The Comics That Inspired Marvel's Avengers

By Jesse Schedeen

We’ve had our first look at Square-Enix’s eagerly anticipated Marvel’s Avengers game over the past few days. One thing that’s quickly become apparent is that the game is pulling from all corners of the Avengers franchise, from the movies to the comics. And according to the game’s lead creative director and writer, Shaun Escayg, Marvel’s Avengers will draw from two Marvel books in particular – Marvels and West Coast Avengers.

Read on for a breakdown of what these two books are and what this connection tells us about the conflict and themes at work in Marvel’s Avengers.

What Is Marvels?

Marvels TPB cover by Alex Ross. (Image Credit: Marvel Comics)

Marvels is a 1994 miniseries from writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross widely considered to be one of the finest comics Marvel has ever published. The series takes a real-time approach to the history of the Marvel Universe, spanning 1939 (the year Namor and Human Torch made their debuts) to 1974 (the year Green Goblin murdered Gwen Stacy). Over the course of the series, readers see pivotal Marvel Universe events unfold from the perspective of an everyman photojournalist named Phil Sheldon. Sheldon builds his reputation chronicling the triumphs and tragedies of heroes like Spider-Man, the Avengers and the X-Men, before finally being disillusioned at the end of his career when Spider-Man fails to save Gwen Stacy.

Marvels stands out as the rare comic that explores how the ordinary citizens of the Marvel Universe react to the massive battles and disasters that are an everyday fact of life to the Avengers and X-Men. Sheldon is given a ground floor view of pivotal Marvel events like Galactus’ first attack and the surge of anti-mutant hysteria in the 1960’s. His disillusionment at the end of the story reflects the transition Marvel Comics went through in the mid-70’s as the Silver Age ended and a darker, more adult-oriented storytelling approach began to take hold.

What Is West Coast Avengers?

West Coast Avengers #1 cover by Bob Hall. (Image Credit: Marvel Comics)

Where Marvels tells a single, self-contained story, West Coast Avengers had a long run at Marvel Comics during the ’80s and ’90s. It served as the first major attempt by Marvel to create a lasting companion series to the core Avengers book, paving the way for contemporary comics like New Avengers.

As the name suggests, West Coast Avengers involves the team establishing a second headquarters in California, recognizing that not every threat in the Marvel Universe centers around New York. While the team roster shifted over the years, West Coast Avengers was notable for establishing a more eclectic team dynamic that focused less on the usual A-Listers. The original West Coast Avengers team consisted of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra and Iron Man (with James Rhodes wearing the armor rather than Tony Stark). The team roster continued to balance familiar Avengers characters with unusual choices like Moon Knight, Machine Man and U.S. Agent.

The Marvels Connection

Escayg made it pretty clear how Marvels will influence the game’s story campaign. Marvel’s Avengers will focus a great deal on the relationship between the team and the people they seek to protect, showing that even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes can fail to live up to the expectations of those around them.

“There’s some themes that I really like about the Avengers,” Escayg said. “Are we superheroes, are we dangerous? Are we who we are supposed to be or are we a danger to society? In other words, can we embrace ourselves?”

Escayg specifically pointed to Hulk as an example of how this conflict might play out in the game. ” I’m a scientist, but I have this part of me that just feels really good, but he’s dangerous and he wrecks house and he destroys stuff. Is this really how superheroes are? Or am I just a giant green thing destroying and wrecking? So, those conflicts are some of the things that, for me, inspired the story and the driving forces of the Avengers. And questions how people that are just human, who don’t have superpower abilities, how do they view the Avengers? What do they think about the Avengers? So, that’s part of the core story.

So while we don’t know if Phil Sheldon will actually appear in the game (here’s hoping for a cameo, at least), Marvel’s Avengers will take pains to explore how the everyman figures of the Marvel Universe view the team and their actions.

The West Coast Avengers Connection

West Coast Avengers’ influence on the game is less easy to spot. Obviously the game won’t be pulling from the West Coast roster, as the team in Marvel’s Avengers is basically the original MCU lineup minus Hawkeye. However, the connection may spin out of the game’s first big narrative twist. We were surprised to learn Captain America is seemingly killed early in the game, leaving a major void in the already small Avengers roster. That’s already led to speculation the game might touch on the multiverse in some way, drawing in another version of Captain America from worlds unknown.

But another possibility is that Cap will be replaced by U.S. Agent. This often conflicted character originally debuted as a misguided villain, then temporarily took over the Captain America mantle and finally established his own patriotic superhero identity. U.S. Agent even joined the the West Coast Avengers as a government-mandated watchdog. It’s easy to see that plot point carrying over to the game, with the government ordering John Walker to keep an eye on the struggling team and replace the dead Steve Rogers as Captain America. We seriously doubt Crystal Dynamics went through the trouble of designing Captain America’s combat if the character wasn’t going to remain playable throughout the game, so that would be one way of providing a steady dose of Cap gameplay.

Regardless of whether Cap is replaced by U.S. Agent or an alternate universe refugee, it does seem safe to assume his death will be a major narrative catalyst. The game may draw from West Coast Avengers by having the team split into two groups in the wake of Cap’s death. Not two warring factions a la Civil War, but two teams with separate rosters and unique philosophies on how best to protect the world from ever more dangerous threats. And going hand-in-hand with the Marvels connection, the offshoot Avengers team may be a more grassroots organization aimed at reaching the hearts and minds of the ordinary civilians of the Marvel Universe.

For more on Marvel’s Avengers, check out how the Avengers game devs offered hope to Hawkeye fans and what they had to say on a possible Avengers/Spider-Man game crossover.

Also be sure to hear what else the developer told us during our sitdown interview at E3 2019:

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.