In May of 1965, an eleven-cent comic book quietly ended the team as anyone had known it, and started building the version that’s still running today.
Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp all leave the Avengers in the same story — Marvel’s founding lineup, gone in a single issue only sixteen months after the team’s debut. In their place, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby install three reformed villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. Captain America, left to lead a team of near-strangers, says it himself on the page: “I? Lead this… this… kooky quartet?” The nickname stuck, and so did the format — legacy heroes rotating out, new ones earning the name, a structure Marvel has returned to for sixty years since.
A Sub-Mariner cameo closes the issue, pulling a thread into the next several years of Avengers continuity. Stan Lee scripts; Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers handle the art, with Kirby’s cover composing the new four standing exactly where the old four used to.
This copy grades CGC 8.5, Very Fine+, with off-white to white pages. Housed in a CGC universal holder, never removed from the slab since grading. A small vintage pencil arrival notation reading “3-11” is present on the front cover and was factored into the assigned grade; it’s visible in the photographs. A ComicLink dealer sticker from a prior sale is affixed to the exterior of the holder only and does not touch the book.
Ships in a Gemini graded comic mailer inside a rigid outer box, fully insured, signature confirmation on delivery.
CGC Certification #0162521003 — Marvel Comics, May 1965 — Off-White to White Pages
In May of 1965, an eleven-cent comic book quietly ended the team as anyone had known it, and started building the version that’s still running today.
Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp all leave the Avengers in the same story — Marvel’s founding lineup, gone in a single issue only sixteen months after the team’s debut. In their place, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby install three reformed villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. Captain America, left to lead a team of near-strangers, says it himself on the page: “I? Lead this… this… kooky quartet?” The nickname stuck, and so did the format — legacy heroes rotating out, new ones earning the name, a structure Marvel has returned to for sixty years since.
A Sub-Mariner cameo closes the issue, pulling a thread into the next several years of Avengers continuity. Stan Lee scripts; Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers handle the art, with Kirby’s cover composing the new four standing exactly where the old four used to.
This copy grades CGC 8.5, Very Fine+, with off-white to white pages. Housed in a CGC universal holder, never removed from the slab since grading. A small vintage pencil arrival notation reading “3-11” is present on the front cover and was factored into the assigned grade; it’s visible in the photographs. A ComicLink dealer sticker from a prior sale is affixed to the exterior of the holder only and does not touch the book.
Ships in a Gemini graded comic mailer inside a rigid outer box, fully insured, signature confirmation on delivery.
CGC Certification #0162521003 — Marvel Comics, May 1965 — Off-White to White Pages
