My Favorite Comic Of All-Time?

“It's the single best issue of Avengers ever done”

Those are the words of former Avengers writer Kurt Busiek in the comments of Tom Brevoort’s excellent blog, The Tom Brevoort Experience regarding Giant-Size Avengers #2. He’ll have no argument from me on that assessment. It’s an outstanding comic book with everything from Hawkeye’s return to help free his teammates from Kang the Conqueror to the incredible reveal of Mantis as the Celestial Madonna to the sadly inevitable death of the Swordsman. All beautifully illustrated by Dave Cockrum, delivering perhaps his finest artwork ever.

This comic ranks as perhaps my favorite of all time for a couple other reasons. Not only did the art in this issue forever change my expectations for how Iron Man should look, but the Swordsman's passing was timed with my first experience with losing a loved one. The very person who unintentionally got me into collecting comic books.

A New Standard for Iron Man

Let’s first talk about the art. I’d been a big fan of Dave Cockrum since his work on the Legion of Superheroes and was thrilled to have him at Marvel, redesigning the Guardians of the Galaxy’s costumes and inking several issues of the Avengers.

Up to that point, I’d considered George Tuska’s take on my favorite hero as essentially the “template” for how Iron Man should look. Unfortunately, at that time, we were several months into that damned nose. Even worse, Tuska had made the faceplate more expressive with a bottom lip. I cringed at how Iron Man now looked in his own book. (In all fairness, inker Mike Esposito should not escape his role in all of this.)

However, once I saw Cockrum’s rendering of Iron Man in Giant-Size Avengers #2, it was as though I was seeing him for the very first time. That suit actually looked like metal - not another costume with some additional squiggly lines. Even with a lesser role in the book, Cockrum’s art had him seeming to bolt from each panel. And somehow, that damned nose looked…decent. Even workable.

They were easily the most dynamic shots I’d ever seen of Iron Man and fair or not, they became the standard of how I judged every artist who drew him from that point forward.

A More Personal Meaning

If you’ve read my introduction on this blog, then you know it was my Grandma Moore who inadvertently got me hooked on comic books when she bought both Iron Man #45 and Superboy #190 for me to read while I was home with the chickenpox.

She also passed away a day after I purchased Giant-Sized Avengers #2.

That was the first time someone so close to me had died.

Looking back all these years, I can say that being a grandmother wasn’t her greatest strength. She had had a rough life, marrying a man ten years her senior and spending much of his time away from home finding various ways to make money, as she raised five kids. By the time they divorced, she was a woman in her late forties having to start all over again.

Those comics she gave me were an easy purchase since she bought them off a spinner rack at the grocery store where she worked as a checker. I don’t recall if she stopped by to actually see me after dropping off those comics.

As further proof that life is not only unfair but needlessly cruel, it wasn’t that much longer before she was diagnosed with ALS. As a result, my grandmother spent the final eighteen months of her life in an iron lung.

When she passed away, I did not know what to feel or how to behave. All I knew for certain was that under no circumstances would I cry. I would attempt to remain every bit as stoic as my father - a thirty-three-year-old man who had just lost his mother.

Writer Steve Englehart did a remarkable job setting up the Swordsman's death. Jacques Duquesne put everything he had into saving the big guns who’d been captured by Kang. While he was not the one to actually save the day, the Swordsman still gave his life to save a woman who had been unfaithful to him.

His final words were “I'm just...one of those people...who doesn't count.” Iron Man somberly countered with “Every Avenger counts Swordsman. Every one.”

It was just a comic book. But I could not help thinking of Grandma Moore with those words. She wasn’t perfect. None of us are. But damn if she didn’t pay a harsh price for her every mistake and remained unable to overcome the challenges placed in her way. She was also my grandmother and because of that, she meant the world to me.

For that alone, Giant-Size Avengers #2 will always be a personal classic.

And for the first time in over fifty years, I can cry over her passing.

Thank You

I appreciate your reading of this post. Those that follow this blog can attest that I’m not typically this somber, as I tend to have a good deal of silly fun with my reviews. I invite you to check out this blog and subscribe to my weekly releases. You can do so at the bottom of my home page. Feel free as well to share your thoughts in the comments below.