Marvels Snapshots: Avengers #1: Review

Nov 2020
Barbara Kessel, Staz Johnson

Story Name:

Heart rate

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Marvels Snapshots: Avengers #1 Review by (November 27, 2020)
This is part of the Marvels Snapshots series which like the original Marvels series shows superheroes from a civilian point of view. Kurt Busiek is listed as Curator for I think the whole Snapshots series.

The giant red robot is Red Ronin in Avengers #199.

Sub-Mariner's tidal wave and fight with the android Human Torch was in 1941's Human Torch Comics #5b (there were 2 #5's).

The Count Nefaria battle is from Av#165-166. The car that nearly knocked Jay down was Nefaria's Rolls-Royce driven by Prof Sturdy who had given him his powers. The dying scientist was heading to the fight to give the Count some very bad news.
This was quite some time before Tony Stark had his 1st bout of alcoholism.

The Avengers court hearing and fight with Grey Gargoyle was in Av#190-191.

Beast and Wonder Man are possibly leaving the Mansion for a double-date in Av#197.

Hawkeye and Ms Marvel vs Absorbing Man is from Av#183-184.

The Daredevil scene is too generic to be locatable.
And the old woman's confused memory of Ms Invisible of the Frantic Four could be from any time.

Vision appears to be fighting a dinosaur at the end. It may be supposed to be Godzilla, but Vision and the Avengers clash with the monster in its #23-24 would be too early.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Marvels Snapshots: Avengers #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Kerry is an Ohio girl come to New York and freeloading with acquaintances while she searches for an apartment. She's out jogging when she sees a giant red robot rampaging through town. She goes to help injured people but has to persuade a rookie cop to let her through as an off-duty paramedic. They get injured and others to 1 of the specially-built Stark International facilities known colloquially as Shrapnel Shelters. Then Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, Wasp and Yellowjacket) show up to fight the robot.

A Police Sergeant tells the rookie to look after the people in the shelter while he stays up top to coordinate. He finds Kerry in there with some other medics. The battle above rocks the shelter. The cop diverts Kerry from worrying by telling her the 1st shelters were built after Sub-Mariner hit the city with a tidal wave and fought the original Human Torch. Kerry responds by saying she saw Beast, Cap, Thor and Wonder Man fighting Count Nefaria, and they made her miss out on an apartment. The cop says that was his 1st day on the job. He missed the Avengers but was nearly run down by a vintage limo containing the scientist who created Nefaria. But later he was doing crowd control when the Avengers went to court (and later fought Grey Gargoyle) - we see Beast, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Thor.

But also after the car incident another cop Cochran was giving our guy, Jay Sero, grief about being Native American, but his fellow cops took the rookie to a bar where they saw a Tony Stark having a few drinks. They were complaining about the show-off superheroes and Stark started to argue with them. Jay stood up to him and said that the heroes should spare a couple of minutes from a fight to save some lives on the ground. Later when Jay was walking home he was accosted by Iron Man who said he'd got a message from Stark. But now Sero breaks off the story.

Kerry's looking after another patient who asks for another story. She says she'd just missed another apartment when she literally ran into Beast and Wonder Man exiting Avengers Mansion. Simon Williams had been taking lessons from Hank McCoy and tried to chat her up, but she passed. Now she says she was weirded out by WM's glowing red eyes, but she might have said yes to Beast.

Just then a thump causes cracks in part of the ceiling. Murray the Sarge calls Jay to say part of a building has come down on top of them. Sero should keep them calm until they can be dug out. Jay asks if anyone else has any superhero stories. A guy says he saw Hawkeye and Ms Marvel fighting Absorbing Man. Daredevil saved another guy from a mugger with a gun. An old woman saw 'Ms Invisible' of the 'Frantic Four' in Macy's.

Jay and Kerry get to properly introduce themselves to each other. They share a moment that promises to be more. But then another loud noise puts the lights out. Torches reveal that an electrical conduit on the ceiling has broken and snapped the wires within. And 1 of the patients was on life support which is also now down. Jay mutters that this is a matter of life or death, and he sends a message LOD. Kerry fights to keep her patient alive. And then Iron Man breaks in the door. He fixes the electrics and takes the patient to a hospital, saying "Good call, Jay. Less than 2 minutes by my watch."

Everybody looks at Sero, who now completes his earlier story. Iron Man gave him an emergency contact card, to be used when 2 minutes would make a life or death difference.

Then Jay gets an all clear message and he leads everyone outside. Where Kerry finds that the apartment building she was about to move into has been trashed. But she and Jay agree to go on a date. We see a later date, with Vision and a dinosaur in the background.



Staz Johnson
Tom Palmer
Jim Charalampidis
Alex Ross (Cover Penciler)
Alex Ross (Cover Inker)
Alex Ross (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Ariana Maher.
Editor: Darren Shan. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)



> Marvels Snapshots: Avengers: Book info and issue index

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