“History is movement, and if you’re not riding with it then in all probability you’re beneath its wheels… [Yet] in even the most contemporary of modern comic books, our previous heritage looms large, and is in many ways the most important signifier.”

 —Alan Moore

“The Avengers are the varsity.”

—Kurt Busiek

The Avengers are indeed, as writer Kurt Busiek once stated, the varsity among Marvel’s superhero teams. Created as something of an answer to DC’s successful Justice League of America series in 1963, the book enjoyed immediate success in the hands of the legendary Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Later eras represented varying degrees of artistic and financial success, yet nearly all of them maintained something of the larger-than-life quality that separates the Avengers from even the most heroic of the other characters and teams in the Marvel Universe. And in a mere few months, they will have their own big-budget Hollywood movie that should dominate the summer box office.

What is it about the Avengers as a concept that works so well? Why does the very nature of a group of super-powered individuals (and in the case of the Avengers, they are very much individuals) generate such excitement among so many readers and fans?

One answer may be found by examining another genre of adventure stories that might at first seem unrelated, yet upon closer inspection turns out to be very similar to superhero comics: the Cowboy/Western drama.

Much of the appeal of the Western or cowboy drama lies in its presentation of a time and a place where little or no authority or law enforcement existed. In such a scenario, the average citizen finds himself at the mercy of violent and dangerous forces beyond his control. He can rely only upon the moral rectitude, honor, and willingness of an empowered few (the sheriff, the marshal, the nameless drifter) to stand up to the forces of evil and protect the frightened masses.

In a few instances, however, the forces arrayed against society appear so overwhelming that only a collection of virtuous souls—a Magnificent Seven, if you will—made unique by their possession of weapons, training, or special knowledge, can possibly hope to prevail.

Move this scenario ahead in time approximately one hundred years and you have the super-hero, the super-team, and, specific to our topic here, the Avengers.

Tony Stark might as well have made the front entrance to Avengers Mansion a revolving door, because the membership never remains stable for long. Though their membership has changed many times (or prospered, as that same masthead would have it), they have ever answered the call. An entirely different set of individuals might show up, were one to call upon the Avengers twice in a year, but one still would have confidence that whoever constituted the team on a given day, they could handle the task at hand. They are the big boys and girls of Marvel’s Earth, tough enough on their own but nigh-unstoppable as a group. If they cannot get the job done, it probably cannot be done, and the world should just call it a day and say goodbye.

Yet if one constant with Avengers has been change, the other has been that history repeats itself.

Time and again, the book’s future has appeared bleak, its membership in disarray, its creative team seemingly fumbling for material. And yet, time and again, a new writer with new ideas and a new artist (or an old one) with a fresh (or tried and true) approach have stepped forward, restoring the title’s credibility and creating, in the words of David Wingrove, “a new tune from the old keys.”

Alan Moore has said the job of each successive creative team of a comic series is not just to create something as good as what came before, but to create something as good as we remember it to be. That is a tall order, and one that has resulted, more often than not, in failure; in forgettable stories and regrettable choices that often had to be “retconned” later, creating even more problems and confusion.

And yet, over the years, one gem of a story after another has emerged. Really, how could they not, given the wonderful characters with which the creators have to work?

Heroes, yes—but very human ones. Even the gods and synthezoids are at their core utterly human. Their petty jealousies and resentments, their incessant need to squabble and backbite and turn against one another, always revealed these near-gods to have feet of clay, feet very firmly kept on the ground by their own worst instincts and actions.

How much more satisfying to read about near-godlike beings who really, truly, were no better than the rest of us. Such tales have entertained mankind since before the gods of Olympus first strode the fields of ancient Greece. Throw in Asgardians and synthezoids and mutants and the like, and you have a feast for modern imaginations and sensibilities.

But always, always, just beyond all of that, just a tad beyond the mind’s ability to fully encompass and comprehend it, lay something more. Something not quite quantifiable.

It’s the power and the glory.

And it cannot quite be explained. But it is real. It is very, very real.

It’s why, as a nine year old, I first fell in love with these characters. It’s why, as a college student at the dawning of the Internet, I created the AvengersAssemble.net site. And it’s why, as a grownup with a career and real-life responsibilities, I continue to think of them so fondly—and why they served as the primary inspiration for my Sentinels novel series.

Some months, some years, some eras, I find what I’m seeking. Other times, I do not. Such is the nature of change.

Yet still I come back. Those of us who love the Avengers always come back, eventually, drawn by the whispered words or fervent proclamations of others, looking to recapture that lost magic, looking not just to find what we found before but to feel again what we felt before, that first time we picked up a copy of Avengers.

They’re the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. They’re always there for us. They bring the power and the glory, and we love them for it. Through all the changes; through good times and bad, through stellar creative teams and through periods that disappoint us, we still love them.

As the masthead long proclaimed, “Through the years, their roster has prospered, changing many times, but their glory has never been denied!”

The power and the glory!

Heed the call, then, for now:

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!