The various Avengers teams knew that if these secrets were revealed, it would make things much worse on the world. It’s mostly altruistic, but there have been times when they made these choices to protect themselves or their allies. These are the seven darkest secrets the Avengers ever kept, dark events that would become flashpoints if revealed.
7) The Celestials Place in Creating Humanity
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Jason Aaron’s run on Avengers (Vol. 8) went in numerous directions and it kicked off revealing one of the biggest secrets on Earth-616. The team learned that there was a dead Dark Celestial on Earth, who was infected by the Horde, an ealien race of parasites. The parasites flowed out of the dead cosmic giant, changed by their time inside of it, and life started to flower on the Earth, pushing the beings who would become humanity to their next evolutionary level. Many suspected the Celestials played a role in the creation of humanity, but no one figured that they came from diseased parasitic blood. The team kept this tidbit back, saving the world from the biggest existential crisis ever.
6) The Truth About Scarlet Witch’s Kids
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Scarlet Witch and the Vision’s love affair is one of those relationships that no one would have predicted, but fans learned to love quickly. Their marriage was a big event in both of their lives, and eventually the two had children, which shouldn’t have been possible. Wanda used her magic to create them, and it would later be revealed that she had stolen portions of Mephisto’s soul in the process. The children would “die”, and the Avengers would end up erasing her memory of the whole thing. She’s eventually find out and go crazy, nearly destroying the team and genociding the mutant race in House of M.
5) Planet X
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Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1) pitted the Avengers Unity Squad against the Apocalypse Twins. The children of Archangel, having been raised by Kang to master their temporal powers, were able to take advantage of the animosity between the mutants and humans of the team. Using the magic of Scarlet Witch, they transported every mutant to their Ark before tricking a Celestial into destroying the Earth. The mutants created a new civilization on Planet X, and Havok and the Wasp had to go back in time to change the past, saving the world in the story “Avenge the Earth”. However, they never told the world that mutants had destroyed the planet, because things for homo superior were bad enough.
4) The Skrulls Replacing Heroes and Villains
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The ’00s were the pinnacle of 21st century Marvel Comics, and Secret Invasion was one of its crown jewels. This story was set-up in New Avengers and in issues #27-30, the team learned just how bad things were. They had gone underground after Civil War and were called to Japan to save Echo from the Hand. Elektra had taken control of the ninja clan, and the team struggled against them in battle. Echo was able to kill Elektra, and then a shocking thing happened: she became a Skrull. The team was shocked and started to get paranoid, wondering just how far the infiltration had gone, and decided to keep the whole thing a secret. However, Spider-Woman, herself actually the Skrull Empress Veranke, took the corpse to Iron Man’s Avengers, who also didn’t tell anyone about the situation. When the Skrulls attacked, it caught the world flat-footed, and the Avengers’ secretism and paranoia hurt the response to the invasion.
3) Norman Osborn’s Deal With the Void
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“Dark Reign” was a fantastic status quo, following Norman Osborn after he was given control of the superhero national security apparatus created in Civil War after his role in stopping the Skrull invasion. He brought together his own team of Avengers made up of villains, with Ares and the Sentry staying on from the last team. Osborn made a deal with the Void, the dark side of the Golden Guardian of Good: he would be Osborn’s attack dog as long as the villain kept the secret of the Void’s control of the team’s most powerful member. The Void did Osborn’s bidding when ever asked, and no one knew about the deal they had made. Of course, the whole thing would explode in Osborn’s face, but the secret made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth for a time.
2) The Illuminati Mindwiping Captain America
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Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run was amazing, and the writer did something no one thought any creator would: made Captain America a member of the Illuminati. The group brought him on the team so that he could be their moral compass, and when they discovered the Incursions, he tried to convince the group to deal with them in a humane way. Using the Infinity Gauntlet, he was able to stop the first, but it was destroyed, forcing the group to figure out a more destructive way to stop Earths from falling on their head. Cap rebelled, and they mindwiped him. They were able to keep the secret until the death of the Watcher in Original Sin, and that led to the Avengers targeting the Illuminati.
1) The Incursions
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The Illuminati mindwiping the Cap was only the beginning of them keeping the secret of the Incursions. Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Black Panther, Black Bolt, Namor, and the Beast lied to everyone, keeping the whole thing a secret form their teammates in the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, SHIELD, and the entire world. The only person who was able to figure it out was Doctor Doom (obviously; none rival Doom), and after Original Sin revealed the truth, it broke the Avengers in twain. The worst part about it is that if they would have asked for help from their allies and enemies, they could have come up with a solution to the problem. Instead, they made the decision for the world, which would lead to the destruction of everything and Doom saving the remains of the multiverse.
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