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The Avengers have starred in some amazing stories over the years, and those stories have molded and shaped the team in a variety of ways. They’ve passed many milestones on the road to superstardom, and some of these are more important than others. These ten Avengers milestones are the biggest in the team’s history, making them into the biggest team in superhero media (until the X-Men MCU movie comes out).
10) “Onslaught”
Not every milestone in a team’s history is positive, and “Onslaught” is one of those. The 1996 event saw the X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and other heroes of New York City battling against Onslaught, a powerful psionic parasite created when Xavier mindwiped Magneto in X-Men (Vol. 2) #25. This story led into Heroes Reborn, with Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld taking over the Avengers and the Fantastic Four for a year. This is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Marvel and shows how the publisher has often made big missteps with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
9) Avengers vs. X-Men
Avengers vs. X-Men is a wrongfully maligned event. I get why a lot of people dislike it, but this book is just big dumb superhero fun. The 12-issue tale from Brian Micheal Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, John Romita Jr., Olivier Coipel, and Adam Kubert was an example of Marvel doing their best to cash in on 2012’s The Avengers, and it also represents the end of Bendis’s Avengers run. It put a capstone on an entire era of the team and was the bridge to the Hickman run and the birth of Uncanny Avengers. It’s much more of a major event in the group’s history than people realize.
8) The Incursions
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run was flawless and it introduced a concept that would change the Marvel Universe for years — the Incursions. Started by the Beyonders as a part of a twisted experiment, this event saw alternate Earths colliding, destroying entire universes. It led to the Builders attacking the intergalactic powers of the Marvel Universe and the end of the old Marvel Multiverse, including the death of the original Ultimate Universe in Secret Wars. This story would end with Doom redeemed for a few years and the end of the Fantastic Four. The Incursions are honestly one of the last great milestones in Avengers’ history.
7) House of M
House of M, by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, changed the direction of the entire Marvel Universe. It was a follow-up to “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”, and picked up the story of Scarlet Witch while also giving readers the first crossover between the Astonishing X-Men and the New Avengers. Wanda’s creation of a world where Magneto ruled a planet where mutants were the dominant species ended with the depowering of the mutant race, Wanda going into hiding, and put the team on the road to Civil War. While this event seemingly had more impact on the X-Men, it’s still an important part of Avengers history.
6) “Under Siege”
Marvel had some great stories in the ’80s, and the Avengers benefited from the rise in quality of the decade. Roger Stern and John Buscema’s run on Avengers is full of great stories and the best of them, and a major milestone in the group’s history, is “Under Siege”. This story pit the Avengers against the largest, most powerful, and most well-prepared roster of the Masters of Evil. The team got trounced by the villains and it represented their most well-known defeat and best come from behind victory. It’s become legendary, showing both the weaknesses and strengths of the group.
