Dr Doom

DR DOOM [Victor von Doom]

First Appearance: Fantastic Four V1 #5 (Jul 1962)

First Avengers Appearance: Avengers V1 #1 1/2 (Dec 1999) / Avengers V1 #25 (1966)

Other Avengers conflicts of note: Emperor Doom Graphic Novel, Acts of Vengeance, Secret Wars.

Originally it was believed that Dr Doom, better known as a frequently recurring enemy of the Fantastic Four, first fought The Avengers in issue #25 published in 1966. However in 1999, an earlier battle was revealed as occurring between issues 1 and 2 involving the original team. This conflict was published in The Avengers 1½. Doom has confronted The Avengers on a handful of occasions including during the “Acts of Vengeance” arc and The Marvel Super Heroes Secret War 12 issue limited series

Doom, the ruler of the European country of Latveria is a scientific genius and is also well versed in the mystic arts. He is a master strategist who always has at least one back-up plan. Disfigured in an experiment Doom wears a metal face plate and armour that contains a wide array of offensive and defensive weapons. He is also often supported by an army of robotic creations.

Loki

LOKI

First Modern appearance: Journey into Mystery [Thor] V1 #85 (Oct 1962).

First Avengers appearance: Avengers V1 #1 (Sept 1963)

Other appearances of note: Avengers V1 #115-118 and Defenders V1 #8-11, Avengers # 311-313 (Dec 1989-Jan 1990) / Avengers West Coast # 53-55 (Dec 1989-Feb 1990), Siege (2010)

A being from the other dimensional world of Asgard, Loki is the foster son of Odin the ruler of Asgard and half-brother to Odin’s true son Thor. Known as the god of mischief, lies and evil, Loki's powers include sorcery and control of great magical forces. He has been a recurring antagonist of Thor in the thunder god’s own titles and it was Loki’s efforts to use the Hulk in his plans to destroy Thor that led to the formation of The Avengers.

Loki harbours great animosity for his half-brother’s comrades and has menaced The Avengers on several occasions. Loki allied himself with Dormammu in an adventure referred to as “The Avengers / Defenders War”. Later in “Acts of Vengeance” Loki orchestrated a series of attacks by a collection of super-villains before confronting the combined forces of the Avengers and the Avengers West Coast himself. Loki was also the architect behind the Domination Factor mini-series’ involving both The Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Universal boundaries are no barriers the Loki’s wrath.  When Loki obtained the six Infinity Gems he and the Grandmaster played the Avengers against Ultraforce in a crossover with the Malibu Ultraverse. In volume 2 Loki was the behind the scenes protagonist while they were trapped in the Heroes Reborn pocket-verse and in the M2 alternative-future universe series Loki was behind “Last Hero Standing” involving the Avengers. 

Most recently Loki has plagued The Avengers in the industry wide cross-over arcs Dark Reign and Siege.

Vince Colletta

VINCE COLLETTA Vincent Joseph Colletta 15 October 1923 – 7 October 1991 (Italy)

Avengers Cover Inks: #6

Colletta had to work overtime to ink 

"the new kid on the block" 

George Perez Avengers #142 Dec 1975 

Vince Colletta entered the comic scene in 1952 inking his own pencils for Better Comics. Within months he joined Marvel (then Atlas) as an inker and over the years worked on nearly every Marvel title published. Colletta is regarded as one of the finest artists of the romance genre but he is probably best known as one of the core group of inkers to work with Jack Kirby over the years. Colletta enjoyed a 6 year run with Kirby on The Mighty Thor and also worked at Charlton, Dell, and Skywald. At DC he rose to the position of DC’s art director a position he held from 1976 to 1979. A lot of media coverage has been given to Colletta’s style and there are polarised opinions on the impact his inking style had on various artists especially Jack Kirby.

Sol Brodsky

SOL BRODSKY 22 April 1923 – 04 June 1984

Avengers Cover Inks: #2, 16

Sol Brodsky began his on / off association with the Marvel in 1942 and at one point in the 1950s the Atlas office staff consisted of only Brodsky and Stan Lee. Brodsky left to form a short lived comic company with Mike Esposito. He began freelancing again for Marvel in the early 60s and like many other artists of the day often inked Jack Kirby’s pencils. By 1964 Brodsky was Production Manager at Marvel however he once again tried his hand outside of Marvel co-founding Skywald Productions. Brodsky returned to Marvel once more and in the late 1970s he had become Vice President, Operations and as VP Special Projects he oversaw Marvel UK, Marvel Books, and other activities with Lee often describing Brodsky as “…my right hand man for years”.

 

Brodsky’s work was often not credited to him or incorrectly credited. For example Brodsky’s inking credits on the landmark Fantastic Four issues 3 and 4 were only publicly recorded many years later. Brodsky created many Marvel logos including perhaps the most recognisable Amazing Spider-man logo which was co-created with Marvel letterer Artie Simek. Brodsky, together with Steve Ditko came to the rescue by inking various backgrounds and secondary characters in Daredevil #1 when Bill Everett was late in delivering the pages. They also produced a cover from Jack Kirby’s sketches. Conversely some work credited to Brodsky is not his. Archie Comics were not happy to have their artists working on similar titles while also working at Archie so while Stan Goldberg was working for Archie, he often used Brodsky’s name at Marvel for his Millie The Model.

Bonus - Avengers #14

Splash page from Laiken & Lieber’s only Avengers tale ever

Avengers #14 Mar 1964

It remains one of the most off-beat and unusual issues

Paul Laiken

PAUL LAIKEN (Larry Ivie) 1936 -

Avengers Writing: #14

Larry Ivie is perhaps better known for his involvement with horror or monster titles. Under the pen name Paul Laiken (not to be confused with Paul Laikin), he shared the writing credits for The Avengers #14 with Stan Lee and Larry Lieber. Ivie also wrote, pencilled or inked for Dell, DC, Archie, Charlton, Harvey and Tower.  

 Another rare Larry Ivie story for Marvel

The Human Torch & The Thing

Strange Tales #132 May 1965

Larry Lieber

LARRY D LIEBER 26 October 1931 -

Avengers Writing: #14

Larry Lieber will probably be forever known as the younger brother of Marvel mastermind Stan Lee but Lieber is also well known as having scripted the first appearances of Avengers’ stars Thor and Iron Man.

He also enjoyed a long run writing and drawing The Rawhide Kid and also illustrated the Spider-man newspaper strip for many years. Avengers #14 remains one of the most unusual issues in the entire run and is Lieber’s only Avengers outing. He shares the writing credits with his brother Stan and PJ (Paul) Laiken.

Rawhide Kid #100

Jun 1972

Script & Art by 

Larry Lieber