Avengers/Squadron Supreme Annual 1998

Kurt Busiek & Len Kaminski // Carlos Pacheco
July 1998
***

Picking up the threads of Avengers #5-6, this annual is set up as an homage to DC’s JLA “crisis” team-ups. The Avengers partner with their counterparts in the Squadron Supreme to defeat a stock supervillain. His MO is to buy or steal super-artifacts from past Marvel adventures, which allows Busiek to display his encyclopedic & adoring knowledge of comics. Still, better than your typical annual.

continued from Avengers #7
continued in Avengers #8
last issue: Avengers Annual #23
next issue: Avengers Annual 1999

also indexed for July ’98
Avengers #6
Thunderbolts #16

Avengers #6

Kurt Busiek // George Pérez
July 1998
***

Pérez’s layouts & attn to detail anchor this book, while his clean line reflects the unalloyed superheroices of Busiek’s scripts. So refreshing after a decade of mediocrity, tho’ it underscores how conservative the mag’s concept is. Here, Marvel’s Best fight a mind-controlled superteam one-on-one.

continued in Iron Man #7
last issue: Avengers #5
next issue: Avengers #7

also indexed for July ’98
Avengers/Squadron Supreme Annual 1998
Thunderbolts #16

Avengers #5

Kurt Busiek // George Pérez
June 1998
***

Squadron Supreme, a JLA pastiche & freq. dupes, get in a turf war over a plane-crash rescue. Buse’s homage to Roy Thomas echoes Mark Gruenwald’s retro impulses; like them, he does great team dynamics, in characterization & in action. Pérez matches that sunny optimism w/ his open, clean style.

last issue: Avengers #4
next issue: Avengers #6

also indexed for Jun. ’98
Thunderbolts #15