Avengers: Armageddon #1 drops today, launching Marvel’s summer crossover and the status quo changes it will bring. Yet, Marvel has already announced a relaunched Avengers title by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto, complete with a new line-up. With the exception of Captain Marvel, this incarnation is decidedly more street-level: Spider-Man, sure, but then Luke Cage? Daredevil? Wolverine? They hardly seem to fit the bill of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

But here’s the thing: the Avengers have rarely been able to live up to that moniker.

The Avengers have never been Marvel’s answer to the Justice League of America. With few exceptions, such as the Detroit era or the JLI, the Justice League has always been a team full of heavy hitters, with Superman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman at the top tier, and Flash, Aquaman, and Batman rounding it out.

The Avengers have the opposite history, only occasionally filling the line-up with the best that the Marvel Universe has to offer. Even the very first team assembled in 1963’s Avengers #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the comic that introduced the tagline “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” left a couple of big guns on the benches. The first team consisted of Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk, with Ant-Man and the Wasp—two characters who popped in the sci-fi heavy days of early Marvel. Yet, Hulk was the antagonist of the first issue (albeit enchanted by Loki), and he was off the team by issue #2, with Captain America not joining until issue #4.

Even more remarkable, most of the line-up quit in Avengers #16 (1965), leading Captain America to recruit three former criminals with limited power sets as their replacements: Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye. Dubbed “Cap’s Kooky Quartet,” the second line-up made explicit what was only implicit in the previous team, and would set the standard that almost every other line-up would follow. The Avengers were not, in fact, the place for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. They were a loose collection of odd-balls and weirdos who banded together to do the right thing.

The best Avengers stories over the years have capitalized on that rag-tag nature. The team’s first epic, The Kree-Skrull War in Avengers #89–97 (1971–1972), by Roy Thomas and various artists, put the team’s teen sidekick Rick Jones at the center, and had major beats involving Goliath (the moniker Hawkeye took when he got jealous of having no powers and stole Ant-Man’s size-altering particles) and a pre-superpowered Carol Danvers.

In the ‘90s, Avengers mainstays included Sersi of the Eternals, the Black Knight, and off-brand Thor replacement Thunderstrike—all of whom wore leather bomber jackets over their costumes. The excellent run by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez that capped out the ‘90s, arguably the greatest era of Avengers comics, was chock-full of B-listers, including Triathlon, Jack of Hearts, and Firestar. Even the much-lauded New Avengers that followed, when Brian Michael Bendis finally put all of Marvel’s most popular characters together, felt more like a convention of A-listers than a proper team, with Spider-Man and Wolverine joining Sentry and Luke Cage under Captain America and Iron Man.

New Avengers best illustrates the Avengers standing within Marvel. They aren’t as popular as the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, and Spider-Man only occasionally works as a team player. The Avengers are a B-list team, their status only elevated because tangled adaptation rights kept Kevin Feige from making movies about Marvel’s true superstars.

Believe it or not, this is for the best. DC has often struggled to find stories worthy of its overpowered line-up, with only greats like Grant Morrison consistently pulling it off. Some of the most well-remembered Justice League stories are those that deviate and focus on lesser-characters, such as the previously mentioned Justice League International or the animated series Justice League Unlimited.

The off-beat nature of the Avengers fits the Marvel Universe even better than it does with DC. Where DC’s heroes are gods and icons, Marvel’s heroes have feet of clay, all part of the teen melodrama that Stan Lee added to those first comics by Kirby and Steve Ditko. Joining the Avengers is less like an ascension and more like acceptance into a support group for people with trauma/powers.

All of which makes the Zdarsky and Checchetto team feel surprisingly classic, despite lacking Cap, Iron Man, or Thor. Dubbed “Earth’s Mightiest Survivors,” these are guys who want to get revenge for something that happens in the Armageddon storyline, probably involving Red Hulk going nuclear to keep control of a Doctor Doom-less Latveria. Zdarsky has teased that others will join the team, and the vague nature of his wording makes us think that it won’t be the big guns.

And that’s fine. Let the Justice League be a pantheon. The Avengers should be kooky, now and forever.

Writer: Walter Simonson
Layouts: John Buscema
Finisher: Tom Palmer
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorers: Paul Becton and Marc Siry

“Reality is a series of coincidences strung together by accident,” reads the caption box that opens Avengers #300; “Or to put it another way… reality is an accident waiting to happen.” What a perfect way to begin an issue with one of the kookiest line-ups in Avengers history. 

Avengers #300 takes place during the Inferno crossover, when Cyclops’ ex-wife makes a deal with the devil and infests New York City with demons that possess elevators and vacuum cleaners (it’s better than that sounds). 

The attack seems to take the mainline Avengers by surprise, and most are immediately defeated, leaving Thor as the last man standing. As Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman search for their missing son Franklin, one of the young children that the demons need to secure their control of the world, they find Steve Rogers, who has abandoned the title of Captain America and taken the very creative name “The Captain” and a cool black costume (a costume now most associated with U.S. Agent).

Also, they meet Gilgamesh of the Eternals, a.k.a. the Forgotten Hero—forgotten, of course, because he’s an Eternal and all Eternals are boring.

After fighting off some demons and retrieving Franklin, the quintet join together as, in Cap’s words, “The Avengers… Reborn!” That’s right, this version of the Avengers consists of the Captain, Thor, Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, and Gilgamesh.

Although enhanced by a frame narrative built around Kang the Conqueror, and there’s a fun back-up story with Loki, Avengers #300 falls far short of its status as an important anniversary issue. Palmer’s soft, more liquid inks pair badly with Simonson’s muscular pencils, muting their effect. Storywise, the issue is an obvious fill-in with the Avengers playing on the sidelines of an X-Men story. Even worse, Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman leave in #303 to return the Fantastic Four, making this the shortest incarnation of the team since the original line-up.

Still, Avengers #300 proves that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes don’t need to be Earth’s best heroes. They can just be the people who show up at the right time.

Recovery increases your body’s demand for nutrients involved in healing, immune support, and tissue repair. HealFast was formulated specifically for pre- and post-surgery recovery support.

Support Recovery

🏒 Remember when Stan Lee and the NHL teamed up for a less-than-Marvelous experience called The Guardian Project?

🇨🇱 That Texas Blood from Image Comics is a wildly underrated crime thriller that is making a comeback four years after its last release.

⏳ Looking for DC’s answer to Spider-Noir? Ten years ago, there was Sandman Mystery Theatre…

🦖 IDW’s The Horror of Godzilla #1 will introduce a truly chilling take on the kaiju’s very first attack.