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Black Knight arrives on the scene, and in the course of the ensuing fight, writer Si Spurrier does two things. “I thought, I dunno… we were hanging out”Ĭurse of the Ebony Blade opens with the Avengers battling the Lava Men.
#THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE CRITICISM SERIES#
If that seems like a lot for a five-issue miniseries to take on, well, it is, and unfortunately, the series isn’t entirely successful in accomplishing all its goals. It also attempts to show the character dealing with some recent changes to his backstory and to establish additional changes to that backstory, as well as trying to examine the power of myths and the stories we tell about how things happened versus the reality of how they actually happened. Only over time, as my increased finances (and the increased availability of old stories beyond what could be found at comic shops and cons) allowed me to become more familiar with the wider sweep of Avengers history, did I realize my own unique timing and circumstances had pushed me to literally the only two times in that entire decades-long history in which Black Knight was the integral component to the Avengers’ success that I had assumed he always was.īlack Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade, collecting a five-issue miniseries by writer Si Spurrier, penciler Sergio Davila, inker Sean Parsons, colorist Arif Pianto, and letterer Cory Petit, attempts to grapple somewhat with that disconnect, with the gap between “Black Knight: Important Avenger” and the character’s reality (both in-universe and not) as something of an afterthought in Avengers lore, a character who burned bright a couple times but was otherwise a non-factor. Most of what I could acquire on my meager allowance was issues from the back half of the mid-’80s Roger Stern/John Buscema/Tom Palmer run, which also featured Black Knight in a prominent role, having been a stalwart member for dozens of issues at that point in time, mildly pining for team leader Wasp and serving as that roster’s “science guy” in the absence of the likes of Hank Pym or Tony Stark.Īll of which is to say, I grew up both with a lot of affection for Black Knight and his blend of science and sorcery, and the belief that he was a steadfast, integral part of Avengers lore-maybe not as much a mainstay as the “big three” of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, but certainly of a piece with Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye.
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He had a leather jacket and cool stubble, and was stuck in two different love triangles at the same time! Meanwhile, I was picking up Avengers back issues at my local comic shops.
#THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE CRITICISM DRIVERS#
I started reading the main Avengers book during the Bob Harras and Steve Epting run, during which the character of Dane Whitman/Black Knight was a featured player, field leader of the Avengers and one of the drivers of the series’ overarching narrative. But the next big “franchise” I set out to explore after X-Men was the Avengers. The very first series I started reading regularly were Uncanny X-Men and (adjectiveless) X-Men. The X-Men were what got me hooked on comics.