As Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers have had many different comic runs that showcase all of their strengths as a team. Perhaps their most well-known run, however, was the modern classic that was the Kurt Busiek/George Perez Avengers. This book was vital for many reasons, but despite this, Marvel doesn't keep it available consistently.
The Busiek/Perez Avengers was a landmark for bringing the team, and Marvel in general, out of the grim and gritty '90s, as well as revitalizing Perez's own career. With the unfortunate news of George Perez's cancer diagnosis, here's a look at perhaps his best work at Marvel that the company should really consider putting back into print.
The Busiek/Perez Avengers Was Influential Superhero Reconstruction
The Busiek/Perez Avengers began in 1998, with the decade as a whole ending on something of a sour note for Marvel Comics. Beyond the financial woes that were befalling the company, there was also the creative malaise that many books at Marvel suffered from through chasing the trends of the 1990s. One of these, in particular, was the grim and gritty style best exemplified by new kid on the block Image Comics, some of whom Marvel turned to in order to revamp some of their flopping properties.
These properties were ironically mostly the Avengers, with the resulting Heroes Reborn revamp being incredibly controversial and just plain bad in many readers' eyes. Thus, it fell upon the relaunch of The Avengers from writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez to change the team's fortunes around. Instead of trying to make the team dark or brooding, the book was a fun superhero romp at its finest, making the team most bombastic and action-packed than ever.
The run was known for having a smorgasbord of Avengers at the onset, with pretty much anyone who was ever even affiliated with the team coming back to rejoin briefly. This helped to create the modern sentiment for the Avengers that they're a sort of inclusive "gang's all here" team incorporating pretty much every major Marvel character. This mentality can be seen even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as can some of the storylines from this influential run. For instance, "Ultron Unlimited" had the titular robot committing mass genocide on a foreign nation, which was adapted into the assault on Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The series' success ushered in a new wave of superhero reconstruction, taking superheroes back to a more wholesome and classic tone alongside books such as Grant Morrison's JLA and Alan Moore's Supreme.
Avengers Helped to Revitalize George Perez's Career in Comics
The success of his run on Avengers with Kurt Busiek wasn't just a boon for Marvel, but also for George Perez himself. Despite his legendary status in comics both at the time and definitely now, Perez had begun to fall out of favor within the industry by the mid-90s. His huge wins at DC with Crisis on Infinite Earths, The New Teen Titans, and Wonder Woman had been a few years behind him at that point, and he had begun to develop a reputation for lateness and being unable to complete projects.
Avengers was the first major league series from either of the Big Two that Perez stayed on until completion, and the expert-level art that he provided for the book was a sign that the man still had all the talent of before. Coming off of Avengers, Perez suddenly began to get calls to draft ongoing series' again, with his name returning to being a hot commodity.
Sadly, the influential run is rarely kept in print, even with the Avengers finding everlasting fame on the big screen. Not only would reprinting the series make far too much sense, but it could also be a celebration of Perez' work both at Marvel and within comic books in general. Sadly, fans, friends, and family might not have much more time with George Perez, but by re-releasing this and other seminal work of his, the man's legend can live forever.