The Avengers are the single most well known superhero team in the entire Marvel universe,
but they’ve actually expanded and divided themselves so many times that there have been
many teams over the years that have used the Avengers title.
So today, let’s take a look at every single one of those teams in the mainstream Marvel
universe.
We first need to start off in the 1950s.
No, not the actual 50s, but rather that time period WITHIN the comic book continuity.
See in 1959, President Eisenhower apparently set up a covert team called The Avengers to
“combat the forces of chaos that would push the world into darkness.”
Led by Nick Fury, because he has to have his finger in everything, these old school Avengers
were made up of a few character you might have heard of with a couple of obscure ones
thrown in for good measure.
Bloodstone, Kraven the Hunter, Namora, Sabretooth, SIlver Sable, and Dominic Fortune.
These guys only had two major missions.
The first one was stopping an imposter of the Red Skull who was trying to combine a
couple of super serums to create the most powerful super soldier out there.
The second was when they fought a dude with dark magic powers given to him by a demon.
This guy manipulated the government into letting him form an organization made up of former
Nazis to fight communists.
Because comics.
Yeah…
there wasn’t a lot to these guys and honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of their short series.
So next on the chopping block are the big guys, the ORIGINAL Avengers.
Starting off with just Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, these dudes united
to take on the villainous Loki.
What are they avenging?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
It was literally just a name that Wasp pulled out of nowhere to sound dramatic.
It’s too bad they didn’t go with like… the Defenders or something.
Oh well.
It’s too late to change it now.
Pretty much every single Marvel superhero and even some villains have been an Avenger
at some point in time with its constantly rotating cast of characters and the team constantly
breaking up and reforming.
Look, what you really need to know about The Avengers is that they’re cool dudes saving
the world from bad guys and they typically live in a big party mansion.
Well… except for the current “All-New, All-Different Avengers” which exist simply
because there wasn’t a team calling themselves The Avengers at the time.
No I’m serious, that’s the in continuity reason.
Anyway, they now work out of an old Stark Industries airfield in New Jersey.
So, with the OG Avengers out of the way, let’s move onto the first ever side team, Avengers
West Coast or the West Coast Avengers, either name works.
When looking to expand the team, Vision decided to open up a branch on the west coast and
appointed Hawkeye as its leader.
Fun Fact: Vision also wanted to create an Avengers team in the midwest, but was shot
down.
Anyway, the west coast team initially got a four issue mini series, but later got an
ongoing that lasted for over one hundred issues!
To this day, no other spin off team has lasted that long in a single stretch.
Well… unless you count the Thunderbolts comic getting renamed to Dark Avengers at
issue 175, but we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.
The team, sometimes nicknamed the Wackos, were a somewhat more laid back, but more chaotic
team which led the government to step in and assign a new leader named…
U.S. Agent.
This prompted Hawkeye to quit and join the Great Lakes Avengers which we’ll get to
into a moment.
Because of all the constant in fighting, members up and leaving, and the fact that their base
was seemingly always under attack, the West Coast Avengers were shut down by Vision and
Captain America by being folded back into its east coast counterpart.
The members of the team that didn’t want to go back however instead formed a new group
called Force Works, but we’re not going to really talk about them today.
So yeah, I mentioned the Great Lakes Avengers.
These guys are uh… interesting to say the least.
They are the epitome of knock offs.
The Avengers have a Quinjet?
The GLA has a Quin-Jetta.
Heck, they didn’t even get permission to call themselves Avengers in the first place!
The team started when a not so great hero named Mr. Immortal, who obviously can’t
die, tried his hand at being a vigilante, but quickly realized that having a team would
make things much easier.
How did he recruit his members?
By literally putting up an ad in the personals of his local newspaper.
This attracted the lizard like Dinah Soar, Flatman who is basically a 2D Mr. Fantastic,
Doorman who turn himself into a doorlike portal, Leather Boy who was just really into BDSM
and kicked out pretty early on because of his lack of powers, and finally…
Big Bertha.
A supermodel that can gain an insane amount of weight at will and gets rid of it by…
bulimia.
Yep.
Now around the time that the GLA established themselves, Hawkeye and Mockingbird had quit
the West Coast Avengers and they temporarily took it upon themselves to lead and train
this new team.
But yeah, the GLA is such an absolute joke that they got a mini-series in 2005 that satirizes
how dark and edgy comics had gotten at the time with a member dying off in each issue.
Of course, with members dying, the team needed to recruit new ones.
Pretty much everybody said no, but they WERE able to recruit Squirrel Girl, one of the
strongest characters in the entire Marvel universe!
At the end of the series though, the team got a cease and desist from the real Avengers,
but after discovering that they were all mutants, they decided to rip off another team and instead
became the Great Lakes X-Men.
This didn’t last very long either.
See the Great Lakes Avengers change their name constantly and have gone by the Great
Lakes Champions, the Great Lakes Defenders, and even the Lightning Rods, parodying the
name of the Thunderbolts.
Now when the Superhuman Registration Act came into effect, the GLA were amongst the first
in line to sign up.
As a part of this, they joined the 50-State Initiative where each state got their own
superteam.
Thus, the Great Lakes… whatever they were deciding to call themselves at the time…
became the Great Lakes Initiative and was the official superhuman team of Wisconsin.
These days however, they’re back to calling themselves the Great Lakes Avengers and as
of this recording, they’re about to get a new ongoing series!
Though after losing fan favorite, Squirrel Girl, the team is literally going around with
a cardboard cutout of her so that when people want photos of the team, they can pretend
like she’s there.
That alone has me sold.
Also forming with 50-State Initiative was the Mighty Avengers.
Much like how the GLI had Wisconsin, the Mighty Avengers were the official superhuman team
of New York.
These mighty fine guys were assembled by S.H.I.E.L.D.
director, Iron Man (Yes, that actually happened) and was led by Carol Danvers A.K.A.
Ms. Marvel.
If I’m going to be honest though, this team was pretty much the normal Avengers, but just…
mighty.
The original team broke up after the Secret Invasion event with many of its members joining
different Avengers teams, but a new set of Mighty Avengers quickly formed up afterwards
led by Hank Pym, the first Ant-Man.
Hank’s team was recruited by the organization G.R.A.M.P.A.
(Yes, that’s an actual thing) to give his Mighty Avengers international jurisdiction.
In typical Hank Pym fashion though, he overexerts himself, goes slightly insane, gets the team’s
G.R.A.M.P.A.
status revoked, but when he tries to recruit freaking LOKI into the Mighty Avengers, that
was the final straw and the team went its separate ways.
Now the Mighty Avengers were formed again later…
technically.
See, Luke Cage restarted his Heroes For Hire business which is exactly what it sounds like,
but when the normal Avengers went out to space to fight some aliens called the Builders,
the big supervillain, Thanos, came to Earth and wrecked shop.
After successfully kicking his butt, Cage reworked the team into the new Mighty Avengers,
a non-profit organization to help those in need and let ANY superhuman have a shot at
doing good as part of a team.
They also helped out in the AXIS storyline where many bad guys became good and many good
guys became bad.
The inverted Luke Cage tried selling the Mighty Avengers, but because of legal safeguards
his wife, Jessica Jones, and his best friend, Iron Fist, held the majority ownership of
the business and trademarks.
Though the inverted Tony Stark sued the Mighty Avengers for using the Avengers name without
consent so the team had to shut its doors… as soon as the entire multiverse was ending
because of the Incursions.
Alright, next team.
Remember how I mentioned the Superhuman Registration Act?
Well that led to the superhuman Civil War against groups led by Captain America and
Iron Man.
Cap’s team was working against the law so they had to work in secret.
In fact, you could say that they were Secret Avengers of sorts.
Yep, that was literally all the Secret Avengers were at first.
We’re going to come back to these guys in a bit, but first, we need more history.
After the storyline, Secret Invasion, the government peacekeeping organization known
as S.H.I.E.L.D.
was shut down and replaced by a new organization called H.A.M.M.E.R.
Oh yeah, and it was led by Norman Osborn, the former Spider-Man villain, Green Goblin.
Well Norman made a new team of Avengers… by taking bad guys and posing them as previously
established heroes.
We’ll call them the Dark Avengers to keep things easier to understand.
The Dark Avengers were made up of Venom, Bullseye, Moonstone, Sentry, Daken, Ares, Marvel Boy,
Osborne himself, but with a suit of Iron Man armor that he stole, repainted, and rebranded
as the Iron Patriot.
They went on a few adventures, much to the dismay of many heroes, but they disbanded
after the Siege storyline when Osborn decided to invade Thor’s homeworld of Asgard.
So back to the Secret Avengers.
After H.A.M.M.E.R.
fell, Captain America took over as the head honcho in charge of global security.
In a surprise move, he didn’t bring back S.H.I.E.L.D.
or create a new organization.
Instead, Steve opted to create a handful of Avengers teams.
We also got the Secret Avengers as an official unit along with the creation of Avengers Academy
and the New Avengers.
Let’s go over these in order.
The new Secret Avengers were a stealth ops team led by Steve Rodgers with his girlfriend,
Sharon Carter, supervising the logistics and tactical operations.
Later though, Hawkeye took over as the field leader while Cap more or less supervised.
The Secret Avengers disbanded after running a few big missions, mostly due to Hawkeye
not being able to handle the responsibilities of leadership.
Funnily enough though, almost as soon as he broke up the team, the newly re-formed S.H.I.E.L.D.
created their own Secret Avengers after being so impressed by Hawkeye’s crew.
They recruited him as well as many other heroes, but there was a catch.
For the sake of confidentiality, each member of the team was given a memory implant that
made them forget anything that happened during their missions.
Both Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Secret Avengers had some fun stories, but
nothing too universe changing.
They’re fun reads though so check them out if you can.
Alright, let’s move on.
So while Norman Osborn was in charge of H.A.M.M.E.R., he was recruiting and experimenting on teenagers
with powers.
Once the organization fell, Hank Pym founded Avengers Academy to train the teens that were
most likely to become super villains.
In addition to Hank’s guidance, the Academy featured a few other full time teachers and
a rotating cast of guest instructors that taught these kiddos about every aspect of
the superhero world.
What’s also interesting is that while the school was initially taught out of Hank Pym’s
otherworldly Infinite Mansion, it was later moved to the old Avengers West Coast compound
and opened its doors to any young superhuman who wanted instruction and training.
The bad news is that when war erupted between the X-Men and the Avengers over what to do
about the Phoenix Force that was on its way to Earth, Avengers Academy was shut down since
the name AVENGERS Academy just put a target on its students’ backs.
The school was re-opened a bit later, but it kind of faded to the background when the
main cast of students graduated to become like… mini Avengers or something…
Still, if you get a chance, the Avengers Academy series is pretty damn great!
Alright, this next part is INSANELY confusing so please bear with me.
There was a series called New Avengers which launched in 2005, but these guys were just
a continuation of the normal Avengers team and is even backed up by this entry on the
official Marvel website.
In 2010 however, the New Avengers title was relaunched and featured a team actually called
that.
Yes, the New Avengers this time around were a totally separate team from the regular Avengers.
Because comics…
Captain America gave this team to Luke Cage and was housed in the Avengers Mansion which
Tony Stark sold to him for a dollar, but oddly enough, many members of the New Avengers are
also members of the standard Avengers.
Wolverine even points out how insane it is that he’s an X-Man and on two different
Avengers teams at the same time!
Mostly, this group supplemented the main Avengers team in the big storylines, but I personally
enjoyed it when they took on Norman Osborn who reformed H.A.M.M.E.R. and did the whole
Dark Avengers thing...
again.
The New Avengers disbanded in the aftermath of the war between the Avengers and X-Men,
but don’t worry.
Another team popped up soon afterwards.
To prevent another large scale fight between mutants and superpowered humans, a new Avengers
team made up of both Avengers and X-Men were made to bridge the gap between both species.
This was the Avengers Unity Division or the Uncanny Avengers.
Pick whichever name you like more.
The team mostly dealt with the Nazi villain, Red Skull, who had become a powerful telepath
and was broadcasting feelings of hate all across the world.
Later though, the team expanded their mission statement to promote unification between humans,
mutants, AND Inhumans.
Oh yeah, and they also threw in Deadpool so that people would go buy the book since that’s
one of Marvel’s main way of trying to get sales.
The next group that I’d like to dive into is a personal favorite, the Young Avengers.
This is a group of teenagers that got together during one of the many times that the Avengers
disbanded in order to fight a time traveling villain named Kang the Conqueror.
Now believe it or not, they didn’t dub themselves the Young Avengers.
That was a name given to them by the Daily Bugle after they reported on the group’s
first outing.
Because of the inherent risk of the superhero lifestyle, Captain America and Iron Man were
not fans of the team so the kids kind of had to work a little outside of the superhero
community.
Now there was another group of young heroes which also decided to use the Young Avengers
name, but because of tension between them and the REAL Young Avengers, the non real
Young Avengers joined Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers and… got their asses kicked pretty
hard.
With this notch under their belt, the Young Avengers led a crusade to find the Scarlet
Witch who had disappeared after the House of M event.
After successfully doing that which also involved helping taking down a suped up Doctor Doom
with godlike powers, the Young Avengers were officially welcomed to join the main Avengers
team.
However, some point in the future, the team left the Avengers, but partly reassembled
one last time with some new additions to fight an interdimensional parasite mom lady.
Oh, here’s a short lived one.
The Avengers Artificial Intelligence Squad (sometimes called the Robot Avengers) was
formed to take out a virus that Hank Pym once made to defeat Ultron which then evolved into
a complex self aware life form.
The team was exclusively made up of characters driven by A.I. and led to a uh… pretty underwhelming
title.
Okay, let’s most onto something more fun liiiiike the Pet Avengers!
Hey, do you like animal superheroes and/or animal companions of some of your favorite
Marvel characters?
If so, this is the team for you!
Headed up by Throg, a frog with the power of Thor, the Pet Avengers also included the
Inhuman dog, Lockjaw, Falcon’s bird, Redwing, Kitty Pryde’s alien dragon, Lockheed, Speedball’s
cat, Hairball, Ms. Lion, the cat of Spider-Man’s Aunt May, and Zabu, the sabretooth tiger of
Ka-Zar.
Their mission?
Collect the Infinity Gems and protect the world from Thanos.
I’m not even kidding.
They actually did it!
After taking the mad titan down, Lockjaw used the Infinity Gems to unite the team with a
psychic bond which they used to assemble a few more times like when a bunch of mystical
creatures started to appear on Earth and a totally separate incident involving a bunch
of dragons wreaking havoc.
Okay, just a few more teams!
Lately, there’s a new team going by the New Avengers, but I prefer to call them by
their official company name, Avengers Idea Mechanics or A.I.M.
for short.
If that acronym sounds familiar, it should because yes, this version of the New Avengers
are a reformed version of the terrorist organization, A.I.M.
Turns out that the company was being publically traded on the stock market and billionaire
Avenger, Sunspot, performed a totally legal hostile takeover.
Initially, Sunspot sent out a team of “Multiversal Avengers” to discover the source of the
Incursions.
After the Secret Wars event though, he formed an all new team dedicated to international
rescue operations.
Some of the members were kicked out though and formed the All-New New Avengers so yeah…
We’ve currently got two teams of New Avengers with one is being run by a former terrorist
organization and both are in one book.
The final team that I want to dig into is A-Force.
So after the Incursions destroyed the entire multiverse, all that remained was the patchwork
planet of Battleworld.
One of its countries was Arcadia which was defended by the all-female team A-Force.
I’m not going to dwell too long on the Battleworld A-Force, but it’s important to mention because
a mysterious girl named Singularity met that team and ended up in the new Marvel universe
after Secret Wars was resolved.
Unlike most characters, Singularity actually remembers the events of Secret Wars.
So when she’s being attacked by the mysterious Antimatter, she wanted to turn to her friends,
the A-Force.
The only problem is that the team didn’t exist in the main Marvel universe.
It’s because of this that Singularity assembled the team and managed to take Antimatter down,
but that kind of ripped open tears in reality and now the team is dealing with that.
Some people speculate that the A in A-Force stands for Arcadia after the country in Battleworld
where it was founded, but I actually reached out to one of the writers on the book who
confirmed that the A is in fact for Avengers.
Now listen, I might have missed a detail or two or three, but to the best of my knowledge
and the people that I consulted with, this is every single Avengers team that was out
there.
But when you’re combing through literally decades and decades of complicated and convoluted
comic book lore, you’re bound to slip up once or twice.
But hey, which Avengers team that I talked about today has been your favorite?
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