The Avengers is a combination of Marvel’s greatest heroes, battling against the most powerful threats imaginable. The Avengers have many must-read stories, created by some of the greatest names in the history of the comic industry. The best Avengers stories of all time are near perfect superhero yarns, stories that helped define and redefine what Marvel could be. There are lots of great Avengers runs out there, but there’s one that I’ve always felt was light years better than just about any of them. I’m speaking of the Avengers/New Avengers run of writer Jonathan Hickman. Hickman is one of Marvel’s greatest talents, and his work on the Avengers is widely considered one of his better works, leading into the blockbuster 2015 event story Secret Wars.
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Hickman took over the Avengers at an interesting time. Avengers Vs. X-Men had changed the face of Marvel, and the beloved Avengers run of writer Brian Michael Bendis was ending. However, Bendis’s run was long past its best days, and fans were ready for something new. Hickman gave readers that over the course of Avengers and New Avengers, creating an Avengers run that is still talked about over a decade later. Hickman’s time writing the Avengers was perfect, and there’s no other Avengers run out there that can match it.
Hickman’s Avengers/New Avengers Is a Cut Above the Rest
Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers were two unique books that showed off why the Avengers are such a fertile concept. Avengers was the straight up superhero book, with the largest and most powerful Avengers team ever assembled to battle universe-shaking threats. These threats are all somewhat related, as the universe itself starts to reach its end. This concept is expanded upon in New Avengers, which follows the Illuminati as they learn the truth behind all of the Avengers’ problems — the Incursions, a mysterious event destroying the various universes of the multiverses. Avengers is the big action spectacle book, as the Avengers battle threats unlike anything they had before. Meanwhile, New Avengers is the more character focused book, as the Illuminati deal with the pressure of secretly destroying entire Earths before they can destroy Earth-616. The Avengers have long been known for both spectacle and character, and Hickman found a way to use each of these aspects to tell what is simply the greatest Avengers story of all time, a compelling narrative that challenges the Avengers unlike anything they had ever faced before.
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Hickman realized something that many Avengers creators never really understand — that you can do Justice League stories with the Avengers. Honestly, the best way to describe Hickman’s Avengers/New Avengers is that it is Morrison’s JLA in the Marvel Universe. Avengers stories during the Bendis era, were honestly pretty street level, telling stories that were more about the drama of the Avengers rather than the spectacle of the Avengers facing the biggest threats in the universe. Hickman brought his love of sci-fi to the Avengers; while the Avengers have some amazing sci-fi stories under their belt, Hickman brought that to the next level. Just look at the mid-run event story Infinity; it was a cosmic war in the stars that felt like it came out of a sci-fi novel, pitting the greatest alien empires, under the leadership of the Avengers, against the Builders, an ancient race that helped create the multiverse. Things get even more drastic when “Time Runs Out” starts, a story that ran through both Avengers and New Avengers, as the end of everything gets closer than ever. It’s brilliant storytelling as each team of Avengers deals with the end in the only way they know how. Hickman’s Avengers/New Avengers is straight-up amazing; it took the Avengers to entirely new places, showing that the team was greater than anyone ever expected. Everything about it is perfect, using the Avengers in the best way possible.
Hickman’s Avengers/New Avengers Is the Last Great Avengers Run
Bendis made New Avengers/Mighty Avengers/Dark Avengers/Avengers into must-read titles for the first time in years, but by the time Hickman took over Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, fans were tired of Bendis’s Avengers. Hickman had to bring the Avengers back to their roots as the greatest fighting force in the universe, and did so by doing an Avengers story with stakes at a level that no other Avengers story had reached. Hickman was able to bring the Avengers to the next level in his run, and no other Avengers story has ever reached its height ever since.
Hickman’s era of Avengers stories is the last time that the Avengers were truly great. It makes sense that the team has never been able to reach the heights of Hickman’s run; Hickman told the ultimate Avengers story. There’s really nowhere else for the Avengers to go; it’s all just same old, same old from there. Hickman showed readers what the Avengers at their best could be, and nothing has been able to stand with it ever since.
What do you think of Hickman’s time on Avengers and New Avengers? Sound off in the comments below.
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