The Avengers are Marvel Comics’ greatest team, having more than earned the name of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”. Over the years, they starred in stories that have made them icons. The team has been fighting evil since 1963, and their most iconic tales get talked about all the time. Classics like “Kree-Skrull War”, “Under Siege”, “Ultron Unlimited”, “Avengers Disassmbled: Chaos”, and many more all get all the ink (or ones and zeros, as it were) but they are only the beginning of the great tales starring the team. 63 years of monthly adventures have given readers so many stories and yet some of the best ones have been forgotten.
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These stories deserve way more attention they already get. Some of these stories are unsung classics, and some of them get a bad rep but are actually pretty fun. These ten Avengers stories should be talked about more, classic tales that all fans will love.
10) “Time Runs Out”
Jonathan Hickman’s time on Avengers was brilliant, and it ended with a story that capped it all off with a bang. He had been building up the Incursions over Avengers (Vol. 5) and New Avengers (Vol. 3) and it all led to “Time Runs Out”. The story ran through Avengers (Vol. 5) #35-44 and New Avengers (Vol. 3) #24-33, with artists Jim Cheung, Mike Deodato, Stefano Caselli, and Kev Walker. With the actions of the Illuminati and the Incursions discovered by the world, the Avengers hunt down the group as they try to save the universe. Meanwhile, Doom has his own plan, one that might save existence or lead it to doom (ha ha). This is peak Hickman storytelling, an action-packed epic full of awesome ups and downs.
9) AXIS
AXIS, by Rick Remender, Adam Kubert, Leinil Yu, Terry Dodson, and Jim Cheung, gets a lot of hate, but it’s actually pretty good. The story spun out of Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1), pitting the Avengers, X-Men, and a group of villains against the Red Onslaught, Red Skull with the powers of Professor X. They come up with a desperate plan, and its success takes the story in a direction no one expected. It wasn’t well-received when it came out, but read now, it’s actually a fun event book. It has way more cool moments than its haters say and deserves a second look from more fans.
8) “Avengers: No Surrender”
“Avengers: No Surrender”, by Mark Waid, Al Ewing, Jim Zub, Pepe Larraz, Kim Jacinto, and Paco Medino, is a 15-part story that comes from a not so great time for Avengers comics. After Hickman’s run ended in 2016, the Avengers books weren’t exactly setting world on fire. After a decade of being on top, the team faded from sales charts, and this story was supposed to bring them back. It teamed the Avengers, Avengers Unity Squad, and U.S. Avengers, who have to figure out what happened to the Earth after it disappears, made all the more difficult when a woman named the Voyager shows up saying she’s a forgotten member of the team. It’s not amazing, just a solid superhero comic, and it’s a lot cooler than most people realize.
7) Avengers Forever (Vol. 1)
Kurt Busiek was one of the greatest Avengers writers, his run with the team from 1998 to 2001 making the team popular again after a decade of mostly failures. He penned some brilliant stories, but one of the best of them is Avengers Forever (Vol. 1) #1-12, by Busiek, Roger Stern, and Carlos Pacheco. This story sees a team of Avengers from across time brought together to defeat the greatest threat of them all and it’s fantastic. This story is a primer on Avengers history, and even fans who have never read the team’s books will love it. It’s just about flawless and we should talk about it all the time (not to be confused with the inferior Avengers Forever (Vol. 2); accept no substitutions).
6) Age of Ultron
Ultron is the Avengers’ greatest villain and has starred in some amazing stories. However, fans haven’t loved all of them and Age of Ultron (no relation to the movie), by Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Carlos Pacheco, and Brandon Peterson, is usually panned. However, the ten-issue series is honestly a pretty fun time travel/alternate universe story. Ultron takes over the world, slaughtering humanity, and the Avengers come up with a last ditch plan. However, Wolverine and Invisible Woman have their own strategy and it ruins everything. This story is one of many Avengers events that came out between 2012 and 2016, trying to capitalize on the success of the movie, and it’s honestly one of the better ones.
5) “The Trust”
Brian Michael Bendis’s New Avengers is hugely overrated, but there are some great stories that no one ever talks about. “The Trust” ran through New Avengers (Vol. 1) #32-37 and New Avengers Annual #2, by Bendis, Leinil Yu, and Carlo Pagulayan, and it served as the build-up to Secret Invasion. The team has learned about the Skrull invasion and try to figure out how to deal with it, their trust in every shatered. A betrayal rocks the team, but not as badly as an attack by the Hood and his gang. This isn’t the usual Bendis Avengers story; there’s more than quips and drama, with some cool action scenes from action penciler supreme Yu. It’s a cool story and easily one of the best moments of his run.
4) “Operation: Galactic Storm”
The ’90s were not for the Avengers, at least until 1998, but there is a great story from the earlier years of the decade. “Operation: Galactic Storm” ran through Avengers, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Quasar, Iron Man, Thor, and Wonder Man, a 19-part story that saw the Avengers get involved in a war between the Shi’Ar and the Kree. This is a “Kree-Skrull War” redux, but it doesn’t copy that earlier story (well, it takes one idea from it, but it’s a common Kree plot line). It has a lot of great moments and cool scenes, and an ending that changed the course of the team for years to come.
3) Avengers (Vol. 5) #29-34
Original Sin is yet another Avengers event from the ’10s, so Hickman had to fit it into his run. Avengers (Vol. 5) #29-34, by Hickman and Leinil Yu, uses the story’s central idea of the heroes’ sins being revealed, with Captain America learning about the Illuminati mindwiping him when he was a member for a short period when the Incursions were discovered. He recruits a team of Avengers to go after them, but they are thrown through time mysteriously, moving further and further into the future. This is awesome superhero sci-fi, taking readers through futures that get less and less recognizable. Big concept sci-fi usually isn’t the forte of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but this story shows how great it can be.
2) “Revolution”
Civil War was a major change to the ’00s Marvel status quo, and “Revolution” is New Avengers‘ answer to that. Running through issues #27-30, by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu, this story saw a new roster of the team — Luke Cage, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman are joined by Doctor Strange, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Clint Barton as Ronin — deal with the end of the conflict, going after Iron Man’s team before being called to Japan by Echo to battle Elektra and the Hand, leading to a massive discovery. This story plays to Bendis’s strengths, with great drama and character moments, and Yu’s deft pencils make the action of the later issues really sing. This story is almost 20 years old, but it’s still excellent, and is Bendis’s finest moment with the team.
1) The Last Avengers Story
The Last Avengers Story has been forgotten, but it’s fantastic. This two-issue miniseries, by the late great Peter David and Ariel Olivetti, takes place in an alternate future where the Avengers were destroyed years before. Hank Pym and the Wasp are challenged by Kang for one final battle and bring together a new team for this climactic showdown. This is dystopian Marvel at its finest. David nails everything, taking years of Avengers tropes and bringing them to the future, while Olivetti’s stylized, painted art is perfect for this story. This is a best of all time tale starring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Marvel needs to reprint it so a whole new generation can love it.
What’s your favorite unsung Avengers story? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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