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The Good Stuff
2007-03-22 15:00:23

AVENGERS v3 #22

Another day, another Good Comic I Had A Hand In. Today it's AVENGERS v3 #22, the climax of the "Ultron Unlimited" storyline by Kurt Busiek and George Perez.

Sometimes an issue just clicks. By this point, the AVENGERS team had done close to two years worth of stories--some of them good and some of them misfires to one extent or another. And we'd embarked on "Ultron Unlimited" in a deliberate attempt to ramp up the stakes, to answer all of those fans who said that the run up to this point had felt too safe, or too small. But on this issue, everything just plain worked--and I knew it even before the book went to press.

I remember how exciting it was when, earlier, Kurt and I latched onto the idea that Ultron had the brain patterns of Hank Pym, in the same way that the Vision had Wonder Man's brain patterns. That reveal was low-hanging fruit, something that seems so obvious in retrospect, that explains so much about what drives Ultron and why he's such a personal foe for Hank, but nobody'd ever connected the dots before.

I love that all of the big guns get a cool moment as the Avengers do battle with the thousand Ultrons, particularly Iron Man, who'd often been overshadowed by Thor or Cap or one of the others in the fight sequences. We dreamed up a nice Iron Man-specific attack for him. And I also loved it when we hit on the notion of the Scarlet Witch using her hex power, and it having a detrimental effect on the Avengers' efforts, especially after so many issues where she'd saved the day. We'd always heard that her hex-power was uncontrollable, but had never really seen it this way, and it was an excellent way to raise the stakes at a crucial moment. And having Justice bring in Antarctic Vibranium, the Anti-Metal, to destabilize Ultron's adamantium form (and establishing that it would work on adamantium) was also a good bit, coming straight out of Marvel history, and reinforcing the particular strengths that Vance Astrovik brought to the group.

The moment where the tattered Avengers confront the true Ultron won us "Best Moment of the Year" in the Wizard fan awards.

Other, smaller stuff: I remember we got some particularly lousy color separations on this issue. This was back in the day where our colorists weren't working on computer to create their own separations, but would instead create a coor guide, sort of like a miniature painting on a copy of the original art, for the separators to use as a guide. This meant that even the best colorists were largely at the mercy of hourly wage-slave technicians--you never knew quite what you were going to get,back, and this issue suffered in the coloring as a result (particularly the double-page spread with the thousand Ultrons swarming the Avengers.)

The monochromatic color scheme on the cover was suggested by then-Marvel editor Rubin Diaz. He happened to come by the office when we were looking at the piece, and opined that it would look cool if we did it all in reds with the exception of the central Ultron figure. That was a good call.

More later.

Tom B

Editor Simulation
This whole simulation exercise sounds like its going to be fun.

If I were the editor I totally know what I would do: I would get myself a writer with a chronic condition, and a penciler who’s never had to handle a huge event book before. I'd make sure he's unfamiliar characters and situations (not to mention spotlight pressure) and then put the two of them on a gigantic media hyped cross-over event with a tonne of other titles tied into it!! Then I'd solicit it as a monthly!!! What could possibly go wrong? That's the way to do it for sure!

Tom - I really do enjoy these "good/bad" comics you've been involved with posts, but aren't there more important topics you should be addressing right now?

Posted by Agent Johns on 2006-08-18 13:14:13

It's no surprise to me that the colors turned out so bad in this issue. I've seen the original Tom Smith color guides for this issue, and it looked like they were an undistinguishable mess.

Other than that blotch, this was indeed a great run on the Avengers!

Posted by Donovan Yaciuk on 2006-08-18 15:18:17

Always heard this was the highlight of the v3 Avengers run, glad you agree... Keep this stuff coming. And bring back the bad comics, they may offend people, but were interesting, especally because I appear to own a lot more of them...

And to the guy who wants Tom to talk about Civil War delays, he's given a lengthy interview about that to newsarama.com, which it sounds like you've read, I don't know what else he can say on the subject without repeating himself... I don't necessarily agree with everything Tom said in that interview, I think he has a point but is choosing the wrong comic to exercise it on, but if he doesn't want to talk about it here, that's fine. It's not as if he's avoiding the topic elsewhere.

Posted by nickmb on 2006-08-18 16:24:55

CW Talk
I appreciate what Tom did over at Newsarama, especially in taking the time to answer the various posts!

But the fact that he is totally avoiding the topic here (on his own blog!), despite his willingness to engage the topic elsewhere, feels strangly evasive. It gives me the impression that this blog (which I have enjoyed up until now) is actually nothing more than a promotional vehicle which he doesn't want to sully with the huge negative feedback in response to the delay.

Posted by Agent Johns on 2006-08-18 16:42:41

get over yourself, Johns
Its HIS blog. I think there are some valid points that you have brought up, but to act like we are owed an explanation is not valid. I think the prime mover of comic sales is if the story and characters are worth it, not if it meets a ship date. I am going to buy these comics whether or not they come out on time, JUST LIKE YOU WILL. It is obvious what Tom is doing in this blog is giving us an inside look into marvel, warts and all, and I am loving it. If I want gripes and counters to the accusations, I will go to Newsarama and all the other websites that give that. Let this blog be what it is.

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2006-08-18 17:41:39

avengers
awsome once more no matter wat

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-18 18:05:37

bigdaddyhub2
Good post bigdaddyhub2, couldn't have said it better myself.

Posted by Donovan Yaciuk on 2006-08-18 19:41:18

I wish George Perez and Kurt Busiek would start a new Avengers comic, I really enjoy Perez's drawings. It would be nice if it was a new avengers team like the Avengers Legends and Thor should be the leader.

Posted by vols on 2006-08-26 18:41:49

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About this blog:
Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."

About the author:
Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four.


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