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Comic Book / The Avengers

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AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!note 

"And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat! On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! Through the years, their roster has prospered, changing many times, but their glory has never been denied! Heed the call, then—for now, the Avengers Assemble!"

The Marvel Universe's all-star super-hero team, equivalent to The DCU's Justice League of America... except with more B-List heroes originally and a name that is based firmly on the concept of Rule of Cool (literally, Wasp picked the name because it sounded cool; some adaptations provide better explanations, though). The team debuted in The Avengers #1 in 1963. The classic lineup is Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, The Wasp, Thor, and The Hulk. The team also within the first few issues gained the series trademark of shifting lineups, with the Hulk leaving the group with issue two, and Captain America not actually joining until issue 4, and with the major change of all the originals save Captain America being replaced by issue 16. Over the years, half of the Marvel Universe has been a member (to the point where all of of the Fantastic Four has been a member at some point), with new members being recruited and old members coming back or leaving as story dictates. Other long-serving members include Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Vision, Hercules, She-Hulk, Wonder Man, Captain Marvel, Beast, Black Panther, Black Widow, and many many more. Having been an Avenger is more or less treated as proof that you've hit the big time in Earth's superhero community.

There are several Avengers comic series, as well as a good number of spin-offs and side team books including:

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    Main Avengers comic series 

    Avengers comic storylines 

    Avengers spin-off comics series 
  • West Coast Avengers (later renamed Avengers West Coast): A spin-off book that began in 1985 running through 1993.
  • Solo Avengers (later renamed Avengers Spotlight): An anthology/companion book for West Coast Avengers; running from 1987 through 1989.
  • Great Lakes Avengers: A joke team that debuted in 1989 and received their own books in 2006 and 2016.
  • Thunderbolts: First debuting in 1997, the Thunderbolts are the Avengers' evil counterpart. Although there have been a few Retools in its history, all versions share the concept that they feature "ex-"supervillains attempting to act heroic (despite not necessarily being good at it). One incarnation was officially tied to the Avengers when it served as their Boxed Crook rehabilitation program.
    • Dark Avengers: A second book featuring an evil counterpart team, this time with the villains only pretending to be heroes and taking on the identities of actual Avengers. The book was eventually merged with the Thunderbolts while still using the "Dark Avengers" title, and a separate Thunderbolts team launched in its place.
  • New Avengers: Replaced the regular Avengers comic in 2004. With the return of the main Avengers title, it has continued as the adventures of a second official team.
  • Young Avengers: (2005-2006, 2013-) about a Teen Titan-esque group of young heroes. Despite patterning themselves after the Avengers, most have completely different connections to the originals, if any at all.
  • Mighty Avengers: Running from 2007 to 2010, was at first a team of Avengers who were on the Pro-Registration side of the Civil War storyline, then later a team led by Hank Pym that was active outside the United States during the events of Dark Reign.
  • A series of books involving young Avengers-in-training:
    • Avengers: The Initiative: Running from 2007 to 2010, the book follows the aftermath of the Civil War, Iron Man opens "Camp Hammond", a military base where heroes old and young are put into bootcamp to train them to be "proper" heroes. Unfortunately everything that can go wrong actually goes almost horribly wrong with young heroes dying, mysterious attacks on faculty, a secret black ops team, alien invasions, numerous betrayals, and Norman Osborn. Ultimately shut down following the events of Dark Reign and The Siege and relaunched (literally and figuratively) as Avengers Academy.
    • Avengers Academy: Running from 2010 to 2012, the book originally focused upon some veteran Avengers teaching a group of young teenagers recruited or forcibly turned into super-powered beings by Norman Osborn during his time running the Avengers Initiative, in hopes of ensuring that they don't become super-villains. Following the events of Fear Itself, they opened the team up to all young heroes who wanted mentoring.
    • Avengers Arena: A 2013 series launching with the premise of young heroes of Marvel (including five characters from Avengers Academy) fighting to the death, trapped on an island by supervillain Arcade, who has taken several levels in being a bad-ass as far as him seeking to kill the kids in order to regain his reputation as an assassin.
    • Avengers Undercover: A 2014 series that is a direct follow-up to Avengers Arena which follows five teen survivors of the book (who are beyond broken) infiltrating Bagalia, the Masters of Evil's own sovereign nation, all the while deciding if they want to be heroes or join the dark side.
  • Pet Avengers: Running from 2009 to 2011, a series of mini-series that focuses upon various animal companions of superheroes teaming up to fight evil.
  • Secret Avengers: Debuting in 2010, it follows teams sent on secret black-ops missions. It was originally led by (then-former) Captain America Steve Rogers, but has since been run by S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • Avengers Assemble: This book initially launched in 2012 as a tie-in to the film, featuring an in-continuity version of the film team. After issue eight, it turned into a "down time" book, following what the Avengers do in-between missions, with more of a focus on the female Avengers (namely, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Captain Marvel).
  • Uncanny Avengers: Launched in 2012, this new title deals with the aftermath of Avengers vs. X-Men that acts as a sort of bridge team between the Avengers and the X-Men as a result of Captain America wanting to reach out and do a better job of helping out the mutants.
  • Avengers A.I.: Running from 2013 to 2014, the book focused on a team of robotics-based heroes out to stop rogue AIs that spun out of the Age of Ultron event.
  • Avengers World: A 2014-2015 comic focusing on the new expanded roster of the Avengers as they work to tackle multiple threats across the world. It acted as additional supplemental material, with each issue focusing on individual characters in the team as the two main Avengers books began to focus more on their interconnected story that led into Secret Wars (2015).
  • A-Force: A 2015-16 title launched during Secret Wars (2015) featuring a Amazon Brigade of Avengers from a number of different worlds coming together.
  • The Ultimates: The Ultimate Marvel counterpart of the Avengers debuting in 2002. This version draws many comparisons to The Authority, with taking a "widescreen" action approach along with attempts to take a look at how such actions would come across in a closer to real world setting. After a line wide relaunch it split into two different teams: Ultimate Avengers and The Ultimates, but another relaunch reunited under the Ultimates banner.
    • The Ultimates (2015): A main-universe Ultimates team, launched as part of All-New, All-Different Marvel after the Ultimate line concluded. It features some of Marvel's most powerful and intelligent heroes as they seek to solve omniversal problems that are normally above even the Avengers' weight class, such as curing Galactus' hunger.
  • All-New, All-Different Avengers: Released during the All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative following Secret Wars starring a more grounded version of the team. This version deals with the team not having unlimited funds and half the team still being teenagers with problems like school. It ran from 2015-2016 before the title went back to being just Avengers.
    • Champions: Disillusioned with how the adult heroes have been acting after Civil War II, the teen half of All-New All-Different gather some other younger heroes and strike out on their own.
  • Occupy Avengers: Another team formed from the aftermath of Civil War II, Occupy features unpowered heroes going on the road to help everyday people. Ran from 2016-2017.
  • Savage Avengers: Launched in 2019, this team's main concept is that it's composed of violent Anti Heroes.
  • Strikeforce: Launched in 2019, they're a top secret black ops team that do the wetwork in the Avengers' favor.
  • All-Out Avengers (2022)

The Avengers have been adapted for other mediums multiple times; a complete list of which can be found on the Franchise page. The highest-profile and most influential version is the one that features in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with several members getting their own films and a few others being supporting characters, and the MCU usually brings the entire team together in an Avengers movie at the climax of a multi-film story arc:

Not to be confused with the British Agents Dating/Spy Couple series The Avengers.

The Avengers provides examples of:

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    Tropes A to C 
  • The Ace: Hawkeye was this during the early run of West Coast Avengers. In a scene in which he's fighting to keep the Quinjet he's piloting from crashing, the narrator comments that many Avengers get praise for doing one thing well, but not Hawkeye — because he does MANY things well.
  • Aesop Collateral Damage: The first story of the "Sons of the Serpent" explains on every page everything that is wrong with racism. Poor Bill Foster (who was not Black Goliath nor had any special powers back then) received a huge beating by the Serpents, just so that the Avengers could keep telling the reader that racism was so awfully wrong.
  • The Alcoholic: Iron Man and Carol Danvers both fell Off the Wagon.
  • Alien Invasion: The Kree/Skrull War, Operation Galactic Storm, Secret Invasion... and several Easily Thwarted Alien Invasions. Being Earth's Mightiest Heroes, they have to live up to that name.
  • All According to Plan: One storyline in Kurt Busiek's run has the Lunatic Legion, a group of Kree fanatics, trying to take over / destroy the Earth in revenge for all the others times Earth has humiliated the Kree, ignoring the Supreme Intelligence, whom they are devoted to, when he tries to tell them to knock it off. A mysterious call tips off the Avengers, allowing them to defeat the Kree, but who could it have been? Cap figures it was the SI, who ends the story with the Lunatic Legion dead and gone, and dozens of SHIELD agents to study at his leisure.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The "Under Siege" storyline which featured the Masters of Evil, under the direction of Baron Zemo, succeeding in taking control of Avengers Mansion.
  • All Your Powers Combined:
    • Super-Adaptoid.
    • Count Nefaria copied the powers of Power Mannote , the Living Laser, and Whirlwind; the combination turned him into an evil Captain Ersatz of Superman.
    • Wolverine got this, getting the powers of the whole new Avengers and the two Supreme Sorcerers (And Hellfire) to fight Agamotto.
  • An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Avengers 157 takes place on Christmas Eve. The "Ghost of Stone" (a living statue of the Black Knight) beats Beast, Iron Man, Yellowjacket, Captain America, Wasp, Jarvis, the Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man, until finally the Vision talked him to death. And, as the next story continues right where the previous one ended, issues 158 and 159 are also on Christmas. Graviton captures a whole city with his power, takes it into the air, beats the Avengers badly, takes the city above New York, gives an ultimatum to the UN, drives a woman to suicide, and tries to kill the Avengers. And, as issue 160 also starts where the previous one ended, it is also on Christmas. The Grim Reaper finds out about the resurrection of Wonder Man, and wants to find which one is his brother, the Vision or him, and kill the other. What a Christmas! Those guys must be at the top of Santa's naughty list!
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing: Tons of members: Ant-Man (three versions), The Wasp (three versions), Yellowjacket (two versions), Spider-Woman (again, there were two different versions; funnily enough, the original one joined the team later) Mockingbird, Falcon, Hellcat / Tigra, Stingray, Mantis, Black Panther, Black Widow, Spider-Man (two versions), and Wolverine.
    • They have also fought dozens of villains with animal-based themes: Scorpion, Rhino, Porcupine, Armadillo, Dr. Octopus, Cobra, the Serpent Society, the Unicorn, the Gryphon, etc.
  • Alternate Continuity: The Ultimates is a version of the team that is tilted heavily towards a cynical viewpoint.
  • Amazon Brigade: A one-off issue has the Lady Liberators (It was the seventies), formed of Wasp, the Scarlet Witch, Medusa and suspiciously grouchy newcomer Valkyrie, the one who brings them together, and who turned out to be Enchantress in disguise, having brought them together as part of yet another petty revenge scheme. Once she's found out, the Liberators disband.
  • Arch-Enemy: Depending on who you ask, either Kang or Ultron. Possibly both.
  • Arc Words: During Hickman's run; "Everything dies", and "the System is broken".
  • Artifact of Doom:
    • The Avengers confronted the threat of the Serpent Crown, a Mind-Control Device channeling the power of Set, an Elder God.
    • They have also faced Thanos when he had possession of the Infinity Gauntlet, which allows gives its user literal omnipotence; both Iron Man and Captain America have wielded the gauntlet as well.
  • Army of The Ages: The Anachronauts, Kang's elite fighting force.
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: The fanbase - and the writers - were so horrified by the obvious implications that Carol Danvers had been literally, medically and mentally raped by Marcus Immortus that it became canonized in The Avengers Annual #10 when Carol Danvers chews out the entire Avengers roster for letting her be raped.
  • Avengers Assemble: The Trope Namer.
  • Back from the Dead: Pretty much the entire roster has died at one point of another during an Avengers storyline (most notably "The Korvac Saga", "Onslaught Saga", and Avengers Annual #17).
    • Separately: Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Vision, Wasp, Thor, Mockingbird, Hellcat, Jack of Hearts, Quasar, and Ant Man II have all come back from the dead in various ways and forms, some of them more than once.
  • Backstory Invader: Has happened a couple of times:
    • This seemed to happen with Moonraker's sudden appearance in Force Works. Everybody knew him and he even was in an ongoing relationship with Spider-Woman. However, Rachel (Spider-Woman's daughter) notices she had never seen him before. Some issues later, Moonraker reveals he was really implanted into the team's history via time travel to warn them and the Avengers about an upcoming attack by Kang.
    • A major plot point in the Avengers: No Surrender crossover involves the return of Voyager, a former Silver Age Avenger who was supposedly lost in time after a battle with Squadron Sinister. It's eventually revealed that Voyager is really the Grandmaster's daughter, and that she used her powers to infiltrate the team by worming her way into everyone's memories, thus making them all believe she was a founding Avenger. She eventually does a Heel–Face Turn and restores everyone's memories voluntarily.
  • Backup Twin: The second Swordsman (the one who goes around with Magdalena) is not the original one, who was Killed Off for Real and stays that way. He's the Sworsdman from a parallel universe, taken to the main one.
  • Badass Normal: Team members Hawkeye, Black Widow, Mantis (until she gained powers), Black Panther, and Mockingbird.
  • Battle Butler: Jarvis.
  • Battle Couple: Hank Pym/Wasp, Vision/Scarlet Witch, Mockingbird/Hawkeye, Jessica Jones/Luke Cage
  • Betty and Veronica: Crystal and Sersi, fighting over Black Knight.
  • Beyond the Impossible: It is impossible for someone unworthy to lift Thor's hammer. Still, the Ghost Rider once tricked his way around it: he escaped the hammer with his motorbike, and grabbed it when the throw lost momentum and started to return to Thor. It returned all right, bringing Ghost Rider with itself, who took advantage of the speed to knock down Thor with even higher force.
  • Big Applesauce: Like so many Marvel heroes, they're headquartered in New York City, New York.
  • Big Damn Heroes: A famous line: "ULTRON! We would have words with thee."
  • Bittersweet Ending: Secret Invasion. They save the world from the Skrulls, at least one character who was thought to be dead is revealed to have been a Skrull prisoner, but they lose Jan in the process.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Hercules, Luke Cage. Thor on a good day can be one too.
  • Breakout Character: Rogue was introduced in "The Avengers Annual #10" in 1981 as a villain, where her primary role was ultimately to serve as an easy way for Chris Claremont to excise the trauma that Carol Danvers should have suffered from her experiences in "The Avengers #200". After one more appearance as a villain in a two-part story in "Dazzler #22-#23", she went on to seek the help of the X-Men in "Uncanny X-Men #171"... and became one of their leading ladies, amassing a popularity and a fandom that far eclipsed that of the woman originally known as Ms. Marvel.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: Happens several times:
    • The first time is in Avengers 16, when the original team retires, with the exception of Captain America, who stays to guide the new recruits: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch.
    • Roy Thomas reunited all the Avengers that had even been into a big group... only to reduce the team in a very short time: Iron Man and Thor ended their visit and left, Captain America gave up being a superhero, Hercules returned to the Olympus, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch returned with Magneto... with left probably the smallest and weakest Avengers team ever: Hawkeye, the Wasp, and Henry Pym (who was not able to grow to a giant size, if things were not bad enough). Yes: only 3, and 2 could basically just get to an insect size.
    • The Council of Cross-Time Kangs storyline culminates with the entire team quitting in issue 297. Issue 298 features Jarvis alone having to deal with the onset of Inferno (1988) at street level. The next two issues have the team reform with the Captain, Thor, Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, and The Forgotten One (choosing to go by the name Gilgamesh). The lineup doesn't last too long, as Reed and Sue soon return to the Fantastic Four (succeeded on the Avengers by Quasar and returning members She-Hulk, Black Panther, and Namor), and Gilgamesh soon was replaced by fellow Eternal Sersi.
    • Although Onslaught doesn't kill all the Avengers, just an important number, the team broke up, and the Thunderbolts filled the void. The Avengers returned a year later.
    • The Avengers break up in "Avengers Disassembled", and return as a small team in New Avengers, which has a vastly different line-up (most of the "classic" members being off doing other things). The team broke up again during Civil War, as the characters had conflicting views about the Registration act.
    • Happens offscreen during the Time Skip to the Time Runs Out era of the Hickman-era Avengers, leading to some unexpected team line-ups.
    • Avengers: No Surrender, though mercifully with less death and horror than usual. The teams at that time just decide to split up.
  • Briefer Than They Think: Though many, including this article, place Hulk as a member of the "iconic lineup," he quit the team in the second issue, and outside of the occasional Crisis Crossover teamup, he only properly rejoined around Avengers Vs. X-Men (though the Avengers had never actually revoked his membership, Hulk just didn't want anything to do with them).
  • Butt-Monkey: Hank Pym, Hank Pym, Hank Pym. And did we mention Hank Pym?
  • Call-Back: During Gyrich's initial encounter with the Avengers, he tries to have Ms. Marvel fingerprinted. She tells the poor schmuck charged with this that if he tries, she'll rip his hand off. Many, many years later, during vol 3., Carol runs into the guy working at Project P.E.G.A.S.US., and reminds him of this fact, so that the Avengers can prove they are who they say they are.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The Masters of Evil, long-time recurring foes of the Avengers.
  • Cat Girl:
    • Tigra is the team's woman/cat hybrid.
    • Hellcat is another feline-themed heroine.
  • Catchphrase: "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE" - so cool, it gets its own font.
  • The Cameo: Devil Dinosaur briefly appears in an issue of Vol 4, which promptly turns into Death by Cameo when he suddenly explodes.
  • Celebrity Casualty: An alternate universe President Ronald Reagan is killed by a bomb planted by Kang the Conquerer.
  • The Chosen One: Mantis, who is the Celestial Madonna, the future mother of a Celestial Messiah.]]
  • Circus Episode: The origin story of the formation of the team (Avengers #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) features the Hulk disguised as a clown and juggling animals for a circus audience. No, really.
  • Civvie Spandex: The early 1990s "leather jackets" period.
  • Clothing Damage: Averted in Avengers #252. Hercules is attacked by the Blood Brothers, counter-attacks and defeats them... but his skirt is damaged in the attack, leaving his godly attributes fully visible. The Scarlet Witch lends him her cape, to avoid further humiliation.
  • Come with Me If You Want to Live: Deathcry meets the Avengers this way. They had just destroyed Proctor's base, but were stranded on foot in the middle of the Andes, and chased by Kree Sentinels.
  • Conflict Ball: During Geoff Johns' run, Ant-Man and Jack of Hearts could barely get through a conversation without yelling at one another.
  • Conqueror from the Future: Kang the Conqueror, an invading warlord and ruler of the world in the distant future, has attempted to conquer the Earth in our modern time period. The Avengers have repeatedly thwarted his ambitions. And then there are his counterparts from different points in his timeline: Rama-Tut, the Scarlet Centurion, Immortus...
  • Conspicuous Gloves: Introduced in 1981's Avengers Annual # 10, Rogue wears gloves so as not to accidentally touch anyone, since touch with her skin causes her to absorb others' powers, often harming or potentially killing them. Case in point, Carol Danvers, whom Rogue manages to render comatose while damaging her memory at the same time.
  • Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, sponsors the Avengers through Stark Industries.
  • Covers Always Lie: Check the cover of Avengers 123◊. All three quotations are lies. First, Mantis was not protecting Libra: she wanted to kill him, and the others tried to stop her. Libra is not the most dangerous member of Zodiac (that would be either Tauro or Aries), he's just a blind man, who in fact had just saved the Avengers from his peer (long story). And Mantis was not the newest Avenger, she was just the girlfriend of the Swordsman, tuned into an avenger many issues later.
  • Cult: A recurring group of enemies for the Avengers are the Zodiac, though in different incarnations / people in the role, they usually have this as their guise or true purpose.

    Tropes D to P 
  • Deadly Training Area: They've got one, though it's far less deadly than some other superhero training areas.
  • Defector from Commie Land: The Black Widow. Captain Marvel was a borderline case, since the Kree Empire he left was basically the space version of the Commies.
  • Deus ex Machina: The Avengers spent many issues trying to follow Captain Marvel, who had been kidnapped to another galaxy. Eventually they find her, ally with the Skrulls against Nebula, and gradually take down her defenses. And, when they are about to win... the Beyonder shows up to "help", and erases Nebula from existence.
  • "Die Hard" on an X: "Avengers: Under Siege"note  is basically "Die Hard in the Avengers Mansion"
  • Disability Immunity: Hawkeye used a sonic arrow to make himself almost completely deaf but immune to sonic mind control.
  • Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Hank Pym used to smoke a pipe from time to time, before it became PC not to smoke.
  • Distress Ball:
    • Scarlet Witch and Wasp used to be held prisoner a lot in the 1960s.
    • Hawkeye being captured by Norman Osborn was a plot point during Dark Reign.
    • It also happened to Captain America in the last story before Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • Distress Call: How the group first formed. Rick Jones had been hoping to send a call out to the Fantastic Four, but Loki intervened, and instead the founding members heard it instead.
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: In one issue, Giant Man accidentally smashes the meeting table while in his giant form.
  • Downer Ending:
    • "Vision Quest"
    • "The Crossing"
    • "Avengers Disassembled"
    • "Civil War"
    • "Secret Invasion"
    • "The Korvac Saga"
    • "Operation: Galactic Storm", about the Kree-Shi'ar War, ends with the Kree Supreme Intelligence detonating a nega-bomb and obliterating most of its own species in an attempt to jump start their evolution (which didn't work). Half of the Avengers were so disgusted with this that they executed him.
      • It goes into an even bigger downer than that: Iron Man's participation in this sparked his descent into evil and the start of The Crossing, the aforementioned Continuity Snarl of a crossover. Then it all feeds into Onslaught...
    • West Coast Avengers/Avengers West Coast. Mockingbird is killed, Hawkeye leaves the team because he can't stand to go back to the compound without her, the team is disbanded and the remaining members quit after refusing to become reserve members of the east coast team.
  • Drunk on the Dark Side: The Scarlet Witch, the Sentry, Sersi and Moondragon. The Avengers fought against other heroes who were Drunk on the Dark Side in Avengers/Thunderbolts (Moonstone) and Avengers vs. X-Men (Cyclops).
  • Dynamic Akimbo: Not used as much their counterparts, the Justice League, but usually, The Big Guy on the team (Thor, Hercules, Wonder Man, etc.) will take this in contrast to the smaller and less imposing teammates. Cap also does it often, as the leader and most iconic of the group.
  • Dysfunction Junction: More than a few lineups over the years, but especially Avengers Academy, teachers and students both.
    • There's possibly more dysfunction between the Avengers then there is between the X-Men. Yeah. To be specific, while they don't always get along the X-Men still have a close family dynamic comparable to the Fantastic Four, whereas the Avengers sometimes come off as a group of people who barely tolerate each other half the time.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Can you imagine Hulk costumed as a clown, with costume and make-up, making tricks to entertain the circus audience? (and no, he was not being mind-controlled). Not a "what if...?", not a dream, not an imaginary tale, not an alternate universe, not a parody by Sergio Aragones... Avengers #1, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. 'nuff said!
    • The original design of Ares in the 1960s is also a bit laughable, if compared with the character we have seen those recent years.
  • Earth-Shattering Poster
  • Evil Counterpart: A version shows up during Jonathan Hickman's run. It has Colonel America, Iron Monger (an evil Jarvis, who smothered infant Tony and has a worse armour than his), Thorr (whose hammer can only be carried by the unworthy), Ant-Man, The Wasp, and a Hulk who has been lobotomised, and is controlled by Wasp. Apparently they ruled their world from a fortress, until an Incursion happened and they were dragged to the main universe (where Ant-Man quickly died).
  • Face–Heel Turn: In Avengers: The Initiative, Hardball defects to the terrorist group Hydra; also, The Sentry deciding to join up with Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Badass Normals, Physical Gods, Mutants, Aliens, Science Heroes (Powered Armor optional), Wizards, Radiation Recipients, Robots, etc. Since day one just about any lineup of more than four members had at least three of these archtypes on hand.
  • Flanderization: In Ultron's origin story, he attempted to kill his creator, Hank Pym, while referring to him as "father"; this prompted Pym to remark that the robot had developed an Oedipus Complex. Later writers took that connection and ran with it, having Ultron attempt to turn Pym's wife, the Wasp (his "mother"), into a robot bride named Jocasta, and at one point he was reduced to a talking head being carried by a robot offspring named Antigone, after Oedipus's daughter who took care of him after his blinding. Ultron's retool in Mighty Avengers had him actually take the Wasp's likeness.
    • Another Ultron (number 12) was peaceful and loved his "father". Jocasta and Pym started dating (yes, people have pointed out in comic she's more or less dating her grandfather... which she sees as dating GOD) and the current Ultron is an Evil Overlord with a (bigger) god complex. The Pym family is weird...
  • Flying Brick: Thor, Iron Man, Wonder Man, Ms. Marvel, Namor, The Sentry, the Blue Marvel.
  • Flying Firepower: Firebird (reserve Avenger, briefly an active member of the West Coast Avengers) uses her pyrokinesis to fly.
  • Fog Feet: Veil from Avengers Academy.
  • Foreshadowing: Warlock #11, in the 1970s. Trying to prevent himself from turning into the Magus, Warlock (with Thanos' help) uses a time probe to go some months into the future. He finds his future self in some destroyed sci-fi setting, dying among the remains. The dying Warlock is fully aware of what his younger self is about to do: capture his soul with the soul gem. He is completely bitter and cynical, and ready to die. "Short time? You fool, it's been an eternity. During that time, everything I've ever cared for or accomplished has fallen into ruin! Everyone I've ever loved now lies dead! My life has been a failure! I welcome it's end!◊" Warlock captures his future self's soul, and returns to the present. You asked about the Avengers? Oh, well, the Avengers, Warlock and Captain Marvel fought against Thanos' armada in Avengers Annual #7. His main ship was actually a decoy, so Warlock and Marvel left the Avengers and foght Thanos at his real ship. And, after the battle... exactly the same thing happened◊.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: "Cap's Kooky Quartet", aka the second lineup: Cap was choleric, Hawkeye sanguine, Quicksilver melancholic, and Scarlet Witch phlegmatic.
  • Fugitive Arc: Happens to half of the Avengers members following Marvel's Civil War storyline. With the Super Registration Act in effect, the team members that rebelled against the law are forced to go underground and remain on the run. First from Iron Man's regime and then from Norman Osborn's.
  • Fully Absorbed Finale:
    • Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1968) ended with Fury seemingly shot dead by Bulls-Eye and the identity of recurring villain Scorpio unrevealed to readers. The Avengers #72 reveals Scorpio's identity, introduces the rest of the Zodiac villains, and explains Nick's survival.
    • The first Spider-Woman series, ending with her apparent death, was resolved in The Avengers #239-242 with Jessica Drew losing her powers in order to help the Avengers beat Morgaine LeFey.
  • Generation Xerox: The Young Avengers Stature, Iron Lad, and Vision (not quite the "same" Vision... well, long story) reenacted the weird Love Triangle of the Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Wonder Man.
  • The Good Captain: Captain America, Captain Marvel, Captain Britain.
  • Gravity Master: Graviton, one of the Avengers most formidable foes, has the ability to create and manipulate fields of gravitational force.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Quite a few of these. Hawkeye, Black Widow, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, the Swordsman, the Sandman, Rage, the second Living Laser, USAgent (back when he replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America), Namor, and the Vision all started off as villains.
  • Hero Does Public Service: In "The Search for She-Hulk" Shulkie is eventually found helping repair a community devastated by one of her cousin's rampages.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Cap and Iron Man, though following Civil War they went through a bit of a rough patch that put them in Vitriolic Best Buds territory. Tony even voiced his concern about working with Steve when the Avengers reformed following the Siege of Asgard, but relented when he learned that it wouldn't be Steve who'd coordinate the team, but Tony's Civil War-time Lancer Maria Hill. Their friendship's since gotten back on track.
  • High Turnover Rate: It was proverbial for this until the modern era for having an expanding constantly shuffling roster, especially in the opening ten years or so. The complaints people had about Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers changing rosters suddenly and dramatically were par for the course. Jarvis reflects on this in The Avengers #280 where he's hospitalized after the events of Under Siege:
    Jarvis: There have been so many Avengers over the years. Some stayed so briefly, it is hard to even remember them. Hercules, the Beast, the Falcon, Hellcat, poor Ms. Marvel...I tried to serve them all well, to make their stays as pleasant as possible. After all. The life of an Avenger is not easy.
  • Hired Help as Family: Edwin Jarvis, the butler of the Stark family, is treated with a great respect by the Avengers. Tony Stark personally treats him like a close friend and almost like a family member.
  • Historical Domain Crossover: One iteration of the Lethal Legion villain team, recurring enemies of the team, was composed of history's greatest murderers, given superpowers by hell. They were Lucrezia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, Josef Stalin, and Heinrich Himmler. Lucrezia was codenamed "Cyana", granted blue skin, Absurdly Sharp Claws coated with poison, and a literal Kiss of Death. Lizzie was codenamed "Axe of Violence", granted light red skin, her right hand was replaced by a double-headed axe, and she carried two other double-headed axes used as throwing weapons. Josef was codenamed "Coldsteel", becoming a Chrome Champion with a body made of living steel, granting him Super-Strength and Super-Toughness. Heinrich was codenamed "Zyklon", granted a Powered Armor which allowed him to fly. He released Deadly Gas from his mask and gauntlets. They appeared in Avengers West Coast #98-100 (September-November, 1993).
  • Historical Villain Upgrade: The fifth Lethal Legion, four spirits taken from Hell by Satannish. They are Axe of Violence, Cyana, Zyklon and Cold Steel (who wanted the name "Man of Steel", but unfortunately it was already taken). As the story advances, we are informed that those villains were actually Lizzie Borden, Lucrezia Borgia, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Stalin, turned into supervillains (or, more exactly, receiving superpowers). No Commie Nazis: Zyklon and Cold Steel tried to kill each other when they recognized the other; they only worked together because Satanish forces them to. No afterlife for them, not even in hell: they ceased to exist during the fight of Satannish and Mephisto.
    • The Hate-Monger is a subversion, as he's a clone of Hitler, not the real deal (and he's historically an enemy of the Fantastic Four anyway).
  • Hollywood Hype Machine: Rob Liefield's run, the Heroes Reborn thing, received all the hype, as finally the Avengers get updated for the nineties! They thought that the audience would rejoice, but there were Chirping Crickets instead. Liefield was allowed to reboot the Avengers in a Ultimate Universe, with complete freedom, for some initial 12 issues that may be renewed later. It was so disastrous that he was fired after just 6 issues.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Giant-Man and The Wasp in what may be the biggest example available. Pym growing up to skyscraper height and Wasp dropping down to only a few inches tall.
  • Idiot Ball: The "Carol Danvers starts drinking" storyline has Iron Man holding a big one - despite Carol being a very bad-tempered drunk (not something you want a Flying Brick to be), he refuses to speak up even as she repeatedly drinks on duty, and lashes out at everyone and everything, because he feels it's "not [his] place" to say anything.
  • I Have Many Names:
    • Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Wasp, and now Giant-Man again.
    • Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, Goliath, Ronin ...
    • Carol Danvers, aka Ms Marvel, Binary, Warbird, Captain Marvel.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Komodo. The suggestion of having her powers removed causes her to break down in tears.
  • Impeded Communication: The Teen Brigade attempt to radio the Fantastic Four to find the Hulk. Loki, who is attempting to pit Thor against the Hulk, uses magic to intercept and redirect the signal so Thor gets the message instead of the Fantastic Four. However, he messes up and the rest of the future Avengers (Iron Man, Ant Man, and Wasp) get the message as well. This directly creates The Avengers.
  • Internal Homage: the Gatherers included the Coal Tiger, an alternate T'Challa from an Expendable Alternate Universe. That is actually one of the names that Lee and Kirby considered when they were first creating the Black Panther.
  • Interrupted Cooldown Hug: Happens to the Hulk himself when fighting the Avengers, but also a recurring theme with arch-villain Ultron as his "extended family" among the Avengers. Subverted in "Ultron Unlimited" when Ultron betrays the cooldown hug-administering Vision before the cavalry comes charging in.
  • It's All About Me: Hawkeye, when Henry Peter Gyrich imposes an Avengers line-up that removes him, in favor of the Falcon. Several Avengers were removed from the team (basically all the former Avengers, still present because of The Korvac Saga, and regulars Wonder Man and Yellowjacket), but Hawkeye took it personally.
  • Ironic Name: Something that is lost in recent years but in the period of The '60s to The '70s, the group called "the Avengers" suggesting merciless retribution and revenge, was largely an organization that provided a Redemption Quest for many ex-villains turned heroes, and was renowned for being a "second chance's retreat". It's roster included characters like Black Widow, Hawkeye, The Sandman (of Spider-Man 3 fame), Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, while Wonder Man is still considered a major Avenger even if he started as a traitor (and finally died redeeming himself). Many of these characters turned heroic and their villainous origins are now forgotten and in recent years, the Avengers have a more heroic sheen to them.
  • I Work Alone: Way back during the 70s, Daredevil was offered membership, and gave this response. Spider-Man tended to do the same, up until New Avengers.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Proctor (a Dane Whitman of an alternate reality) gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the Black Knight, pointing out how he escapes from problems instead of dealing with them: his relationship with Sersi, and the Ebony Sword. When Proctor was finally defeated, Sersi (who became Too Powerful to Live and Drunk with Power) receives a gift from a dying Watcher: a portal to another reality, where she would be free of her madness. The Black Knight points out that Proctor was right, and departs with Sersi.
  • Karmic Death: Marcus Immortus, who famously enacted a scheme to Mind Rape and Medical Rape and Impregnate Carol Danvers in an attempt to first escape his imprisonment in Limbo and then to spirit Carol off to Limbo as his "lover" in issue #200 of the original run. A year later, in Annual #10, Carol explains that Marcus' experiments left him critically out of synch with the temporal flow of Limbo, causing him to age hyper-rapidly; within days he was too senile to hope to stop the degeneration, and within a week of abducting Carol, he was dead.
  • Kid from the Future: During The Crossing, a future version of Luna, Quicksilver and Crystal's daughter, shows up. She eventually dies taking an energy blast meant for one of her parents.
  • Killer Robot:
    • Ultron, a long time Avengers foe, consumed with a desire to Kill All Humans.
    • Alkema, another robot made by Ultron, is also of this type
    • The first villain of Hickman's run is an Aleph, an aeon-old robot designed to sterilise worlds. Later on, several more show up, along with their owners.
  • Labcoat of Science:
    • Many times over the years, Hank Pym has been seen in a lab wearing a labcoat, sometimes over his superhero costume (which, given the Yellowjacket costume has giant shoulder pad-thingies, raises a few questions...)
    • One issue in the 80s has Moonstone wearing one about the Masters of Evil's lair. Also over her costume. And she's not even an actual scientist (she's a psychologist).
  • Large Ham: Lord Pagan. Only speaks with Evil Gloating, and Emphasize EVERYTHING with capital letters and unneeded bolded words. DID YOU HEAR THE TROPER, PUNY MORTAL? LORD PAGAN EMPHASIZES EVERYTHING!!!!
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler
    • Wonder Man dies at the end of his first adventure with the Avengers. And, many years later, he would return.
    • The events taking place in Avengers Disassembled were caused by the Scarlet Witch.
    • Iron Man won the Civil War.
    • Yellowjacket didn't kill Henry Pym, he is Henry Pym. That's also the reason why the Wasp was getting married to a complete stranger who claimed to have killed her boyfriend.
    • The relation between Hawkeye and the mobster Barney Barton? He is his brother. You may have suspected it earlier if the writer had ever revealed before that Hawkeye's real name was Clint Barton.
  • Legacy Character: An interesting case regarding Iron Man. In the mini-series that introduced West Coast Avengers, James Rhodes was using the Iron Man name. When the series proper began, an unknown person claiming to be the third Iron Man joined the team. However, this was actually Tony Stark, but he was hiding his identity from everyone (for whatever reason). To say his teammates were confused would be an understatement.
  • Let's You and Him Fight:
    • When the Vision is considered for membership, the team wonder about his full-range of capabilities. So Cap decides to attack him in order to see. When the Vision predictably defends himself, Iron Man and Thor leap in as well. Hank Pym quickly tells them to knock it off. Obviously, Cap could've just asked Vis what he does, but that would be kind of boring, in an issue which has a lot of exposition anyhow.
    • In the first year of Busiek's run, the Avengers fight the Squadron Supreme more than once, with one instance being the Squadron thinking the Avengers are imposters, and refuse to listen to reason.
  • Look Ma, No Plane!: A 1970s-era comic has the title heroes engaged in a battle against Thanos' starfleet. Most of the heroes fly around in small, vaguely Star Wars-ian ships, but Thor flies around smashing apart enemy ships under his own power!
  • Love Dodecahedron: The nineties team. Where to begin? Quicksilver and Crystal were having a crisis, and on the verge of breaking up. Crystal likes the Black Knight, but Sersi also likes him, and is a lot more dominant. She even took it as far as to make him his "Gann Josin", her husband under Eternal laws, with a mind link (even if Dane had never accepted that, or even be asked). But Sersi is stalked by Proctor, a scorned Black Knight from an alternate reality dumped by his local Sersi and who kills all the Sersis of the multiverse. He works with the Gatherers, other Avengers rescued from alternate realities, and loves one of those, Magdalena. But Magdalena loves her fellow gatherer the Swordsman, who reminds her of her late husband, the Swordsman of her own reality (note that the Swordsman of the main reality is still dead amid all this). Hércules, famed womanizer, falls in real love with Taylor Madison, a shy girl who thinks that she's about to die and does not dare to get engaged. The Black Widow starts to have a crush on Captain America. If you thought that the Vision, turned into an emotionless machine, would be spared from all this, think again. First he is kidnapped and replaced by an alternate Vision, who is a pervert that almost ruined Proctor's plans by trying to rape Crystal. The real Vision gets back, but he's so confused by everyone's emotional crises that he wants to retrieve his lost emotions and be capable to love the Scarlet Witch again. But before that, he must get rid of that annoying Deathbird, who makes it her life goal to seduce the all-logical Vision. Better than a Mexican telenovela, right?
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The Zodiac sent some traitors within their ranks to space, in a house that was actually a rocket... and, by a random chance, the Avengers were sent with them. However, Libra betrayed his team and rescued the Avengers. Why? Because he thought that Mantis was among them, and she's his daughter.
  • Madonna Archetype: An old Avengers arc had the team trying to find and protect the "Celestial Madonna," a woman prophesied to birth the most powerful being in the universe. I forget if the child ever lived up to its hype, but the Madonna herself turned out to be Mantis.
  • Manly Tears: "Even an android can cry!" Vision's response to being inducted to the Avengers is to duck out of the room so they can't see him start to tear up.
  • Mechanical Evolution: Often invoked by Ultron's appearances.
  • The Mole: Evil, shapeshifting Skrulls impersonated scads of heroes during the Secret Invasion storyline - and even before!
  • Mole in Charge: In one storyline, the Red Skull becomes the Secretary of Defense.
  • Moment of Awesome: In-Universe, during the fight between Hercules and Tifon, at the end of his first time as an Avenger. Tifon buried him in a landslide, and Hawkeye attacked, commenting that if Hercules can get out from all those rocks, he will be his favourite hero. Tifon gets an explosive arrow in the face, and heads to fight the mortal warriors once more, but at that moment, in a massive display of power... ah, how did you guess it? Yes! Hercules is still kickin' ass!
  • Monster Modesty: The Thing, Marrina, Hulk, and Beast were all members at one point or another.
    • Well, they are all intelligent enough to keep their modesty... Maybe even the Hulk. And Marrina and Hank aren't so big as to not find clothes that fit them.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Gorgon appears at the Avengers mansion to take them to the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal, only to realize that (contrary to promises) Quicksilver had not invited them. He begins to kick the floor in anger, as Mantis requests he not destroy their house. The Scarlet Witch corrects her: the Avengers house, she's no Avenger, she was there just as a courtesy to her boyfriend the Swordsman (who was an Avenger). Sounds mean? Well, bear in mind that in that time Mantis was trying to seduce the Vision and make him leave the Scarlet Witch for her... so Wanda was actually being polite.
  • My Own Grampa: Marcus Immortus is his own father. Initially a son of Immortus, he could not leave Limbo the conventional way without disrupting the timeline, so he abducted Ms. Marvel, seduced her, and impregnated her... arranging things so that the baby (who grew at a fantastic speed, all pregnancy in a pair of days, and from baby to young adult in hours) was Marcus himself.
  • Narm: In-Universe, when the Enchantress wants to use the late Zemo's machines on Zemo's mook, Erik Josten. He has no problems with it, as long as she doesn't give him a corny name like "Wonder Man", the previous guy. She calls him "Power Man", and he protests: that name is even more corny than the other, but what the hell...
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
    • Nice job, Loki. If not for you, the Avengers would have not existed.
    • He also deliberately causes the formation of Hank Pym's Mighty Avengers, disguised as the Scarlet Witch. By the time he starts to manipulate events to form a new Young Avengers team, he's referring to getting Avengers together as "Loki's greatest hit".
    • Morgana Le Fay's actions cause the Avengers to reform after Heroes Return, and as an added bonus, brings Wonder Man part-way back to life. Later on, the Grim Reaper's attempt at getting revenge on the Avengers yet again allows Simon to come all the way back to life.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Despite the name, they weren't found to avenge anything. It's just that the Wasp suggested they needed a cool name "like the Avengers", and everyone just went with it (hey, if the Hulk agrees with you on something, would you argue?)
  • "No Peeking!" Request: In Avengers #144, Iron Man, Captain America, and Patsy Walker happen upon the costume of the masked heroine 'The Cat' in the storage room of a Brand Corporation complex. In order to help them fight the bad guys, Patsy decides to don the costume on the spot and requests Iron Man and Captain American to turn around as she changes into it, to which they both gentlemanly comply, with the viewer only seeing her Sexy Silhouette as she changes into it. When she's done, she asks them to turn around, and we get a big panel introduction of Patsy in her Hellcat identity for the first time.
  • Not Good with Rejection: Mantis declares her love for the Vision, but he maintains his love for the Scarlet Witch, and tells her to be Just Friends. Her despair is so great that, several centuries in the future, Kang detects it, and finally identifies her as the elusive Celestial Madonna.
  • No True Scotsman: All the Avengers have high standards of superheroism, and "Once an Avenger, always an Avenger"... except for the Dark Avengers.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: Henry Peter Gyrich, the Obstructive Bureaucrat of the Marvel Universe, was first introduced in this title. How awful is he? Captain America can't stand the man. Except during Geoff Johns' run, where he Took a Level in Kindness.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Hank Pym is an expert in many scientific disciplines. In fact, the depth of his scientific knowledge has earned him the title of "Scientist Supreme" from Eternity, the living embodiment of the universe's life energy... until it's later revealed to have been either a hallucination or Loki in disguise.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • Opening a Can of Clones: The Gatherers, a group of Avengers from alternate realities, who could hunt alternate Avengers at will.
  • Opponent Switch: The Crisis Crossover Acts of Vengeance saw mostly Avengers villains going after different heroes in hopes of finally ridding them of the good guys once and for all.
  • Parody Religion: The Triune Understanding.
  • People Puppets: Vol 1 issues 110 and 111 has Magneto doing this to most of the team through magnetism (Just go with it...)
  • Performer Guise: In the first (1963) issue, the Hulk is hiding out as a clownfaced circus strongman/robot.
  • Prodigal Hero: The first story arc of Hercules. He was banished from the Olympus for a year by Zeus, and stayed with the Avengers. When the year passed, he returned... and had to save the Greek Gods from their exile in a shadow dimension arranged by the titan Tifon.

    Tropes R to Z 
  • Ragtag Band of Misfits: Many, many a team. It's not uncommon for a team to fall apart and a major crisis to come about to force a new team to be built. Among the notable were Cap's Kooky Quartet, with Captain America suddenly having a team of Heel–Face Turn adventurers on his hands when the other Avengers decided it was break time, and the original New Avengers, who formed due to the breakout at the Raft.
  • The Real Remington Steele: The "Ronin" identity.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Henry Pym has: discovered Pym Particles, sub-atomic particles which can cause anything to shrink or grow (with an attendant increase in mass); created devices which allows communication with insects; and invented a device which converts thoughts into radio waves for transmission. Any of these scientific achievements would change the world. Pym uses them to pursue his passion of being a costumed adventurer. Talk about useless...
  • The Remnant: The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree destroyed his own Empire with a Nega-Bomb, and the Avengers executed him for that. Still, a small group of Krees, called the "Lunar Legion" (because they set their base on the blue area of the moon) blame the Avengers for the destruction of their Empire and their beloved Supreme Intelligence, and try to kill them. Of course, the SI turns out to be less dead than they thought.
  • Retcon
    • Avengers 1959 establishes there was a 1959 Avengers team lead by Nick Fury, consisting of Dominic Fortune, Kraven the Hunter, Namora, Sabretooth, Silver Sable, and Ulysses Bloodstone.
    • Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2005) adds behind the scenes details to the early The Avengers stories that did not exist then, such as Captain America visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, or showing villains dealing out more destruction than in the original stories, such as the Black Knight Nathan Garrett firing on civilians instead of just spraying Adhesive X.
    • The Crossing was reviled for many reasons, chief among them being it tried to state that Iron Man was really a Manchurian Agent for Kang the Conqueror since the Avengers first fought him (which heavily derailed Iron Man's character) and that the various mental issues Hank Pym suffered over the years were really an earlier attempt to turn him into one before Kang moved onto Tony. The Crossing was so reviled that many elements of Avengers Forever were itself a retcon towards it. It was revealed that the mastermind behind the story was actually Immortus disguised as Kang in an off-the-rails attempt to distract the Avengers from preparing for Onslaught, which was one part of a possible timeline where humanity conquers the stars. Tony Stark was never Brainwashed since the Avengers first fought Kang, but was being controlled by Immortus since Operation: Galactic Storm. It was said to be brainwashed Fantastic Racism that went completely overboard and that Immortus lied through his teeth when he said he was the cause of Hank's issues. Various faces who turned evil throughout the story turned out to be Space Phantoms.
    • In Fantastic Four Annual #4, the Human Torch android was revived by the Mad Thinker to fight the Fantastic Four. In Avengers #133, Ultron reconstructed the Human Torch android to become the basis for the Vision. Avengers Forever reveals Immortus created and merged two timelines where both events happened. The Human Torch android body was still around, while the Vision still remained active as an Avenger. This allowed the Human Torch android and the Vision to both exist without causing a time paradox. The Human Torch android was revived later.
    • Avengers: The Origin gives a modern, broad strokes origin for the Avengers, replacing the Teen Brigade's ham radios with flatscreen computers.
    • In The Wedding of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, originally, a supervillian named Yellowjacket appears claiming he killed Hank to the Avengers, namely Hawkeye. He turns around and kidnaps Janet and after a Slap-Slap-Kiss moment she announces her intentions to marry him. It is made clear that by the end of the story line that Janet figured out it was actually Hank having a mental break from chemicals and adopting a new persona to cope. She saw this as her chance at happiness, which she ranted about Hank ruining due to his focus on work◊. They've attempted to retcon this story twice. Once, by having everyone on the Avengers forced to play along in order to help Hank cope◊ during his mental break. The other time, Brian Michael Bendis made it so it was said to be an elaborate PR◊ stunt◊ with◊ everyone◊ of the Avengers in the know, and that it was to throw the media.
    • In Scott Lang's first appearance, his daughter Cassie suffered from a congenital heart defect. To save her life, Scott stole Hank Pym's Ant-Man equipment and Pym Particles, which he used to rescue Doctor Sondheim, the only doctor able to cure Cassie's condition, from Cross Technological Enterprises. Scott's wife, and Cassie's mother, never appeared or was mentioned, with it being implied that Scott was raising Cassie alone. In fact, when Scott was in prison, his sister Ruth Lang and her boyfriend Carl were the ones that took care of Cassie, and have since disappeared. Then in Avengers Vol 3 #62, Scott's ex-wife Peggy Rae appears when she obtains a court ruling limiting Scott's time with Cassie to supervised visits for one month. Despite the fact that before that issue, Cassie was under his custody with no problems.
    • Mighty Avengers vol 2 #12 establishes there was a Mighty Avengers team during the 1970s.
  • Ret-Gone: The 1950s team of Avengers, shown to have been wiped out when Immortus destroyed their timeline in Avengers Forever. They were later "resurrected" in 616 canon as the Agents of Atlas.
  • Revision: Baron Heinrich Zemo was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Avengers issue 4, and retroactively treated as Captain America's archnemesis during World War II. Readers may get the wrong idea from the stories, but Zemo was not created during The Golden Age of Comic Books. And the famous story of the plane where Bucky "died" and Captain America fell into the ocean and froze, was not Captain America's finale retconned as Not Quite Dead, but a plot created by Lee and Kirby when they brought him back.
  • Revisiting the Roots: During the nineties, there were some attempts to fit the Avengers into The Dark Age of Comic Books. The Wasp turned into a freak monster, Iron Man a time displaced freak, many members with leather jackets, a X-Men tone, Deathcry... the fandom did not rejoice. Marvel tried to fix it with Heroes Reborn: it was like trying to extinguish the fire with oil. Finally, the Avengers became once more a viable comic book with Kurt Busiek and George Perez, who took a "back to the roots" angle and ignored the nineties stuff.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: Team members Vision, Jocasta, and Machine Man. Vision probably comes the closest of all, as a synthezoid. His body is an exact replica of a human's, just made of machinery.
  • Robot Clown: The very first issue of the very first series offers an extremely weird example of this trope, with the Hulk disguising himself as a robot in clown makeup.
  • Robotic Spouse: The Vision, who happens to be a "synthezoid", married the Scarlet Witch.
  • Rousing Speech: Captain America is good at these. Vol 3. has him unleash one on the Avengers, who've been brainwashed by Morgana Le Fay. It manages to snap some of them out of it instantly, and would've worked on everyone, were it not for Namor's crappy temper.
  • Rule of Cool: The Avengers do not have that name because of actually avenging anyone. Sometimes they mention that they have to "earn their title", some adaptions or alternate versions provide a figure to avenge in their origin story; but in the original story by Lee and Kirby, the Wasp proposed the name simply because it was cool, the Hulk liked it, and that was that.
  • Science Hero: Iron Man and Hank Pym are both prone to using their scientific/technological acumen against a threat when brute force proves insufficient.
    • And there's absolutely no shortage of scientists when you look at the team's history
  • Self-Serving Memory: One of Grim Reaper's attempts on the Avengers has him ranting about how his brother Simon was their father's favoured son. When Simon finally gets a chance, he tells his brother he's wrong. Their dad was crappy to both of them.
  • Shotgun Wedding: The Eternals visit the Avengers, and Sersi tells Ikaris not to threaten the Black Knight, because she wants him to be her "Gann Josin". Meaning, her husband under Eternal laws, and that includes a permanent telepathic link between them, so both share the other's thoughts as in a single mind. Angered by his discussion with the Avengers, Ikaris turns the Black Knight into Sersi's Gann Josin right away. And the Black Knight? Fine, thanks for asking. Nobody ever asked him if he wanted that, and he certainly didn't.
  • Sidekick: Rick Jones, honorary member and sidekick of The Hulk, Captain America, and Captain Marvel. The Wasp began as a sidekick of Giant Man, and in time grew as a standalone character.
  • Sizeshifter: Ant-Man (all three of them) and The Wasp, Hawkeye as Goliath, and Stature of the Young Avengers.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Norman Osborn, at least in the eyes of the civilians of the MU, as he runs the Dark Avengers.
  • Space Whale Aesop: The ending of Avengers 61. Please don't try to summon Asgardian demons at home.
  • Spin-Offspring: The Young Avengers. Subverted in that most of them aren't the Avengers' children.
  • Spoof Aesop: The first "Lady Liberators" in Avengers #83 (in the 1970s). All the movement for women rights, turned into a bad joke. The moral of the story: women should Stay in the Kitchen, and all the stuff about "liberation" is pure nonsense. It's even more jarring if you consider that, some few issues before, Roy Thomas mentioned the racial conflicts in the US, and the moral of that story about the rights of minorities was completely different.
  • Spot the Imposter: Basically the plot of Secret Invasion.
    • And the second issue ever.
  • The Squire: The Black Knight ends up with one for a time, when he rescues young Irish orphan Sean Dolan and takes him under his wing. Then it goes incredibly wrong when Sean draws the Ebony Blade to defend Whitman's family castle and is transformed by the curse into the monstrous Bloodwraith. Though Whitman eventually recovered the sword via unknown means, he implies in Captain Britain and MI13 that Sean's still trapped by the curse.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Whirlwind to the Wasp, going as far as to be her chauffeur to be near her. In Avengers Academy, he attacks the young heroes and Hank Pym for letting the Wasp die in Secret Invasion.
  • Staring Down Cthulhu: The team confronted the threat of the Elder God Chthon on Wundagore Mountain.
    • Though it's really sometimes a matter of perspective. Last time it happened, he was possessing Quicksilver's body.
  • Status Quo Is God: During Geoff Johns' run, the Red Skull infiltrates the U.S. government and manages to unleash a biological weapon that spreads across several states, killing thousands. The consequences of this horrific and unequalled terror attack? Nothing. No-one ever mentions it again.
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: Jack of Hearts, true name Jack Hart.
  • Strange-Syntax Speaker: The Mephistoid, from an alien race enemy of the Shi'Ar, seen in the 1990s. Like Yoda, to speak he likes. In a strange order, the words he says.
  • Suicide Dare: D-list villain Whirlwind verbally demoralized Hank Pym to the point that Hank put a gun to his head in a once-controversial West Coast Avengers storyline. Only another superhero interrupting Hank prevented it from being a successful attempt.
  • Super Hero
  • Superhero Gods: Team members Thor, Hercules, and Ares all claim to be actual mythological deities. Which, in the Marvel Universe, they are.
  • Super Team: Marvel's primary answer to DC's Justice League of America.
  • Surfer Dude: Mettle, before his recruitment into the Initiative/Avengers Academy, also making him one of the few ethnically Hawaiian superheroes.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: During vol 3, Morgana Le Fay uses her powers to re-write reality so she's in charge. The realistic part kicks in when being in charge means she has to actually be in charge, and deal with matters of state, as Mordred keeps pointing out.
  • Taking the Bullet: Kang the Conqueror had a crush on the princess Ravonna, who rejected him. He gave her an alternative: marry him of her own free will, or he would unleash all of his XXX century armies against her puny state, and crush it like an anthill. She still resisted, so Kang gives the order to attack, and the war is over in less than 2 pages. But there was a problem: Kang lieutenants wanted to execute Ravonna, as they did with all defeated royals, and attempted a coup against him. And so, Kang fought against his own army, to save Ravonna's life, and liberated her state. As the Avengers were being returned to the XX century, Baltag got free and shot Kang... but Ravonna, who finally fell in love with him, took the bullet to save him. And for a couple of years, the Avengers and the readers would be left with the doubt of Ravonna's ultimate fate, if she died saving Kang or not.
  • Tangled Family Tree: Ultron. No, seriously. You've got his "father" Hank Pym, Pym's wife Janet, his bride Jocasta based on Janet's brain patterns, his bride Alkhema based on Mockingbird's brain patterns, his "son" Vision, Vision's wife the Scarlet Witch (and her brother Quicksilver), Quicksilver's ex-wife Crystal, and their daughter Luna, Vision's brother-by-way-of-once-being-the-same-guy the original Human Torch, Vision's brother-by-way-of-copied-brain-patterns Wonder Man, Wonder Man's brother the Grim Reaper, Mockingbird and her husband Hawkeye, and Ultron's second son Victor Mancha. Ultron actually calls this entire group his family. Vision was later brought back but with the mental imprint of Iron Lad aka Kang the Conqueror and dated Ant Man's daughter. When Jonas, as the Young Avengers Vision came to be known as, was destroyed, the original Vision was restored. He then built a family for himself. Son Vin and wife Virginia were both quickly killed, but daughter Viv went on to become a member of The Champions, a team which later added Nadia Van Dyne, Hank Pym's daughter who was adopted by Janet. Everyone is also a part of the Summers Family Tree. (Vision -> Vision II -> Iron Lad -> Kang -> Mister Fantastic -> Powerhouse -> Hyperstorm -> Rachel Summers -> Cyclops).
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Usually played straight. However, the Avengers recognize that the rules are different in times of war. And when they say war, they mean actual war, such as Thanos invading with a massive space fleet, or Kang bringing in his army from the future to conquer the whole planet. Even then, however, they take it very seriously; after defeating Kang, for example, Warbird requested an official inquiry into her own actions, to see if they thought she had gone too far at one point. They decided she hadn't, but gave it the full consideration she requested.
    • Hawkeye's always hated killing, although he has undergone character development from the time when he objected to his wife letting the man who raped her die; he now accepts that others can and will kill, but refuses to do so himself.
    • Averted in New Avengers, where Wolverine is recruited to the team specifically because he will cross a line they won't.
  • Time Crash: The beginning of vol 4 centers around one caused by Kang, who keeps picking a fight with a version of Ultron who's taken over the world, but keeps losing, going back in time to try again, and still loses.
  • Time Machine: Kang the Conqueror uses various machines to travel through time and conquer various periods in time, stopped only in our own due to the efforts of the Avengers.
  • Time Master: Immortus, whose motives have always been a mystery to the Avengers. On several occasions he has worked to aid them in crucial times of need; on others he is trying to destroy them. According to Avengers Forever he has been engaged in a millennia long Gambit Roulette at the behest of his masters, the Time-Keepers.
  • Token Minority: The Falcon resigned because he felt he had been recruited due to affirmative action - which he was - but he was the second Avenger of African descent (the first was Black Panther, who couldn't be with the team full-time because it conflicts with his duties as King of Wakanda). There were echoes of this when Triathlon (now named 3-D Man) was forced onto the team.
  • Tornado Move: Whirlwind is an old villain who, as the name implies, can generate whirlwinds by spinning around. Sometimes, he can simply launch them or ride on top of them while his upper body remains stationary.
  • Trick Arrow: Hawkeye, long time resident bowman.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: While superhero comics typically avoid this trope, Kurt Busiek uses it a few times during his run on the book, having the team split up to deal with two or more concurrent threats. Most notably, there's the Triune Understanding subplot, which builds up slowly but steadily throughout Busiek's run. When the subplot finally reaches its culmination point, you'd think it would become the sole focus of the book... But said culmination actually happens in the middle of the long "Kang Dynasty" arc, with only a handful of Avengers involved, while the rest are dealing with Kang's threat. Captain America even complains that instead of getting involved with Triune, they should be out there fighting Kang.
  • Tyrant Takes the Helm: Norman Osborn as director of H.A.M.M.E.R. (formerly S.H.I.E.L.D.) counted as this for the entire Marvel universe.
    • Maria Hill, but to a lesser extent.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: The original Wasp, Janet van Dyne, has worn dozens of different costumes over the years. While this was originally just a joke based on her Chick personality, it was later justified as being a side perk of being a fashion designer, since she could make them all herself.
    • And despite being a female superhero with so many costumes, the vast majority are not Stripperiffic.
    • How many are actually different costumes, and how many are just drawing/coloring continuity errors is questionable, but still, Damn.◊
  • Villain Team-Up: The Masters of Evil, The Lethal Legion, and well, the Thunderbolts.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: In Avengers #1½, Giant-Man saves the Hulk from being trapped in a frictionless room. The Hulk pauses to vomit before going off to rescue the other Avengers.
  • We Can Rebuild Him:
    • Yelena Belova, the second Black Widow. After receiving crippling injuries, she was made into the new Super-Adaptoid.
    • Also the Vision (the original), in the run-up to Avengers vs. X-Men.
  • West Coast Team: West Coast Avengers; co-Trope Namer with the Teen Titans' "Titans West".
  • Wham Episode: Avengers # 16. All the original Avengers decide to take leaves of absence, leaving Captain America in charge of a completely new team of reformed villains: Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
    • Avengers vol. 3, #49. Kang drops a futuristic nuclear bomb on Washington. Earth surrenders.
    • Avengers Disassembled.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Operation Galactic Storm is an in-story example with the execution of the Supreme Intelligence.
    • Another in-story example occurs in issue 200, when a being from Limbo named Marcus impregnates Ms. Marvel with himself to properly incarnate on Earth. The Avengers show more excitement for the baby than concern for Carol, even when she has clear angst about the whole situation. Things get worse when Marcus manipulates Carol into falling in love with him, and the Avengers did nothing to stop it. At the end of the issue, when Marcus decides to return to Limbo, Carol seems compelled to join him, and the best the Avengers could do is Iron Man asking her if she knows what she's doing. She leaves, and all the Avengers could do is hope things work out well for her. Of course, when Carol returned in the 1981 annual, she expresses disappointment in how the Avengers handled the whole thing.
  • With a Foot on the Bus: Issues #183 and #184. Instead of seeking revenge, the Absorbing Man tried to take a ship to South America, where there are no super heroes (at least, not many), and he could be a jerk without any interference. Bad luck: he was a jerk to Hawkeye in his civilian identity while he's waiting at the port. This makes the Avengers come after him, and by the time he gets rid of them, the ship has already left.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Scarlet Witch and Iron Man. The former from having merged with an alien power source which was taking orders from Doctor Doom and the latter, when he was appointed by the US Government to oversee forced registration of the super-hero community, which led Tony to do crazy morally unethical and downright illegal crap.
    • Sentry, full stop.
  • Wolverine Publicity: Guess who happened to be on not one, but two Avengers teams at the same time at one point.
    • ...Spider-Man?
      • It's even lampshaded when Logan jokingly points out that the only way he could possibly be on as many teams is if he were a Skrull.
      • Lampshaded again. When Spider-Man and Wolverine finally resigned from the main Avengers team (they stayed with the New Avengers, though), Wolverine claimed it was time to leave since the Avengers already had a new mutant (Storm) and spider-themed hero (Spider-Woman).
      • It's even possible that them having been drafted to the original New Avengers gave the team the highest visibility in quite some time before the movie (especially considering how much their ranks were filled with second-stringers in the 80's and 90's).
  • Woman Scorned: Proctor is a gender-inverted example. In his alternate reality, he got married to Sersi, and shared a Psychic Link with her. However, she eventually lost interest in him, and left him to have fun elsewhere. Proctor got mad from her rejection, retrieved the cursed Ebony Sword and killed her with it, and not having enough with that, he started to kill all the Sersis from all alternate universes.
  • Working with the Ex: Ant Man and The Wasp, to the point where this is almost what the two are most famous for.
    • Also Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Scarlet Witch and Vision. And that's only the couples known for their long-term relationships.
  • Written by the Winners: Once upon a time, the Shi'Ar were almost destroyed by the Mephitisoids, an Always Chaotic Evil race with Compelling Voice. But, in their darkest hour, T'Kyll Alabar managed to inspire bravery in the Shi'Ar troops, who fought with renewed strength and managed to turn the tide of the war and win. The Mephitisoid leader was sentenced to roam space in a Sleeper Starship, alongside the hero who defeated him. Legend Fades to Myth, until the day the ship crashed on Earth. Alabar, the living legend, explains to the Shi'Ar Deathcry that it was all Shi'Ar propaganda, that the reviled Mephitisoids were actually noble aliens defending their homeland from an invading Empire. And the Vision figures out something else as well. Legend says that Alabar inspired bravery in the soldiers all by himself, but does not mention how he did it. It would be better to forget that little detail...
  • Xanatos Gambit: Subverted in the first X-Men crossover, back in the days of Roy Thomas. Magneto boasted that he had calculated everything, that he was ready for all possible outcomes. Then, the Avengers defeated the mind-controlled X-Men. Toad asked, now what? Which is the plan for this specific scenario? None. No plan. From then on, Magneto's whole business on the island began to fall to pieces.
  • You Taste Delicious: Whirlwind once licked an unconscious Wasp, making this instance one of the male-pervert inversion variety.

Alternative Title(s): Avengers, The Avengers 1963

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