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Marvel Comics is setting up a new, high-profile relaunch of its venerated Avengers franchise later this year, following the conclusion of the current 'Avengers Assemble" arc which marks the end of longtime writer Jason Aaron's years-long run on the title.
In anticipation of the relaunch, Marvel has dropped some clues about what to expect when the new creative team arrives - though the publisher has remained tight-lipped about who the new creators of Avengers will actually be.
Still, there have been some big hints about what might be in store, particularly the unveiling of a new logo for the title which calls back to one of the most underrated eras of the Avengers, the '80s Mighty Avengers era, in which a team comprised of a few mainstays and many new inductees faced off with threats including Kang the Conqueror and his many Multiversal Variants in a years-long plotline.
So is the new Mighty Avengers-esque throwback logo a hint at what's to come for the Avengers? Combined with some other clues - and the general vibe between Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios together - it's looking a lot like Marvel might be going retro to channel one of the Avengers' most beloved and formative chapters into a new story that may just go back to the '80s for the new Avengers team roster and concept.
The Mighty Avengers
The biggest clue to the possible direction of the upcoming Avengers relaunch is the logo, which was unveiled in the wake of 2022's Timeless one-shot (more on that in a moment). The new logo's font evokes the Avengers title's '80s era, during part of which it had the added adjective 'Mighty Avengers.'
The main creators of the Mighty Avengers era were writer Roger Stern and artists AL Milgrom, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, and Tom Palmer, who together assembled a roster of the Avengers that remains a cult-favorite, and redefined the role of Kang as an Avengers villain as well as his place in the Multiverse.
The roster of the Mighty Avengers era consisted of numerous Avengers over the years, but some of the core team members include mainstays Captain America and Thor, alongside She-Hulk, Black Knight, Monica Rambeau, Starfox, Namor, and Hercules - in other words, most of the new class of Avengers and potential Avengers that have recently been introduced in the MCU.
That brings us to the upcoming new MCU villain Kang, who has been one of the Avengers' biggest enemies since his introduction in the team's earliest days. But in the Mighty Avengers era, he was redefined as not just a threat across time, but across the Multiverse itself, with the introduction of the so-called Council of Cross-Time Kangs - a massive parliament comprised of dozens of Variants of Kang from all around the Multiverse.
The saga of Kang and his Variants was one of the core stories told in the Mighty Avengers era, with wide-reaching ramifications that still come up in the Avengers from time to time today - including in the recent 2022 edition of Marvel's Timeless one-shot, which focused on a so-called 'missing moment,' which seems to involve not just Kang but multiple other Marvel villains.
Following the release of Timeless #1 in December, Marvel unveiled the new, Mighty Avengers-esque logo, noting that the aforementioned 'Missing Moment' would be at the heart of the team's upcoming relaunch.
The Mighty Avengers in the MCU
Adding up the clues, it seems like the new Avengers era could be calling back to the classic Mighty Avengers days in which Kang and his ilk were a constant presence in the team's adventures. And given the years-long presence of many of the core MCU Avengers in departing writer Jason Aaron's ongoing series team, it's also a safe bet we'll see some kind of roster shake-up with the relaunch as well.
All of that said, we can't help but also notice the similarities between the current trajectory of the MCU Avengers and the clues being laid down for the upcoming Avengers comic book relaunch.
Both teams are on a direct path to encounters with Kang, whose debut in this year's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania foreshadows 2025's Avengers: Kang Dynasty, which pits the time conqueror against Earth's Mightiest Heroes directly.
The thing is, much like in Marvel Comics, we're likely to see an almost entirely new MCU Avengers team when they reassemble for Kang Dynasty, with Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, and Clint Barton all fully or mostly retired, dead, or otherwise away from the core MCU.
And given the roster of characters that have recently been making their way into the MCU - namely Monica Rambeau (in WandaVision and the upcoming The Marvels), Black Knight (Eternals), Hercules (Thor: Love and Thunder), Namor (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Starfox (Eternals), and She-Hulk (eponymous Disney Plus series), among others - the fan-favorite line-up of the Mighty Avengers era could be a solid landing point for Marvel Studios to aim for.
Of course, if that means that the new Avengers comic book roster and direction have some semi-organic symmetry with the new MCU Avengers when they're fully unveiled, all the better for Marvel.
And if Marvel can tap into the charm and epic superhero feel of the Mighty Avengers era in the modern day, all the better for fans as well.
The '80s era Avengers also included the story Avengers: Under Siege, which we ranked at the top of our list of the best Avengers stories ever.
