Avengers #8 Introduced a Villain Who Should Be a Household Name

The Avengers were once something of a joke. I started reading Marvel comics in 1991 and, of course, it was the X-Men. I would read other Marvel books, but none of them had the energy of the men and women of X. The Avengers caught my eye at times, but the ’90s weren’t a great time for the team. The ’80s had been the end of a two decade period where the group had been built into the biggest team in the Marvel Universe, one that was ended by the X-Men before Earth’s Mightiest Heroes 20th anniversary in 1983 even dawned. However, those early years are some of the best in comics for any team, creating a legendary group that would eventually become one of the most popular ever thanks to the MCU.

If we’re being honest, the Avengers didn’t become the Avengers until co-creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby left the book. That’s not to say that their early issues together weren’t great. There’s a reason that they are so coveted. I read Avengers (Vol. 1) #4 when it was reprinted in Captain America #400 and it was amazing, a perfect little snapshot of two creators making amazing superhero stories. However, their greatest moment on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would come about four issues later when Kang the Conqueror was introduced. Avengers (Vol. 1) #8 was both men doing what they did best and it’s become one of the most coveted early issues of The Avengers. Luckily, the ComicBook Vending Machine has you covered, bringing you a piece of comic history that could have been one of the hottest Silver Age comics ever if it wasn’t for the real world.

Avengers #8 Is Everything an Iconic Avengers Comic Should Be

Kang the Conqueror is one of the greatest Avengers villains ever, but he should have been the next Thanos. By now, we all know what happened with Jonathan Majors, how he was built up to be the next major MCU villain and then he attacked his girlfriend, leading him to right wing movies that no one is going to watch (look up the movie he’s about to be in; this guy was the next big thing and now no one worthwhile will hire him). While I’m not going to say that Marvel Studios was doing a good job with the villain – I’m sorry, but they really weren’t – but I will say that the MCU needed someone like the conqueror to give it some kind of focus over the last two Phases.

Kang would have been the perfect villain for the MCU. He was loud, he was brash, he was often funny, and he was dangerous as all get out. Nathaniel Richards, possibly a descendant of Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, or both, grew up in a future where everything was taken care of. There was nothing new to see or do and young Nathaniel wanted the excitement of the past. Using time travel technology, he becomes Rama-Tut (well, first he was Iron Lad, but that’s a later retcon) and goes back in time to Ancient Egypt, battling the Fantastic Four and losing. He’d go back to the future and become Kang, traveling through time and space and conquering everything he could. Eventually, he set his sights on the Avengers, which leads us to this issue.

Stan Lee is lauded for all of the characters he created, but the closer you look at his creations, the more you see him using the 1960s equivalent of copy/paste. Villains were especially unoriginal; Lee wrote Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four #5 and really enjoyed writing him, so he created a Doom for each of his teams. Kang was the Avengers’ version of Doom (Magneto was the X-Men’s), a loud, arrogant villain who liked to refer to himself in the third person and wear some awesome armor. This issue gave readers what I would refer to as the “classic Kang story”. Basically, he shows up, sasses the Avengers, uses future tech to stalemate them, and then they come back and win because of good old fashioned ingenuity. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that this book is some groundbreaking story, but it does everything right. Lee may have copied himself constantly, but he understood how to tell a fun story.

Jack Kirby’s work in the early days of Marvel is some of the most important in fiction, and this issue is no different. His art always had an energy to it, a bombast, that fit Lee’s style of soap opera superhero fun and is on display here. The two of them were able to combine their skills beautifully; so, in this case, you have Kang, who you can tell Lee is having a blast writing, being loud and histrionic and that combined with Kirby’s big, kinetic action ended up being the perfect showcase for the villain. There’s an energy to this issue that you can only get from Lee and Kirby. Kang isn’t anything close to an original villain – he’s part of a legacy of villainy that stretches back to the Golden Age of Comics (he’s DC’s Per Degaton without the fascism) – but Lee and Kirby were known for being able to take simple concepts you’ve read before and make them sing. The debut of Kang led to him becoming an icon and has led this issue to becoming one of the most important in Avengers history.

Kang the Conqueror Missed His Chance at Stardom but You Don’t Have to Miss His Debut

Kang the Conqueror is one of Marvel’s biggest missed opportunities. Over the decades, he’s been built into one of the most complicated villains ever – time travel characters always become absurdly convoluted – but he’s still been able to keep the simplicity of the character. Sure, there are numerous time traveling versions of the future’s greatest warrior, but the character is so simple that it’s okay. Sure, there’s five versions of him but they’re all basically the same, and that’s allowed him to be taken in all kinds of directions, including onto the Avengers. All of that it stems from this book, an awesome little introduction of one of the coolest supervillains ever. Lee and Kirby were always impressive together, taking an unsophisticated story and making it into something you’ll never forget.

Marvel Studios doing away with everything Kang was such a weird choice. That’s not to say Majors shouldn’t have lost his spot – he most certainly should have – but if there’s any character where losing the actor wouldn’t be a problem, it’s the guy from numerous alternate timelines wearing armor that hides everything about his appearance. Going back to this issue shows just how hard the character was fumbled. Lee and Kirby took a simple idea – time traveling conqueror from the future wants to destroy the Avengers to prove he’s better than them – and showed how much fun it could be. He’s a ridiculous villain at times, but there’s just something to him that connects with you right away. For collectors, Lee and Kirby’s work is always popular and this is probably one of the most coveted issues of their Avengers run together. It is definitely not an easy book to find; well, until now. The ComicBook Vending Machine is giving you a chance to own a piece of Marvel history. The MCU fumbled Kang; you shouldn’t.

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