Rating: 
Summary: The best one so far
Review: Easily the best volume of the three Avengers Essentials to date, we now see Rascally Roy Thomas at the scripting helm, along with Awesome John Buscema doing most of the art chores. Say no more! This duo is one of the greatest in comics lore... and even demi-gods Barry [Windsor] Smith and Gene Colan show up to help out on art. This collection contains the spectacular introduction of the Vision, the Avengers vs. the (old) X-Men, several battles with arch-foe Ultron, and the classic Avengers vs. Avengers thanks to the machinations of the time-spanning Scarlet Centurion. I'd give this compilation five stars, but the several issues featuring Hercules and the battles in god-ville are just plain dull. (Avengers #50 featured this crap? YEESH.) But don't let these few pages spoil the rest of the great fun.
Rating: 
Summary: The quintessence of hackwork
Review: It's pretty clear that Stan Lee had no real love for this series and was just grinding it out. None of the characters are sharply drawn, except Hercules. The villains are usually recycled, their villainous plots rarely interesting, and way the stories are finally resolved almost never make sense. Most of the dialogue, in fact, is designed to try to explain the implausibility of the images we're looking at. Good God, how many times does some bad guy observe Captain America at work and cry out, "His speed is unbelievable" or "His shield is uncanny - it's like a part of him"? It's a pathetic attempt to justify the fact that Cap, who is just an acrobat and hand-to-hand fighter, is allowed to prevail over giant robots, or laser canons, or dozens of men with machine guns, or whatever happens to be that issue's menace. Cap was always to weak to be a member of this team, so Lee tried to make up for it by making the more powerful characters heap praise on him. It doesn't work and it's annoying. Lee and Heck really should have tried to come up with foes who were more appropriate opponents for the team. They never could decide what to do with Hank Pym either, so every few issues his powers keep changing. Every time they change, he delivers some wooden speech explaining exactly what he can and can't do. It's like reading the description of a character in a role playing game.
Rating: 
Summary: Avengers---Dysfunctional!
Review: Reprinting Avengers 25-46 and King Size Special #1, "Essential Avengers vol. 2" is something of a mixed bag. Stan Lee hands over the reins to Roy Thomas at approximately the midway point in the collection, which is a slight improvement as Thomas injects some fresh blood into a project which clearly held Lee's interest only flaggingly at the end. Don Heck's art looks uniformly execrable throughout, so John Buscema coming on board for the last third or so is a very welcome change indeed. The scripts themselves are uneven. While the initial bickering amongst the team is fairly interesting (if only to hear Captain America, a product of the 40s, exchanging barbs with Hawkeye in perfect 60s tough-guy patois), the team soon begins to emit affirmations of hero-worship to each other like a couple of natural-born bootlickers at a Promise Keepers rally ("You're the man!" "No, you're the man!" <hug>) The initial promise of Goliath's being trapped at the freakish height of 10 feet tall is squandered within a few issues, Hercules joins the team in an apparent attempt to bring Stan Lee's lofty dialogue back, the Wasp is her usual irrelevant self, and Captain America, the born leader, fails miserably to control the team and needs Goliath to straighten it out. The issues do build some momentum, and classic battles with the Super-Adaptoid and the Whizzer rekindle the old magic of the Avengers. Even with all the aforementioned flaws, this collection of the Avengers still beats most of the stuff on the newsstand and in the comics shops today.
Rating:
Summary: Wandering haphazardly
Review: The second volume reprinting this comic series is a bit of a mixed bag - the stories are of a fairly variable quality, some great, some quite poor, and the overall impression is of something moving along with no real plan. I guess what we have here is fundamental proof that Stan Lee, at the height of his powers, had his limits - while turning out great stories in Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, this title suffered. Stan even appeared to realise that as, part of the way through this volume, a new writer was brought in: Roy Thomas. Roy has shown himself to be a great writer of this form, but his first few stories don't really show him at his best. I believe that this was amongst his first published work. On the plus side, however, the characterisation improves vastly, with some of the cast becoming easily distinguishable by their dialogue alone, a vast improvement from the period where all the characters spoke the same. Not a showcase of the greatest Avengers issues, but of a period of transition. Things were better before this, and also improve after.
Rating: 
Summary: The least essential of the essentials
Review: These stories are genuine classics based on the fact that they are products of the 60s Marvel Explosion but are definitely not to be deemed essential. Starting with a very weak team, the Avengers are joined by Giant Man and the Wasp-the also-rans of the original team. The duo adds nothing but more angst to an already dysfunctional team. The villains are lame-we get the old missing scientist captured by aliens, the Living Laser, the Ultroids and the Keeper of the Flame. The only really good story from the period is the Sons of the Serpent story- a decent battle with white supremacists. Once Hercules comes on board after the obligatory hero vs hero battle ( Herc is brainwashed by the Enchantress) things pick up a little, but at this point GiantMan/ Goliath becomes redundant. In the tradition of early Marvel Annuals, we get the king-size special featuring the Mandarin commanding a host of villains which necessitates calling in Iron Man and Thor since the team can't seem to handle the "Big Jobs" with the then current roster. THe best stories of the bunch are the Red Guardian stories, wherein the Russians commission a Communist version of Cap. As a whole, the book is filler before the Avengers hit another highpoint with what should be in vol. 3. -the arrival of the Vision, Ultron, the Grim Reaper and several other touchstone stories. This volume, though, lacks the early Marvel pizzazz.
Rating:
Summary: The least essential of the essentials
Review: These stories are genuine classics based on the fact that they are products of the 60s Marvel Explosion but are definitely not to be deemed essential. Starting with a very weak team, the Avengers are joined by Giant Man and the Wasp-the also-rans of the original team. The duo adds nothing but more angst to an already dysfunctional team. The villains are lame-we get the old missing scientist captured by aliens, the Living Laser, the Ultroids and the Keeper of the Flame. The only really good story from the period is the Sons of the Serpent story- a decent battle with white supremacists. Once Hercules comes on board after the obligatory hero vs hero battle ( Herc is brainwashed by the Enchantress) things pick up a little, but at this point GiantMan/ Goliath becomes redundant. In the tradition of early Marvel Annuals, we get the king-size special featuring the Mandarin commanding a host of villains which necessitates calling in Iron Man and Thor since the team can't seem to handle the "Big Jobs" with the then current roster. THe best stories of the bunch are the Red Guardian stories, wherein the Russians commission a Communist version of Cap. As a whole, the book is filler before the Avengers hit another highpoint with what should be in vol. 3. -the arrival of the Vision, Ultron, the Grim Reaper and several other touchstone stories. This volume, though, lacks the early Marvel pizzazz.
Rating:
Summary: It's bad at worst, above average at best, mediocre overall.
Review: This 'Essential' really doesn't have any exciting material, really. It's all just pointless, meandering filler. The characterization is nonexistent and the plots are very run of the mill. It's only worth seeing and reading as a sort of time capsule. It's not very good, but it's one example of how comics were like in the sixties.
Rating:
Summary: It's bad at worst, above average at best, mediocre overall.
Review: This 'Essential' really doesn't have any exciting material, really. It's all just pointless, meandering filler. The characterization is nonexistent and the plots are very run of the mill. It's only worth seeing and reading as a sort of time capsule. It's not very good, but it's one example of how comics were like in the sixties.
Rating: 
Summary: The Mighty Avengers
Review: This is a must have for Comic book fans everywhere. While it lacks some of the excitement of the first volume this book contains some great work by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, two of the most gifted writers of all time. Plus you get the first appearance of Goliath. Hawkeye becomes more likable as he stops being a thorn in Captain America's side, but he still plays his role as the team wise guy reall developing into the character he is today. These are the stories that put the Avengers on the map. They began to reclaim their title of Earth's Mightiest heroes, with the addition of Goliath and Hercules after the departures of Thor, Iron Man, and Giant-Man. So read this book and thrill to the pulse pounding excitement of the classic Avengers tales.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Avengers!
Review: This is a wonderful value for the money which contains over 20 issues of Avengers continuity. Great stories by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas and likable art from Don Heck and then up and coming John Buscema. Not up to the level of the first Essential volume but is still must reading. You get to see the evolution of Hawkeye's character, the return of Goliath and the Wasp to the team, and the addition of the mighty Hercules. The skillfulness of Cap's kookie quartet (Cap, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver) was in no way the strongest lineup but their skills and teamwork was among the finest in the group's history.
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