I also thought it was odd to bother giving Giant-Man armor, but I suppose going up against both Hulk and Namor one needs all the power boost one can get. I always thought the 'Armored Avengers' ought to have been revealed to be on the Transformers earth, or something.



I loved the story for the most part, being a fan of the Invaders and considering this their valid final case, but the ending just irked me. I thought Spirit of 76 was the perfect replacement, and killing him off simply to replace him with a character who was essentially the same, seemed to have no benefit (and the confusion in continuity persists to this day).





I dunno ... to a degree I see the point of that but with all the stories ending badly it struck me as a bit strainednd repetitive.



This is totally one of my favorite books of the series, although as the team broke up at the end (which I thought was a shame) I didn't understand why they bothered to not have it be in mainstream continuity anyway. It's too bad this book came out before the Comet was introduced in Nova.



Oh my god, I hated this book. They could have let Claremont show us his original plan for the series, but I feel this tale completely trashed all the characters involved (particularly Jean and Xavier), and read more like a hack job put together at Shooter's direction to "prove" he made the right editorial decision.
[/quote]

I don't know for a fact that Shooter had anything to do with the writing of this story. I do know that Shooter's decision was contentious, and Claremont as well as many fans objected to it. When I read this story I felt that the characterization of the characters was so off-base, it read as if it had been written under Shooter's direction, to justify his decision to kill off Jean. "See, if she had remained alive this is what would have happened, so stop your griping."

Claremont and Byrne originally planned for the Shi'ar to turn off Jean's powers and release her back to live as a civilian on Earth. Shooter said that there needed to be a more significant penalty for justice to be served. He did not specify what that penalty ought to be. Claremont and Byrne tossed around the idea of Jean going to a Shi'ar prison planet for her crimes. But they realized the X-Men would never tolerate that, and the thought of "Let's go rescue Jean" would hang over all X-Men stories for years to come. So Claremont and Byrne (not Shooter) proposed killing Jean, probably not thinking that Shooter would allow one of Marvel's founding heroes to be killed. But he said OK, and the rest was history, until it was retconned to no longer be history just a few years later.

My personal favorites...



Decent little tie-in to The Invaders, which filled some continuity gaps, though I think we got too many characters involved as Cap stand-ins. Rescuing Kennedy smacked a little too much of knowledge after the fact, vs actual importance in the period.



Interesting alternate take on Master of Kung Fu, left out of the trades , due to the licensing issue.



First issue I ever owned. Really enjoyed the Spider Woman story and the Captain Marvel one. Ghost Rider was more just "okay.



It had more impact at the time, before Marvel reversed course and piddled on the power of the ending of the Dark Phoenix Saga.



Kind of a "left field" premise; but, it was actually pretty cool and it was Miller, while he was hot.



Fairly minor stories; but, I really enjoyed the Dazzler story. I had bought the issues where she came up against Terrax and they were about the only ones that I thought did something interesting with Dazzler. This took that and ran with it. It was kind of intriguing to see how she affected Galactus, in ways his other heralds hadn't. Very creative piece. The Iron Man one was less effective, though had a nice Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court feel to it (which it essentially ripped off).



There's some really funny stuff in here, especially things like Alpha Flight speaking like Bob & Doug McKenzie, Hulk & She-Hulk as Dagwood & Blondie and Lucy & Ricky Ricardo, heroes and villains fighting in blizzards and coal mines, and a few other gems. There are also a lot of groaners; but, amusing groaners.



Another good alternate idea, lessened by later continuity reversals (though, to be fair, Miller did that one, himself). The Wasp story is less effective; but, does play around with an interesting idea, of Jan turning into a more vengeful character, after Hank's death. Nice idea, somewhat shaky execution.



Another Conan in modern times, really cool cover; somewhat predictable story.



I liked the premise on this one, more than the execution. Dave Gibbons did a better job with the idea later, with a United States under the control of the Red Skull.

That's a good set of What If...? titles codystarbuck. That one with the watch was funny. It's like a stand-up comedy at times.

You hit it on the spot! Not just back then, even current stories. There are many writers that are not good at writing some characters, while they are tremendous in writing other characters. It's probably not knowing enough about those characters through research (reading comic books on those characters) or not enough exposure to those characters and their world.