The fourth issue of the Avengers is one of the more historically significant comic books of the 60s, it being where Captain America, one of Marvel's Golden Age champions, makes his return to the active roster. This alone is worth some inspection, without even getting into the contents of the book, not least because it really was treated as a momentous event. There's significant risks and pitfalls involved with a story structured around a returning character, such as a lackluster plot or poorly justified character motivations that might result from a creative process relying too much on the splash the character is expected to make. Fortunately, this issue navigates those hazards admirably, and delivers a pretty solid story that doesn't get overshadowed by Captain America's presence, but rather supports it and is in turn supported by it.
The Avengers #4:
"Captain America Joins... The Avengers!"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Jack Kirby & George Roussos
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: January 3, 1964
- Cover Date: March 1964
Captain America was a popular Marvel character in the 1940s (Marvel was called Timely Comics at the time), based on a solid readership of actual American soldiers overseas during World War II, and people back home finding in his stories a meaningful message of hope and virtue in a world clouded by global armed conflict. In the mid-50s, the emergence of the moral panic surrounding comic books that led to establishing the Comics Code Authority made the character (among many others) dramatically restricted in a creative sense. Following the end of the war, its thematic resonance also began to dwindle. After a string of weird attempts to keep Captain America simultaneously relevant and aligned with the Comics Code, he quietly disappeared from the newsstands.
In 1963, a few months before Avengers #4 was published, issue #114 of Strange Tales featuring the Human Torch had Captain America on the cover. This turned out to be an impostor using the persona as a distraction. It feels like an unusual red herring that might have risked watering down the return of the actual character, but in fact it seems to have been a way to gauge whether the audience would recognize or care about Captain America without committing to re-introducing him yet.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
The first thing to note about Avengers #4 itself is that the cover, drawn by Jack Kirby (who was the primary artist drawing Captain America in the 1940s as well), is extremely strong: it features the familiar Avengers lineup led by a detailed Captain America in front on a white background, laid out in dynamic motion. It's immediately exciting and engaging, even if you didn't know who the returning hero was. It's the most visually appealing cover in the Avengers series so far, and remains a particularly iconic one even to this day. I personally feel it would be even stronger if it didn't have an advertisement of Namor on top of it -- seems like the creative team didn't quite trust Cap's return to hit hard enough.
The story opens with an admirably patient lead-up to finding Captain America: Namor, defeated by the Avengers in the previous issue and searching for his people who abandoned him, winds up in the Arctic. There, he bullies a tribe of indigenous people in his frustration, throwing an object of their worship – a figure encased in ice – into the water. The ice block floats to warmer waters and begins to melt.
I can’t help but love that it’s Namor, adrift and humiliated, who finds Captain America. In a different story, perhaps instead of throwing a tantrum he could have had a more meaningful reaction, either trying to extract Cap or destroy him, to the same end result. But the part that matters is that Captain America didn’t just happen to return randomly, but rather his re-emergence was triggered by Namor, whose involvement was in turn the loose consequence of previous events. This is good plotting, and makes the events feel intentional and substantial.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
The Avengers are searching for the runaway Hulk using a submarine for some reason, and discover the now-thawed Captain America. Cap awakens disoriented and confused, which is a nice touch – I appreciate that we at least hint at the mental toll of what he would have been through. We don’t follow through with that angle very far though, as all it takes for him to snap out of his mental struggle is to see Rick Jones, who he thinks reminds him of his lost partner Bucky.
There was a deeper, heavier story that could have been told here, anchored in Captain America’s grief over a loss that he can’t share with anyone because it happened a long time ago. Combined with the trauma of being thrust into a significantly changed world after a near-death experience, that would have been exquisite material for a hard-hitting introspective tale. Here, the grief and pain seem to pass as quickly as a momentary headache.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
I understand why they didn’t do it, however – that wasn’t really what comics were for, even at Marvel, where Stan Lee and company were practically specializing in exploring characters with flaws, misfortune, and personal troubles. This was also an Avengers magazine, where Captain America was, for now, a guest – the creatives at Marvel must have been careful not to indulge too much in their own nostalgia at the expense of the book’s public appeal. The concept of Cap's traumatic experience would be explored in more detail in later stories, but perhaps it was best to not slow down the story of this issue for that yet.
Captain America shares the story of how he ended up in the ice – delaying this backstory until this late in the book instead of starting with it is a nice trick to keep the reader engaged. This backstory – Cap and Bucky attempting to intercept a plane with explosives on it – doesn’t actually exist in any real comic book from before this issue, as Cap never got a dramatic send-off such as this when his appearances were gradually phased out. This insert is one of the most important retcons of the Silver Age, and it's done well enough to feel real.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
Arriving in New York on their weird submarine, the Avengers are greeted by journalists. Unexpectedly, they’re turned to stone, and Captain America, who emerges out of the sub moments later, finds himself alone. This is a cool setup with a logical, if simple, explanation for why Cap didn’t get petrified as well. The first half of the book is centered around him essentially as a solo character, aided by Rick Jones and his teen brigade, as they attempt to find the fake journalist who was apparently behind the Avengers’ fate.
After a brief investigation sequence, Captain America finds the culprit and attempts to attack, only to be ambushed by the villain’s henchmen. He easily defeats the bad guys, and unmasks the fake journalist, who turns out to be a goofy alien. I’m not a big fan of this twist just because it wasn’t entirely necessary, but random aliens were a shockingly frequent occurrence in Silver Age comics, so it’s not as much of a curveball as it might seem at first glance.
The alien reveals he was recruited by Namor in exchange for the Atlantean promising to help him get his crashed ship off the bottom of the sea. They return to the Avengers, where the repentant alien reverts them to their natural forms, and the group agrees to help him with the ship. It’s a nice indication of the Avengers’ good faith and willingness to give an antagonist the benefit of the doubt.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
The Avengers face off against Namor, who assaults them with a newly-found group of guards who are still loyal to him. The fight scene that follows is lengthy, but not drawn-out – it’s visually interesting, and paced in a way that keeps it fresh. Like before with the series, the Avengers appear mostly one-by-one in their respective combat encounters, which allows them the space to display their powers and justifies their presence in the fight. The tension is high, with neither side ever quite achieving the upper hand.
The fight ends as the alien’s ship emerges from the water, shaking the the island the combatants are fighting on. Namor mistakes this for the sea itself about to swallow the island, and orders his troops to fall back, believing himself victorious. It’s a bit of an easy conclusion, but I like it more than I dislike it because it’s the result of something from before in the story: the ship’s emergence was set up by the Avengers helping the alien dig it up from the bottom of the sea, so it feels like a satisfying conclusion, even if Namor’s reaction isn’t entirely believable.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
Issue #4 is historic as the re-introduction of Captain America, but it’s also a pretty well crafted comic book story. It distinguishes itself with a patient pacing that trusts the reader to hang in there while it ramps up to the resolution, which not all Silver Age stories did. It swings pretty hard with particularly the alien character and the petrification subplot, neither of which needed to be quite so off-the-wall to work (if they needed to be in the story at all), but they’re still within the margin of weird but common 1960s narrative decisions.
Most of all, the issue succeeds in what I think its main goal was: to introduce Captain America to the current comics-reading audience, and make him look cool, competent, and charismatic. Stan and Jack, both veterans with the character, put some real care and effort into recovering the already iconic character that so unceremoniously disappeared from comics.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos. © Marvel Comics. |
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