Avengers: The Korvac Saga

This was the first Avengers story line I ever read. I chose to buy this book based on a recommendation from Michael Zapcic on the 'I Sell Comics' Podcast. I was a little unsure about picking it up, but once I read this interesting story, I didn't regret it! It was a great read, although my lack of knowledge of the history of the Avengers may have meant I missed some of the references to back stories.

The story involves a man who has been half turned into a robot who attempts to destroy the Earth's Sun many years in the future, but is stopped by the Guardians of the Galaxy with the help of Thor. He escapes by travelling through time to the time of the Avengers where most of the story takes place. I won't spoil the story, but it does involve a large number of Avengers making appearances to help stop a series of mysterious events. The book is made up of back issues from the original Avengers series along with stories from a Thor annual.

The story is a little complex for a newcomer to comics like me, but you quickly get a feel for some of the relationships that exist between the Avengers. I enjoyed reading the disagreements between Iron Man and Captain America over Iron Man's leadership. I also enjoyed the character of Wonderman who Michael Zapcic had raved about. The story itself contains a number of twists that I didn't expect and the original ending was excellent. I did however feel the epilogue that had been added to the story later was unnecessary and didn't match up to the quality of the rest of the story.

I had been keen to see and read some of George Perez's work and it didn't let me down. Its colourful 70's style was easy to follow and difficult to put down. It is easy to see why he is held in such high esteem by fans and still working today.

It is a book I will definitely come back to in the future when I have a little more understanding of the Marvel Universe and is also a book I would recommend to newcomers like me and to comic book veterans (although it is likely they will already have read this story.) It has also inspired me to look further into the Avengers history and order some back issues off ebay. I also now can't wait to see the Avengers movie when it is released next month.

If you pick up this book expecting to see the Guardians of the Galaxy line up from the blockbuster movie then you may be a little surprised. The line up of the team has changed a lot through Marvel History, in fact only one of the guardians in this book features in the movie and he is not one of the five characters you expect. Yondu the last of the Alpha Centauri weapons-masters, features in the movie, but is depicted more as a bad guy for most of the movie. This Yondu is quite different from the character portrayed by Michael Rooker , having a long red Mohawk style hair cut, and red featuring heavily in his costume. He also carries a bow, rather than just a whistle controlled arrow. He is however still mostly blue.

The rest of the books line up are Charlie-27, the Jovian Militia Man... Martinex, the Crystal Man of Pluto... Nikki, the Flame Tressed Mercurian and Major Vance Astro, Earth's Thousand Year Old Spaceman. But don't let this put you off. This is still a great story, although you can see why characters like Groot and Rocket Racoon were chosen over these guys for the movie.

Like the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Avengers line up has changed regularly through its history with some characters featuring just briefly, some coming and going regularly and some which feature almost throughout the history of the book.

Many of the heroes featured in 'The Korvac Saga' line up will be familiar to most readers from either the Avengers Movie or from other Marvel hero movies. Thor features heavily, as do Iron Man, Captain America and Hawkeye. Scarlet Witch features too as does the Vision who I believe will both feature in the upcoming Avengers Movie Ávengers: Age of Ultron'. In addition there is Beast who you will recognise from some of the X-Men movies and also Wasp and Hank Pym as Yellow jacket, who was previously known as Ant Man. Finally come Wonderman and Ms Marvel. Ultron also features as an enemy briefly.

As you can see it is a comprehensive line up that will not disappoint and they will need all of their combined abilities (and possibly more) to defeat this significant threat.