Following on from last week's Superhero Top 5 these are my favourite Super Teams.
1. The X-Men (created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby) - The X-Men weren't the first super hero team I discovered but they were the catalyst for my obsession with comics. When I was much younger my mum would sometimes buy me a comic when I was poorly. One of the last times she did this I got a copy of a British X-Men magazine that reprinted X-Men 133. this was one of the later parts of the Hellfire Club story and I was instantly hooked. The X-Men had been created by Kirby & Lee as a team of completely original characters (rather than combining existing solo heroes) but really came into it's own when Chris Claremont took control of the title in the late 70s.
2. The Avengers (created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby) - One of my very first US edition comics was an Avengers story, bought from Tilly's in Thames Ditton, that explained the origins of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Traditionally the team formed around a core of Captain America, Iron Man & Thor though often it was the peripheral characters that drew me in. Wasp & Ant Man/Giant Man were favourites from the early issues but one of my favourite Avengers remains the impractically purple costumed archer Hawkeye.
3. The Fantastic Four (created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby) - I suspect I picked up my fist copy of The Fantastic Four in the same visit to Tilly's I mentioned above. The FF were a little different from any other team as they were linked by blood and marriage. Johnny Storm was Sue Storm's brother. Sue eventually married Reed Richards and Ben Grimm was their long standing friend. Unlike other series membership of the FF never changed. In a universe where teams and characters are rebooted and redefined more and more frequently the FF remain a happy constant.
4. The Justice League of America (created by Gardner Fox) - DC's shining beacon of super teams combining all the very best DC characters in one magazine. I mean, holy crap, any group that includes; Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash & Aqua Man is a force to be reckoned with. As an occasional DC reader the JLA gave me a hit of their best characters for the price of one comic.
5. The Defenders (created by Roy Thomas & Ross Andru) - I struggled to decide on my fifth pick. I quite liked DC's Legion of Super Heroes, a space based team, led at times by Superboy, made up of alien heroes from a future world who didn't appear in any other titles. I considered The Watchmen, from Alan Moore's excellent graphic novel, but they were never really a genuine ongoing team (in my eyes at least). But at heart I'm a Marvel kid so I plumped for Marvel's secondary super team The Defenders. The early issues saw a pretty cool core team of Doctor Strange, Hulk & Namor the Sub-Mariner and soon added the Silver Surfer and Valkyrie.
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Ba-ba-baa-bah, da-da-daa-dah. Dum dum dum dum dum dum double-dum, dum dum dum dum dum dum double-dum. Still with me? The Avengers was classic British television at its best, mixing 60's spy drama with science fiction elements, it was a show that never failed to deliver. Steed was the focal point throughout (even in that first series in which he was not officially the lead role) but it was the ladies that really defined each era.1. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg)2. Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman)3. Purdey (Joanna Lumley)4. Tara King (Linda Thorson)5. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman)The original show ran for six series between 1961 and 1969, so all my viewing was based on repeat showings. It was Diana Rigg, therefore, who was the first Avengers lady I ever saw, and she was pretty much single handedly responsible for me watching it from then on. During those two series I was entranced by Rigg's beauty and confidence. The chemistry between her and Patrick Macnee was palpable and the show at the point found all elements combine to achieve the perfect drama.Whilst Honor Blackman should take some credit for defining the blueprint for Mrs Peel, she did not provide the same underlying level of sexual tension. She is good though and whilst I've not seen as many of the series she starred in the ones I have seen are very watchable. The story that part of her characters style was a result of her performing lines originally written for Ian Hendry show that it's not always by design that a TV show hits the mark. I was 8 when The New Avengers came along and only rarely allowed to stay up and watch it. I must have seen the Peel episodes by that time as I remember being disappointed with it in comparison. It also failed to compete with the raucous excitement of The Professionals which was grabbing my attention around the same time. The one bright point of The New Avengers though was Joanna Lumley, a woman who would later make me stay up half the night with the prospect that she might strip for Children In Need (this was before the internet remember, you had to get your thrills where you could!). I only discovered the Tara King shows when Channel Four ran a repeat in the late 80's. These shows were surprisingly good once I'd got used to Thorson's less confident style. Finding a 5th lady for this was always going to be tricky. There are a few (Carol Wilson a receptionist in the first series and Venus Smith who appeared in six episodes of the first "Cathy Gale" series) but I've not seen enough (if any) of them to really let them count. Emma Peel, therefore, gets a second spot in the list thanks to Uma Thurman's portrayal in the truly execrable Avengers Film. Uma certainly looks the part in her leather cat suit and is as feisty and capable as a Mrs Peel should be, but she's not a patch on Dame Diana so really only makes the list by default.
