AVENGERS 1959

In NEW AVENGERS #10, we got this great little story that introduced us to a 1950s Avengers team. It was created by Nick Fury and was designed to hunt the last of the Third Reich. The team was made up of Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, Dominic Fortune, Namora, Sabretooth, Silver Sable (not the hottie from Spider Man days, but Ernst Sablinova), Kraven the Hunter, and Ulysses Bloodstone.  Following the fan reaction to this, Marvel let legendary creator Howard Chaykin run wild on a five-issue mini-series appropriately called AVENGERS 1959. This time around they have some new friends including Eric Koenig , The Blonde Phantom, and British wizard and spy Powell McTeague.

Our story begins with the core six members toasting The Avengers and going the separate ways. Louise Mason, also known as The Blonde Phantom, is undercover and involved with Dieter Skul who is hanging out in the capital of Lateria. The other Avengers are all being attacked by various bad guys and gals (including the female ninja who gets impaled on a bus stop sign) carrying some sort of signature skull emblem. Did I also mention that Kraven and Namora are physically involved? Powell McTeague shows up to talk to Nick Fury, explaining the some former Nazis are looking to start a Fourth Reich.

Soon, Fury is on his way to Lateria where he meets up with his old Howling Commando friend Eric Koenig and the infamous Blonde Phnatom to investigate a possible Nazi cell. Rumor has it that the king of Wakanda has been kidnapped. In the process, Fury and the Phantom end up fighting zombie soldiers. Meanwhile, the rest of the team shows up on a boat in the middle of the Pacific and battle Baron Blood and Brain Drain. And then they get help from McTeague. The villains disappear, leaving the skull emblem on the deck of the ship. McTeague explains that he does not believe the Ubermadschen are behind this-that it is an unknown foe that is pulling the strings. We discover that Geoffrey Sydenham, a U.S. government official with ties to Dormammu, is masterminding the whole thing.

Fury and the Phantom continue their search for the missing Wakandan king and end up running across the quartet of Axis Annie, Madame Mauser, Praulein Fatale and Penny Panzer. With the help of the other Avengers, the foursome is taken captive and dropped off and interrogated on the island of Madripoor. Back in Washington, Gorilla Man, sent there by Agent Jimmy Woo (nice tie in to the Agents of Atlas series), saves General Hill from an assassin’s bullet. Sydenham’s partners Dieter Skul and Count von Blitzkrieg send an electromagnetic pulse through Wakanda, leading to a battle between the forces of evil and The Avengers.

I will not ruin the ending but suffice it to say it reveals secrets, there’s a big battle or two, and it leaves room for a sequel.

You either have to believe that Howard Chaykin is insane or a genius. Just look at some of the books that are part of his body of work: CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, THE SHADOW, WORLD OF KRYPTON, AMERICAN CENTURY, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL, AMERICAN FLAGG, BLACK KISS, TIME 2. These are some of the most talked about and in some case, controversial titles of the last 20 years. Sometimes he is dead on the money-sometimes his work leaves a lot to be desired (still smarting over the 2010 THE RAWHIDE KID series). But this book is killer. His writing is sharp and crisp and the dialogue snippets are great. And his artwork has not been this good looking in quite a while.

I loved the mini-series and look forward to a sequel. Just seeing such diverse characters as Sabretooth and Kraven hanging out with Nick Fury and Dominic Fortune makes this whole effort totally worth the cost.