Avengers: The Serpent Crown

As a tribute to the 1970s output of artist George Perez, The Avengers: The Serpent Crown is a bit more successful than Fantastic Four Visionaries Vol. 1. That's mainly because Perez was a steadier presence on the Avengers, meaning a trade paperback with fewer story gaps than the FF volume (the issues included here are 141-144 and 147-149). And even if the period wasn't the most historically significant for the team, the stories by Steve Englehart are fun. Patsy Walker, one of Marvel's romance-comics icons, returns to become the new Cat (now called the Hellcat, unveiled in Perez's gorgeous full-page spread), and several 19th-century heroes band with Thor, Moondragon, and Hawkeye to fight Kang when he travels to the Old West. (It would have been nice to see a little more of some of the cowboys such as Night Rider.) Meanwhile Captain America, Iron Man, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, and prospective member the Beast travel to the home world of the Squadron Supreme, where the U.S. president is none other than Nelson Rockefeller. --David Horiuchi