Rating: 
Summary: The Avengers become interesting once the Vision joins them
Review: Volume 3 of "The Essential Avengers" is where the Marvel superhero group finally starts to grow up. Part of the reason is because John Buscema became the resident artist (through issue #62), marking the first time that the artwork was a strong selling point, but the more important reason was that the group finally came up with an original group member with the Vision. At that point the group really crystalized for me, so scripter Roy Thomas gets a big part of the credit.This trade paperback collects issues #47-68 of "The Avengers," along with Annual #2. I first seriously started reading "The Avengers" with issue #53, which is where the Avengers battled the X-Men, who were my favorite Marvel group in the Sixties. At that point the lineup for the Avengers had, once again, changed. At that point it was Golaith, the Wasp, Hawkeye, and the Black Panther. Getting rid of Hercules and the mutant tag team of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch was a good move, although I can never really think of it as the Avengers unless Captain America is in charge (he bolts in the first issue here). But I never liked Hawkeye and thought making him the new Giant-Man and making Goliath into Yellowjacket, was ill-advised. The only reason I kept reading the book was because of the Vision, so that even when other Marvel superheroes who were incapable of sustaining their own books (e.g., the Black Knight) joined up it was the android that held my attention. . The Vision first popped up in issue #57, created by Ultron-5 to defeat the Avengers. Instead, he became their most interesting member, although it would be a while before the whole backstory on his creation came to be. At this point the idea that he was "an android...with the amnesiac brain patterns of a murdered man," Simon Williams a.k.a. Wonder Man, was enough. On top of that I liked the way Buscema drew the Vision with his eyes always completely shadowed. Buscema leaves the book during these issues, but he was replaced by Gene Colan, always a favorite, and then Barry Smith came in for a couple of issues drawn in the distinctive style that was still evolving and about to explode when he and Thomas started "Conan the Barbarian."
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