The well-known Avengers logo with the “A,” aka the “Big A” symbol, was designed by Gaspar Saladino, a renowned Marvel letterer, and introduced in 1972.
It became the starting point for the Avengers symbol featured in the Avengers movie series created by Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Avengers logo has hardly changed since then, except that the palette has been somewhat played around with.
The “A” from “Avengers” is the central element of the Avengers logo. The “A” has been put in a circle, turning into the kind of badge that’s often spotted on superhero costumes. The Big A features an arrow, which stands for progress, momentum, perseverance, and determination.
The Avengers Logo History and Evolution
The large “A” featuring an arrow pointing to the right is common in all Avengers logo versions. And while the Marvel studio continually changed it, it survived all the changes, becoming the symbol of great Avengers action movies.
2012
This period had a movie known as The Avengers. The movie has a basic variant of the logo, recreated in all subsequent movies. Its distinctive feature is the large “A” rendered in uppercase font.
The letter features a lengthened front leg as well as an arrow pointing to the right. This style depicts a movement—direct, focused, and uncompromising, which aptly describes the main characters of the Avengers.
The word “THE” is written in small, thin uppercase letters on the arrow bar. Moreover, the first letter in “Avengers,” i.e., A, is put in an open semicircle, making the logo appear dynamic.
Another design element is the unique letter G, where the lower end features a sharp protrusion. Then the middle planks of letters “E” are cut slightly and have a sharp end. At the top, the name “Marvel” appears in white against a red background. All letters in the word “Avengers” are inclined slightly to the right.
2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the Avengers movie during this period. The logo stayed the same, having undergone slight changes. For instance, the metallic color and the word “THE” were done away with—it’s now burgundy red, similar to the background of “Marvel.”
A reflection was included at the top of the “Big A,” showing the sun rising far away. This represents the trust in good over evil and provides hope for a good ending.
2018
The Avengers: Infinity War action movie was introduced. This time, the logo designers removed part of the circle around the “A” and did away with the bottom part. This move made “Avengers” more legible, but the font remained oblique. The prefix “Studios” was added to the right of the word “Marvel” in a white, open rectangle with black lines both at the bottom and top.
2019
In 2019, the logo was introduced at the same time the movie Avengers: Endgame was released. The designers brought back the bottom part of the circle that houses the letter “A.” The word “Endgame” is written in italics, but it’s not that visible because of the color and gradient.
Avengers Logo Design Elements
Font: The name “Avengers” is written in a unique font, highlighting the first letter. The “A” is encircled and given an arrow in the connecting horizontal bar. The name of the movie series is written in uppercase and inclines somewhat to the right. There’s an extra notch on the “G” that extends past the bottom margin.
Color: The Avengers logo’s color scheme can either be basic or gradient. It’s made up of black, navy blue, grey with a metallic shine, red, burgundy, brown, and beige.
The History of Avengers
The Avengers refers to a fictional superheroes team that appears in U.S. comic books written by Marvel Comics. This team debuted in the first Avengers comic book in September 1963, created by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and writer-editor Stan Lee.
Dubbed “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” The Avengers originally included Ant-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Wasp, and Hulk. In the Avengers fourth issue, the first Captain America was found trapped in ice, and he joined the team after they saved him.
The Avengers is an all-star cast of well-known superheroes in the Marvel Comics library. In terms of the storyline, these superheroes typically operate separately but sometimes come together to tackle particularly fearsome villains. This is unlike other teams of superheroes, like the X-Men, whose superheroes were specifically made to be part of a team, which is important to their identity.
Marvel Comics created the Avengers to push book sales and cross-advertise the studio’s characters. For example, an Iron Man follower can buy an Avengers comic book since Iron Man appears in the book and may afterward be interested in Thor, Iron Man’s comrade and friend, who also appears in the book.
The cast normally includes a few very popular characters who have their own individual books, like Iron Man, and several less popular characters that could benefit from the exposure, like Quicksilver.
The Avengers can be seen in many media, apart from comic books, including many different direct-to-video movies and animated TV series. The superheroes are also the focus in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe feature movies, starting with the self-titled 2012 live-action movie, The Avengers, followed by its sequels in 2015 (Age of Ultron), 2018 (Infinity War), and 2019 (Endgame), with the latter two being based on the storyline of The Infinity Gauntlet. In addition, The Avengers also appeared in the 2016 movie Captain America: Civil War, based loosely on the Civil War story.
How the Avengers Were Formed
The Avengers were formed to deal all with all evil forces working against the balance of the universe and more. In both movies and comics, the founding of Avengers and the members were totally different.
Formation of Avengers in the Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe
Loki planned to use Thor, his brother, to destroy the Earth. However, with the assistance of Iron Man, Ant-Man, and others, the Avengers managed to overcome the lord of evil Loki.
Once the threat of Loki was neutralized, Ant-Man proposed that since this superhero team worked really well together, they ought to be made the official superhero team, and Wasp floated the name Avengers.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the first global threat in the intergalactic level arrived in New York through Loki, the lord of mischief.
Loki came to destroy planet Earth using his Chitauri soldiers and to take control of Tesseract. Once he had claimed Tesseract, Nick Fury, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D organization member, put together the world’s best heroes and formed the Avengers team.
With the equivalents of Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, these Avengers could defeat Loki and his thousands of soldiers and save the world and New York, eventually making their debut on cinema.
Avengers Appearances in Comic Books
The Avengers were introduced in 1963 by the Marvel comic book universe. Since then, Marvel has released several hundred publications of Avengers comic books, pitting the Avengers superheroes against the major threats on planet Earth.
If you’re wondering what type of super villains and threats the Avengers have often come up against, here are some of the Avengers’ main appearances have made in Marvel Comic Books.
Avengers vs. Loki
Marvel’s Avengers made their first appearance in comic books because of Loki’s plot to destroy the Earth. The first Avengers superheroes overcame Loki in this conflict and set up a team that ended up overcoming universe-level evils worldwide.
Avengers Secret Wars
Beyonder, a cosmic entity, has his eye on human beings and is the Avengers Secret Wars antagonist who comes to planet Earth with the aim of learning and getting enlightened. However, he tries to conquer the world and is overcome by the Avengers team.
Kang the Conqueror
Kang is the Conqueror, one of the most powerful and deadliest enemies of the Avengers, comes to the Earth to take it over, but his plans are quashed by the joint efforts of all superheroes within the Avengers alliance.
Infinity Gauntlet
Infinity gauntlet comics featured the soul gems, the crazy Titan Thanos, as well as his infinity gauntlet. To save the universe and the lives of at least half of the world’s population, The Avengers took on Thanos along with this Black Order.
Avengers vs. X-men
Squabbling over the reason why the Phoenix Force is approaching planet Earth, the Avengers and X-Men come face to face and end up doing battle. This resulted in one of the most epic crossover events in the history of Marvel Comic Books. Occasionally in the Marvel Comic Book, some X-Men have even crossed over to the Avengers, so these two sides have always given as much as they’ve received.
The Appearance of Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is massively popular with superhero comic book fans and regular movie fans due to the oomph factor it boasts thanks to the outstanding CGI, excellent storylines, and exceptional cast options.
In a 24-movie series that culminated in the Infinity Saga, Avengers superheroes appeared a few times in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Battle of New York
This movie was all about an epic battle between Loki and the Avengers in New York. Loki planned to use The Battle of New York as one of his series of attacks in his mission to conquer planet Earth. However, the Avengers put paid to Loki’s plans and ended up defeating his Chitauri soldiers and capturing him. The action packed, Battle of New York was the first movie in the Avengers series.
Age of Ultron
This is the second Avengers film, in which Tony Stark inadvertently creates Ultron and fights against Ultron with his Robots army. In this movie, the Avengers created Vision using J.A.R.V.I.S and mind stone. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch also appeared in Age of Ultron.
Civil War
Although Civil War isn’t an Avengers movie, Captain America: Civil War contained most of the Avengers superheroes that had broken up after Age of Ultron’s Sokovia incident. They fought one another over the nationalization of Avengers and ended up in a deadlock.
Infinity War
The Infinity War movie from the Avengers series showed Thanos gathering all infinity stones into his gauntlet as well as the Wakanda War against his Chitauri soldiers. Infinity War ended with Thanos obliterating half of the lives of people with the snap of his fingers, including lots of superheroes.
End Game
Following the happenings of the Infinity War movie, the rest of the Avengers wanted to undo the damage caused by the deadly snap.
Tony Stark managed to find the time travel loophole, and thanks to the Pym particles provided by Ant-Man, the Avengers were able to go back in time.
They managed to recover all infinity stones and brought everyone back to life with the snap of their fingers. Unfortunately, Thanos was also brought back to life. The mother of all wars took place as a result, in which the Iron Man obliterated Thanos and his entire army with Thanos’ favorite way—the snap of fingers.
The Original Avengers Team
In the Marvel comic books, the Avengers team was considerably different from that of Marvel Cinematic Universe. Contrary to popular opinion, Captain America was nowhere to be seen.
When the Avengers fought against Loki, the original Avengers included:
- Thor
- Hulk
- Iron Man
- The Wasp and Ant-Man
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the superheroes were slightly different from the comics. The Wasp and Ant-Man weren’t in the Avengers cast until Captain America: Civil War ended. Below is the original Avengers cast in the movie named The Battle of New York:
- Black Window
- Hawkeye
- Thor
- Captain America
- Iron Man
- Hulk
The Takeaway
The Avengers superheroes were first formed in September 1963. Two decades prior, superhero comics had gone out of vogue and replaced instead by World War 2 series, Westerners, science-fiction, and horror.
Since then, the Avengers have become massively popular. The fact that the Avengers comic book series has been published pretty continuously since 1963 is proof of the Avengers’ enduring popularity. That aside, there have been many spinoffs, including other series of comic books and other creations on the big screen.
The Avengers were shown in many animated TV series and movies, and the superheroes made their live-action movie debut in 2012 in the self-titled hit The Avengers. Co-written and directed by Joss Whedon, who also created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Avengers brought together the various Marvel Cinematic Universe properties in a popular smash hit production with both critics fans. The movie earned over $1.5 billion worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing movies in history.
