The Avenging Hour

What happens when the Earth is invaded by shape shifting aliens known as....Skrulls?  Can the Fantastic Four defeat them even after the aliens have turned the whole world against them?  Issue #1 would suggest the answer is likely no, but they keep publishing the title for another 50 years, so I'm guessing the answer is yes!  Listen to how it happens and find out how cows are involved!

Jason and John are finally back!  It's only been 11 months, and the podcast is different!  Now we're Year One Comics, where we explore the first year of various comics book series.  And what better series to kick us off than the first Marvel superhero comic of the Silver Age, the Fantastic Four!  In their first issue, we meet the team, the Mole Man, and see Reed Richards' brilliance...

It's the end of the Under Siege storyline AND the end of the Avenging Hour (as we know it)!...

It's the beginning of the Under Siege storyline where the Masters of Evil take over the mansion and we couldn't be happier!

The team battles joins forces with Hellstorm and Hellcat to battle demon horde. Master Pandemonium tags along for their ride through Hell until they venture into Cat People land where Tigra almost murders him. The cat lady and the demon man resolve some of their soul issues and everything is hunky-dory, except that Hank Pym might want to kill himself.

It's a crossover annual extravaganza as BOTH teams (plus, a bunch of former members) join forces to defeat a group of fake Zodiac members and take down the traitor who tried to have them imprisoned for treason!

Graviton, and some useless villains we'll probably never see again, harass the team until Tigra turns back into a female, which confuses everyone iand sends Graviton rocketing off into space on a chunk of planet.

The Avengers have to calm a riot outside the mansion over Namor's inclusion on the team. Moonstone, Absorbing Man, and Titania add to the trouble. Then Wasp, Black Knight, and Paladin face off against Grey Gargoyle, Screaming Mimi, and Yellowjacket. And finally, Alpha Flight assists the team when Namor goes to Atlantis to free his ex-girlfriend form the clutches of Attuma.

OHMYGOSH. THESE TWO ISSUES ARE HORRIBLE. PLEASE DON'T LISTEN. WE WARNED YOU. Sigh...okay. If you insist. The team goes looking for the Thing and finds two horrible villains instead. Then, most of the team goes to a SHIELD base and runs into even worse villains. The end.

It's a three-part cavalcade of Kangs, featuring a whole council of crazy Kangs and even a Kang with a cape, as Kang tries to murder himself over and over to become the one true Kang! Also: Space Phantom, Ravonna, Dire Wraiths, and...Immortus! A whole mess of time traveling trouble full of flashbacks and fun! 

Firebird's old team, the Rangers, arrive at the West Coast compound under demonic possession. After easily defeating them, the Avengers send Mockingbird in disguise to flush out Master Pandemonium, but just as she's about to defeat him, Tigra swoops in and defeats her. Then Thing finally decides to join the team.

Just a bunch of Secret Wars II garbage.

Werewolves, and Cat People, and Ultrons...OH MY!

The Enclave is back, but that's not important, because they're useless. Instead, the team finds the still living body of Jean Grey at the bottom of the ocean. And then Wasp fights a new female Yellowjacket, which is one step up from being defeated by a door.

Tigra is almost killed by Kraven the Hunter. Wonder Man goes on the Tonight Show and confesses to being a crook. Hank Pym becomes the team's manservant. Thing and Firebird show up. And we meet the greatest (or stupidest) supervillain ever made out of demons: Master Pandemonium!

Let's see...Starfox leaves the team so he and Firelord can go search for Nebula, The Beyonder shows up to annoy EVERYONE , the FAA forces the Avengers to move their Quinjets out of Manhattan, we meet Stingray and his wife who conveniently have a large hydrobase called Hydrobase that could conceivably hold many aircraft, and Hercules punches Namor until he joins the team.

It's the end of the line for Nebula as the Avengers conspire with the ragtag Skrulls to defeat her mercenary army and capture...oh, never mind, The Beyonder showed up and ruined everything. Then we get to meet a bunch of Skrulls who think they're 1930's Earth gangsters, but that doesn't matter because yet another group of Skrulls sets off a bomb that erases the shape-changing a...

SORRY SO TARDY...I WAS ON VACATION. (-Jason) I guess we finally get to the bottom of this whole "which brother is actually my brother" thing, but the only fighting we witness is fighting the urge to scream at the creators for all of these flashbacks. Oh, and most of the bad guys escape anyway.

We're taking a detour for a convoluted story about brothers and zombies and lots and lots of flashbacks. The West Coast Avengers battle Ultron and oceans. Vision and Scarlet Witch go house hunting and learn to drive. Did I mention zombies? Oh yes. That too.

When they borrow Starfox's dad's car, our other Avengers are finally able to reunite with Captain Marvel in a galaxy far, far away where Nebula has already started making moves to destroy what's left of the Skrull empire!

The Avengers are off to the Savage Land to watch a giant robot slug annihilate some Marvel afterthoughts before Hercules shreds him like tin foil. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel gets her powers back and meets Nebula.

Another mid-week episode bringing you up to speed with the Avengers title from the beginning. These issues are notable for the fact that they are not very good and, aside from the Sons of the Serpent story, feature totally lackluster villains. Plus, by the end of it, our team is down to three lousy members. But hey, enjoy the recap!

So that Vision storyline is over and he and Wanda leave the team. Out in space, Captain Marvel is kidnapped by space pirates. And we tackle a Marvel Graphic Novel where Doctor Doom takes over the world, then gets bored and gives it back.

We FINALLY reach the first ending of this whole "Vision takes over the world's computer systems" storyline. I say the first ending, because this thing will drag out in the background for years to come. At least we finally get him and his wife to leave the team though.

Just a few more chapters in the neverending saga of Vision and his world domination indecision. As a distraction, Wasp joins up with Paladin to battle Baron Brimstone. And Hercules knocks out the Blood Brothers but loses his pants. Oh, and the Black Knight returns...that's kinda cool.