Avengers #3 Tile [by Jonnie] & Plot Synopsis [by Brother Todd]

Avengers #3:


Not bad for cranking it out at 6:00am before going to work.
Well, not good either.

Addendum -

Brother Todd emailed me today regarding the plotline of Avengers #3 and some notes on the state of his personal copy of that issue.

I am reproducing it here FYI:

The Avengers are sitting around, and they decide they should go look for the Hulk, because they should keep an eye on him and try to steer him toward being a good guy. Iron Man suddenly reveals his new invention which can project a ghostlike image of himself anywhere, and with it he can carry on conversations. So he sends this ghost form around to look for the Hulk. He checks with all the other super heroes to see if they’ve seen him, so we have cameo appearances of the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Spider-man. Ice Man is still in his snowy form. It’s pretty neat. Hulk was less than a year old at this point, I think. Pretty much, everybody brushes Iron Man off because they’re busy with their own affairs. Before giving up, Thor says, “let’s check with young Rick Jones!” So they contact him on HAM radio, and Rick Jones goes and finds the Hulk in the desert. The Avengers go off to get him, each taking their own transports. Ant Man and wasp ride on a commercial jet. Iron Man and Thor fly on their own. When they get to the desert, they find the Hulk and have a massive fight, I guess probably the first time the Avengers fought the Hulk. It’s a pretty good fight.

Hulk goes into hiding at the end of the fight. He hides in the back of a gravel truck that dumps in the ocean and he swims under water for days “like a whale” to escape. Out on the sea, he meets the Sub-mariner, who is piloting a high tech submarine. Sub-mariner is portrayed sort of like a generic Dr. Doom, very technological. So, Hulk and Sub-mariner, after fighting a little bit, agree that they both hate humanity, so they should team up to destroy humans. So they go to Gibralter, and hide out in some abandoned World War II tunnels (this was only 19 years after the end of the War). Hulk and Subby are plotting to trick each other the whole time.

The Avengers get a call on their radio from the Sub-mariner and Hulk. They challenge the Avengers to a fight! So the Avengers get in their experimental submarine and head to Gibralter. And they have a big fight. Iron Man is on the verge of death again and again. His armor was pretty rickety and malfunctioned a lot in those days. Hulk tried to pull Thor’s hammer out of his hand, but couldn’t do it – not even pulling with both hands. IN the middle of the fight, Hulk turns back into “Bob Banner.” This was a mistake I guess by Stan Lee. He forgot Hulk’s real identity’s name! Or was he known as Robert Bruce Banner for a while? I forget. Anyway, so Banner runs off, and the Avengers defeat Sub-mariner.

There is no letters page. The final panel has a caption that promises a big surprise in the next issue. And that big surprise turns out to be – Captain America’s revival.

The book is in decent shape, for the price, I guess. The ad said there was a 1” chunk missing from the back cover, but it was more like 3 to 4 inches. It’s a big chunk, but it’s the back cover. The front cover is pretty nice to look at, no real creases across the front, but there is a lot of spine wear. But still, the cover is attached at both staples. The center fold is loose at one staple, but all the paper is in pretty nice condition. Due to the size of the chunk, it would grade as Fair/Good, but I paid the price of a Good copy. But I suppose it’s ok, because the cover looks almost Very Good in appearance.

It’s in a frame hanging up in the living room right now.

Avengers Assemble!