Avengers / Invaders #10: Review

All the heroes seen on Red Skull's trophy wall are real Timely characters. 4 of the heroes that the Avengers are impersonating are there, but not Black Widow and Electro. I described those 4 (Black Avenger, Captain Terror, Challenger, Silver Scorpion) last issue. All the extra characters have appeared in at least 1 Marvel issue apart from this series, although some only in stories/flashbacks set in the Timely era. I'll briefly cover some of the apps, concentrating on membership of groups.
Jack Frost, Red Raven and Whizzer were members of the Liberty Legion that Roy Thomas invented to complement the Invaders.
Vagabond and Young Avenger will be members of the WWII All-Winners Squad: Band Of Heroes unfinished limited series.
Angel, Citizen V and Destroyer (plus Silver Scorpion) will be founders of the post-War V-Battalion (seen in flashbacks in that team's modern-day series).
Purple Mask (aka Laughing Mask) and Rockman (alongside Black Widow and Electro) are some of the 12 heroes who go into suspended animation until the present day in the Twelve limited series, and Defender shows up to see them off in Twelve #1
Blazing Skull will be in the New Invaders, while Major Liberty is killed in flashback in the All-New Invaders series.
Black Marvel will mentor the Slingers in their series.
Hurricane was actually Makkari of the Eternals, so it may not have been so easy for Red Skull to kill *him* off.
And Falcon and Marvex feature in some of the 70th Anniversary Specials.

The Atlantean sub passes 4 giant monsters killed by Red Skull. 1 is obviously Giganto the whale with legs that Sub-Mariner sent against New York in Fantastic Four #4. Various authorities identify another as the other Giganto - Mole Man's monster from the cover of FF#1. The online Unofficial Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe suggests that the giant crab is Titano from Tales To Astonish #10, and the amphibian with long hair and black lightning-bolt ears is the Behemoth from the Sub-Mariner story in TTA#79-80.

This issue says that Black Panther here is T'Chaka, T'Challa's father. However the 2005 Black Panther series and the BP/Captain America: Flags Of Our Fathers limited series says it was T'Chaka's father Azzari who ruled at the time. The Marvel Chronology Project is silent on the matter, and comicbookdb sticks them both in.

Pace Peter, I believe the Howler Reb Ralston is there as well. (comicbookdb agrees, and the MCP doesn't include any of them.)

This is an alternate reality so this appearance doesn't count, but I reckon Sgt Fury and the Howlers are somewhere around #51-54 of their mag.

The MCP has Red Skull between All Winners Comics #12 and Captain America Comics #37, with a flashback in CA#600 just before it. (It counts him as being there at the beginning of #9 before he picks up the Cube and branches off an alternate reality.)

Review: Spitfire and Union Jack have been waiting at the rendezvous for a month? How much time has elapsed since last issue? Can’t have been more than a couple of days, Paul wouldn’t have lasted that long bleeding as he is, plus the Avengers/Invaders are still heading across the Atlantic. And why doesn’t the Red Skull just use the Cosmic Cube to bring them immediately to Berlin, instead of waiting for them to show up? He doesn’t seem the patient kind of guy...Wait, if they put everything back to normal Paul’s pals are going to die again; that seems to be what’s foreshadowed…Oh man, the art on this issue is terrible: Sadowski can’t draw women’s breasts (note pages 5-6), the Red Skull’s face changes from panel to panel (how about photo reference for a change?), and Spitfire is especially bad. She looks like a heavily inked amateur drawing from the 80s b&w boom…Nice set of profiles of the Golden Age heroes impersonated by the Avengers; too bad it’s one issue too late—and how did they know they wouldn’t run into these guys elsewhere?...They recruit the Black Panther and the Wakandans as allies? Why not just bring the Atlanteans?...Nick Fury and two Howling Commandos join Captain America in the war? Cool! That means, as per Marvel WW2 rules, that Logan should be popping up soon—the 1940s one, not the 2008 one—so where is he? No matter, Fury and the guys don’t contribute anything anyway…Cap absolves Iron Man of all blame for his death—without knowing exactly what he’s talking about…Luke Cage wants to talk about racism with Gabe Jones but Gabe shuts him down with a reminder that they are all brothers in combat; boy, some people just don’t want to be enlightened…Spitfire and Union Jack die to save the soldiers from the Dogs of War but only destroy one; seems they could have done better than that…wait, if the timeline is restored to normal does that mean Union Jack will die from the gunshot wounds suffered in issue #1 instead of the bomb—and why not?...Oh gross, Red Skull co

Comments: No inkers are credited for the series. The identities assumed by the Avengers are: Black Avenger (Luke Cage), Challenger (Spider-Man), Silver Scorpion (Spider-Woman), Captain Terror (Wolverine), Electro (Iron Man), Golden Age Black Widow (Ms Marvel); Wasp does not need a disguise as she can shrink to near invisibility. The pinned corpses on the final page are all Golden Age heroes from Timely Comics: Vagabond, Jack Frost, Hurricane (Makkari), Purple Mask, Defender, Whizzer, Blazing Skull, Rockman, Silver Scorpion, Black Avenger, Major Liberty, Angel (Thomas Halloway), Destroyer (Keen Marlow), Citizen V, Red Raven, Black Marvel, Captain Terror, Marvex the Super-Robot, Challenger, Young Avenger, Falcon (Carl Burgess).

Oops, the last sentence of my review was cut off. Here it is in its entirety: Oh gross, Red Skull collects superheroes like butterflies, complete with pins through the center—but without the identifying labels that would really help the curious reader; fooled ya! Nobody cares!

Librarian added:- Plot by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger. Other penciller in this issue: Patrick Berkenkotter.