

Golden Records released record sets based on The Amazing Spider-Man issue 1, The Avengers issue 4, The Fantastic Four issue 1 and Journey Into Mystery 83. Not only are these some of the most key comic books of all time, but the first official reprints. It's because of this, while the books are highly valuable, you should be cognizant of these editions should you actively be looking to track down original first prints of the comics themselves.

There are, however, some easy to tell signs that the comic you may (or may not) be holding in your hands is the Golden Records edition. First and foremost, there's no price on the covers. Second, the back cover and ads inside the issue promote the Golden Record series of comics and vinyls.

You'll easily pay over a thousand dollars for the comics alone in this series. Several thousands for higher end condition books. However, if you're going to spend $4,000.00 on a 7.0 or above The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Golden Record edition, may I suggest you instead just take that money and purchase a first print of the original book in a 3.0 condition. Sure, the condition is far less, but wouldn't you rather have an original if you're going to spend the money? I would.

Then again, if you've already got an original first print, you have the expendable cash and you're looking for something unique to add to your collection, these sets may fit that bill perfectly.

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Earth's Mightiest Heroes! The Avengers (Toy Biz)

Earth's Mightiest Heroes! The Avengers
Toy Biz
1999 

Toy Biz has produced a lot of Marvel superhero action figures and I've covered quite a few of them. To the point where I honestly don't know how much more I can say on the subject.

From Iron Man, to Fantastic Four, to Spider-Man, to Alpha Flight and the entire Marvel Universe as a whole, it's pretty much been covered by Toy Biz. It seemed only natural an Avengers line would eventually come. Granted in 1999, there was obviously no Marvel cinematic universe to help peddel these to.  Still, this didn't slow down sales of Marvel fans who swooped up pretty much every figure they could get their hands on - Especially the female ones.

The Avengers line of course met this call with a nice version of Scarlet Witch. This particular line was actually noteworthy for being the first series to produce and release a Scarlet Witch and Loki figure.

Toy Biz rounded out the series with a fantastic four pack which featured the original Avengers which featured Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, Giant-Man and Wasp. The package also included six separate ants to accompany your Ant-Man figure.

I also appreciate Toy Biz's attempt at scaling the figures. Giant-Man stands about one and a half times the height of Hulk, Thor and Iron Man. Meanwhile, Ant-Man and Wasp come up only to the knees of Giant-Man. Then of course there are the ants, which are about a third of the height of Ant-Man and Wasp. Overall it's a really nice set.

These days people are practically giving away the entire line. The figures sell for only a few dollars and the Avengers set can sell for as little as $20.00 - All of this of course mint in their packages.

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Thor The Dark World (Hasbro)

Thor The Dark World
Hasbro
2013

Admittedly, the Thor films have not resonated with us all that much. They're just not as interesting to us as some of the other entries into the Marvel phases.

With that said, we can appreciate a good toy line when we see one. Unfortunately, Hasbro's 2013 entry isn't what we would consider "good".

It's small, limited, and for a film that focused on a whole bunch of characters in the Thor storyline, they sure aren't present in the toy line. It seemed as if Hasbro made this line simply for the sake of checking off a box - "A new Marvel movie is coming out, I guess we should throw something out on the market." This line truly feels like there is no effort, and more importantly, no love on Hasbro's part.

***SIDE TRACKED*** Typing this actually reminded us about the film Adventure's in Babysitting from 1987. Maia Brewton played Sara Anderson, a little girl obsessed with Thor. She was also one of Lorrainne Baines' (Lea Thompson) siblings in Back to the Future. You can see her sitting at the dinner table in the scene where Marty joins the family for dinner after being hit by their father's car. HOORAY FOR MOVIE TRIVIA!

Wow, that sidetrack actually really took the focus away for us...So, here's the photos. Enjoy!

 Thor (Battle Hammer)*Thor (Lightning Bolt)

 Dark Elf*Marvel's Kurse

 Loki

 Hammer Launch Thor (10 Inch)*Thor (12 Inch)

Battle Hammer*Hero Mask

Join us next time when we take a look at McDonald's Happy Meal Magic!

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Thor - The Mighty Avenger (Hasbro)

Thor - The Mighty Avenger
Hasbro
2011

With the Marvel engine gearing up for an Avenger's romping back in 2012, Disney was working furiously to release a film on each major character that would lead into the team's formation. Thus, Thor was released in 2011 as one such film.

We'll spare you the details of our personal opinion of it - Suffice to say we didn't enjoy it at all.

With its Marvel Universe line taking toy isles by storm, Hasbro upped the ante by adding a small wave of figures based on Thor which were more movie accurate in sculpt and design.

What seemed to hurt the line in the long run was the rehash of figures with different paint schemes. Out of the twenty figures which encompassed four waves, seven alone were variants of Thor. In addition to that, three figures were dedicated to Loki, and two to Odin. This left very little room in the line for other characters to be developed.

WAVE 1

Battle Hammer Thor*Invasion Frost Giant

WAVE 1

Lightning Clash Thor*Shield Bash Marvel's Odin

WAVE 1

 Secret Strike Loki*Sword Spike Thor

 WAVE 2

Blade Battle Marvel's Hogun*Fire Blast Marvel's Destroyer

 WAVE 2

Harpoon Blade Fandral*King Loki

 WAVE 2

Ram Smash Volstagg*Thunder Crusader Thor

 WAVE 3

Asgardian Glow Marvel's Odin*Hammer Smash Thor

 WAVE 3

Ice Axe King Laufey

 WAVE 4

Axe Attack Thor*Cosmic Armor Thor

 WAVE 4

Inferno Marvel's Destroyer*Scorcerer Fury Loki

 WAVE 4

Staff Strike Sif

In addition to the basic figures, Hasbro produced two waves of deluxe ones. This of course included two more Thor figures.

 

 DELUXE

Asgard Defender Heimdall (Wave 2)*Blaster Armor Thor (Wave 1)

DELUXE

Ice Attack Marvel's Frost Giant (Wave 1)*Lightning Fury Thor (Wave 2)

A planned third wave for the deluxe figures which would have included Disc Launcher Thor and Ice Claw Marvel's Frost Giant never came to light. Though no known images seem to exist for the Thor figure, one has surfaced for the Ice Claw Marvel's Frost Giant - Meaning there's a prototype out there somewhere.

Join us next time when we take a look at Fathom!

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