Avengers volume 1
This is a summary of what happens in Avengers volume 1. I highlighted the best and necessary (in my opinion) storylines and issues, but I wrote summaries between the recced issues, as well, to better follow the overall story.
#1 and #4: Classic issues with how the Avengers are born and the addition of Captain America to the team.
#16 - #28 (more or less) : Cap’s Kooky Quartet. Stories where Wanda, Cap, Clint and Pietro are the Avengers. Some insight in Steve Rogers’ (probable) depression, some fights to decide who is the team leader and in general some great stories!
Avengers Point One: This is a 2017 miniserie that takes place here.
#52: Black Panther joins the Avengers.
#57 - 58: Vision is born!
#63: Clint becomes Goliath.
#89 - 97: The Kree-Skrull War. It has some nice panels of Iron Man and Cap close together and some nice art, but overall not extremely SteveTony. Still, the story is linear and amazing, and there’s also Carol Danvers in it! The Avengers in this storyline are Wanda, Clint, Pietro and Vision (with Wanda and Clint kidnapped by the Skrulls, which really shows the start of the Vision/Wanda romance), Captain Marvel, Steve, Tony, Thor and some Hank and Wasp.
#98 - 100: The amnesiac Hercules arc. Not a fundamental storyline, but definitely fun. A mysterious tune turnes humans into war thirsty beings, and the Avengers are hypnotised as well. Only Thor and Vision can stop them. Also, it explains where Clint ended up in the Kree-Skrull war, Hercules is back and Wanda admits she is in love with Vision. But no Steve and Tony interactions.
(The Vision and Wanda accept their love, Pietro contacts the Avengers and tells them he is in love with Crystal and is staying with the Inhumans because he can’t accept Wanda and Vision’s relationship; Clint leaves the Avengers because he doesn’t feel ‘super'hero enough and goes looking for Natasha after his love disappointment with Wanda. Nat is with Daredevil and Clint gets angry, so he refuses to help her rescue the Avengers. Nat leaves Darevil and joins the Avengers, feeling mixed feelings about Clint. T'Challa feels the pressure of his nation asking for its prince back.)
#112 - 114: The Lion God arc (sort of, a issue 113 is a bit of a break from that). Black Panther has to fight against a rival Lion God, Nat ends up leaving the Avengers (so soon!), Wanda and Vision are attacked for their love, Mantis and the Swordman join the Avengers. This story arc has some very faint Iron Man & Cap moments. This has also a nice Tony Stark “I’ll go find Iron Man!” secret identity moment. ALSO, Tony winks at Blake, asking him to find Thor, and Blake realises Tony knows he is Thor, which means that Blake knows Iron Man is Tony Stark.
(The crossover Avengers versus Defenders happen here, and Wanda’s hatred for humans intensify. The Avengers defeat the band of the Zodiac and Cap is not among the Avengers as he has troubles in his own comic)
#123-124: The origin of Mantis and prequel of the Celestial Madonna arc.
(Cap returns to the Avengers)
#126: The Avengers fight Klaw. Love triangle between Mantis Vision and Wanda, or so the Swordman and Wanda think. Cap wants to leave the shield and ends up leaving the Avengers again, as Black Panther does, Wanda starts to control her powers.
(The Avengers visits the Inhumans and they meet Agatha Harkness and they fight Ultron)
#128: Wanda and Agatha witches together and Wanda’s powers increase. Mantis tells the Swordman she doesn’t love him anymore and tries to kiss Vision.
#129 - Giant Size #2 - #130 - 132 - Giant Size #3 - #133 - 135 -Giant Size #4 : The Celestial Madonna arc. Kang kidnaps the Avengers, knowing that one of the women is the prophetised Celestial Madonna, who will give birth to a powerful being (and he wants to be the father). This arc contains Kang’s backstory as well, Clint is back, Swordman dies, Moondragon appears and reveals her backstory, Steve Rogers returns as Nomad for a brief moment, Mantis finds out her destiny and marries a tree, the Avengers discover the orign of the Skull Kree war, Wanda and Vision get married after Vision sees his own true origin. What a wild ride!
(Tony meets Hank McCoy - and then Iron Man fights the Beast because of a misunderstanding/mind controlling villain)
#137: A cute domestic issue where Thor, Iron Man and Hawkeye (the only Avengers left) decide to look for new members. Moondragon accepts, Janet and Hank Pym come back, The Beast asks to join the Avengers. There’s also a nice scene with Vision and Wanda on a holiday.
(Hank is worried for Janet, who has been wounded in the previous issue and is in a coma, Hank has some troubles controlling his powers, The Beast cures him, Janet wakes up, Iron Man and Moondragon find out that Hawkeye disappeared, Wanda and Vision are back from their honeymoon)
#141: Patsy Walker makes an appearance, Cap is back with the Avengers, Thor and Moondragon go looking for Hawkeye. Iron Man decides to help Cap.
(Moondragon and Thor finds Hawkeye in the cowboy era and they defeat Kang once for all - sort of -, the other Avengers are still prisoners in Roxxon and Cap has a plan to escape)
#143 - 144: Patsy Walker’s backstory! Tony helps Cap and Patsy. Patsy becomes Hellcat.
(At this point the story is interrupted for two issues of an extra story, because of editorial reasons. In this short story, assassins are after the Avengers, Hawkeye thinks about his friendship with Cap, Cap is seriously wounded and the end is much darker than usual Avengers stories of those years)
#147: The Avengers continue their Roxxon/Squadron Sinister adventure and escape the enemy, finding the Serpent mind-controllng crown as well. Wanda is affected by it by manages to break the spell (because of love!).
#148-149: The fight continues. Thor and Moondragon join the other Avengers. The Avengers win, Thor and Hellcat save the day. End of the Roxxon arc.
#150-151: These two issues introduce the new Avengers team and recap the beginning of the Avengers and how the team changed during the past issues. Thor decides to leave the Avengers because he feels like he is losing his purpose, so far away from the other gods. Thor names Iron Man chairman and the first thing Iron Man does is ask Cap if he is staying. Vision, Wanda, Yellowjacket and Janet decide to stay as Avengers, Moondragon decides to leave the Avengers as well as she needs more freedom, Beast is officially accepted as an Avengers, Hellcat wants to be an Avenger but accepts Moondragon’s offer to go with her and train with her. Wonder Man is back!
#152: At the end of #151, the new Avengers line up (Vision, Wanda, Cap, Iron Man, Beast, Yellowjacket and Wasp) meet Wonder Man, believed dead. After fighting an enemy, Wanda realizes she needs more time to study her powers and she leaves the Avengers.
(Wanda looks for the Serpent Crown, Wonder Man looked dead but he is not, The Laser is defeated, the Serpent Crown is thrown in the ocean, the Avengers meet Namor and Doom, and they fight against a statue of the Black Knight)
#158 - 159: The Graviton arc. Vision is still worried he is too mechanical to have human emotions and seeing Wonder Man helping Wanda reminds him that now there’s a flesh and human person with his brain. Wonder Man vs Vision. Iron Man suspends Vision, the Avengers fights against Graviton and Wonder Man helps them. Black Panther and Thor are back, Jarvis saves the day.
#160: Cap, Iron Man and Thor go away because of things to do, the remaining Avengers fight the Grim Reaper who traps them all in a trial to decide which one is the true one: Vision or Wonder Man. Wonder Man reveals that his molecular structure is different now, and he defeats the Grim Reaper.
#161 - 162: Hank has a crisis and believes the Avengers are impostors. Janet stops him and reveals that this has been a problem for a while, but of course Ultron is part of the cause. Jocasta is born, Vision is hurt.
(Janet works, with Tony’s help, to restore Hank’s memory. Natasha, Iceman and Hercules make an appearance.)
#164 - 166: Count Nefaria wants to re-create Power Man. Tony and Beast study Wonder Man’s new molecular structure and find out he actually never died, simply transformed. Cap and the Avengers are trapped in debris of a crumbled building and Iron Man gets them out; Cap literally says that he has been waiting for him (even if he didn’t know where Iron Man was). Thor is back and Vision is awake from his coma thing.
#167 - 168: The beginning of the Korvac saga. Tony and Cap fight again about Tony being late. Tony is late (as Iron Man) because he was busy as Stark and this double identity thing is really stressing. Cap starts giving orders and Iron Man is baffled - after all he is the chairman. Later on he tells Thor that he is not troubled about it, because he was about to order the same. The original Guardians of the Galaxy make an appearance. Janet has her runway show and Nighthawk appears as well.
#169: Extra one shot volume. It’s not clear if it’s in the same timeline, but it’s not part of the Korvac saga. Cap and Iron Man are doing crosswords and they talk as if they never fought in the previous issues. Black Panther, Cap and Iron Man have an adventure. I’d also like to remind you that Hawkeye is still in that weird western thing.
#170 - 171: Even if still part of the Korvac saga, these two issues’ plot is all about Ultron. Ultron awakens Jocasta (believed non alive) and the Avengers follow her to the convent where Ultron is hiding. Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel)helps them. These two issues have the conclusion of the Steve & Tony fight and it is absolutely lovely. We find out that the reason why Steve was so angry was that he recently lost his serum and feels a bit useless, not as helpful as he used to be. Iron Man apologises for being such a bad (in Cap’s opinion) chairman and Steve feels all guilty.
#172 - 177: The plotty Korvac saga. In these issues, Hercules, Quicksilver and Natasha make an appearance, Hawkeye is back; the Avengers fight The Collector (who is destroyed by Korvac); the original Guardians of the Galaxy and Moondragon help the Avengers; Carol and Wonder Man flirt together. The Avengers got their priority status revoked because of security issues (poor Iron Man, what a time to be chairman of the Avengers) so instead of using the quinjet they all take a bus.
#181 - 182: Scott Lang is introduced as one of Tony’s employee. The government keeps meddling in with the Avengers, dictating that they need seven members (and who they should be: Iron Man, Vision, Cap, Wanda, Beast, Wasp and Falcon who up until now has never been an Avengers). Wonder Man, finding himself out of the Avengers, decide to try acting. Jocasta is still an avengers because “machines don’t need government clearance”. A mysterious Roma shaman named Django Maximoff appears to kidnap Wanda and Pietro, believing they are his lost children. At the end, Wanda takes a leave of absence to investigate the matter along with Pietro and Maximoff.
#183 - 184: Not a necessary storyline, but two nice issues of Avengers against the Absorbing Man. The Avengers keep dealing with the government meddling with their missions.Now that Wanda is away, Carol Danvers joins the Avengers for the first time and Sam accepts to become an Avenger.
#185 - 187: The Chthon saga. Pietro and Wanda find out about their past. They meet Bova, who explains Pietro how she was created by the High Evolutionary and that she helped a pregnant woman named Magda, running away from her husband. Magda leaves her children with Bova, in Wundagore. The High Evolutionary gives the two children to Django Maximoff and his wife, as they recently lost their own children. Wanda is possessed by Chthon, a demon. Cap leads the Avengers to the rescue, but at the end, Django saves Wanda’s soul at the expense of his own life.
(Pietro returns to the Inhumans and Crystal tells him that they are soon going to have a child.)
Avengers Annual #9: The Avengers fight the Arsenal, a killer robot created by Howard Stark (and a machine modelled after Maria Stark), alongside Thor and Hawkeye. There are also some great and heartbreaking Tony moments in this issue.
(Wanda wants to extend her leave of absence but Gyrich feels that the Avengers can’t do as they want, and want to disband the Avengers. Hawkeye is still angry because he is not an Avengers anymore)
#190: Gyrich wants to end the governmental support to the Avengers so they all go to court, lawyers and all. Of course they ‘win’ the trial when an enemy attacks and Gyrich has to admit that the country still needs the Avengers. Daredevil is a guest star.
(The Avengers defeat the Gargoyle, the government decides to losen the hold over the Avengers. Later, Tony Stark and Wonder Man has to face a sudden villain named Inferno while they visit a factory Tony wants to add to his company. They call the Avengers and leave the not-really-villain go as the only thing he wanted was to get justice for criminals trying to kill him)
#194 - 196: Falcon leaves the Avengers, Tony has trouble with alcohol and wants to let Cap be the chairman. Also, this issue has some nice domestic Avengers scenes.The Avengers help a man running away from a mental institution. Scott Lang appears as Ant-Man, helping the Avengers investigate this Solomon institution. There they have to face Taskmaster, Jocasta saves the day and she officially becomes an Avenger.
#197: Jocasta is accepted as an official Avenger. Carol and Wanda talk and Carol tells her that she doesn't need children to feel fulfilled and Wanda agrees with her conclusion… later on, Carol faints and at the hospital she is shocked to find that she is pregnant (gosh, this storyline is awful). Iron Man tells Cap that he is stepping down from being the chairman of the Avengers.
(The Avengers fight a giant robot called the Red Ronin. Ms Marvel reveales to Wanda her secret identity. Hawkeye is called to fight Red Ronin, Nick Fury appears as well. Wanda and Vision agree that they don’t need children. Jocasta seems to have feelings for Vision. Red Ronin is defeated and the Avengers come back home to find Carol seven months pregnant just after two days since they lasy saw her. This is the infamous Carol story that everyone tries to forget and it’s honestly disconcerning that this story has been done for the iconic #200 issue and in the 80s. The only thing to know is that Carol leaves the Avengers In #201 Jarvis has his own private adventure)
#202: Ultron is back. Tony finds out that he had been hypnothised and made to rebuild Ultron himself, without even remembering it. Tony builds a device that will track his own armor in case Ultron controls him again. Tony, controlled by Ultron, defeats Vision, Jocasta and Wanda. Luckily, Tony wakes up from Ultron’s control, and fights against Ultron, helped by the Wasp.
#211: Cap, Iron Man and Thor decide that it’s time to change the Avengers line up. Cap calls a meeting and Moondragon uses her abilities to call different superheroes to the mansion and show their powers. Beast decides to leave the Avengers to be again a scientist, Tigra takes his place. Wanda and Vision decide to try living as ordinary people, so Yellowjacket comes back to the team. Jocasta runs away, hurt that the Avengers did not counted her in, even if later they notice her absence and realize they should have told her beforehand that they had decided to grant her the status as substitute avenger.
#213: Yellowjacket is under trial for having tried to attack an ex villain. He is so stressed that he is quite sharp and terrible with Jan (and has been in the previous issues as well), and with the Avengers, ending up building a robot to attack them so that he can be the hero and save the day. Later on, he hits Janet while she was trying to help/console him. At the trial, after the robot attacks and Janet defeats it, Hank is dishonorably discharged for what he had done to Janet and to the Avengers.
#214: Hank comes back to Janet but she doesn't want to have anything to do with him and, thankfully, she wants a divorce.
#215 - 216: This is the story where the Avengers find out Tony is Iron Man (Thor already knew). In general, I think these two issues are great for Tigra’s character: she is a new Avenger and she is scared, but manages to do the right thing. The Molecular Man, who is more a parody of a villain than a villain, traps Thor, Cap, Iron Man and Silver Surfer, destroying Iron Man’s armor as well. Steve is quite pleased to see that Tony is Iron Man, and surprised when Tony and Don (who is Thor) refuse to back down from the fight just because they are simple humans. Later on, Tony wants to kill the villain as his power is too big and he could (and want to) destroy the whole world. Cap stops Tony… luckily, Tigra talked Molecule Man into giving himself up. At the end, Tigra leaves the Avengers.
#217: Janet becomes chairman of the Avengers. Janet and Hank are divorced. Hank Pym is arrested because of a misunderstanding.
#218: A man who is cursed to live forever turns into a fire villain. This is the issue where Steve and Tony spends their time saving each others by throwing each others against one and the other.
(Moondragon and her father Drax the Destroyer need the Avengers help. Janet leads. Tony saves Cap at one point as well in #219. Moondragon manipulates Thor into sleeping with her (that is so creepy) and fighting his fellow Avengers. Thor brings Moondragon to face justice in Asgard)
#221: At this point Janet, Thor, Cap and Iron Man are the only Avengers left, so they decide to call in new members. Janet would want more women, Cap wants someone who works well in a team, Tony some tech expert and Thor requires courage. Cap and Tony recruit Hawkeye, Thor asks Spider-Man, Janet calls the Invisible Woman, Spider-woman, Dazzler, Natasha and She-Hulk. Hawkeye and She-Hulk are approved by the government and they become Avengers.
#224: Tony and Janet start dating (Jan doesn’t know he is Iron Man). Cap is mad at Tony because Janet is their friend’s Hank’s ex wife, and also because Jan doesn’t know Iron Man and Tony are the same person. Janet and Tony break up when Tony tells her the truth, as Jan doesn’t want to date one of the Avengers, someone who knew Hank.
(The Black Knight comes back to life)
#227: This is a sequel of Amazing Spiderman Annual #16, but still understandable as the only thing to know is that the Avengers met Monica Rabeau (Captain Marvel) and in this issue she joins the Avengers. Hawkeye is doubtful about Janet’s lead. A psychiatrist meet Hank, recap of Hank’s back story and the story of his first marriage and what happened when he was arrested.
#228: Cap and Monica train, Hank has the trial. Steve is worried about Tony and the fact that they haven’t talked in a bit and find out that Tony had been awake for about 40 hours, working on a machine that will prove once for all if Hank was telling the truth about being manipulated. Steve is not happy. Wanda and Vision have a couple of panels as well! The Masters of Evil ‘rescue’ Henry Pym against his on wishes, making him a criminal.
#229 - 230: Jennifer can’t turn back into She-Hulk until Clint makes her mad, Steve is very concerned because Tony (and Iron Man) disappeared. Scott Lang brings to the Avengers the project Tony was working with: a way to see if Hank’s actions have been caused by mind control (they hadn't). Hank joins the Masters of Evil so that he can defeat them from inside. He is later proven innocent and freed. Hank leaves his Yellowjacket uniform with the Avengers, leaving the Avengers and the mansion.
#231: Jocasta is dead and there’s a funeral, Iron Man calls the Avengers to tell them that he is leaving. Cap immediately takes the phone, telling Iron Man that if there is something wrong they can help and that he doesn't have to leave the Avengers. Of course, the man in the armor is Rhodey as Tony is having a lot of troubles at the moment. Eros (Starfox) decides to join the Avengers.
#232: Eros joins the Avengers and gets the name Starfox because the President of USA thinks Eros is too provocative - at this point the Avengers still need the government approval for new members. Cap and Janet start looking for Tony and they find him half drunk in one of his apartments.
#233 - 234: The Avengers deal with a mysterious force field around the Baxter Building. Thor, the Vision and Wanda are back to help but Vision is wounded. Starfox and She-Hulk flirt and end up in bed together. Cap tells Thor about Tony and asks for his help, as Thor has known Tony longer. Thor is doubtful, believing that no one can help Tony if not even Steve had managed to (the famous issue Iron Man #172 happens here!). Janet and Monica help Wanda feel better, Wanda and Monica bond over the French language. This issue has a recap of Wanda’s story with the part where she finds out that Magneto is her father.
#235: Spiderman makes an appearance.
(Spiderman joins the Avengers… at least until the government says no, because Spiderman is too much of a risk. Vision can finally speak with the other Avengers, through holograms, even if is body is still repairing. We find out that Hawkeye got married with Mockingbird. Captain America is away from the Avengers for some time. Later, the Avengers help Spider-Woman against Morgan le Fay, helped by Hank Pym and Stephen Strange)
#242-243: A surprise party in Avengers tower! Vision is back in his physical form and he tells the Avengers that something evil is coming. Thor and Cap are back. Some of the Avengers mysteriously disappear, thanks to the evil energy Vision was feeling… which basically is Secret Wars. Vision takes the lead while Cap, Jan, Thor and Hawkeye are away in Secret Wars. When the Avengers come back, Janet steps down from the role of chairwoman and Vision is nominated as chair of the Avengers. She-Hulk leaves the Avengers to go to the Fantastic Four, but both her and Thor are declared ‘detached membership’ status Avengers. Plus, Vision decides that it’s time to start a new team on the West Coast. Mr Raymond Sikorski replaces Mr Gyrich as the government’s connection with the Avengers. Hawkeye is named leader of the West Coast Avengers.
Vision, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Starfox, Wanda and the Wasp are, instead, the remaining Avengers.
(The Avengers have various adventures)
#246 - 248: Monica tells her parents that she is Captain Marvel, Janet and Starfox have some fun to fight boredom and crash a party, Wanda and Vision meet with the president and Vision pretends to be more human than he is. Jan and Starfox end up with the Eternals… and Starfox finds out he is an Eternal as well. Pietro has a moment where he declares that he will never forgive Magneto, as the man attacked and wounded Bova. Vision is being weird.
(Hercules calls the Avengers to fight Surtur. Hercules is back with the Avengers, then they team up with the West Coast Avengers to save the Earth. Janet takes a holiday from the Avengers and has a nice fling, Vision has a nightmare full of self-hatred, where is a real human being hating on his robot self, as he has this encphalatron command chair - with a programm called ISAAC - that would bring peace to humanity controlling all the computers, in exchange for the Vision’s life itself.)
#252 - 254: Ultimate Vision arc. Vision offers Avengers membership to Leonard Samson but he refuses. Vision and Wanda’s house is burnt to the ground but mutants haters and Vision decides to use the chair and sends the Avengers to some mission, saying goodbye to Wanda, because he knows that taking control of all computers will end up in his sacrifice. Dane Withman (Black Knight) comes back and Vision has to incapacitate him, before starting using the chair and takes control of the networks in the world. When the Avengers come back they join Black Knight and Wonder Man and convinces Vision that he can’t do it. But what happened put the Avengers at odds with the government.
(After what happened and after clearing things with the government, Vision and Wanda decide to leave. Jan comes back to the team, Monica has adventures on space, Janet confronts Starfox about his power which basically makes people 'feel good’ and it’s too close to mental manipulation to her. Janet is again the chairwoman of the Avengers, the government restricts the Avengers’ privileges, Monica and the Avengers end up saving Skrulls and helping them against a common enemy: Nebula. The Avengers meet the Beyonder and Starfox leaves)
#262: The Avengers need a new quinjets base as the government doesn’t want to let them fly around the city like before. They accept the offer of Diane Newells and her husband, to use their hydrobase as a quinjets base. Hercules and Namor have a bonding moment, Cap asks Namor to become an Avenger (now that he had to abdicate his throne) and he accepts.
#264: The Black Knight helps Janet finds more about her own powers. Mr Fantastic is visiting with his family, Monica feels uncomfortable about sharing her true identity because she doesn’t trust Namor enough. Janet arrests a woman dressed as Yellowjacket, who was trying to rob her: it’s Rita Demara.
(Secret Wars II, where the Avengers battle the Beyonder, happens here)
#267 - 269: The Avengers face bad press because Namor is on the team. Monica tells Steve her real name. Black Knight, Jan and Hercules are making an underground passage to make it easier reaching Hydrobase, where their quinjets are… but they vanish. Kang kidnapped them to make the fight one of the other timelines Kang, so that that this Kang can remain as the only Kang. Kang manages to trap all the Avengers and the Double!Kang. Immortus appears to reveal that he, himself, is a divergent Kang, and saves the situation.
(Moonstone is railing the people against the Avengers because of Namor. The Avengers arrest her, but Titania and the Absorbing Man get her out of the police van and she ends up with Zemo and the Masters of Evil. Namor leaves the Avengers to go save his country and his people. Rita Demara - now Yellowjacket - escapes from prison and joins the Masters of Evil. The Avengers help Namor save Atlantis. The Masters of Evil attack the Mansion)
#274 - 277: Zemo and the Masters of Evil take over the Avengers mansion, trapping the Avengers inside it, but the Wasp and Hercules, who is injured and taken to a hospital. Yellowjacket (Rita) is uncomfortable with the cruelty of the Masters of Evil. Monica is trapped into darkness, not able to get out. Scott Lang (Ant-Man) meets Janet at the hospital, when the Absorbing Man and Titania attack them. After defeating them, Janet calls Thor for help, and Monica gets to them, escaping the dimension of darkness. The Avengers storm in the mansion, Black Knight manages to reach for his sword, Jarvis is severly wounded. Yellowjacket surrenders and the Avengers defeats Zemo and the villain slips from the roof, ending up apparently dead. Unfortunately, the mansion is destroyed and Cap is devasted
#278: The Avengers are rebuilding the mansion. Janet, who really needs a holiday, visits the Avengers at the hospital. Black Knight is on hydrobase to train with Doctor Druid. She-Hulk is back with the Avengers and Janet invites Doctor Druid to complete the team, because she wants to leave the Avengers and her role as chairwoman.
#279: Cap names Monica as leader of the Avengers and the Avengers vote her, but she is not ready. Later, she goes to meet her parents, asking them advice. She-Hulk, Dane and Druid have a day on the beach and Doctor Druid starts thinking that he would want to be leader. Monica’s story recap, before she decides to accepts the job and she becomes leader of the Avengers. Hercules starts waking from the coma but a mysterious figure kidnaps him.
#280: Tony visits Jarvis at the hospital and he reminds Jarvis that he has funds to take care of him and doesn’t need to work anymore. Jarvis thinks of his story with Tony and the Avengers, meeting them and becoming their friends. (At this point Jarvis lets us known that Wanda had two twins, in West Coast Avengers). At the end, Jarvis decides to stay as butler of the Avengers.
(The Avengers finds out that Hermes was the one to kidnap Hercules. Ares and other Greek gods, fight the Avengers and get them to Olympus. Namor comes back to help them. Janet is kidnapped to Olympus as well, Hercules wakes up and saves the Avengers but is gravely wounded again. The Avengers go back to Earth, Namor returns to Atlantis, Cap takes a leave of absence. The Avengers fight the Adaptoid. Marrina, Namor’s wife, starts living with the Avengers. Marrina turns into a monster called The Leviathan, Doctor Druid keeps wanting to be leader and is being haunted by mysterious a blond woman. The Avengers kill Leviathan, an so Marrina, but she gives birth to three children and Namor leaves the Avengers to go find the children.)
#293 - 297: The mysterious blond woman in Druid’s dreams is Nebula, trying to get control of the Avengers to get a powerful weapon. Monica is so gravely ill that she can’t lead the Avengers anymore. Doctor Druid, helped by Nebula, mentally controls the Avengers to elect him as leader. The Avengers snap out of it, Nebula is lost in some tme bubble and Druid falls after her, trying to save her. The Avengers (the three remaning ones: Black Knight, Thor and She-Hulk) are disbanded, mostly because of how guilt they felt after the mental manipulation.
#298: Jarvis is the only Avenger left. He tries his best to help people in the city and savs a woman named Glory Garsen (they latergo on a date as well). When confronted with a killer robot, luckily, Steve jumps in and helps Jarvi. At this point Steve is using the codename ‘Captain’ and his black uniform.
(The Inferno crossover event happens here, which means that there are demons in New York. Steve fights the demons and helps Susan Storm and Reed Richards save their son Franklin. Gilgamesh is sent to Earth to fight monsters. Susan, Richard, Steve, Gilgamesh and Thor decide to reform the Avengers)
#301 - 303: The Super-Nova saga. The Avengers receive ufficial permission to moor their base (hydrobase) in the New York’s port, renaming the base Avengers Island. Cap returns to his old costume (also: he is leader of the Avengers now). SStarfox ends up at the base,warning the Avengers of the presence of a new villain named Super-Nova, last survivor of Xandar. Firelord has been taken by this Super-Nova and the Avengers go into space to save him. The Avengers free Firelord, Super-Nova wants revenge (Nebula destroyed his planet and he thinks she is still on Earth) and attacks Earth. Peggy Carter tells the West Coast Avengers that the Avengers are in space, so Hawkeye leads his team to confront Super-Nova. Quasar and the Fantastic Four also arrive on the scene. Mr Fantastic manages to convince Super-Nova that Nebula is in another timestream and gives him a time machine to follow her. Cap is gloomy because Mr Fantastic did not share the plan with him.
#305: Cap calls all the past Avengers (even if Iron Man doesn’t seem to be there) to Avengers Island. Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman, now back to the FF, are there as well. Cap suggests the idea that once an Avenger always an Avenger, and to return to only one team of Avengers instead of multiple ones. While everyone accepts to be called if needed and to be considered an Avenger, the ones that remain on Avengers Island are Black Panther, Cap, She-Hulk, Thor, Gilgamesh and Quasar.
(The Avengers, Namor as well, defeat the Lava men and Gilgamesh is wounded. The Avengers have an adventure with the Eternals. Quasar, helped by Peggy Carter and the rest of the Hydrobase staff, tries to stop robots from attacking Avengers Island… but the base is destroyed)
#312: Sam Wilson, Hank Pym, Janet, Wanda and Vision are monitoring possible dangers in their base: the basement of Avengers park. Some members of a group of villains called Freedom Force attacks the Avengers. Nebula is back on Earth.
#313: After the recent attacks, the population is not happy to have the Avengers back in New York. We also find out that Hawkeye has a new Avengers team: Great Lake Avengers. While Mandarin attacks the city and fight the Avengers (Natasha, Wonder Man and Hellcat are there to help as well). Agatha Harkness visits Wanda who seems quite shocked, in a catatonic state, because of what happened to her (in West Coast Avengers, presumably, Vision was kidnapped and reprogrammed and Wanda’s children were found to be just fragments of her imaginations).
#314 - 318: Cap is working to rebuild the Mansions. Iron Man is back… but apparently no one knows he is the original Iron Man (and Tony Stark is apparently dead, as he faked his own death) and they think someone else is piloting Iron Man. Steve is suspicious about Iron Man, especially because it looks like he acts as if he has been with the Avengers for a while. Cap asks Sersi to join the Avengers. Spiderman joins as well. Starfox asks the Avengers’ help against Nebula and they manage to capture her. But a powerful being named The Stranger arrives to get her as she stole from him the infinity union, a powerful device that is able to destroy the entire world. Cap and Iron Man agree that they need to find that device first and destroy it themselves. But Nebula manages to get the power before them and becomes an angry god-like entity. Nebula chases the Avengers on the ship, playing with them, and Cap has to abandon some of his team to save the rest (Iron Man gets abandoned after he is squeezed by mechanical tentacles). The Stranger temporally stops Nebula and Sersi disables the implant that lets Nebula control the power, the Stranger decides to destroy the infinity union, Nebula is captured but her servant manages to escape with her, Starfox is hurt, Iron Man recovers. Back on Earth, Cap tells Spiderman that maybe being an Avenger is not the right path for him, Spiderman, relieved, leaves.
(The Avengers have different adventures, Mother Night, a villain hypnothist, manipulates and brainwashes the Avengers Crew - see bottom of post for the people working at Avengers mansion - and manages to install surveillance at the Avengers HQ)
#325: Mother Night and her villain companions follow the Avengers’ movements and find out that they are all at Sersi’s party. The Avengers defeat Mother Night.
#326 - 328: The Avengers keep rebuilding the mansion. She-Hulk doesn’t seem convinced by the idea that Iron Man is not the original Iron Man. Rage arrives at the Avengers to become one of them, but Sersi thinks he is a danger so she ends up nearly attacking him and Rage decides to leave. Cap and Iron Man fight side by side. Rage’s backstory.
#329: The UN offers the Avengers the position of special peace keeping force to call in case of danger. Cap and the Avengers accept. Th Avengers have a new line up: Cap, Thor, Vision, Sersi, Quasar, Black Widow, Sher-Hulk. They also vote the reserve substitutes in case some main Avenger can’t make it: Spider-Man, Black night, Captain Marvel (Monica), Hercules, Falcon, Rage, Sandman.
#332 : The Avengers hold a party for their new finished headquarters (rebuild Mansion) and Doctor Doom manages to sneak in. Nat and She-Hulk definitely knows that Tony Stark is still Iron Man. Iron Man arrives at the party… but it’s just Doom in disguise
#334 - 339: Pietro is taken prisoner by Thane Ector, a villain who escaped from the Collector. The Avengers help Pietro. Thane Ector and Sybil Dorne, both escaped from the Collector, are attacking Earth. Sersi is taken hostage. The Collector tells to Black Panther, Beast and Quasar the story of Thane and how he conquers worlds. Crystal asks to join the Avengers. Sybil can’t stand Sersi anymore, but Thane defends her and he seems to care for Sersi. Thane reveals to Sersi that his species (the Brethren) infects new world, because they are the disease of the universe, created by the Celestials. Of course, at the end, it was the Collector’s plan and Thane Ector was just a puppet in it. The Collector kills Sybil, Sersi wants to save Thane and she asks him to fight against the Collector with them. Thane dies defeating the Collector. Cap tries to comfort Sersi, telling her that at the end the Brethren became the heroes they never were.
#340: The Avengers open a medical facility for the city. A mysterious woman wants to ask their help and is hit by a car. Before passing out, she asks Cap to help the children. Jarvis and Wasp find out that the woman is married to Itzhak Berditchev, a weapon manufacturer who is now raising their five children. The children are basically raised as little soldiers in a nuclear facility. Janet, Jarvis and Steve go to save them.
(Rage doesn’t agree with the fact that the Avengers are not solving the probems of the city with the police, but are more focused on other issues. Sam and Steve go to meet Rage’s grandmother and ask her advice. The Avengers fight the Sons of the Serpent, helped by the New Warriors. Rage decides to focus his work on the more down to Earth problems.)
#343: Crystal arrives at the mansion with her daughter Luna, Thor is away so a Thor replacement is with the Avengers, Vision has some trouble with his emotional memory even if technically no emotion should be connected with his old memories of his lost children, and later on Crystal talks to Vision about her - now ended - marriage. Cap is worried about the team and Cap and Natasha are basically the leaders: Rage has left, Sandman has left, Sersi has not been around for some time. The Swordman is back.
(Swordman attacks the Avengers, particularly angry with Vision still because of that old attraction Mantis had for Vision, back when Swordman died during the Celestial Madonna saga. Marilla (Luna’s nanny) and Jarvis don’t really get along. Sersi comes back but there seems to be something tormenting her. Magdalene and Swordman attack the Avengers and it appears they both work for Proctor. A war between the Kree and the Shi'ar is about to start. The Avengers have to fight both the Kree and the Shi'ar. Hawkeye gets his Goliath powers back. They fight the Intelligence Supreme as well)
#347: When the Avengers need to decide what to do with the Supreme Intelligence, Steve is against killing it, Black Knight instead wants to destroy it as it is only a machine and Iron Man agrees. Sersi, Wonder Man, Vision, Thor and Hercules agree with Tony, while Wanda, Clint, Quasar, Monica, Crystal and Eros agree with Cap. After the Supreme Intelligence is destroyed, Cap and Iron Man have a moment. At the end, the Supreme Intelligence actually survive, but the Avengers don’t know it. After what happened, after the Avengers ‘killed’, Cap believes things will never be the same.
(Cap takes a leave of absence, after what happened with te Supreme Intelligence. Hera wants revenge against Hercules and attacks him. Black Knight seems to have feelings for Crystal even if she wants to repair things with Pietro. Sersi kisses Dane, to make him forget about Crystal. The Avengers fight the Grim Reaper. Black Knight is in a casual relationship with Sersi, but he seems to have feelings for Crystal as well. Natasha plays matchmaker and throws Hercules into a date. Magdalene, Swordman and Proctor come back against the Avengers. The enemies escape but the Avengers capture the Swordman.)
#357: The Avengers find out that the Swordman’s memories seem to be different. They find out this Swordman comes from another universe (Earth-921). Hercules has his date with Taylor (and Hera watches them, apparently happy of ths development) at Nat’s elegant dinner, Dane and Crystal are about to dance, when Sersi arrives and kisses Dane (gosh, this love triangle). Natasha, who is basically the leader of the Avengers, proposes a toast to celebrate the Avengers, but they are interruped by the Watched who is there to warn them about imminent danger.
(The Avengers have an adventure which ends up in Sersi killing one of their enemies. The Avengers are, of course, shocked.)
#360: Proctor summons Vision from another universe (Anti-Vision) to join his group called the Gatherers. He sends Anti-Vision to kill the Swordman. Sersi and Dane talk, Sersi reveals that she killed because she felt this terrible force inside her, and it happens again so she attacks the Avengers. Anti-Vision attacks Sersi, and of course no one knows he is not the real Vision. Natasha, worried about the Watcher, asks Steve to come back and he accepts.
#361: The Eternals want to take Sersi back. At this point we find out what is happening to Sersi: The Celestials, who created the Eternals, gave to the first of them the ability to manifest a group consciousness, called a uni-mind, to ease the human minds of the Eternals and not let them go mad in their too much power. This is what’s happening to Sersi and tradition wants that the one who goes mad is killed. The Avengers protect Sersi, the Eternals leave but decide to permanently bond Sersi and Dane as soulbonds so that he can keep an eye on her. Dane is not happy about it. Proctor reveals that he is the soulbound of another universe Sersi and he is the only one who knows what Sersi is about to become. Dane kisses Crystal, he is in love with her, but Sersi sees them.
#363: Anti-Vision apparently kills the AU!Swordman. When he also attacks Crystal, they understand that Anti-Vision is not the real Vision. Sersi appears and solidifies Anti-Vision. Hank Pym and Bill Foster manage to save Swordman. With Anti-Vision prisoner, the Avengers decide to take the fight to Proctor. Proctor tells them that he was the soulbond of Sersi from another universe. Proctor tells them that soon Sersi’s madness will spread to Dane and she will end up destroying the world. After warning them, Proctor escapes. Magdalene finds out Swordman has been killed, so she decides to help the Avengers. In the meanwhile, Sersi kills two policemen who were investigating her.
(Vision has been saved. Sersi has trouble holding on and not falling into a murdering rage. The Avengers fight the Kree, Dane and Crystal are kidnapped. Hank Pym helpes the Avengers as Giant Man. Deathcry joins the Avengers to help in case the Kree want revenge)
#367: This issue is just about Vision looking at people having feelngs and wondering what it is like. Vision is envious of the friendship between Natasha and Steve, and the emotions between Crystal and Dane. Taylor breaks up with Hercules, Magdalene is waiting by the Swordman’s bed, in the medical room, when Swordman wakes up. Deathcry and Vision kiss, but Vision can’t really reciprocate so Deathcry leaves, accusing him of just being afraid to feel. Vision feels anger.
(X-Men crossover. Avengers and X-Men work to save Luna who has been kidnapped. Pietro and Wanda make an appearance as well)
#372 - 375 : Steve asks Pietro back to the Avengers and everything is awkward because Crystal and Dane have a thing. Nat is amused by how clumsy Steve is. Sersi wishes to be with Dane and Dane can’t stop himself, and has to go to her, angry that the bond between them is forcing him to do this. Sersi tells him that he has to accept her love because they are bonded. The police arrests Sersi for the murder of the two policemen. Sersi destroys the mansionto escape from the police. Dane thinks she is innocent from the murders so he follows her. The Avengers get to Sersi, but she attacks them, helped by Dane. When she hits Crystal, Dane turns against Sersi. Proctor appears and takes Sersi again. The Eternals and Thunderstrike are back and they explain that Sersi’s madness is very sudden, as if someone had pushed her into it. Proctor’s backstory: Proctor was Dane from another universe, leader of the Avengers, he fell in love with Sersi, they got married but then their love ended and Sersi left. Proctor is now pushing this reality’s Sersi into madness to get his revenge for the other Sersi leaving him. This because the 616 reality is the template for all the others, so technically this Sersi was the template for the alternative Sersi. The Avengers fight Proctor, Pietro hesitates in saving his rival Dane but then he helps him, Sersi frees herself from Proctor, she takes Black Knight’s sword and she kills Proctor. Sersi knows she is still going towards her madness, but the Watcher (from another reality, he was also a prisoner of Proctor) reveals them that there is another way. AU!Watcher restores everything as it was before (the mansion is back!) and opens a rift where Sersi can go and be free of madness. Dane wants to go with her, to not leave her alone. Dane and Sersi step into the rift, disappearing from the world.
(Crystal is not ready to patch things up with Pietro.)
#380 - 382: Pietro and Crystal go to see Bova, who is diying. Pietro decides to look for the High Evolutionary to save Bova’s life. The High Evolutionary goes to Bova and finds out that she was poisoned as a mean to get him out in the open, to be attacked by Exodus. They defeat him, and Bova is saved. In the meanwhile, Black Knight appears in a mirror from the other dimension (but no one sees him). Cap seems to be losing his stamina and Nat worries, Taylor and Hercules are still broken up, and Taylor meets her new roommate: Augustine Jones. Augustine (who is actually Hera) answers to the phone and lies to Hercules, telling him that Taylor can’t wait to meet him that night. Hera changes into Taylor and goes on a date with Herc.
(Pietro asks Crystal for another chance, but it seems like Crystal believes things are over between them. The Avengers find a mysterious sealed chamber underneath the Mansion but they can’t open it)
#384: Hera traps the Avengers (arriving at the mansion disguised as Augustine). When Hercules comes back, Hera reveals that she is going to kill Taylor in front of him, but suddenly Zeus appears to stop her. Zeus tells Hercules that Ares and Hera made a bet to find who would be able to hurt Hercules the most, so Zeus created Taylor to trap Hera, knowing she would use her. The spell which created Taylor is supposed to end with Hera’s confession. Hercules pleads his father but Taylor disappears between his arms. Hercules, angry, attacks Zeus who decides to take back his immortality.
(In a crossover with Captain America, the Avengers fight both the Red Skull and Modok’s A.I.M. After surviving this adventures, Gyrich is back at the mansion wanting to get Deathcry into custody because she is dangerous and an alien, and because she never told them of these aliens coming down to Earth to fight her. The Avengers ask Gyrich to leave, refusing to give him Deathcry.)
#390: Prelude to The Crossing. The Avengers are having a holiday at one of Tony Stark’s mansions, where now Swordman and Magdalene live while they adjust to their new lives. In the meantime, Janet meets with Hank again and she soon finds she will soon be pennyless.
(The whole story is ridiculously complex. The Avengers fight Mantis and Kang, Janet is wounded but ends up in a cocoon and is soon reborn with a different look. Tony Stark is suddenly a traitor because Immortus controls him, but at the end he dies after saving the Avengers With Tony death, the new teenage Tony from another universe is Iron Man now. The Avengers have various adventures, Madame Masque is working with them. Wanda comes back)
#400: A man from the future arrives at the mansion and tells Jarvis that this is the day the Avengers die… the man is actually Loki in disguise. Various villains attack the city and the Avengers fight them, but Jarvis calls the Avengers back as Loki is at the mansion. The Avengers defeat Loki, and Nate Grey suddenly appears to warn them that Charles Xavier has lost control of his powers.
(The Avengers fight Onslaught, a creature created as a mix of Charles Xavier’s powers and Magneto’s anger. During the “Onslaught: Marvel Universe” the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Bruce Banner sacrifice themselves to stop Onslaught. Franklin Richards - who has the powers to change reality - creates a secondary universe which is basically the event Heroes Reborn that has Avengers volume 2 and other various volume 2. Later, the Avengers and all 616 is restored from the pocket universe)
From here on, continue with Avengers voume 3.
#16 - #28 (more or less) : Cap’s Kooky Quartet. Stories where Wanda, Cap, Clint and Pietro are the Avengers. Some insight in Steve Rogers’ (probable) depression, some fights to decide who is the team leader and in general some great stories!
Avengers Point One: This is a 2017 miniserie that takes place here.
#52: Black Panther joins the Avengers.
#57 - 58: Vision is born!
#63: Clint becomes Goliath.
#89 - 97: The Kree-Skrull War. It has some nice panels of Iron Man and Cap close together and some nice art, but overall not extremely SteveTony. Still, the story is linear and amazing, and there’s also Carol Danvers in it! The Avengers in this storyline are Wanda, Clint, Pietro and Vision (with Wanda and Clint kidnapped by the Skrulls, which really shows the start of the Vision/Wanda romance), Captain Marvel, Steve, Tony, Thor and some Hank and Wasp.
#98 - 100: The amnesiac Hercules arc. Not a fundamental storyline, but definitely fun. A mysterious tune turnes humans into war thirsty beings, and the Avengers are hypnotised as well. Only Thor and Vision can stop them. Also, it explains where Clint ended up in the Kree-Skrull war, Hercules is back and Wanda admits she is in love with Vision. But no Steve and Tony interactions.
(The Vision and Wanda accept their love, Pietro contacts the Avengers and tells them he is in love with Crystal and is staying with the Inhumans because he can’t accept Wanda and Vision’s relationship; Clint leaves the Avengers because he doesn’t feel ‘super'hero enough and goes looking for Natasha after his love disappointment with Wanda. Nat is with Daredevil and Clint gets angry, so he refuses to help her rescue the Avengers. Nat leaves Darevil and joins the Avengers, feeling mixed feelings about Clint. T'Challa feels the pressure of his nation asking for its prince back.)
#112 - 114: The Lion God arc (sort of, a issue 113 is a bit of a break from that). Black Panther has to fight against a rival Lion God, Nat ends up leaving the Avengers (so soon!), Wanda and Vision are attacked for their love, Mantis and the Swordman join the Avengers. This story arc has some very faint Iron Man & Cap moments. This has also a nice Tony Stark “I’ll go find Iron Man!” secret identity moment. ALSO, Tony winks at Blake, asking him to find Thor, and Blake realises Tony knows he is Thor, which means that Blake knows Iron Man is Tony Stark.
(The crossover Avengers versus Defenders happen here, and Wanda’s hatred for humans intensify. The Avengers defeat the band of the Zodiac and Cap is not among the Avengers as he has troubles in his own comic)
#123-124: The origin of Mantis and prequel of the Celestial Madonna arc.
(Cap returns to the Avengers)
#126: The Avengers fight Klaw. Love triangle between Mantis Vision and Wanda, or so the Swordman and Wanda think. Cap wants to leave the shield and ends up leaving the Avengers again, as Black Panther does, Wanda starts to control her powers.
(The Avengers visits the Inhumans and they meet Agatha Harkness and they fight Ultron)
#128: Wanda and Agatha witches together and Wanda’s powers increase. Mantis tells the Swordman she doesn’t love him anymore and tries to kiss Vision.
#129 - Giant Size #2 - #130 - 132 - Giant Size #3 - #133 - 135 -Giant Size #4 : The Celestial Madonna arc. Kang kidnaps the Avengers, knowing that one of the women is the prophetised Celestial Madonna, who will give birth to a powerful being (and he wants to be the father). This arc contains Kang’s backstory as well, Clint is back, Swordman dies, Moondragon appears and reveals her backstory, Steve Rogers returns as Nomad for a brief moment, Mantis finds out her destiny and marries a tree, the Avengers discover the orign of the Skull Kree war, Wanda and Vision get married after Vision sees his own true origin. What a wild ride!
(Tony meets Hank McCoy - and then Iron Man fights the Beast because of a misunderstanding/mind controlling villain)
#137: A cute domestic issue where Thor, Iron Man and Hawkeye (the only Avengers left) decide to look for new members. Moondragon accepts, Janet and Hank Pym come back, The Beast asks to join the Avengers. There’s also a nice scene with Vision and Wanda on a holiday.
(Hank is worried for Janet, who has been wounded in the previous issue and is in a coma, Hank has some troubles controlling his powers, The Beast cures him, Janet wakes up, Iron Man and Moondragon find out that Hawkeye disappeared, Wanda and Vision are back from their honeymoon)
#141: Patsy Walker makes an appearance, Cap is back with the Avengers, Thor and Moondragon go looking for Hawkeye. Iron Man decides to help Cap.
(Moondragon and Thor finds Hawkeye in the cowboy era and they defeat Kang once for all - sort of -, the other Avengers are still prisoners in Roxxon and Cap has a plan to escape)
#143 - 144: Patsy Walker’s backstory! Tony helps Cap and Patsy. Patsy becomes Hellcat.
(At this point the story is interrupted for two issues of an extra story, because of editorial reasons. In this short story, assassins are after the Avengers, Hawkeye thinks about his friendship with Cap, Cap is seriously wounded and the end is much darker than usual Avengers stories of those years)
#147: The Avengers continue their Roxxon/Squadron Sinister adventure and escape the enemy, finding the Serpent mind-controllng crown as well. Wanda is affected by it by manages to break the spell (because of love!).
#148-149: The fight continues. Thor and Moondragon join the other Avengers. The Avengers win, Thor and Hellcat save the day. End of the Roxxon arc.
#150-151: These two issues introduce the new Avengers team and recap the beginning of the Avengers and how the team changed during the past issues. Thor decides to leave the Avengers because he feels like he is losing his purpose, so far away from the other gods. Thor names Iron Man chairman and the first thing Iron Man does is ask Cap if he is staying. Vision, Wanda, Yellowjacket and Janet decide to stay as Avengers, Moondragon decides to leave the Avengers as well as she needs more freedom, Beast is officially accepted as an Avengers, Hellcat wants to be an Avenger but accepts Moondragon’s offer to go with her and train with her. Wonder Man is back!
#152: At the end of #151, the new Avengers line up (Vision, Wanda, Cap, Iron Man, Beast, Yellowjacket and Wasp) meet Wonder Man, believed dead. After fighting an enemy, Wanda realizes she needs more time to study her powers and she leaves the Avengers.
(Wanda looks for the Serpent Crown, Wonder Man looked dead but he is not, The Laser is defeated, the Serpent Crown is thrown in the ocean, the Avengers meet Namor and Doom, and they fight against a statue of the Black Knight)
#158 - 159: The Graviton arc. Vision is still worried he is too mechanical to have human emotions and seeing Wonder Man helping Wanda reminds him that now there’s a flesh and human person with his brain. Wonder Man vs Vision. Iron Man suspends Vision, the Avengers fights against Graviton and Wonder Man helps them. Black Panther and Thor are back, Jarvis saves the day.
#160: Cap, Iron Man and Thor go away because of things to do, the remaining Avengers fight the Grim Reaper who traps them all in a trial to decide which one is the true one: Vision or Wonder Man. Wonder Man reveals that his molecular structure is different now, and he defeats the Grim Reaper.
#161 - 162: Hank has a crisis and believes the Avengers are impostors. Janet stops him and reveals that this has been a problem for a while, but of course Ultron is part of the cause. Jocasta is born, Vision is hurt.
(Janet works, with Tony’s help, to restore Hank’s memory. Natasha, Iceman and Hercules make an appearance.)
#164 - 166: Count Nefaria wants to re-create Power Man. Tony and Beast study Wonder Man’s new molecular structure and find out he actually never died, simply transformed. Cap and the Avengers are trapped in debris of a crumbled building and Iron Man gets them out; Cap literally says that he has been waiting for him (even if he didn’t know where Iron Man was). Thor is back and Vision is awake from his coma thing.
#167 - 168: The beginning of the Korvac saga. Tony and Cap fight again about Tony being late. Tony is late (as Iron Man) because he was busy as Stark and this double identity thing is really stressing. Cap starts giving orders and Iron Man is baffled - after all he is the chairman. Later on he tells Thor that he is not troubled about it, because he was about to order the same. The original Guardians of the Galaxy make an appearance. Janet has her runway show and Nighthawk appears as well.
#169: Extra one shot volume. It’s not clear if it’s in the same timeline, but it’s not part of the Korvac saga. Cap and Iron Man are doing crosswords and they talk as if they never fought in the previous issues. Black Panther, Cap and Iron Man have an adventure. I’d also like to remind you that Hawkeye is still in that weird western thing.
#170 - 171: Even if still part of the Korvac saga, these two issues’ plot is all about Ultron. Ultron awakens Jocasta (believed non alive) and the Avengers follow her to the convent where Ultron is hiding. Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel)helps them. These two issues have the conclusion of the Steve & Tony fight and it is absolutely lovely. We find out that the reason why Steve was so angry was that he recently lost his serum and feels a bit useless, not as helpful as he used to be. Iron Man apologises for being such a bad (in Cap’s opinion) chairman and Steve feels all guilty.
#172 - 177: The plotty Korvac saga. In these issues, Hercules, Quicksilver and Natasha make an appearance, Hawkeye is back; the Avengers fight The Collector (who is destroyed by Korvac); the original Guardians of the Galaxy and Moondragon help the Avengers; Carol and Wonder Man flirt together. The Avengers got their priority status revoked because of security issues (poor Iron Man, what a time to be chairman of the Avengers) so instead of using the quinjet they all take a bus.
#181 - 182: Scott Lang is introduced as one of Tony’s employee. The government keeps meddling in with the Avengers, dictating that they need seven members (and who they should be: Iron Man, Vision, Cap, Wanda, Beast, Wasp and Falcon who up until now has never been an Avengers). Wonder Man, finding himself out of the Avengers, decide to try acting. Jocasta is still an avengers because “machines don’t need government clearance”. A mysterious Roma shaman named Django Maximoff appears to kidnap Wanda and Pietro, believing they are his lost children. At the end, Wanda takes a leave of absence to investigate the matter along with Pietro and Maximoff.
#183 - 184: Not a necessary storyline, but two nice issues of Avengers against the Absorbing Man. The Avengers keep dealing with the government meddling with their missions.Now that Wanda is away, Carol Danvers joins the Avengers for the first time and Sam accepts to become an Avenger.
#185 - 187: The Chthon saga. Pietro and Wanda find out about their past. They meet Bova, who explains Pietro how she was created by the High Evolutionary and that she helped a pregnant woman named Magda, running away from her husband. Magda leaves her children with Bova, in Wundagore. The High Evolutionary gives the two children to Django Maximoff and his wife, as they recently lost their own children. Wanda is possessed by Chthon, a demon. Cap leads the Avengers to the rescue, but at the end, Django saves Wanda’s soul at the expense of his own life.
(Pietro returns to the Inhumans and Crystal tells him that they are soon going to have a child.)
Avengers Annual #9: The Avengers fight the Arsenal, a killer robot created by Howard Stark (and a machine modelled after Maria Stark), alongside Thor and Hawkeye. There are also some great and heartbreaking Tony moments in this issue.
(Wanda wants to extend her leave of absence but Gyrich feels that the Avengers can’t do as they want, and want to disband the Avengers. Hawkeye is still angry because he is not an Avengers anymore)
#190: Gyrich wants to end the governmental support to the Avengers so they all go to court, lawyers and all. Of course they ‘win’ the trial when an enemy attacks and Gyrich has to admit that the country still needs the Avengers. Daredevil is a guest star.
(The Avengers defeat the Gargoyle, the government decides to losen the hold over the Avengers. Later, Tony Stark and Wonder Man has to face a sudden villain named Inferno while they visit a factory Tony wants to add to his company. They call the Avengers and leave the not-really-villain go as the only thing he wanted was to get justice for criminals trying to kill him)
#194 - 196: Falcon leaves the Avengers, Tony has trouble with alcohol and wants to let Cap be the chairman. Also, this issue has some nice domestic Avengers scenes.The Avengers help a man running away from a mental institution. Scott Lang appears as Ant-Man, helping the Avengers investigate this Solomon institution. There they have to face Taskmaster, Jocasta saves the day and she officially becomes an Avenger.
#197: Jocasta is accepted as an official Avenger. Carol and Wanda talk and Carol tells her that she doesn't need children to feel fulfilled and Wanda agrees with her conclusion… later on, Carol faints and at the hospital she is shocked to find that she is pregnant (gosh, this storyline is awful). Iron Man tells Cap that he is stepping down from being the chairman of the Avengers.
(The Avengers fight a giant robot called the Red Ronin. Ms Marvel reveales to Wanda her secret identity. Hawkeye is called to fight Red Ronin, Nick Fury appears as well. Wanda and Vision agree that they don’t need children. Jocasta seems to have feelings for Vision. Red Ronin is defeated and the Avengers come back home to find Carol seven months pregnant just after two days since they lasy saw her. This is the infamous Carol story that everyone tries to forget and it’s honestly disconcerning that this story has been done for the iconic #200 issue and in the 80s. The only thing to know is that Carol leaves the Avengers In #201 Jarvis has his own private adventure)
#202: Ultron is back. Tony finds out that he had been hypnothised and made to rebuild Ultron himself, without even remembering it. Tony builds a device that will track his own armor in case Ultron controls him again. Tony, controlled by Ultron, defeats Vision, Jocasta and Wanda. Luckily, Tony wakes up from Ultron’s control, and fights against Ultron, helped by the Wasp.
#211: Cap, Iron Man and Thor decide that it’s time to change the Avengers line up. Cap calls a meeting and Moondragon uses her abilities to call different superheroes to the mansion and show their powers. Beast decides to leave the Avengers to be again a scientist, Tigra takes his place. Wanda and Vision decide to try living as ordinary people, so Yellowjacket comes back to the team. Jocasta runs away, hurt that the Avengers did not counted her in, even if later they notice her absence and realize they should have told her beforehand that they had decided to grant her the status as substitute avenger.
#213: Yellowjacket is under trial for having tried to attack an ex villain. He is so stressed that he is quite sharp and terrible with Jan (and has been in the previous issues as well), and with the Avengers, ending up building a robot to attack them so that he can be the hero and save the day. Later on, he hits Janet while she was trying to help/console him. At the trial, after the robot attacks and Janet defeats it, Hank is dishonorably discharged for what he had done to Janet and to the Avengers.
#214: Hank comes back to Janet but she doesn't want to have anything to do with him and, thankfully, she wants a divorce.
#215 - 216: This is the story where the Avengers find out Tony is Iron Man (Thor already knew). In general, I think these two issues are great for Tigra’s character: she is a new Avenger and she is scared, but manages to do the right thing. The Molecular Man, who is more a parody of a villain than a villain, traps Thor, Cap, Iron Man and Silver Surfer, destroying Iron Man’s armor as well. Steve is quite pleased to see that Tony is Iron Man, and surprised when Tony and Don (who is Thor) refuse to back down from the fight just because they are simple humans. Later on, Tony wants to kill the villain as his power is too big and he could (and want to) destroy the whole world. Cap stops Tony… luckily, Tigra talked Molecule Man into giving himself up. At the end, Tigra leaves the Avengers.
#217: Janet becomes chairman of the Avengers. Janet and Hank are divorced. Hank Pym is arrested because of a misunderstanding.
#218: A man who is cursed to live forever turns into a fire villain. This is the issue where Steve and Tony spends their time saving each others by throwing each others against one and the other.
(Moondragon and her father Drax the Destroyer need the Avengers help. Janet leads. Tony saves Cap at one point as well in #219. Moondragon manipulates Thor into sleeping with her (that is so creepy) and fighting his fellow Avengers. Thor brings Moondragon to face justice in Asgard)
#221: At this point Janet, Thor, Cap and Iron Man are the only Avengers left, so they decide to call in new members. Janet would want more women, Cap wants someone who works well in a team, Tony some tech expert and Thor requires courage. Cap and Tony recruit Hawkeye, Thor asks Spider-Man, Janet calls the Invisible Woman, Spider-woman, Dazzler, Natasha and She-Hulk. Hawkeye and She-Hulk are approved by the government and they become Avengers.
#224: Tony and Janet start dating (Jan doesn’t know he is Iron Man). Cap is mad at Tony because Janet is their friend’s Hank’s ex wife, and also because Jan doesn’t know Iron Man and Tony are the same person. Janet and Tony break up when Tony tells her the truth, as Jan doesn’t want to date one of the Avengers, someone who knew Hank.
(The Black Knight comes back to life)
#227: This is a sequel of Amazing Spiderman Annual #16, but still understandable as the only thing to know is that the Avengers met Monica Rabeau (Captain Marvel) and in this issue she joins the Avengers. Hawkeye is doubtful about Janet’s lead. A psychiatrist meet Hank, recap of Hank’s back story and the story of his first marriage and what happened when he was arrested.
#228: Cap and Monica train, Hank has the trial. Steve is worried about Tony and the fact that they haven’t talked in a bit and find out that Tony had been awake for about 40 hours, working on a machine that will prove once for all if Hank was telling the truth about being manipulated. Steve is not happy. Wanda and Vision have a couple of panels as well! The Masters of Evil ‘rescue’ Henry Pym against his on wishes, making him a criminal.
#229 - 230: Jennifer can’t turn back into She-Hulk until Clint makes her mad, Steve is very concerned because Tony (and Iron Man) disappeared. Scott Lang brings to the Avengers the project Tony was working with: a way to see if Hank’s actions have been caused by mind control (they hadn't). Hank joins the Masters of Evil so that he can defeat them from inside. He is later proven innocent and freed. Hank leaves his Yellowjacket uniform with the Avengers, leaving the Avengers and the mansion.
#231: Jocasta is dead and there’s a funeral, Iron Man calls the Avengers to tell them that he is leaving. Cap immediately takes the phone, telling Iron Man that if there is something wrong they can help and that he doesn't have to leave the Avengers. Of course, the man in the armor is Rhodey as Tony is having a lot of troubles at the moment. Eros (Starfox) decides to join the Avengers.
#232: Eros joins the Avengers and gets the name Starfox because the President of USA thinks Eros is too provocative - at this point the Avengers still need the government approval for new members. Cap and Janet start looking for Tony and they find him half drunk in one of his apartments.
#233 - 234: The Avengers deal with a mysterious force field around the Baxter Building. Thor, the Vision and Wanda are back to help but Vision is wounded. Starfox and She-Hulk flirt and end up in bed together. Cap tells Thor about Tony and asks for his help, as Thor has known Tony longer. Thor is doubtful, believing that no one can help Tony if not even Steve had managed to (the famous issue Iron Man #172 happens here!). Janet and Monica help Wanda feel better, Wanda and Monica bond over the French language. This issue has a recap of Wanda’s story with the part where she finds out that Magneto is her father.
#235: Spiderman makes an appearance.
(Spiderman joins the Avengers… at least until the government says no, because Spiderman is too much of a risk. Vision can finally speak with the other Avengers, through holograms, even if is body is still repairing. We find out that Hawkeye got married with Mockingbird. Captain America is away from the Avengers for some time. Later, the Avengers help Spider-Woman against Morgan le Fay, helped by Hank Pym and Stephen Strange)
#242-243: A surprise party in Avengers tower! Vision is back in his physical form and he tells the Avengers that something evil is coming. Thor and Cap are back. Some of the Avengers mysteriously disappear, thanks to the evil energy Vision was feeling… which basically is Secret Wars. Vision takes the lead while Cap, Jan, Thor and Hawkeye are away in Secret Wars. When the Avengers come back, Janet steps down from the role of chairwoman and Vision is nominated as chair of the Avengers. She-Hulk leaves the Avengers to go to the Fantastic Four, but both her and Thor are declared ‘detached membership’ status Avengers. Plus, Vision decides that it’s time to start a new team on the West Coast. Mr Raymond Sikorski replaces Mr Gyrich as the government’s connection with the Avengers. Hawkeye is named leader of the West Coast Avengers.
Vision, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Starfox, Wanda and the Wasp are, instead, the remaining Avengers.
(The Avengers have various adventures)
#246 - 248: Monica tells her parents that she is Captain Marvel, Janet and Starfox have some fun to fight boredom and crash a party, Wanda and Vision meet with the president and Vision pretends to be more human than he is. Jan and Starfox end up with the Eternals… and Starfox finds out he is an Eternal as well. Pietro has a moment where he declares that he will never forgive Magneto, as the man attacked and wounded Bova. Vision is being weird.
(Hercules calls the Avengers to fight Surtur. Hercules is back with the Avengers, then they team up with the West Coast Avengers to save the Earth. Janet takes a holiday from the Avengers and has a nice fling, Vision has a nightmare full of self-hatred, where is a real human being hating on his robot self, as he has this encphalatron command chair - with a programm called ISAAC - that would bring peace to humanity controlling all the computers, in exchange for the Vision’s life itself.)
#252 - 254: Ultimate Vision arc. Vision offers Avengers membership to Leonard Samson but he refuses. Vision and Wanda’s house is burnt to the ground but mutants haters and Vision decides to use the chair and sends the Avengers to some mission, saying goodbye to Wanda, because he knows that taking control of all computers will end up in his sacrifice. Dane Withman (Black Knight) comes back and Vision has to incapacitate him, before starting using the chair and takes control of the networks in the world. When the Avengers come back they join Black Knight and Wonder Man and convinces Vision that he can’t do it. But what happened put the Avengers at odds with the government.
(After what happened and after clearing things with the government, Vision and Wanda decide to leave. Jan comes back to the team, Monica has adventures on space, Janet confronts Starfox about his power which basically makes people 'feel good’ and it’s too close to mental manipulation to her. Janet is again the chairwoman of the Avengers, the government restricts the Avengers’ privileges, Monica and the Avengers end up saving Skrulls and helping them against a common enemy: Nebula. The Avengers meet the Beyonder and Starfox leaves)
#262: The Avengers need a new quinjets base as the government doesn’t want to let them fly around the city like before. They accept the offer of Diane Newells and her husband, to use their hydrobase as a quinjets base. Hercules and Namor have a bonding moment, Cap asks Namor to become an Avenger (now that he had to abdicate his throne) and he accepts.
#264: The Black Knight helps Janet finds more about her own powers. Mr Fantastic is visiting with his family, Monica feels uncomfortable about sharing her true identity because she doesn’t trust Namor enough. Janet arrests a woman dressed as Yellowjacket, who was trying to rob her: it’s Rita Demara.
(Secret Wars II, where the Avengers battle the Beyonder, happens here)
#267 - 269: The Avengers face bad press because Namor is on the team. Monica tells Steve her real name. Black Knight, Jan and Hercules are making an underground passage to make it easier reaching Hydrobase, where their quinjets are… but they vanish. Kang kidnapped them to make the fight one of the other timelines Kang, so that that this Kang can remain as the only Kang. Kang manages to trap all the Avengers and the Double!Kang. Immortus appears to reveal that he, himself, is a divergent Kang, and saves the situation.
(Moonstone is railing the people against the Avengers because of Namor. The Avengers arrest her, but Titania and the Absorbing Man get her out of the police van and she ends up with Zemo and the Masters of Evil. Namor leaves the Avengers to go save his country and his people. Rita Demara - now Yellowjacket - escapes from prison and joins the Masters of Evil. The Avengers help Namor save Atlantis. The Masters of Evil attack the Mansion)
#274 - 277: Zemo and the Masters of Evil take over the Avengers mansion, trapping the Avengers inside it, but the Wasp and Hercules, who is injured and taken to a hospital. Yellowjacket (Rita) is uncomfortable with the cruelty of the Masters of Evil. Monica is trapped into darkness, not able to get out. Scott Lang (Ant-Man) meets Janet at the hospital, when the Absorbing Man and Titania attack them. After defeating them, Janet calls Thor for help, and Monica gets to them, escaping the dimension of darkness. The Avengers storm in the mansion, Black Knight manages to reach for his sword, Jarvis is severly wounded. Yellowjacket surrenders and the Avengers defeats Zemo and the villain slips from the roof, ending up apparently dead. Unfortunately, the mansion is destroyed and Cap is devasted
#278: The Avengers are rebuilding the mansion. Janet, who really needs a holiday, visits the Avengers at the hospital. Black Knight is on hydrobase to train with Doctor Druid. She-Hulk is back with the Avengers and Janet invites Doctor Druid to complete the team, because she wants to leave the Avengers and her role as chairwoman.
#279: Cap names Monica as leader of the Avengers and the Avengers vote her, but she is not ready. Later, she goes to meet her parents, asking them advice. She-Hulk, Dane and Druid have a day on the beach and Doctor Druid starts thinking that he would want to be leader. Monica’s story recap, before she decides to accepts the job and she becomes leader of the Avengers. Hercules starts waking from the coma but a mysterious figure kidnaps him.
#280: Tony visits Jarvis at the hospital and he reminds Jarvis that he has funds to take care of him and doesn’t need to work anymore. Jarvis thinks of his story with Tony and the Avengers, meeting them and becoming their friends. (At this point Jarvis lets us known that Wanda had two twins, in West Coast Avengers). At the end, Jarvis decides to stay as butler of the Avengers.
(The Avengers finds out that Hermes was the one to kidnap Hercules. Ares and other Greek gods, fight the Avengers and get them to Olympus. Namor comes back to help them. Janet is kidnapped to Olympus as well, Hercules wakes up and saves the Avengers but is gravely wounded again. The Avengers go back to Earth, Namor returns to Atlantis, Cap takes a leave of absence. The Avengers fight the Adaptoid. Marrina, Namor’s wife, starts living with the Avengers. Marrina turns into a monster called The Leviathan, Doctor Druid keeps wanting to be leader and is being haunted by mysterious a blond woman. The Avengers kill Leviathan, an so Marrina, but she gives birth to three children and Namor leaves the Avengers to go find the children.)
#293 - 297: The mysterious blond woman in Druid’s dreams is Nebula, trying to get control of the Avengers to get a powerful weapon. Monica is so gravely ill that she can’t lead the Avengers anymore. Doctor Druid, helped by Nebula, mentally controls the Avengers to elect him as leader. The Avengers snap out of it, Nebula is lost in some tme bubble and Druid falls after her, trying to save her. The Avengers (the three remaning ones: Black Knight, Thor and She-Hulk) are disbanded, mostly because of how guilt they felt after the mental manipulation.
#298: Jarvis is the only Avenger left. He tries his best to help people in the city and savs a woman named Glory Garsen (they latergo on a date as well). When confronted with a killer robot, luckily, Steve jumps in and helps Jarvi. At this point Steve is using the codename ‘Captain’ and his black uniform.
(The Inferno crossover event happens here, which means that there are demons in New York. Steve fights the demons and helps Susan Storm and Reed Richards save their son Franklin. Gilgamesh is sent to Earth to fight monsters. Susan, Richard, Steve, Gilgamesh and Thor decide to reform the Avengers)
#301 - 303: The Super-Nova saga. The Avengers receive ufficial permission to moor their base (hydrobase) in the New York’s port, renaming the base Avengers Island. Cap returns to his old costume (also: he is leader of the Avengers now). SStarfox ends up at the base,warning the Avengers of the presence of a new villain named Super-Nova, last survivor of Xandar. Firelord has been taken by this Super-Nova and the Avengers go into space to save him. The Avengers free Firelord, Super-Nova wants revenge (Nebula destroyed his planet and he thinks she is still on Earth) and attacks Earth. Peggy Carter tells the West Coast Avengers that the Avengers are in space, so Hawkeye leads his team to confront Super-Nova. Quasar and the Fantastic Four also arrive on the scene. Mr Fantastic manages to convince Super-Nova that Nebula is in another timestream and gives him a time machine to follow her. Cap is gloomy because Mr Fantastic did not share the plan with him.
#305: Cap calls all the past Avengers (even if Iron Man doesn’t seem to be there) to Avengers Island. Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman, now back to the FF, are there as well. Cap suggests the idea that once an Avenger always an Avenger, and to return to only one team of Avengers instead of multiple ones. While everyone accepts to be called if needed and to be considered an Avenger, the ones that remain on Avengers Island are Black Panther, Cap, She-Hulk, Thor, Gilgamesh and Quasar.
(The Avengers, Namor as well, defeat the Lava men and Gilgamesh is wounded. The Avengers have an adventure with the Eternals. Quasar, helped by Peggy Carter and the rest of the Hydrobase staff, tries to stop robots from attacking Avengers Island… but the base is destroyed)
#312: Sam Wilson, Hank Pym, Janet, Wanda and Vision are monitoring possible dangers in their base: the basement of Avengers park. Some members of a group of villains called Freedom Force attacks the Avengers. Nebula is back on Earth.
#313: After the recent attacks, the population is not happy to have the Avengers back in New York. We also find out that Hawkeye has a new Avengers team: Great Lake Avengers. While Mandarin attacks the city and fight the Avengers (Natasha, Wonder Man and Hellcat are there to help as well). Agatha Harkness visits Wanda who seems quite shocked, in a catatonic state, because of what happened to her (in West Coast Avengers, presumably, Vision was kidnapped and reprogrammed and Wanda’s children were found to be just fragments of her imaginations).
#314 - 318: Cap is working to rebuild the Mansions. Iron Man is back… but apparently no one knows he is the original Iron Man (and Tony Stark is apparently dead, as he faked his own death) and they think someone else is piloting Iron Man. Steve is suspicious about Iron Man, especially because it looks like he acts as if he has been with the Avengers for a while. Cap asks Sersi to join the Avengers. Spiderman joins as well. Starfox asks the Avengers’ help against Nebula and they manage to capture her. But a powerful being named The Stranger arrives to get her as she stole from him the infinity union, a powerful device that is able to destroy the entire world. Cap and Iron Man agree that they need to find that device first and destroy it themselves. But Nebula manages to get the power before them and becomes an angry god-like entity. Nebula chases the Avengers on the ship, playing with them, and Cap has to abandon some of his team to save the rest (Iron Man gets abandoned after he is squeezed by mechanical tentacles). The Stranger temporally stops Nebula and Sersi disables the implant that lets Nebula control the power, the Stranger decides to destroy the infinity union, Nebula is captured but her servant manages to escape with her, Starfox is hurt, Iron Man recovers. Back on Earth, Cap tells Spiderman that maybe being an Avenger is not the right path for him, Spiderman, relieved, leaves.
(The Avengers have different adventures, Mother Night, a villain hypnothist, manipulates and brainwashes the Avengers Crew - see bottom of post for the people working at Avengers mansion - and manages to install surveillance at the Avengers HQ)
#325: Mother Night and her villain companions follow the Avengers’ movements and find out that they are all at Sersi’s party. The Avengers defeat Mother Night.
#326 - 328: The Avengers keep rebuilding the mansion. She-Hulk doesn’t seem convinced by the idea that Iron Man is not the original Iron Man. Rage arrives at the Avengers to become one of them, but Sersi thinks he is a danger so she ends up nearly attacking him and Rage decides to leave. Cap and Iron Man fight side by side. Rage’s backstory.
#329: The UN offers the Avengers the position of special peace keeping force to call in case of danger. Cap and the Avengers accept. Th Avengers have a new line up: Cap, Thor, Vision, Sersi, Quasar, Black Widow, Sher-Hulk. They also vote the reserve substitutes in case some main Avenger can’t make it: Spider-Man, Black night, Captain Marvel (Monica), Hercules, Falcon, Rage, Sandman.
#332 : The Avengers hold a party for their new finished headquarters (rebuild Mansion) and Doctor Doom manages to sneak in. Nat and She-Hulk definitely knows that Tony Stark is still Iron Man. Iron Man arrives at the party… but it’s just Doom in disguise
#334 - 339: Pietro is taken prisoner by Thane Ector, a villain who escaped from the Collector. The Avengers help Pietro. Thane Ector and Sybil Dorne, both escaped from the Collector, are attacking Earth. Sersi is taken hostage. The Collector tells to Black Panther, Beast and Quasar the story of Thane and how he conquers worlds. Crystal asks to join the Avengers. Sybil can’t stand Sersi anymore, but Thane defends her and he seems to care for Sersi. Thane reveals to Sersi that his species (the Brethren) infects new world, because they are the disease of the universe, created by the Celestials. Of course, at the end, it was the Collector’s plan and Thane Ector was just a puppet in it. The Collector kills Sybil, Sersi wants to save Thane and she asks him to fight against the Collector with them. Thane dies defeating the Collector. Cap tries to comfort Sersi, telling her that at the end the Brethren became the heroes they never were.
#340: The Avengers open a medical facility for the city. A mysterious woman wants to ask their help and is hit by a car. Before passing out, she asks Cap to help the children. Jarvis and Wasp find out that the woman is married to Itzhak Berditchev, a weapon manufacturer who is now raising their five children. The children are basically raised as little soldiers in a nuclear facility. Janet, Jarvis and Steve go to save them.
(Rage doesn’t agree with the fact that the Avengers are not solving the probems of the city with the police, but are more focused on other issues. Sam and Steve go to meet Rage’s grandmother and ask her advice. The Avengers fight the Sons of the Serpent, helped by the New Warriors. Rage decides to focus his work on the more down to Earth problems.)
#343: Crystal arrives at the mansion with her daughter Luna, Thor is away so a Thor replacement is with the Avengers, Vision has some trouble with his emotional memory even if technically no emotion should be connected with his old memories of his lost children, and later on Crystal talks to Vision about her - now ended - marriage. Cap is worried about the team and Cap and Natasha are basically the leaders: Rage has left, Sandman has left, Sersi has not been around for some time. The Swordman is back.
(Swordman attacks the Avengers, particularly angry with Vision still because of that old attraction Mantis had for Vision, back when Swordman died during the Celestial Madonna saga. Marilla (Luna’s nanny) and Jarvis don’t really get along. Sersi comes back but there seems to be something tormenting her. Magdalene and Swordman attack the Avengers and it appears they both work for Proctor. A war between the Kree and the Shi'ar is about to start. The Avengers have to fight both the Kree and the Shi'ar. Hawkeye gets his Goliath powers back. They fight the Intelligence Supreme as well)
#347: When the Avengers need to decide what to do with the Supreme Intelligence, Steve is against killing it, Black Knight instead wants to destroy it as it is only a machine and Iron Man agrees. Sersi, Wonder Man, Vision, Thor and Hercules agree with Tony, while Wanda, Clint, Quasar, Monica, Crystal and Eros agree with Cap. After the Supreme Intelligence is destroyed, Cap and Iron Man have a moment. At the end, the Supreme Intelligence actually survive, but the Avengers don’t know it. After what happened, after the Avengers ‘killed’, Cap believes things will never be the same.
(Cap takes a leave of absence, after what happened with te Supreme Intelligence. Hera wants revenge against Hercules and attacks him. Black Knight seems to have feelings for Crystal even if she wants to repair things with Pietro. Sersi kisses Dane, to make him forget about Crystal. The Avengers fight the Grim Reaper. Black Knight is in a casual relationship with Sersi, but he seems to have feelings for Crystal as well. Natasha plays matchmaker and throws Hercules into a date. Magdalene, Swordman and Proctor come back against the Avengers. The enemies escape but the Avengers capture the Swordman.)
#357: The Avengers find out that the Swordman’s memories seem to be different. They find out this Swordman comes from another universe (Earth-921). Hercules has his date with Taylor (and Hera watches them, apparently happy of ths development) at Nat’s elegant dinner, Dane and Crystal are about to dance, when Sersi arrives and kisses Dane (gosh, this love triangle). Natasha, who is basically the leader of the Avengers, proposes a toast to celebrate the Avengers, but they are interruped by the Watched who is there to warn them about imminent danger.
(The Avengers have an adventure which ends up in Sersi killing one of their enemies. The Avengers are, of course, shocked.)
#360: Proctor summons Vision from another universe (Anti-Vision) to join his group called the Gatherers. He sends Anti-Vision to kill the Swordman. Sersi and Dane talk, Sersi reveals that she killed because she felt this terrible force inside her, and it happens again so she attacks the Avengers. Anti-Vision attacks Sersi, and of course no one knows he is not the real Vision. Natasha, worried about the Watcher, asks Steve to come back and he accepts.
#361: The Eternals want to take Sersi back. At this point we find out what is happening to Sersi: The Celestials, who created the Eternals, gave to the first of them the ability to manifest a group consciousness, called a uni-mind, to ease the human minds of the Eternals and not let them go mad in their too much power. This is what’s happening to Sersi and tradition wants that the one who goes mad is killed. The Avengers protect Sersi, the Eternals leave but decide to permanently bond Sersi and Dane as soulbonds so that he can keep an eye on her. Dane is not happy about it. Proctor reveals that he is the soulbound of another universe Sersi and he is the only one who knows what Sersi is about to become. Dane kisses Crystal, he is in love with her, but Sersi sees them.
#363: Anti-Vision apparently kills the AU!Swordman. When he also attacks Crystal, they understand that Anti-Vision is not the real Vision. Sersi appears and solidifies Anti-Vision. Hank Pym and Bill Foster manage to save Swordman. With Anti-Vision prisoner, the Avengers decide to take the fight to Proctor. Proctor tells them that he was the soulbond of Sersi from another universe. Proctor tells them that soon Sersi’s madness will spread to Dane and she will end up destroying the world. After warning them, Proctor escapes. Magdalene finds out Swordman has been killed, so she decides to help the Avengers. In the meanwhile, Sersi kills two policemen who were investigating her.
(Vision has been saved. Sersi has trouble holding on and not falling into a murdering rage. The Avengers fight the Kree, Dane and Crystal are kidnapped. Hank Pym helpes the Avengers as Giant Man. Deathcry joins the Avengers to help in case the Kree want revenge)
#367: This issue is just about Vision looking at people having feelngs and wondering what it is like. Vision is envious of the friendship between Natasha and Steve, and the emotions between Crystal and Dane. Taylor breaks up with Hercules, Magdalene is waiting by the Swordman’s bed, in the medical room, when Swordman wakes up. Deathcry and Vision kiss, but Vision can’t really reciprocate so Deathcry leaves, accusing him of just being afraid to feel. Vision feels anger.
(X-Men crossover. Avengers and X-Men work to save Luna who has been kidnapped. Pietro and Wanda make an appearance as well)
#372 - 375 : Steve asks Pietro back to the Avengers and everything is awkward because Crystal and Dane have a thing. Nat is amused by how clumsy Steve is. Sersi wishes to be with Dane and Dane can’t stop himself, and has to go to her, angry that the bond between them is forcing him to do this. Sersi tells him that he has to accept her love because they are bonded. The police arrests Sersi for the murder of the two policemen. Sersi destroys the mansionto escape from the police. Dane thinks she is innocent from the murders so he follows her. The Avengers get to Sersi, but she attacks them, helped by Dane. When she hits Crystal, Dane turns against Sersi. Proctor appears and takes Sersi again. The Eternals and Thunderstrike are back and they explain that Sersi’s madness is very sudden, as if someone had pushed her into it. Proctor’s backstory: Proctor was Dane from another universe, leader of the Avengers, he fell in love with Sersi, they got married but then their love ended and Sersi left. Proctor is now pushing this reality’s Sersi into madness to get his revenge for the other Sersi leaving him. This because the 616 reality is the template for all the others, so technically this Sersi was the template for the alternative Sersi. The Avengers fight Proctor, Pietro hesitates in saving his rival Dane but then he helps him, Sersi frees herself from Proctor, she takes Black Knight’s sword and she kills Proctor. Sersi knows she is still going towards her madness, but the Watcher (from another reality, he was also a prisoner of Proctor) reveals them that there is another way. AU!Watcher restores everything as it was before (the mansion is back!) and opens a rift where Sersi can go and be free of madness. Dane wants to go with her, to not leave her alone. Dane and Sersi step into the rift, disappearing from the world.
(Crystal is not ready to patch things up with Pietro.)
#380 - 382: Pietro and Crystal go to see Bova, who is diying. Pietro decides to look for the High Evolutionary to save Bova’s life. The High Evolutionary goes to Bova and finds out that she was poisoned as a mean to get him out in the open, to be attacked by Exodus. They defeat him, and Bova is saved. In the meanwhile, Black Knight appears in a mirror from the other dimension (but no one sees him). Cap seems to be losing his stamina and Nat worries, Taylor and Hercules are still broken up, and Taylor meets her new roommate: Augustine Jones. Augustine (who is actually Hera) answers to the phone and lies to Hercules, telling him that Taylor can’t wait to meet him that night. Hera changes into Taylor and goes on a date with Herc.
(Pietro asks Crystal for another chance, but it seems like Crystal believes things are over between them. The Avengers find a mysterious sealed chamber underneath the Mansion but they can’t open it)
#384: Hera traps the Avengers (arriving at the mansion disguised as Augustine). When Hercules comes back, Hera reveals that she is going to kill Taylor in front of him, but suddenly Zeus appears to stop her. Zeus tells Hercules that Ares and Hera made a bet to find who would be able to hurt Hercules the most, so Zeus created Taylor to trap Hera, knowing she would use her. The spell which created Taylor is supposed to end with Hera’s confession. Hercules pleads his father but Taylor disappears between his arms. Hercules, angry, attacks Zeus who decides to take back his immortality.
(In a crossover with Captain America, the Avengers fight both the Red Skull and Modok’s A.I.M. After surviving this adventures, Gyrich is back at the mansion wanting to get Deathcry into custody because she is dangerous and an alien, and because she never told them of these aliens coming down to Earth to fight her. The Avengers ask Gyrich to leave, refusing to give him Deathcry.)
#390: Prelude to The Crossing. The Avengers are having a holiday at one of Tony Stark’s mansions, where now Swordman and Magdalene live while they adjust to their new lives. In the meantime, Janet meets with Hank again and she soon finds she will soon be pennyless.
(The whole story is ridiculously complex. The Avengers fight Mantis and Kang, Janet is wounded but ends up in a cocoon and is soon reborn with a different look. Tony Stark is suddenly a traitor because Immortus controls him, but at the end he dies after saving the Avengers With Tony death, the new teenage Tony from another universe is Iron Man now. The Avengers have various adventures, Madame Masque is working with them. Wanda comes back)
#400: A man from the future arrives at the mansion and tells Jarvis that this is the day the Avengers die… the man is actually Loki in disguise. Various villains attack the city and the Avengers fight them, but Jarvis calls the Avengers back as Loki is at the mansion. The Avengers defeat Loki, and Nate Grey suddenly appears to warn them that Charles Xavier has lost control of his powers.
(The Avengers fight Onslaught, a creature created as a mix of Charles Xavier’s powers and Magneto’s anger. During the “Onslaught: Marvel Universe” the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Bruce Banner sacrifice themselves to stop Onslaught. Franklin Richards - who has the powers to change reality - creates a secondary universe which is basically the event Heroes Reborn that has Avengers volume 2 and other various volume 2. Later, the Avengers and all 616 is restored from the pocket universe)
From here on, continue with Avengers voume 3.