The Avengers 1959 Saga

 

The New Avengers 10-13 May 2011- August 2011

Story by Brian Michael Bendis art by Mike Deodato and Howard Chaykin

Guess what?  This isn’t one story but two as we bop between the present and 1959.  (which based on the original Marvel stories were only four years before Hulk, Ant-man, Wasp, The Hulk and Thor created their team of the same name)

Following the adventures of Dominic Fortune as we are here, it’s really only the 1959 part we care about. All we need to know about the present The New Avengers are fighting H.A.M.M.E.R agents and Mockingbird is severely injured all of which are drawn by Mike Deodato.  We flashback to 1959 and Nick Fury with Dum-Dum Dugan form a black ops team with Sabretooth, Namorita, Sergei Kraven, Ulysses Bloodstone, Ernst Sablinova (Silver Sable) and Dominic Fortune.  This black ops team attack a Nazi base in Sweden where Red Skull has been reported to be located.  When the team attacks Skull’s base, a fake Captain America appears.  It appears that the Nazis also wanted their own supersoldier and made a serum as well as the infinity formula, making the recipient super strong, bullet proof and immortal. 1959 members of the Avengers Initiative stop the phony Captain America and retrieve the hybrid serum.

If you guessed that Fury busts out the confiscated serum and gives to it to Mockingbird.  Yay! No tie-in to what happened in Hawkeye & Mockingbird though.

It is nice that it ties back to Web of Spiderman 71 & 72 telling us how Fortune met Silver Sable’s father.

 

Avengers 1959 1-5 December 2011-March 2012

Story and Art by Howard Chaykin

The New Avengers story must have done well and/or fired by Chaykin’s creative juices as it came out fairly quickly after that original story.

We open with the first Avengers 1959 team celebrating their success before they go their own ways.  Ernst Sable and Ulyssess Bloodstone are off to the Savage Land for a spot of hunting.  Kraven and Sabretooth have an altercation over Namorita and after shooting Sabretooth, the couple decide that they should leave for their health.

That’s where we flash to Lousie Mason The Domino Lady -  Chaykin has her undercover spying on a rogue Nazi named Skul posing as his girlfriend.  There’s a nice visual that she is in red lingerie and wearing black framed glasses that suggest her red dress – domino mask combo.  (Now I want to do a Domino Lady/Blonde Phantom story).

A group of assassins with a Skull logo try to kill Fury, Namorita, Kraven, Dominic Fortune and Sabretooth and set up diplomatic relations with Wakanda.

Strangely the assassination attempts upset their targets and along with some other intelligence from an Englishman Powell McTeague that Skul is setting up his neo-Nazi attacks from Latveria.  Fury and Blonde Phantom investigate Skul while Fortune, Sabretooth, Kraven and Namorita attack one of Skul’s ships carrying Nazi supervillains Baron Blood and Brain Drain.  Magic Nazi pirates.  What more do I have to say.

McTeague acts and dresses like John Steed, which I guess is a fun nod to The Avengers TV series.

There’s a plot for a Nazi sympathiser to take over America but The Avengers manage to stop him with a little bit of Magic.

It’s a fun tale with several Nazi supervillains as well as magic.  Fortune doesn’t do much which was a surprise.