The Avengers aren’t in the best place right now, especially in the comics. Avengers was given a big reboot in 2023 and it fizzled out completely, to the point that no one ever really talks about it, trying to use an MCU fan friendly team to get attention and not succeeding at all. Meanwhile, the X-Men got their own major reboot in 2024 and had a pretty good beginning, but hasn’t been able to keep readers occupied as it’s gone on. The only Marvel team that isn’t caught in a downward spiral is the Fantastic Four, while the two groups that have been historically the House of Ideas’ bestselling are lost in the weeds.
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Marvel has been trying everything to get fans interested in the Avengers and X-Men lately, to little avail. The publisher just announced Bendis’s return to the Avengers (don’t get excited folks, it’s just a back-up in an anniversary issue), and NYCC saw the next phase of the X-Men’s post-Krakoa adventures introduced to readers, but none of this is the answer to the problems with the two teams. Marvel needs to do something to get some kind of interest in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and their merry mutants, and I think I’ve figured out the solution: the return of the Avengers Unity Squad, the Uncanny Avengers.
Uncanny Avengers Was the Perfect Avengers/X-Men Crossover
Avengers vs. X-Men was a major Marvel event, and it brought up an idea that X-Men fans had been talking about for years. The Avengers liked to talk about a big game about protecting everyone on the the Earth, but they often just left the mutant race in the lurch. They worked for the people who created mutant-killing robots and passed anti-mutant laws, while rarely speaking out against them. So, Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1) was the answer to that. Captain America decided to create the Avengers Unity Squad, which brought together mutants and Avengers for the first time in a combination team.
Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1) gave readers some of the best Avengers stories of the ’10s, with the team battling Red Skull (who would later turn into Red Onslaught) and the Apocalypse Twins. The book’s 24-issue run was amazing, and other than Havok’s speech about the “M” word, the series did a perfect job of building a team that didn’t always see eye to eye but was able to come together in the end to show that human and mutant heroes could work together. Of course, like many new concepts, Uncanny Avengers started to fizzle out, as each relaunch took it away from the book it was, but that doesn’t mean that its return wouldn’t be hype.
Let’s be real — Marvel barely seems like it’s trying with the X-Men and the Avengers lately. The X-Men’s “From the Ashes” relaunch’s only idea was to regress the concept of the X-Men and mutants so it will fit inside of the X-Mansion again when the team makes their MCU debut. The Avengers don’t even get that much; the book was originally meant to focus on Kang because of the MCU, but when that changed, the book lost any momentum it had. The two teams need a shot in the arm and the return of the Avengers Unity Squad may be exactly what they need.
The squad was born out of a time when the Avengers and the X-Men were at each other’s throats, and fit into a Marvel Universe that was more about heroes fighting. However, team-up between the two groups could show that the sins of the past no longer matter, and mutants and Avengers are choosing to work together to make the world a better place. A new Avengers Unity Squad could star the biggest stars of each team, making fans of both books more likely to buy the comic. It could give Marvel a new flagship book as well. The X-Men and the Avengers have sort of fallen into similar ruts — the X-Men teams are the same as they’ve always been and the Avengers have been trapped in trying (and failing) to get MCU fans interested — and a new Uncanny Avengers, with an A-list creative team, could be the fix.
Uncanny Avengers Is the Perfect Flagship Book for Modern Marvel
Marvel rode the success of the Avengers and the X-Men over the last thirty years to the top of the sales charts, both in the comic industry and the films. Right now, though, neither group is shining. It kind of seems like Marvel is in a holding pattern, mostly because of the MCU and its lack of direction, and this has affected their two biggest teams. It’s about time that something drastic happened to both groups and the return of Uncanny Avengers is the perfect next step.
Members of the X-Men and the Avengers are the most well-known superheroes on the planet right now. One of the coolest things about old-school team comics was that they combined a bunch of heroes together in one book, so that readers could get all of their favorites. The Avengers Unity Squad is this idea taken to its logical conclusion. Marvel usually makes fans wait til event comics to get the members of the various “families” of heroes together, but a new Uncanny Avengers could be that every month, bringing together the best of the X-Men and the Avengers into one potent package.
What do you think about the Uncanny Avengers? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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