Avengers, the avenging heroes
It's impossible to miss them at the cinema: the Avengers and their characters are the subject of a veritable cinematic bombardment. Marvel is constantly producing new films, which can be seen as episodes in a vast series of superheroes who come together from time to time to form the Avengers team, originally imagined by the legendary Stan Lee.
The imagination of Stan Lee
Already the creator of several superheroes with his regular collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Stan Lee imagined the Avengers team in 1963. He published the first issue of "Avengers" magazine, recounting the first adventures of this team made up of Ironman, Thor, the Hulk and The Wasp.
From a commercial point of view, this was Marvel's answer to the Justice League created by DC Comics in 1960. The Avengers comic book series was a great and long-lasting success, with 406 issues (until 1996), and numerous spin-offs such as West Coast Avengers and Solo Avengers.
One-off team vs. permanent team
Like the Justice League, the Avengers are a one-off team of superheroes. This contrasts with the notion of a permanent team, the best known of which is undoubtedly the X-Men. In fact, the mutants in the X-Men were all created as a solid group, with each of them then free to have their own spin-offs (like the Wolverine/Logan films).
In the story, the Avengers were created more or less accidentally, thanks to the character of Rick Jones. Rick Jones is the friend and confidant of Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk.
The triggering event was Loki's attempt to exact revenge on his brother Thor. Loki tried to hijack a radio frequency belonging to the Teen Brigade, a team formed by Rick Jones. This led Rock and his Teen Brigade to discover the threat and decide to enlist the help of several superheroes to help Thor: the Hulk, Ironman, Ant-Man and The Wasp. It was Ant-Man who came up with the idea that the team should stay in touch and reform to fight future major threats.
An unstable team
The problem with adding superheroes with superpowers is that you're also adding disturbed and unstable super-personalities. For example, at the end of the second issue of the series, the Hulk left the Avengers, having noticed how distrustful the other members of the group were of him. It has to be said that Bruce Banner's personality is rather... unstable. And the consequences of his tantrums are pretty devastating, so much so that even the superheroes are afraid of him.
Nevertheless, the team was soon strengthened by the discovery of Captain America, trapped in the ice. He was welcomed into the team and, taking the Hulk's place, was given the status of co-founder. Of course, this didn't sit too well with our rather dour green giant, who decided to join forces with the Fantastic Four to take on the Avengers.
There was also the incident when all the members of the Avengers left the group, with the exception of Captain America...
The success of the Avengers at the cinema
Marvel entered the box-office race with blockbuster films such as Sam Raimi's Spiderman in 2002. It was then decided to implement a plan to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU): to introduce and develop several superheroes, each in their own film (or series of films), before bringing them together in a series of films entitled Avengers, while leaving room for each to pursue their own adventures in the event of individual success.
The first films to be made were :
So, with these characters introduced to the public, all that remained was the release of The Avengers in 2012, directed by Joss Whedon. This concludes what is considered to be the first phase of the plan, which has been given the name "Infinity Saga".
Phase 2 of the Infinity Saga will be marked by Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).
Phase 3, meanwhile, contains a diptych with Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Endgame concludes Infinity War and now we see the rest of the plan with the Multiverse Saga.
It's worth noting that in the first Avengers film, the story is based on the origin of the Avengers but with a few changes. It's Nick Fury, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., who (re)activates the Avengers Initiative, bringing in his own top guns, Black Widow and Hawkeye.
You can find all your favourite Avengers and Marvel superheroes in figurines and other goodies in our geek shop. Until their next adventures in the Multiverse Saga of the MCU.