You Don't Know The Avengers

Like most things, The Marvel Cinematic Universe has taken some creative liberties to assure their many films tie together perfectly. Some changes are made to modernize characters, simplify plots and interweave elements in the overall universe. Just as we looked over The Guardians of The Galaxy a while ago, lets take a look at some of the original versions of your favorite Avengers!

Iron Man

Iron Man was created in 1963. Tony Stark isn't too different from how you may know him, one of the most significant differences being that instead of being the captive of Middle Eastern terrorists he was a captive of Vietnamese terrorists. This was more appropriate given the era, when Marvel wanted to update the character they changed the race of terrorists to match the current threat to America. In modern stories Stark's life is dependent on an Arc Reactor in his chest, but early on his life hinged on his Iron Man armor. For many years Tony needed to keep on his armor's chest plate to stay alive. Stan created Iron Man to be the kind of person young people couldn't relate to, he was rich and famous and he built weapons for war. To his surprise, Stan's not-so-every-man became a Marvel mainstay. Fun fact: Stan Lee once made the off-handed remark of "Where is Iron Man's nose" which caused one issue of Iron Man to feature a nose on his face plate. When Stan questioned why Iron Man had a weird nose, he was reminded of his statement and admitted to totally forgetting that he said that.

The Hulk

The Hulk was created in 1962. Inspired by characters like Frankenstein's Monster, Jekyll and Hyde, Jewish Golems, and Quasimodo, The Hulk was created by Stan Lee to be the next big thing. Figuratively and literally. See, the most popular character of Stan's Fantastic Four was Ben Grimm/The Thing. Stan saw that many readers liked The Thing because he was strong, ugly and had a big heart, making him a very likable and sympathetic character. Bruce Banner was a scientist for the U.S. Army who was tasked with testing out a bomb containing gamma radiation. This should seem familiar as many of Stan's early superheroes got their powers from some type of radiation. The Fantastic Four were hit by Cosmic Rays, Spider-Man was bit by a Radioactive spider, Daredevil was blinded by Radioactive isotope, even The X-Men and mutants across the board were partially a result of the Atomic Age. Anyway, the bomb is fired at an empty desert only for Bruce to see a teenager driving out there. The General in charge refuses to cancel the launch and Bruce drives out to rescue the teen, resulting in his absorbing gamma radiation and becoming The Hulk. Now, you would think the difference between the classic version and the film version is the fact that the film version was trying to reinvent the Super Soldier Serum using gamma radiation, but in fact the difference is that the modern version of the Hulk transforms when he gets angry, but the very first version of The Hulk transformed at night. Like a werewolf. Oh, and he was grey because Stan didn't want Hulk to fit into any racial group, it was kept green after an inking mistake.

Thor

Thor-at least Marvel's Thor-was created in 1962. Thor wasn't always Thor, in fact he was once a limp-legged doctor named Donald Blake. Blake was on vacation in the Netherlands when he saw some weird aliens land and prepare to attack Earth. Blake escaped the alien's detection by hiding in a cave and found an odd cane. Blake couldn't escape the cave because of a boulder he couldn't push, but when he struck the cane at the boulder in rage he was transformed into Thor the God of Thunder and his cane became Mjolnir. Stan wanted to create a character more powerful than the likes of Hulk and The Thing, a character more powerful than any human could become, so he chose to make a God. He figured everyone already new about Greek and Roman mythology and chose to use Norse mythology as his inspiration. Later on other writers justify this origin by saying Odin created a human body for Thor to live in and learn humility through and just make Thor into Thor. The other point to classic Thor was that despite Donald Blake being weak, he still helped save people as a doctor, showing that strength is only part of being a hero.

Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch was created 1964. Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver were the children of the mutant villain known as Magneto and were members of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, crossing the X-Men a few times. One year after her creation, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver rejected their father's mission and became heroes on The Avengers. These two would be the linchpins between The Avengers and The X-Men. Like a mentioned, both were mutants and children of Magneto, but because of movie rights their origins were recently changed to say they were adopted by Magneto and got their powers via experimentation. Scarlet Witch in particular is different from her movie version in that the film version has only shown telekinesis and the comic version uses probability manipulation which later escalated to reality manipulation. She once even recreated The Marvel Universe. We did a podcast about that story!

The Avengers

The Avengers were formed in 1963. Both the film and the original comic tell how the actions of Loki The God of Mischief brought this group together, but the roster itself it quite different. Thor, Iron Man and The Hulk (who was used as a puppet by Loki in the comic) remain accurate, but Captain America wasn't a founding member as he didn't join until issue #4. Instead of Black Widow and Hawkeye, Ant-Man and The Wasp were founding members of The Avengers. Since Ant-Man/Hank Pym hadn't appeared until after both Avengers films, Joss Whedon changed an important element of Avengers history in the second movie. The robotic villain Ultron was created by Ant-Man in the comics, but in the film he was created by Iron Man. People hate on that, but doesn't seem more likely for the creator of robotic armors to create a killer robot than the creator of size-changing technology? Anyway, another distinction was The Avengers first appeared as a superhero club instead of a government-assembled team like in the first film.

Marvel Comics aimed to make the universe feel big by introducing radically different characters, while the MCU attempts to make these characters feel more connected. Whether it be variety or relation, the Marvel Universe is still full of fresh and inspired ideas. And hey, maybe you learned a little something. And that-loyal readers-is what The Panel Biter is all about.
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