The Avenging Hour

This is it! The big anniversary issue to announce the new lineup and its going to...oh wait, never mind, it's mostly reprints. But the next issue has the new lineup and wait, it's written by three people, guest stars Thing and The Champions, and only Beast joins the team? But the next one...ugh...Wonder Man is a zombie and they fight a swamp man in a chicken suit? Oh boy.

The Avengers finally finish business on the Squadron Supreme's world, stealing their president's Serpent Crown and fleeing. Back on their own Earth, they face off against the Brand Corporation and the "might" of Orka. Oooooooh.

Tony Isabella and Don Heck present a two-issue fill-in that makes no sense but also does no harm. Be amazed as The Assassin puts Captain America in the hospital and then takes a roundabout approach to trying to kill everyone else before ultimately being murdered by their own henchmen. Hooray!

It's the final showdown with Kang, mostly because Thor makes him so mad he kills himself. Two Gun Kid decides he wants to go to the future, while Hawkeye plans to quit the team. And Patsy Walker becomes Hellcat right before the rest of the team gets zapped into the Squadron Supreme universe.

Captain America returns and recruits the team to help him break into the Brand Corporation to investigate some shenanigans, but they're immediately defeated by the Squadron Supreme. Immortus helps Thor and Moondragon travel back to the Old West where they find Hawkeye trying to stop Kang from robbing a uranium train with the help of Marvel's Western heroes.

As Wasp lies at Death's door yet again, Whirlwind decides to try to kidnap her. In the ensuing fight, Yellowjacket gets injured and starts growing uncontrollably. Just as we think we may finally get rid of the two Pyms for good, Beast has to go and save them with science. Thanks a lot, new guy.

Time to find some new team members! Looks like Moondragon and Beast are the first two applicants. Of course, they have to get past The Stranger (who seems somewhat stranger than the usual Stranger) first. And Wasp almost dies...again.

Could this possibly be the end to the Celestial Madonna saga? Let's just say it goes out in spectacular fashion. Vision and Scarlet Witch get married. Mantis marries a tree, becomes an official member, then disappears. Plus we get surprise appearances from Dormammu, Kang, and the Space Phantom. It's truly magical.

It's a short one this week, filled with partial origins for Vision and Mantis. We find out what happened to the original Human Torch. We find out why the Kree and the Skrulls hate each other. We meet Moondragon. And we see Scarlet Witch get attacked by a chair.

There are Kangs everywhere! Rama Tut is a Kang! Immortus is a Kang! Even Kang is a Kang! After sitting around Vietnam killing muggers, the team is transported to a castle dungeon in Limbo and forced to face the Legion of the Unliving. Iron Man almost dies. Vision discovers he's the original Human Torch. And some hooded weirdo meets Swordsman's green ghost in an alley.

Great...Kang is back. The team is kidnapped. Hawkeye returns. We get involved in a whole time travel thing and the Celestial Madonna saga begins. The Swordsman dies. The team fights some bad guys in Vietnam. And we all wonder why we wasted our time.

Scarlet Witch learns that The Whizzer is her dad. Ultron interrupts the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver. The Fantastic Four dump their nanny witch in The Avengers' laps causing some creep named Necrodemus to attack. And now Kang is back. Thanks a lot.

Thanks to some girl who knows Rick Jones, the Avengers get caught up in an intergalactic war with Thanos. We end the issue with the gray-skinned alien hiding out on the mansion's roof. Then Klaw and Solarr try to trick Black Panther into giving up his country. It goes so badly that T'Challa quits the team out of shame.

We get a mini origin for Mantis that will likely change a million times. Swordsman manages to not get killed, but does cry on Scarlet Witch's shoulder. And the team fights a space dragon.

The Zodiac attacks! First they try to zap everyone in Manhattan who's a Gemini, then they blast our heroes into space, and then they fight among themselves long enough for everyone to get bored and leave. Oh, and Libra thinks he's Mantis's father.

It's the end of the Avengers-Defenders War! The teams stopped fighting themselves and had to stop Dormammu from conquering reality. The Defenders went off to the Crusades for no apparent reason. And the Avengers went to Rutland, Vermont to fight The Collector and leave Loki on a farm.

Part One of the Avengers-Defenders War! The storyline where heroes fight heroes for no reason whatsoever...well, okay, they're trying to gather pieces of the Evil Eye to turn the statue Black Knight back to the human Black Knight, but Dormammu and Loki are pulling their strings!

Great, the Lion God is back thanks to our newest member Swordsman and his lady friend Mantis. Luckily there was a spare adamantium tube lying around to stuff him in. Then the team travels to England where they're attacked by the Mole People imitating the cast of a Renaissance Faire. These issues are horrible. We're sorry (again).

Black Widow helps the team defeat The Lion God and then quits, because this is all too much. Then a group calling themselves The Living Bombs (ironic) try to blow up Vision. Just another day in the Avengers' world...

Hawkeye leaves the team in a huff. On the plus side, he goes back to his old costume. On the not so plus side, he has to fight a nine foot tall guy who calls himself Champion and wants to blow the west coast off the country. Then Magneto bull rushes the X-Mansion and the team scrambles to stop him and his weird mind control powers before it's too late (spoiler alert: they beat the clock).

Captain America has enough flashbacks to give everyone PTSD as Space Phantom and Grim Reaper hatch a ridiculous plan to kill the Avengers and transfer Vision's brain into Cap's body. Needless to say, it doesn't work.

It's the issues that Jason didn't really read. The team faces off against the Sentinels, but lets Larry Trask beat them and get killed in the process. Then Quicksilver leaves. Next we visit the Savage Land for no good reason. Thankfully, Steve Englehart is our new writer...

Oh boy. You'd think a story "co-written" by Harlan Ellison would be good. You'd also be VERY wrong. Any time The Watcher shows up you know you're in for something horrible. Then, Grim Reaper offers to put Vision in Wonder Man's dead body. Meanwhile, a Sentinel kidnaps Scarlet Witch.

These three issues all have something to do with Ares, which means they're pretty awful. First Ares disguises himself as Warhawk and tries to incite riots on Earth. Then he gets his hands on the Black Knight's Ebony Blade. Goliath returns as Hawkeye. Hercules returns, but doesn't know who he is. And we celebrate a rather bland centennial issue..

It's the end of the Kree-Skrull War where we find out it was all a Captain Mar-Vell fever dream, the Supreme Intelligence was just a jar of pickled eggs, and Ronan the Accuser was a stray dog that licked Rick Jones's toes in his sleep. Or something like that.