Much of the recent MCU offerings in movies and on Disney+ has been dominated by comic book storylines originating in or connected to the Avengers series from Marvel Comics. Many of these storylines come from some of the best writers that ever worked on the book, representing every era of the nearly six-decade old superhero team.
Each writer brought their own unique vision to the team, but they also left their mark on the Avengers going forward. Some pushed the team into the future, while others took things back to basics to connect fans to what made the team so special in the first place. All of them have proven essential in the story of the Avengers.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is instrumental in the history of Marvel Comics as a whole, so it’s no surprise he helped inaugurate the Avengers in 1963 along with legendary artist Jack Kirby. Comic book fans know the Fantastic Four, the team that Lee and Kirby co-created in 1961, had a major influence on the Avengers in the sharp contrast of differing personalities.
Lee played up the conflict for drama in the early going, to the point the team roster fluctuated severely in the early issues of the book, with the Hulk leaving and Captain America joining in issue #4. While his writing style is definitely of its time, Lee was crucial in laying the foundation for the Avengers that other writers would build upon.
Mark Millar
Mark Millar’s time on the Avengers was actually in service of their Ultimate Comics counterpart, The Ultimates. This early 2000s reboot of the team provided fans a new jumping-on point and was hugely influential on the MCU in terms of character dynamics and looks, with this version’s Nick Fury serving as a direct inspiration for Samuel L. Jackson’s take on the character.
Millar provided a grittier and more realistic take on the team, especially in the first two mini-series featuring the Earth-1610 squad. Millar placed the team in the context of the real world at the time, interacting with then-President Bush and challenging perceptions of some characters like Captain America, who in this iteration was not as heroic as he appeared.
Mark Gruenwald
Mark Gruenwald is perhaps best known by Marvel Comics fans for his legendary decade-long run on Captain America, but he also worked on the main Avengers title for a time. Gruenwald’s tendency for big stakes and complex plots is perhaps best reflected in “The Terminatrix Objective,” one of the best Kang the Conqueror story arcs, in which a variant of Ravonna Renslayer attempts to take down Kang.
Gruenwald also provided many fill-in issues over the years, including the epilogue of the Acts Of Vengeance crossover story in AvengersAnnual #19 and Hawkeye’s first miniseries in 1983. While not a prominent Avengers writer, Gruenwald wrote many issues that would serve as inspiration for future MCU projects like Loki.
Steve Englehart
Steve Englehart is notable in Avengers history for a number of major storylines involving the Scarlet Witch and the Vision. Perhaps the most significant was Giant-Size Avengers #4, in which the two Avengers get married in a historic ceremony that saw Kang crashing the wedding and Immortus marrying not only Wanda and Vision but Mantis and the ghost of the Swordsman as well.
He also wrote the second The Vision and the Scarlet Witch mini-series in the mid-80s in which the couple conceives their children, a key inspiration for 2021’s WandaVision Disney+ series. His contributions to the lore of the team also included a major battle between the Avengers and the Defenders in issues #115-118 and a run on the West Coast Avengers in the ’80s.
John Byrne
John Byrne’s run on West Coast Avengers produced some of the best Avengers comic book issues of the 1980s. There were also some of the most consequential. His “Vision Quest” storyline introduced fans to the White Vision, a reassembled version of the character devoid of all emotion.
Other issues also revealed that his children with the Scarlet Witch weren’t real, but products of magic derived from the fragmented soul of Mephisto. These acts would be enormously consequential for the comics, especially in House Of M, and most recently in the WandaVision series.
Roger Stern
Roger Stern had one of the longest runs on the Avengers title in the ’80s, making it one of the most definitive. During his tenure, which started with issue #227, Stern introduced Monica Rambeau as the new team leader and left Avengers Mansion in ruins at the hands of Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil. Issue #262 pitted the team once again against Kang the Conqueror, which introduces the concept of the Council of Kangs, a major element of the character in the comics and sure to be one in the MCU going forward.
Jonathan Hickman
Jonathan Hickman is well regarded by Marvel Comics fans for many landmark runs on titles like the Fantastic Four and most recently, the X-Men. The Avengers is no exception, with Hickman’s essential run on New Avengers a standout for its exploration of members Black Panther and Namor and for its focus on Thanos’ Black Order.
Hickman’s trademark sci-fi ideas, always massive in scope, dominate the book from when he took over in 2012 on the main title as well as the New Avengers. The team battles aliens on Mars, takes on Thanos once again, and builds toward what would become perhaps the single biggest Marvel comic in terms of scope – 2015’s Secret Wars, which collapsed the multiverse to one reality organized by Doctor Doom.
Roy Thomas
When Stan Lee stepped back from the book, Roy Thomas took over with issue #35. His extended run on the title defined the book for decades to come and was instrumental in shaping what would become the larger Marvel Universe. He wrote “The Kree-Skrull War” in issues #89–97, which broadened out the cosmic scope of the Marvel Universe in a big way.
During this period, Roy Thomas created or co-created some of the most important Marvel characters like Ultron, Ghost Rider, and Carol Danvers, providing icons for future comics stories and now the MCU. He was also instrumental in broadening the team’s membership to include such heroes as the Vision and Black Panther, both of whom would become important Avengers in both comics and the MCU.
Kurt Busiek
Kurt Busiek defined the Avengers in the late ’90s and early 2000s after a period of extreme flux not just for the team, but the comics industry. His run on the book took the team back to their roots in many ways after lots of experiments like the 1996 Heroes Reborn crossover event and the disastrous The Crossing storyline which saw Tony Stark betray his teammates.
Busiek assembled a crew of classic members such as Hank Pym and the Wasp to take on legendary foes like Kang the Conqueror in one of the best Avengers storylines from the late ’90s, Avengers Forever. Busiek’s love of comic book lore, also evident in his creator-owned Astro City series, is on full display through his run and he was key in restoring the team to prominence at a time when the X-Men dominated the comic book marketplace.
Brian Michael Bendis
Few writers have had as much impact in recent years as Brian Michael Bendis. He is largely credited with modernizing the Avengers in the early 2000s, with a series of major storylines that continue to influence current comics events. Among them is House Of M, which could be the most significant Marvel story of the 21st century given its long-lasting impacts on both the Avengers and the X-Men. He also wrote Civil War and Secret Invasion, with the former adapted into the MCU as a major movie and the latter about to be a streaming series.
