Tuesday, June 21, 2005

The Avengers

From the diary: “April 2, 1985

“Stopped in at [the typography shop]. Hasn’t wked there in a week and a half. Rebecca says they’ve been swamped with complicated stuff. She’ll call. Stopped and bought a scoop of Tin Roof Sundae at Candy Apple/Bud’s. Got the latest Avengers at Pease.”

The Avengers was the first comic I started to collect. My brother had already been buying Spider-Man for ages. I preferred supergroup comics because if you dig one colorful costume why wouldn’t you love a crowd of them duking it out among the ruins?

I remember when we discovered the TV show The Avengers. I was so excited! When it turned out not to be Thor, Captain America, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, and so on, but Mr Steed and Mrs Peel I was pretty darn disappointed. Happy to say I got over my little misunderstanding and grew to love Emma Peel – a woman who could fuckin’ kiss ass. (When Diana Rigg’s Peel left the series she was, sadly, replaced by the much wussier Tara King.) Steed was no hottie, pity. (Maybe I would’ve liked him better if he’d been Ralph Fiennes from the beginning.)

Pease was a pharmacy that had a rack of comics “for the kids!” The Pease building currently houses a little theatre.

2 comments:

David Lee Ingersoll said...

Yes, I remember the disappointment at discovering that the Avengers TV series featured a couple of British spies. I think the first time I (we?) tried to watch I was sure that the real Avengers series must have been pre-empted or that the TV guide had listed the times wrong.

Did you ever see the episode of the New Avengers that we slept through?

Glenn Ingersoll said...

I wouldn't mind watching all the Avengers TV series on DVD or something. Starting with the Honor Blackman episodes that weren't aired in the US.

No, I haven't seen an episode of The New Avengers since we saw their first airings way back when. Might be fun to contrast Joanna Lumley's Purdy from the New Avengers with her Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous.