Issue(s): Giant-Size Avengers #1
Published Date: Aug 74
Title: "Nuklo-- the invader that time forgot! / The child is father to the fiend! / What Hell hath joined together!"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Rich Buckler - Penciler
Dan Adkins - Inker

Review/plot:
The Whizzer shows up at the Avengers' mansion. The Avengers have recently unearthed a large time-capsule type object. After pointlessly fighting the Avengers (and knocking out Jarvis!) and eventually collapsing due to age related heart problems...

...the Whizzer reveals that the container is actually holding his radioactive son Nuklo.

While the other Avengers head off to fight Nuklo...

...the Scarlet Witch talks with the Whizzer, who mentions that in his travels to find a cure for Nuklo, he wound up at the High Evolutionary's Wundergore mountain, where he and his wife Miss America had more kids.

The Scarlet Witch concludes that those two children must have been herself and Quicksilver. The logical and literary reasons for making this revelations seem remarkably weak, based on the fact that the Whizzer and Quicksilver have the same powers and that Miss Marvel and the Scarlet Witch sort of look alike.

Pure Roy Thomas. It was a bad move that resulted in some convoluted retconning. Nothing was ever really done with the Whizzer, he just kind of hung around, sometimes helping the super-hero team when his heart allowed him to, but never really doing anything resulting in dramatic payoff, such as using the Whizzer as a father figure to mend the rift between Wanda and Pietro over her love for the Vision, for example.

In the end, the Avengers can't stop Nuklo until the Scarlet Witch arrives to capture him with a hex.

Kind of thematically inconclusive. I was expecting Wanda to have to reach out and connect with her 'brother' in order to calm him down or something, but she just uses her powers to defeat him.

The art in this issue is a little weird looking, right? Plus i really can't get over the fact that Iron Man has a nose during this time period.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - false revelation that the Whizzer and Miss America were Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch's parents.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Avengers #126-127. Takes place before Steve Rogers quits being Cap in Captain America #176.

References:

• Iron Man quite understandable confuses this Whizzer with the one he fought as part of the Squadron Sinister. That Whizzer last appeared in Defenders #13-14 (which i actually have placed after this issue but the footnote doesn't imply placement). The footnote really should have been for Avengers #69-70, which is where Iron Man knows the Sinister Whizzer from. Note there is a third Whizzer as well, the Squadron Supreme version. He comes with sour cream and extra cheese.
  
• The Whizzer isn't sure if Captain America is the real deal, since he assumes the original is dead, and he had met the crazy 1950s replacement that appeared in Captain America #153-156.
  
• The All-Winners Squad appeared in All-Winners Comics #19 and All-Winners Comics #21
  
• The original Human Torch disappeared from the team after he was buried by a crime syndicate, as shown in Young Men Comics #24
  
• The story of Magneto rescuing the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from an angry mob was shown most fully in Avengers #47
  
• Rich Buckler inserts a scene from Uncanny X-Men #9 into the Scarlet Witch's flashback, even though neither she nor Magneto appeared in that issue. Roy Thomas leaves a note saying, "I dunno why Rich stuck this picture in here -- but it sure does take ya back, don't it?"

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: N/A

This book caused another continuity issue that didn't get resolved until What If? #4 in 1977. Specifically, who were the Captain America and Bucky that appeared in the All-Winners Squad? The first Cap and Bucky were taken out of action before V-E Day in 1945, and they clearly weren't the 1950s Cap and Bucky. The Marvel position at the time was that all 1945-49 Cap stories were untold tales from WWII, but elements in the two All-Winners Squad stories themselves disprove that, as 1960s Marvel readers saw for themselves when the stories were first reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes.

Steve Englehart was obviously the regular Avengers writer, but Roy Thomas claimed this issue due to "editorial privilege" or something like that.

When I read this story for the first time a couple of years ago, and even though I knew of Buckler's reputation, I remember being absolutely amazed by the sheer number of Kirby swipes here. An example is the Whizzer-Miss America panel you show, it's "adapted" from a Sue and Reed shot from FF Annual #4 (a lot of the swipes in GSA #1 are from this Annual). And the picture of the High Evolutionary you posted is swiped from a Kirby-drawn Thor comic.

Thanks for pointing out those swipes. I added the image to Fantastic Four annual #4 and the Thor issue is Thor #134.

The High Evolutionary one is really blatant. The Reed/Sue image is a little less obvious.