10 Best Avengers Stories of All Time

The Avengers have earned the sobriquet of the “Earth’s Mightiest Team” by saving the universe basically every time they wake up in the morning. They are also the world’s most popular superteam, their name on lunchboxes and backpacks carried by many people, especially since their first major movie dropped in 2012. As the last bastion of quality for the MCU — despite having two great movies and two mediocre movies — they have a lot on their plates. The Avengers have legions of fans… who have somehow never read their comics and make excuses for why they don’t read them. The main excuse is that they don’t know where to start, and that’s why lists like this exist.

The Avengers have been involved in some of the most awesome Marvel stories in the history of the publisher. The Avengers is a simple concept — gather all the greatest, most popular heroes with the best of the B and C-list, throw them at the biggest threats possible, and watch the sparks fly. There are a lot of great Avengers stories out there — I’ve been writing about them for almost a decade — and these ten are the best of the best.

“The Trust”

New Avengers is the most important Marvel comic of the ’00s. The book, written by Brian Michael Bendis back when people still liked him and drawn by the best artists the House of Ideas could muster, was considered revolutionary, but it was really just the basic Avengers formula — A-list heroes hanging out with lower tier ones — except with Spider-Man and Wolverine. New Avengers had some great drama, but it wasn’t exactly an action packed book, which is sometimes a problem. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some amazing stories in its run and the best comes from the build-up to Secret Invasion, which has been collected as “The Trust”. New Avengers #32-37, with artist Leinil Yu, take place after the team, forced underground by the events of Civil War, find out Skrulls have started to replace people. This opens up the team’s paranoia streak. Meanwhile, D-list villain the Hood starts a supervillain union, promising that if they all work together, they can be successful. “The Trust” is peak Bendis New Avengers; it has the drama and humor that made Bendis Marvel’s hottest writer for a few years, along with actual action — a rarity in Bendis’s many years of writing the Avengers. It’s the only New Avengers story on this list, and it’s definitely worth the effort of finding.

“Operation: Galactic Storm”

“Operation: Galactic Storm” isn’t exactly considered peak Avengers by connoisseurs, but it honestly should be. The 1992 crossover that brought together every book that starred a member of the Avengers — Avengers, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Quasar, and Wonder Man — to tell the story of the Avengers getting involved in the intergalactic war between the Shi’Ar Empire and the Kree Empire. Now, obviously, longtime Avengers fan will realize that this is a throwback story, to the classic “Kree-Skrull War”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a great story. 1992 wasn’t exactly the best time for the Avengers comics, and not every chapter of the story is amazing, but taken together “Operation: Galactic Storm” is a great comic. It gets way more into the morality of the war, and has a huge shock towards the end. It’s a classic and deserves more praise than it gets.

“Avengers: Disassembled”

“Avengers: Disassembled” made the Avengers a big deal, after years of diminishing sales returns in the ’00s. Marvel put hot creators Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch on the Avengers, and had them break the team. “Avengers: Disassembled” tells the story of the Avengers’ worst day, as the team struggles against attack after attack until the shocking reveal of the hidden puppet master. “Avengers” Disassembled” is classic Avengers, taking a page from some of the greatest Avengers stories to tell a cool little yarn. Bendis often works best in shorter stories like this one — it’s only four issue long if you don’t count Avengers: Finale — where his desire to write superheroes as talking heads is constrained by the length of the story. Finch’s art is ’90s-eriffic, but in a good way, capturing the power and beauty of the world’s greatest superheroes. Everyone knows the story’s twist by now, but it still has impact even all these years later. “Avengers: Disassembled” made the team a big deal again, and is rightly beloved.

Avengers (Vol. 1) #4

Many people praise Stan Lee as if he’s the greatest writer of all time. He’s most definitely not, and many of his stories can be rather hard to read in 2025. Lee worked with artist Jack Kirby, a creative dynamo that gave the comic industry many of its greatest characters and stories, and the two of them were an excellent team. Lee’s bombastic dialogue was able to match the tremendous energy that typified Kirby’s pencils. Their work on Avengers (Vol. 1) isn’t their best together, but there is one issue that stands above the rest: Avengers (Vol. 1) #4. This issue brought Captain America back to readers and is amazing. The scene where Cap wakes up in Iron Man’s sub and goes after the Avengers is the piece de resistance of the issue, where Kirby’s dynamic art shows just how formidable Cap can be. This is the peak of Lee/Kirby run on Avengers and the addition of Cap allowed the book to truly reach the heights that they inhabit today.

Dark Avengers (Vol. 1) #1-6

Bendis wrote Avengers from 2005 to 2012, steering the ship of Marvel’s biggest franchise and setting the tone for the rest of the line. Bendis’s time on Avengers/New Avengers/Mighty Avengers is praised by many, but the best Bendis Avengers book rarely gets the praise it deserves. That would be Dark Avengers, a comic that spun out of Secret Invasion (which was actually good in the comics, MCU fans), and starred a team of villains led by Norman Osborn after he was given control of the superhero community. The opening story arc of Dark Avengers gives readers everything they need to know to love the series and then throws them against a classic Avengers threat. Bendis’s wordy style can get annoying sometimes, but the writer’s snarky sense of humor works wonderfully for a team full of villains. Dark Avengers (Vol. 1) #1-6 teamed Bendis with artist Mike Deodato Jr., and the art is half of the fun of the book. This is the most gorgeous Avengers book of its era, giving readers a different flavor of Avengers. The entire series is worth checking out.

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“The Korvac Saga”

“The Korvac Saga”, by Roger Stern, Jim Shooter, David Michelenie, Bill Mantlo, George Perez, John Buscema, and David Wenzel, is classic Avengers. This 1978 story teams the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, the original far future version and not the contemporary team that debuted in Annihilation, against Korvac. Korvac was enslaved by the Badoon in the far future, and gained ultimate power, traveling back to the past. Driven mad by years of slavery and power, the only hope for the universe of the present day is the Avengers and the Guardians. “The Korvac Saga” is nearly perfect Avengers, showing the team doing what they do best — fighting against universe-shattering enemies. “The Korvac Saga” is a throwback to one of the best times in Avengers history, boasting one of the greatest Avengers roster ever. It’s an epic and they don’t really make them like this anymore.

“Ultron Unlimited”

George Perez is one of the greatest artists in the history of the comic industry, and his time drawing the Avengers contains some of his best work. Perez teamed up with writer Kurt Busiek in 1998 for Avengers (Vol. 3), bringing the team back to prominence after years of playing second fiddle to the X-Men. Busiek and Perez’s run is awesome, really cutting through to the core of why the Avengers are so great. Their best story also stars one of the Avengers’ greatest foes: “Ultron Unlimited”. The story sees Ultron return with a fiendish new plan for world extermination, and only the Avengers can stop him. What follows is an action epic like few others, a near-perfect mix of superhero action and drama. MCU fans will recognize parts of the story; Avengers: Age of Ultron lifted a lot out of “Ultron Unlimited”, but unlike that mediocre movie, “Ultron Unlimited” is peak Avengers.

“The Kree-Skrull War”

In the Silver Age, the Fantastic Four usually dealt with aliens and the Avengers usually took on Earthbound threats. The Avengers were Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and lived up that name, because they mostly stayed on Earth. “The Kree-Skrull War”, by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, John Buscema, and Sal Buscema, saw the Avengers get involved in the millennia-long conflict between the Kree and Skrull. It’s a simple premise that keeps ballooning, as the Kree and Skrull decide that humans are the key to winning their war. The Avengers truly became Earth’s Mightiest Heroes during this story. Thomas is the writer who helped the Avengers become who they are today, and this is the finest story of his time on the book, partly because of the art of Adams and the Buscemas. An argument can be made for “The Kree-Skrull War” as the best Marvel story of the Silver Age, and it’s actually a pretty easy argument to make.

“Under Siege”

For years, the Masters of Evil were considered the Avengers’ greatest foes, but mostly just because the evil team existed, not because they were actually all that dangerous. One of the key problems of superhero books is how rare it is that the villains win; it’s hard to make readers scared of an enemy that never wins. The Masters of Evil were basically the Avengers’ best punching bags, but all of that changed with “Under Siege”, by Roger Stern and John Buscema. The story sees the biggest roster of the Masters come together with a foolproof plan. The Masters beat the Avengers at every turn, taking over Avengers Mansion, taking Avengers prisoners, and hospitalizing one of the team’s strongest members. “Under Siege” allowed fans to see how the Avengers reacted when they were at their lowest, and gave them a story unlike anything they’d seen before. It’s not the only “Avengers lost and have to triumph against overwhelming odds” on this list, but it’s easily the best.

Infinity

Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers and New Avengers is considered by some readers as the greatest Avengers run of all time. There’s a lot of credence to this claim. Hickman created the biggest and more powerful roster of the Avengers, while also focusing on the Illuminati and their secret mission to save the world, combining superheroes and sci-fi in brilliant ways. There’s a lot of great stories from Hickman, but there’s one that stands above the other — Infinity, by Hickman, Jerome Opena, Jim Cheung, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Yu, and Mike Deodato. Infinity revolves around a race called the Builders sending out their forces to destroy the universe before the multiverse dies, all while Thanos makes his way to Earth for a secret purpose. Infinity is everything that Avengers stories do well dialed up to ten thousand. The best way to read the story is to buy the collected edition; it’s pricey, but collects the Infinity series and its tie-ins from Avengers and New Avengers, giving context that just the Infinity series doesn’t have. It’s the Avengers at their universe-saving best, an epic story that remains untouchable by any other Avengers story.

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