By: Fred Hill

Fred Hill — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:05:32 +0000

Although the Avengers did not have anything in particular to avenge in their first three issues, Lee & Kirby rectified that in issue #4 with the resurrection of Captain America and the revelation of Bucky’s death due to the machinations of Baron Zemo. Bucky had been re-fashioned from Cap’s kid side-kick into a casualty of Nazi evil, and with Cap joining the Avengers and then Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil becoming recurring villains for most of the issues from 6 – 15, now the Avengers took on a specific act of evil to avenge and which actually occurred when Zemo died in battle against Cap — even if Cap didn’t directly kill Zemo, still it was a consequence of their battle that Zemo died and, unlike nearly every other prominent villain in comics, stayed dead, only appearing again in time travel stories or other characters taking over his name, most prominently his own son. Famously, after that episode Lee totally transformed the team from a collection of some of Marvel’s top heroes into a team of Cap and a trio of reformed villains who perhaps didn’t have a whole lot in specific to avenge but were dedicated to fighting evil. Whatever Lee’s actual inspiration for the name, at least it had a far better ring that the old Timely version of the idea, the All-Winners Squad. As the Avengers did occasionally lose fights (albeit only in the short term), that name would have been very problematic.

Comments on: Comics in Context: Avengers Annotations Assemble!

By: Fred Hill