Marvel has many kinds of heroes but there’s one thing that a lot of them have in common: the Avengers. The team has brought together the greatest heroes from the House of Ideas for adventures that have captured the imagination of fans for ages. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes may have reached their greatest level of success with the general public because of the MCU, but the comics have always been the home of the team. Readers have been marveling to their adventures for over 60 years, watching as they’ve battled the most dangerous villains in comics. Their legend started in the comics and continues there to this day.
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Over the decades, the comics have been the guiding star of the franchise, even if the MCU is more popular. There have been numerous eras in the history of the team, and each era has brought a lot of changes to the group, sometimes good and sometimes bad. These are the five best eras in Avengers comics, and they’ve played a huge role in why fans love the Avengers.
5) Bendis Era
Brian Michael Bendis made the Avengers into the most popular books in the comic industry in the ’00s. He started writing the team with issue #500 and over an eight year span launched two volumes of New Avengers, a volume of Mighty Avengers, a volume of Dark Avengers, and a volume of Avengers. Not everyone loves Bendis’s Avengers run — there’s barely any good action in the entire span of his run, a lot of the characters have the same voice, and a lot of the stories are very badly paced — but it’s impossible to deny that it’s one of the best Avengers eras, if for nothing else than fan reaction. The various books starring the team were hot and were the engine of Marvel’s event cycle. A lot of people became fans of the team between 2004 and 2012, thanks to Bendis.
4) Hickman Era
Jonathan Hickman took the Avengers’ baton from Bendis and ran with it, giving readers what many consider to be a perfect Avengers run. Hickman wrote Avengers (Vol. 5) #1-44, New Avengers (Vol. 3) #1-33, Infinity #1-6, and Secret Wars #1-9. The writer pit the team against the greatest threats in the universe, brought New Universe characters like Knightmask and Starbrand to the 616, created the largest and most powerful roster of Avengers ever, and gave the readers the best stories starring the Illuminati. This is peak Avengers, and I would go so far as to say that the entire saga is probably the greatest Avengers story ever told. Hickman came along after the somewhat boring and earthbound Bendis run and knocked it out of the park.
3) Stern Era
Roger Stern is one of the greats, a writer who has written many of the most popular characters in comics, like Spider-Man and Superman. He also had a very long run on The Avengers (Vol. 1), writing the book from issue #227-279 and #281-287. He mostly worked with artist John Buscema during this run and it was an amazing time for Avengers fans. We got best of all time stories like “Under Siege”, Wasp and Monica Rambeau as leaders of the team, and loads of great tales that built the team and their myth into a towering edifice. Stern wrote the Avengers for Avengers fans, digging into the lore and doing amazing things with the characters. Stern laid a lot of groundwork for the team that would become important in later years, giving readers some of the best superhero team stories ever.
2) The Heroes Return Era
The ’90s were a bad time for Avengers fans. While Avengers started the decade pretty well, sales would go down, and Marvel tried to change the team to be more “modern”. However, this caused sales to fall even more, which led to Marvel getting Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to take over the team with Heroes Reborn. This also failed, so the publisher rebooted the titles with Heroes Return. Avengers (Vol. 3) was given to writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez, and readers got some of the greatest Avengers story ever, including the best of all time tale “Ultron Unlimited”. This era encompasses Busiek’s run writing the title: Avengers (Vol. 3) #1-15 and #19-56 (those three issues in the middle were written by Jerry Ordway and still count), Avengers Forever (Vol. 1) #1-12, Maximum Security #1-3, and Avengers: The Ultron Imperative. For added oomph, you can also check out Iron Man (Vol. 3), Captain America (Vol. 3), and The Mighty Thor (Vol. 2). Busiek’s time on the book, with Perez, Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer, Ivan Reis, and more was amazing, and is worth its weight in gold.
1) Thomas Era
Stan Lee gets a lot of credit for creating the Marvel Universe, but you’ll find that most of the stuff people associate the most with those characters and concepts came from someone else. In the Avengers’ case, it’s Roy Thomas. Thomas wrote Avengers (Vol. 1) #35-104. He introduced readers to characters like Ultron and the Vision, gave readers one of the best rosters ever, and amazing stories like “The Kree-Skrull War”. Thomas worked with artists like Neal Adams, John Buscema, and Sal Buscema, giving readers one of the best team comic runs of all time. The Avengers wouldn’t be the team they are today without Thomas.
What is your favorite Avengers era? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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