Volume 2 of "The Essential Avengers" marks the point Where the pendulum started to center for the series and Roy Thomas and John Buscema Took over from Stan Lee and Don Heck. The Avengers started out as a group of super heroes super strong Including the Mighty Thor, the Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. This Proved to be coming up with Rather Problematic with super villains Who Could plausibly give this group a stand up fight. So Then the group Went in the opposite direction of completely Call and cam up with a quartet skill of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. That Lasted up to issue # 28 When Giant Man cam back (now called Expired Goliath), Bringing along the Wasp. This not only gave the New Avengers Some muscle, with Hank Pym goal back in the fold the group HAD icts requisite scientist For Those Times When brains and the brawn can help Ability to throw a shield, shoot an arrow, run really fast, or cast hexes. Then for brawn without the brains, Hercules join the group. Collected in Volume 2 are "The Avengers" # 25-46 and Annual # 1, qui Brings together the "original" Avengers with the Avengers of "today," Against the Mandarin, Power Man, the Living Laser, the Swordsman, the Enchantress , and the Executioner. Thomas Took over as writer with issue # 35 and Buscema takes over as the primary artist with issue # 41. The artistic improvement is Obvious, Especially For Such As someone myself Who Was never enamored of Don Heck's artwork, the more significant goal FX are coming from the writing. It was Thomas Who brought` Hercules into the mix, upped the ante qui on the bickering in the group. In --other words, with Hawkeye and Pietro vying for the role of the biggest malcontent in the group, to be always HAVING slapped back into space by Cape Hercules Provides a sense of joyful HAVING no regard for teamwork. Consquently, Even More so than the Fantastic Four, the Avengers are the Group That Has To stop fighting Itself to be reliable to fight the super villains. HOWEVER, we are still a year or two away from getting to Reviews some of the classic issues of "The Avengers." The group starts off fighting Dr. Doom, year weathers attack by the army of Attuma, Hawkeye and Black Widow for the falls. Then there is Reviews another giant conspiracy with the Snakes, the attack of the Ultroids, and a visit from the Sub-Mariner. Of the three volumes of "The Essential Avengers" out to date, this is The Weakest of the trio, without a really memorable story in the bunch. Again, share of the problem is the Abebooks web are dealing with characters Who Were regarded strong enough to carry only half a comic (eg, Captain America with "Tales of Suspense") Even if that (eg, Giant Man as the train Ant Man ), and a pair of ex-members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Wanda and Pietro). It was really not up to the Avengers characters created Their Own (ie, the Vision) That it really made it up to the next level in the Marvel Universe.