5 Years Ago Marvel’s Most Unique Series Turned the Avengers Into a Super Sentai Team

Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes. Superman pioneered the genre, but it boomed far beyond just traditional capes and masks. Colorful, bombastic costumes and actions are as essential to their identity as heroics. There are countless heroes flying around, but everyone got their start somewhere. If you got into superheroes as a kid, it was mostly through at least one of two ways. The first is traditional comic book heroes from books, cartoons, and movies, like Spider-Man or the Justice League. The second biggest superhero phenomenons are the Power Rangers and the massively influential Japanese property that inspired them, Super Sentai.

These two sides of the superhero coin started generations on the path to loving heroes, and on August 11, 2021, they officially joined forces. Marvel Comics partnered with Bandai Namco to create the ultimate superhero fighting team, combining the Avengers with Super Sentai sensibilities. The Avengers: Tech On miniseries saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes don suits of armor that would fit in perfectly on any Super Sentai team and created one of the coolest combos of aesthetics that you could ever hope to see.

The Avengers Suit Up For Sentai-Inspired Action

This series, written by Jim Zub and drawn by Jeffrey Cruz, saw the Red Skull harness the dust of the broken Infinity Stone to rid the world’s heroes of their powers. The villain partnered with the Soldiers of Orochi to lead the charge against the world’s heroes, infecting civilians with seeds of evil and turning them into monsters. Since only powered heroes were affected, Iron Man leveled the playing field by making everyone a custom suit that mimicked their original powers, and thus the Iron Avengers were born. It was a race against the clock to gather enough Infinity Energy to undo the Skull’s plan before he had the power to rewrite all of reality to his twisted vision.

This series is everything somebody who is a fan of Marvel and Super Sentai could ask for. It’s no-holds-barred, mech-suited action from frame one, and the designs truly are top-notch. My personal favorite has to be Red Skull’s new look. He goes from a man with a skin condition to a hulking monster you’d wait an entire season for the heroes to defeat. He’s just the right mix of intimidating and over the top, and the Avengers are every bit the hyper-designed tech heroes they should be. Wolverine’s claws come from a massive forearm guard that’s just too perfect. Heck, they even fight a giant symbiote kaiju! The only thing this series lacks is the Avengers combining into a massive mech for the climax, but nobody’s perfect.

This series didn’t just look good, either. It slammed all the emotional beats you’d want a Super Sentai comic to hit. This was a story about trust, with Black Panther and Iron Man both trying to take everything into their own hands, and Tony especially keeping his team on a short leash. They have to learn to put their faith in others, and in the end, it’s only the Avengers working together and combining their willpower that defeats Red Skull. It’s literally the power of friendship that wins out in the end, which is the perfect way to end this wonderful crossover.

At the end of the day, combining the two titans of superheroes was always going to be a slam dunk, but this comic really makes you feel like a kid again. It perfectly blends the two series together to create something fans of both can enjoy, and I cannot recommend checking out this wacky little series enough.

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