AVENGERS, THE 39
depictions found in Millar and Quitely’s run on the book. As documented by Sequart.
com ’s Julian Darius, Th e Authority became subject to various degrees of censorship by
its publisher, especially in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on
New York City’s World Trade Center and Washington, DC’s Pentagon building. Prior
to that time, the publisher had censored a male-to-male kiss between Apollo and the
Midnighter, themselves parallels of DC Comics’ own Superman and Batman. Quit-
ely left the title, citing editorial interference regarding his ultra-violent art. Ultimately,
post-9/11 sensitivities led to the preemptive cancellation of the planned Authority:
Widescreen special and the further delay of Millar’s fi nal issue, #27, which required
redrawn panels and altered art by Quitely’s replacement, Art Adams. All this, in turn,
led Millar and Adams’s own Authority inheritors, writer Brian Azzarello and artist
Steve Dillon, to back out of the commitment.
Th ough further volumes of Th e Authority would develop in the coming years—
most notably in a 2006 reboot by renowned writer Grant Morrison , which also suf-
fered from delays and his premature departure—the title would never return to its
pre-9/11 heights. Regardless, it still marks a pioneering point for mainstream comics
in pushing the limits of political correctness, hegemony, and the escalation of graphic
violence and sexuality.
A. David Lewis
AVENGERS, THE. In late 1963, writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby collected all of
Marvel’s superhero characters who were then headlining their own series (exclud-
ing Spider-Man , but adding the Hulk, whose short-lived title had been canceled
several months earlier) to form the Avengers, their own superhero team in the style
of DC Comics’ Justice League of America. Marvel already had one other superhero
team, the Fantastic Four , but the nature of that group as a family of heroes left its
lineup fairly fi xed; over the subsequent years, the Avengers would become known for
their fl uctuating rosters, as over 70 diff erent Marvel heroes have actively served in the
Avengers.
Th e initial roster consisted of Ant-Man and the Wasp (from Tales to Astonish ), Iron
Man (from Tales of Suspense ), Th or ( Journey into Mystery ), and the Hulk. Brought
together to face the threat of Th or’s half-brother Loki and then bound together in
response to their group success, the team was written with strong internal confl icts
and the Hulk, feeling untrusted, left them after only two issues. Just two issues after
that, the group added their fi rst new member, Captain America , a World War II
hero who was revealed to have been trapped in Arctic ice since the 1940s. Only a year
later, every remaining original member left the team, leaving only Captain America
and three new recruits, all reformed criminals: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet
Witch.
In 1966, Roy Th omas replaced Lee as writer, and the team saw new members
Hercules and the Black Widow added. By 1968, John Buscema had become the
series’ artist, and he and Th omas remained on the book for many years, introducing
