Roy Thomas and John Buscema offer their first brilliant story of The Avengers…And, frankly, it’s one of the best 2-issue arcs of the series ever.
Known to fans as the “Even an Android Can Cry” story, it has a little bit of a ‘60s flower-child “everybody can love” vibe going on.
It’s also got one of the best covers of all time (at the top of this post).
Those are the highlights. Now for the story:
Ultron creates Vision to attack The Avengers, but he gains the power of independent thought and defeats Ultron. That’s basically the tale.
Ultron didn’t name his creation. He just sent him to Avengers Mansion.
He freaks out Wasp.
And beats up the team.
Issue #58 has a classic splash page, as Black Panther arrives.
Vision turns out to be an okay guy. So he joins the team.
Herein begins for The Avengers the same kind of discussion you’ll find in Fantastic Four books about Silver Surfer: The meaning of humanity, and the irony of those who are not human having more “humanity” than true homo sapiens.
Obviously, there’s also a link to The Hulk and The X-Men here, but for me the real parallel has always been between Vision and Surfer.
Much, much later–in the Avengers/Defenders War–Vision and Surfer finally face off.
It is also revealed, upon examination, that Vision was made based on Wonder Man’s brain patterns.
And there’s this very artsy, very odd ending…
That head will be important later.
And in the middle of #58, John Buscema draws every person who has been an Avenger so far (plus Spider-Man).
Finally, future creator Tony Isabella gets a letter printed in which he seems to enjoy the Black Knight character.
