MCU fans have long pretended that before Marvel Studios started making movies, the Avengers were a C-list team full of characters who weren’t popular until the films were made. However, this is ignoring five decades, as of 2012’s The Avengers, of Marvel history. The team has long been one of the most important groups in the House of Ideas’ long history, bringing together the most popular heroes in the Marvel Universe. While the X-Men and Spider-Man eventually lapped the heroes of the Avengers in popularity, the lore of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has long been of vital importance to the publisher. Over the years, some of the most interesting events and ideas have came from their comics.
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Since the rise of the MCU, the team’s lore has been changed in numerous ways and sometimes, those changes have taken away awesome pieces of the group’s history. Many great moments in their history have been wall-papered over for MCU synergy, and newer fans know little to nothing about them. These five pieces of Avengers’ lore are integral to understanding the group, but even hardcore Marvel fans won’t remember then.
5) The Avengers Had a Black Ops Branch
Marvel’s Heroic Age publishing initiative began in 2010, two years before The Avengers hit theaters. The team had been Marvel’s flagship throughout the ’00s, and with the movie coming up, the House of Ideas wanted to diversify the group, giving any new readers a bunch of different kinds of Avengers books to see the breadth of the group. One of the best was Secret Avengers. In the Heroic Age, Steve Rogers was made Director of SHIELD and he decided that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes needed a branch for missions that were off the beaten path. He didn’t need the most powerful team, he needed a team with numerous different skills that could take on any threat in the shadows. Over the course of its existence, the team counted Black Widow, Sharon Carter, Beast, War Machine, Moon Knight, Nova, Captain Britain, Hawkeye, Ant-Man III, and Agent Venom. It was a refreshing look at Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, giving readers unique stories from the group.
4) Green Goblin Led the Avengers
“Dark Reign” gave readers a different look at the Avengers, one that changed them fundamentally. This new status quo spun out of Secret Invasion, which ended with the former Green Goblin Norman Osborn killing the Skrull Empress Veranke. Osborn had been working for SHIELD as the leader of the Thunderbolts and the government decided that he would be the best person to take over SHIELD and the Superhero Initiative, blaming Iron Man for the Skrull infiltration. He was even given control of Tony Stark’s businesses, as he had linked them to SHIELD and Skrulls had infiltrated them. Osborn was allowed to create his own team of Avengers, combining supervillains with heroes like the Sentry, Ares, and Noh-Varr. Osborn was able to corral a group of villains, ride herd on the Cabal, the villainous version of the Illuminati, and save the world. He was honestly one of the best Avengers leaders ever if you just judge him by the things he was able to accomplish as leader of the team and not the evil things he did.
3) Avengers Mansion
When the MCU introduced the Avengers, they became headquartered in Stark Tower by the end of the movie, which did fit the comics. However, the Tower wasn’t the original home of the group. That was Avengers Mansion. Located at 721 (or 890; it’s been both) Fifth Avenue in New York City, it was once the home of the Stark family, but Iron Man decided to use it as the team’s base. He had the inside modified until it was the perfect home for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, his butler Jarvis in charge of the grounds. It was an integral part of the team’s history for decades, serving as the their main base for most of their existence (there was also the Avengers Hydrobase, but it didn’t last all that long). It was destroyed in “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”, serving as a grave for the old team until it was made into the base of the New Avengers in the Heroic Age publishing initiative. Most Marvel fans are MCU fans and they have no knowledge of the team’s original base.
2) The Avengers Machine
Jonathan Hickman’s run on the Avengers was amazing, creating one of the most interesting ideas in the team’s history. Captain America had concerns about the team’s fitness to face off against the worst threats out there and he went to Tony. Stark had an idea that he shared with Cap and it ended up creating the most powerful Avengers team ever. The Avengers Machine wasn’t actually a machine but an idea; it used a core team of Avengers that could be split down into smaller teams, each of them suited to the member they’re connected to. It was a smart way to organize the team, allowing them to create subgroups that could deal with any threat out there. It was a revolutionary idea for the group, but once Hickman left the team’s books, it ended up being resigned to the dustbin of history. It would be great to have back, as it was a smart new way of coordinating their roster for maximum effect.
1) Kang Helped Save Humanity as a Member of the Avengers
1998’s Avengers Forever is one of the coolest stories in the team’s history. It’s a rather complicated story, dealing with some of the most confusing parts of the group’s continuity, as Immortus and Those Who Remain decided to erase humanity from the history of the universe because of their ability to tap into the Destiny Force; in the future it allows the race to become a force of universal subjugation, with the iconography of the Avengers used as a symbol to rally humanity around. A team of Avengers from across time was brought together and Kang ended up joining them. His hatred of Immortus – who was a future version of the villain who had given up violent conquest for manipulating events behind the scenes – was enough to make him join the his most hated enemies. The Conqueror played a key role in saving the human race as an Avenger, something that no one would ever guess knowing his history with the group.
What’s your favorite forgotten piece of Avengers lore? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
