Nerd Factor: The Most Important Avengers Story Ever

Written by Dr. Mike Robinson

Photo of Avengers #4 comic book cover. Retrieved from Marvel.com. 

The most important issue of the Avengers is not what you might guess. It’s not the origin story in which a disparate group of Marvel heroes gather together to stop the machinations of Loki. It’s not some epic battle with Thanos, Kang, or the Masters of Evil. 

No, the most important issue is Avengers #4, a comic that arrived 60 years ago this January. That issue featured the return of Captain America, but even that’s not the reason it’s the most important Avengers story ever. 

Thanks to the MCU movies, we are all familiar with the basic structure of the Captain America story. At the end of World War II, Cap goes on a vital mission which, although successful, tragically leaves Cap frozen in ice. Cap’s frigid fate is one of the most famous retcons of all time because that story was created for this issue in order to explain away a real life pause in production of Captain America comics.

In the late 1940s, horror and crime comics started outperforming the superhero stories that had charged the industry during World War II. In fact, Cap’s own comic was taken over by scary stories, briefly switching to Captain America’s Weird Tales (issue #75 doesn’t even have Cap in it) and then just Weird Tales. In 1954, Cap’s adventures briefly returned with him redubbed as a “Commie Smasher,” but those only lasted a few issues. 

Cap himself had not shown up in a comic in a decade when Avengers #4 hit the newsstands. * Writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby decided to ignore the Commie Smasher era and crafted the explanation of Cap’s arctic slumber instead. ** But again, this man-out-of-time theme is not why this is the most important Avengers story ever.

In fact, if you’ll excuse the heresy, this story is a bit bonkers plot-wise. In previous issues, founding member the Hulk has quit the group (in unsurprisingly a fit of anger) and briefly joined Namor, another former World War II hero who is menacing the surface world. Namor also has a legendarily bad temper and at the start of this story he chucks an icy humanoid figure into the ocean just to be a jerk to the people who worship it. The Avengers find that frozen figure is Cap. They thaw him out and take him back to NYC where Cap somehow misses the rest of the gang being turned into statues by an alien masquerading as a photographer. Cap wanders around this newly modern world bemoaning the way he feels out of place and the loss of his friend Bucky until Avengers’ mascot Rick Jones helps him defeat the alien menace. Oh, and there’s time for one more fight with Namor too. *** 

So why am I calling this the “most important Avengers story ever”? In the second-to-last panel on the final page, the narrative caption tells us we are witnessing a “momentous moment” as we watch Captain America sworn into the Avengers. 

Captain America is the first new member to join the Avengers. He will certainly not be the last. This rotating roster of membership defines the group. Superheroes come and go from the group. Over the past six decades, it’s become harder to think of someone who has never been an Avenger. ****

The Fantastic Four are a family. The X-Men are students at a school. As we learned sixty years ago, the Avengers are a team!

*Interest for Cap’s return was gauged or perhaps hyped up by having a Human Torch villain named the Acrobat impersonate Cap in August, 1963. 

**Commie-Smasher Cap would turn up years later, revealed to be another agent given a flawed super soldier serum that drove him mad and led him to embrace fascism. 

*** Remember that the next time you hear an old-school fan complaining that the MCU movies messed up the classic stories. Could you imagine if the 2012 movie was like this?

****Heck, even good ole Namor ends up becoming an Avenger!