Issue(s): Avengers #1.5
Cover Date: Dec 99
Title: "The Death-Trap of Doctor Doom!"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Bruce Timm - Penciler
Bruce Timm - Inker
Tom Brevoort - Editor

Review/plot: This cute story is written in the Silver Age style and is complimented with parodies of classic ads and a mock letters page, but actually has slightly more depth than a real Silver Age book.

Dr. Doom lures the Avengers to his flying fortress and defeats them by splitting them up (except Thor, who it seems was just suffering a temporary set-back). Once they regroup and learn to work as a team, they are able to fight through Doom's traps and chase him away. The ace-in-the-hole was the Wasp, who Doom had captured and brought to the control room and then ignored, allowing her to determine the locations of the other Avengers and communicate that information back to Henry Pym, who also has a surprise for Doom because he's now Giant-Man as well as Ant-Man. All along the way the other heroes, especially Thor, bicker with the Hulk. It's a good story that provides a little character development of the early Avengers.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Written to take place between Avengers 1 and 2. Henry Pym reveals his Giant-Man persona to the Avengers in this issue.

References:

• The Avengers formed in Avengers #1
  
• The Thing is upset because not too long ago, in Fantastic Four #12, the FF were asked to fight the Hulk, and now he's a hero.
  
• Spider-Man is considering applying for membership in the Avengers, like he applied to the FF in Amazing Spider-Man #1.
  
• The Hulk was granted amnesty in Hulk #6
  
• Ant-Man previously fought Dr. Doom in Fantastic Four #16
  
• Doom demanded a cabinet post and jammed the nation's power grids in Fantastic Four #17
  
• Ant-Man became Giant-Man in Tales To Astonish #49

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A

Certainly makes the the Hulk's leaving the team make more sense!

Quite possibly the only good continuity insert ever. Right artwork, correct style and dialogue. Only Stern can pull it off.

FF3 makes a great point regarding Hank displaying his full capabilities to his colleagues. One has to wonder as to why he didn't enable personal flight capabilities, if he could do so with the Wasp so easily. Of course, it wasn't long until he remedied that with the advent of the Yellowjacket persona; but imagine if he had the same breakthroughs Heinrich Zemo devised. He could have almost immediately have become what Scott Lang is now.

Is this Bruce Timm's only Marvel art? Kind of wild to see it here, given all his work for DC.

Think he might have contributed to Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine mini.

Thanks Vin! (What I said in a different entry is that in Avengers 2, Pym seems to be showing the Avengers he can grow to full human size for the first time, so I think this insert misses that.)

Omar, Bruce Timm did many cover illustrations for early Marvel Essentials. Off the top of my head, he did Hulk Volume 1, Iron Man Volume 1, Spider-Man Volume 4, and Uncanny X-Men Volume 1.

Bruce Timm also did work on the Women of Marvel, like a cover for the TPB plus some profiles, not sure of the specifics.