What is this book about:

Heroes in the Marvel Universe, joining together to fight threats no single hero could withstand.

The Avengers in the Marvel Universe (MU), are the most prestigious and powerful super-hero team in the world. These heroes are often thrust into adventures involving cosmic to local menaces while dealing with interpersonal drama between teammates. This has enabled readers to relate to these characters when at often times it seems nearly impossible to when they display godlike abilities and live lifestyles beyond that of normal people.

Why you should read this book:

The Avengers roster throughout this series always appeared to be this motley crew of thrown together superheroes. Each member never truly looked as if they belonged there. But ultimately in every story what I found was that each member provided something to the team. Even if you couldn’t see it at the time. For example: The first incarnation of The Avengers was Thor (an actual god), Ironman (an engineer who built a metal suit), Hank Pym/Antman (brilliant chemist/biologist who decided to use his knowledge to right wrongs), The Wasp (an heiress to her father’s fortune who gained powers from her husband), and the Hulk (a loose cannon who no one can control). At first glance you have to wonder what the hell is a woman like The Wasp, who can shrink, doing on a team with the actual god of thunder? But the writers always manage to usually create a well thought story that makes sense and uses each members personality, knowledge, powers, and prowess. Thor is not a strategist, Captain America however, is. Hank Pym is not an engineer, Ironman however, is. Then of course you have members like Thor and Hulk providing muscle to the team which is obviously very important as well. So with each story each member provides their own personal insight and expertise to the predicament at hand.

As much as I don’t agree with many choices the writers make in regards to who joins the team I do like to see different line-ups. And that’s one of the greatest things about the Avengers. Is the line-ups. Each member offers something different at different times. So you get such a broad array of personality’s and powers coming through. This is probably the first and foremost reason you should read these Avengers books. So many “team” based books you see now are modeled after the Avengers, as well as the Justice League over in DC. Each team is entertaining and thought provoking but I feel like The Avengers and the writers they hire to write these stories are actually the one’s doing it consistently better time and time again.

The story in particular I would highly recommend is “The Crossing Line” (The Avengers Volume 1 # 319-324).

The Crossing Line is a story about soviet terrorists stealing a UK submarine armed with missles en route to blow up New York City. The Avengers get involved to stop them, meanwhile refugee’s from Atlantis intervene claiming they are tired of surface dwellers destroying their homes underwater. So these Atlanteans try and get these missles out of the water before they detonate and destroy their land. At the same time the People’s Protectorate, a russian super hero team, involved themselves since it was russian terrorists who hijacked the submarine.

What was so interesting to me about this story was that it was international. Not only did it involve the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States it involved Atlantis and Canada as well. Because during the fight underwater the submarine was rerouted to Newfoundland. Which is in Canada and is part of Alpha Flights jurisdiction. Also, this is truly an underdog story. The Avengers line-up here consisted of: Captain America, The Vision, Sersi, Quasar, and Stingray. Captain America and Sersi were the only one’s with true experience here. Because the Vision at this point had been mindwiped of Simon Williams brain wave patterns, Quasar who just recently came into possession of the Quantum Bands, and Stingray an oceanographer who has little to no combat experience. I don’t think this particular group has gone down in history as one of the peoples favorites. But after reading this story I now think I like this line-up more than any other that has come before.

The story continues as the situation worsens, the missles detonator becomes connected to the terrorists nervous system, heroes are captured and shot, powers are tested and strained, and in the end the town, it’s inhabitants, all the heroes, terrorists and Atlanteans get swept away by a member of Alpha Flight to limbo when a nuclear warhead is detonated. This story went on for six issues and keeps you captivated moment to moment because there are so many people and things going on that put people’s own self perseverance to the test. Additionally this story exemplifies the act of avenging and heroes joining together to fight threats no single hero could withstand. This story truly defined the Avengers to me.