Teams will get big enough that they need to have branches to help focus on different goals. The Mighty Avengers started as a way to lead a national set of teams that went on to become more of a street level team. How does one team go from one of fifty and meant to be a global team as well into a team for the people? Let’s find out!
When the dust had settled from the hero Civil War, Tony Stark was now head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and looking to put registered heroes to work. The Fifty States Initiative was formed to have each state able to have its own hero team to protect and serve it. For New York, it was decided to not only be the state’s team, but the global protector. The Mighty Avengers would be the best of the best from the registered roster for this very reason.
The Mighty Avengers would deal with not only traditional villains, but also, their own former colleagues who had not registered post-Civil War. While they were obligated to bring in any heroes who were not registered, desperate times call for desperate measures, they would be forced to work together. When the Skrull invasion, which involved a massive shapeshifting masquerade as many heroes and powerful politicians, the Mighty Avengers experienced huge upheaval as some of the team was proven to be Skrull.
The aftermath of the events had Tony forced out of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Norman Osbourne taking over the team and forming H.A.M.M.E.R. The new Mighty Avengers were formed to quietly counter the new core Avengers team, who were villains dressing up as other established heroes, pretending to be them. This roster would last until the death of team member Hercules.
There was no Mighty Avengers team for a time until there was no other Avengers team available on Earth when Thanos took advantage of such a weakness. Luke Cage, a former rival of the Mighty Avengers due to his unregistered status, would unite with several other heroes to make a new team of the Mighty Avengers. They were to have a phoneline and even a walk up service for every day people to ask for aide from their local heroes.
While the new Mighty Avengers sought to protect and serve the common citizens, they soon found themselves working in strange adventures with cults and invaders from space. The team would also end up fighting with one another when strange circumstances made some good people bad and some bad people good. They would even take on one of the many world-ending events and survive the end of the world.
There you have it! The Mighty Avengers have been a more recent branch of the Avengers in the last twenty years of Earth’s mightiest heroes. They’ve changed as time went on but their idea was similar to their core team, protect the world when more than one hero was needed. We’ll likely see another Mighty team down the line. See you then!
Suggested Reading
The Mighty Avengers
Captain America and the Mighty Avengers
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
