Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.

I was going to do this as a "When We First Met," but I realize that it really doesn't work for that, as it isn't something that anyone was really wondering about, as it is actually quite the opposite, it is something that I am sure most people DON'T know about. I have a "Just a Reminder" column, but that is generally for more important things than this, so I figured I'll just use my catchall "Knowledge Waits" category for this one.

In any event, as you may or may not have heard, the Black Panther was recently voted the chairperson for the current Avengers. It was a unanimous vote, to boot!

However, I thought it was interesting to note that this is actually NOT the first time that Black Panther has been the chairperson of the Avengers. It's just that the chairperson of the Avengers did not have the same meaning then that it does today.

You see, in the early days of the Avengers, they didn't actually have a leader in the traditional sense. Each member of the team took turns being the chairperson of the team (well, back then they called it chairman, even though the Wasp got a stint early on). The Wasp even pointed out at the time that she thought it was a bad idea not to have a permanent leader. The first chairperson that we ever saw was, appropriately enough, Captain America...

So the various members of the team traded off the head gig for the next eight issues until the Avengers got their big revamp, with Giant-Man, Iron Man, Thor and Wasp all leaving the team and Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joining the team for the first time, with Captain America being the only member to remain from the previous iteration of the squad. With so many new members, they decided that it did not make sense to have a rotating chairperson anymore, but instead, Captain America was named the first permanent chairperson of the team...

Cap lead the team for the next year and a half, but Stan Lee did not like the idea of the most popular heroes being on the Avengers, as he felt that the team book should be used on the lesser characters, as the main characters all had their own titles, so Lee pushed for Cap, Iron Man and Thor to not be involved in the Avengers when Roy Thomas took the series over. This led to Captain America ultimately telling Hank Pym, when Pym returned to the team (now as Goliath) that Pym should be the leader of the team instead. However, when Cap was around, people still pretty much deferred to him.

He left the team, though, around Avengers #50 and recommended that Black Panther take his place. This, then, was another time that they decided to go to a rotation chairperson again.

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Well, sure enough, in Avengers #63 (by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan and George Klein), it was T'Challa's turn to be the chairperson and this was not just a ceremonial or administrative gig, he WAS the leader of the team, as we see when he orders Hawkeye to stand down on a mission involving the Black Widow. Of course, Hawkeye followed the orders of Black Panther as much as he did of Captain America when Cap was chairperson, which was not very much at all...

The Avengers didn't go to a permanent chairperson again until Avengers #128, when Thor got the nod. They've had permanent chairs ever since, with Black Panther now being the latest one.

Just an interesting piece of Avengers history I thought it would be nice to share.

If anyone else has a piece of comic book history that you think would be worth sharing, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!