Abstract
- The Avengers face defeats and setbacks all through their historical past, together with their early days as a workforce of heroes.
- Villains just like the House Phantom, Namor the Submariner, and the Masters of Evil show able to defeating Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
- Nevertheless, every defeat solely served to make the Avengers stronger and extra united, finally contributing to their enduring legacy in Marvel Comics.
The Avengers are thought-about Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Marvel Comics for a motive, because the workforce has efficiently saved Planet Earth (and even all the universe) on a couple of event. Not solely that, however the Avengers are trusted to be known as upon every time future hazard happens, and that’s all attributable to their profitable observe report with previous crises.
Nevertheless, the Avengers aren’t at all times celebrating their victories, as there have been various defeats within the workforce’s historical past as effectively. In truth, in the course of the early days of the workforce’s formation, the Avengers had been simply getting the cling of being world-class heroes, which inevitably meant they’d undergo just a few defeats when going up in opposition to more and more highly effective villains. Listed below are the primary 10 villains who defeated the Avengers in Marvel Comics (in chronological order).
10 House Phantom Destroyed the Avengers RIGHT After They Shaped
Avengers #2 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
The House Phantom is a villain who has the facility to shapeshift into anybody he chooses. He makes use of this energy to not solely bodily dominate the Avengers by utilizing the skills of their very own members (primarily the Hulk), however House Phantom additionally creates mistrust of their ranks, virtually inflicting them to separate up proper after they fashioned into an official workforce.
The Avengers ultimately rally to victory, however the House Phantom’s assault yields extra than simply the Avengers’ non permanent defeat, because it additionally leads to the Hulk leaving the workforce he helped discovered, making this loss one with a long-lasting influence on the Avengers.
9 Hulk Proved Why He’s the Strongest Avenger
Avengers #3 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Earlier than he leaves the workforce for a protracted time frame following House Phantom’s assault, the Hulk and the Avengers have a correct falling out, one the place the Hulk proves why he’s popularly thought-about ‘the Strongest Avenger’. When the Hulk left on the finish of the final challenge, the Avengers went in search of him, though he clearly didn’t wish to be discovered. This led to a battle when the Avengers ultimately discovered the Hulk, one which ended with the Hulk as soon as once more making a profitable escape.
The Avengers feared that the Hulk could be harmful if left unchecked, successfully making Hulk as harmful within the Avengers’ eyes as a villain, they only didn’t rely on the truth that they, themselves, had been in probably the most hazard of all.
8 Namor the Submariner Got here Again with a Vengeance
Avengers #4 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
In the earlier challenge, when the Avengers had been scouring the globe in search of the Hulk, they inadvertently spark the wrath of Namor, who wages a small conflict in opposition to the Avengers for his or her transgressions. Namor first fights the Avengers on the finish of challenge #3, however he did not beat the Avengers till this challenge, as he, certainly, got here again with a vengeance.
Whereas the battle would finish pretty amicably (as most do with Namor), this struggle additional confirmed Namor’s really god-tier presence within the Marvel Universe, particularly throughout this period of Marvel canon.
7 Masters of Evil Took Down the Avengers With out Throwing a Single Punch
Avengers #7 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
After a string of victories all through the subsequent few points, the Avengers lastly meet their match within the type of a workforce of villains who appear to be their actual reverse. The Masters of Evil (extra precisely, the brand new and improved Masters of Evil, as the unique iteration did not make a lot of an influence) had been capable of take down Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with out throwing a single punch. After Baron Zemo (the chief of the Masters of Evil) recruited the Asgardian villains, the Executioner and Enchantress, Enchantress used her sorcery to contaminate the minds of the Avengers, forcing them to struggle amongst themselves.
The Avengers ultimately broke freed from this spell, however not earlier than they took themselves down on account of the Masters of Evil’s diabolical (and wildly efficient) scheme.
6 Kang the Conqueror Made the Avengers Look Pathetic
Avengers #8 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Lengthy earlier than changing into the big-bad of the MCU, Kang the Conqueror terrorized the Avengers throughout his first look on this challenge. Utilizing superior know-how from the longer term to overcome the previous, Kang traveled again in time to meet his villainous designs. When the Avengers launched an preliminary strike in opposition to him, Kang made them look completely pathetic, as he simply defeated every considered one of them along with his superior know-how, incapacitating them with seemingly no effort.
After accumulating themselves and utilizing their brains as an alternative of simply their brawn, the Avengers had been capable of save their current from this future conqueror, however not till after Kang made all of them seem like utter fools.
5 Marvel Man Reluctantly Took Down the Avengers (Earlier than Serving to Them)
Avengers #9 by Stan Lee and Don Heck
After the Masters of Evil noticed success with their new-recruits, it appears Zemo wished to maintain that development going on this challenge by creating the last word super-villain, Marvel Man. Marvel Man is basically unstoppable, with energy that may rival all of the Avengers concurrently – and this challenge proves it. Marvel Man was created by Zemo to take the Avengers down, and Zemo threatened Marvel Man with a ‘kill-switch’ if he didn’t do as he was advised. So, Marvel Man performed his half to perfection, as he proved stronger than all of the Avengers mixed.
In the tip, nevertheless, Marvel Man realized that he’d slightly die a hero than to proceed residing as a villain, and he sacrificed himself to avoid wasting the very heroes he was created to destroy – although not till after he proved that he may destroy them, anyway.
4 Rely Nefaria Beat the Avengers AND Damage Their Popularity
Avengers #13 by Stan Lee and Don Heck
In contrast to many different Avengers villains, Rely Nefaria didn’t use sheer energy to defeat the Avengers, however slightly good old style trickery. After inviting the Avengers to his fort for a particular gathering of their honor, Nefaria gasses the Avengers, rendering them unconscious. He then copies their likenesses and tasks his new ‘faux Avengers’ to the world, making them out to be a villainous group with designs for world domination.
Not solely did Rely Nefaria bodily take down all of the Avengers without delay by way of trickery, however he additionally harm the workforce’s repute on a world scale.
3 The Kallusians Trapped the Avengers After Invading Planet Earth
Avengers #14 by Stan Lee, Paul Laiken, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, and Don Heck
The Avengers are not any strangers to coping with alien invaders and extraterrestrial threats, however this primary encounter with alien conquerors undoubtedly took them off guard. The Kallusians had been a race of aliens who constructed a subterranean metropolis on Earth in secret. After the Avengers found a single Kallusian, they had been shortly bombarded by the life kinds till every considered one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes succumbed to their energy, and had been incapacitated and brought earlier than their chief.
Whereas the Avengers ultimately gained their freedom and made an settlement with the aliens that resulted in them leaving the planet, that doesn’t disguise the truth that they had been all however helpless within the face of this secret, extremely superior race, and had been successfully defeated by them throughout their temporary battle.
2 The Commissar Took Down the Avengers as a Group AND One-v-One
Avengers #18 by Stan Lee and Don Heck
The Commissar was the residing embodiment of the Crimson Scare, as he was a ‘super-soldier’ (really an android) of a anonymous communist nation who wished to show his superiority over the America-based Avengers – primarily Captain America. Sadly for the western capitalists, the Commissar almost succeeds in doing simply that. Not solely did the villain lure the Avengers right into a lure that incapacitated all of them without delay (which alone is a defeat in and of itself), however he additionally took every of them down one-on-one with the sheer superiority of his bodily energy.
The Commissar was lastly defeated by Scarlet Witch, who took the villain out along with her chaos magic. However, that doesn’t detract from the Commissar’s victory over all of the Avengers in the beginning of their battle, nor the truth that he defeated almost all of them one-on-one.
1 The Swordsman Practically Disassembled the Avengers For Good
Avengers #19 by Stan Lee and Don Heck
Not solely does Jack Duquesne aka Swordsman have a private connection to Hawkeye (as he skilled the Avenger when Clint was only a little one), however he additionally almost disassembled the Avengers for good throughout his debut. After he outsmarted Captain America by tricking him into considering he was accepted by SHIELD to run his personal elite job drive below Nick Fury himself, the Swordsman lured Steve Rogers to an remoted location, the place he took him off guard and almost killed him. Plus, with Steve apparently leaving the workforce, the opposite Avengers members begin planning to do the identical, which might have dissolved the Avengers earlier than they actually even proved themselves to be Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
The Swordsman’s techniques had been extra about trickery and manipulation than uncooked energy or energy, which he proved was sufficient to take down the Avengers, almost completely.
One factor to bear in mind about each considered one of these defeats is that, afterward, the Avengers got here collectively stronger and extra unified than ever to take down whichever enemy momentarily bought the higher of them. Not solely that, however every of those defeats finally made them stronger heroes in the long term, which led to the legacy Marvel Comics followers are very conscious of right this moment. And it’s all thanks to those first 10 villains who defeated the Avengers in Marvel Comics.