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| Avengers Forever | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | May 1998 – November 2023 |
| No. of issues | (vol. 1): 12 (vol. 2): 15 |
| Main character(s) | Captain America Yellowjacket Giant-Man Wasp Hawkeye Songbird Captain Marvel Rick Jones Kang the Conqueror Immortus |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | (vol. 1): Kurt Busiek Roger Stern (vol. 2): Jason Aaron |
| Penciller | Carlos Pacheco |
| Inker | Jesus Merino |
| Colorist(s) | Steve Oliff Graphic Colorworks |
| Editor(s) | Ben Abernathy Tom Brevoort |
| Collected editions | |
| Hardcover | ISBN 0-7851-3796-3 |
| Softcover | ISBN 0-7851-0756-8 |
Avengers Forever is a twelve-issuecomic booklimited series published from December 1998 to November 1999 byMarvel Comics. It follows the storyline ofRick Jones and his quest to build a team ofAvengers from the past, present, and future. The series was written byKurt Busiek andRoger Stern and drawn byCarlos Pacheco andJesus Merino. In 2021, a newAvengers Forever series was released, following the characterGhost Rider.
Marvel originally contracted Busiek and Pacheco to produce a series calledAvengers: World in Chains, but it was too similar to another project (presumablyMutant X) and was canceled by the company.[1] Because Busiek and Pacheco were under contract, the pair instead developed the concept forAvengers Forever.[1]
Immortus sends his servantTempus to kill an apparently critically illRick Jones, the possessor of the "Destiny Force", a powerful ability used during theKree–Skrull War storyline.[2]
Rick is saved byKang the Conqueror (who is destined to evolve into Immortus), who destroys Tempus and holds off Immortus' temporal army. TheSupreme Intelligence urges Rick to use the Destiny Force to summon aid. With the help of formerZodiac memberLibra, Rick pulls various members of thesuperhero teamAvengers from the past, present, and future. The team consists of a disillusionedCaptain America, who is pulled from an adventure in which he discoversa high-ranking government official is the leader of theSecret Empire;[3]Yellowjacket from a time when he is mentally unbalanced and unaware that he is Hank Pym;[4]Hawkeye from just after the conclusion of the Kree–Skrull War and war againstOlympus;[5]Giant-Man (also Hank Pym) andWasp from the present;[6]Songbird from an unspecified time in the near future; andCaptain Marvel from further in the future.
Although these Avengers appear to have been randomly selected, Libra states that they have been chosen due to his subtle awareness of the universal balance, each one fulfilling an eventually clarified role in events:
During their efforts to protect Rick, the Avengers battle Immortus across several different eras, including encounters in theAmerican Old West with theTwo-Gun Kid, theNight Rider, theRingo Kid, theRawhide Kid,Kid Colt, and theGunhawks, as well asan alternate version of the Avengers from the 1950s, and a confrontation to thwart an alien invasion in a possible future. During their searches, they discover that Immortus possesses the Forever Crystal, an artifact that can control multiple realities. Kang aids the Avengers as part of his 'rebellion' against his apparent destiny, and reveals that Immortus serves a trio of entities called the Time Keepers, with his previous interactions with the team having been motivated by an effort to keep humanity limited to prevent them from developing into a threat to the universe. These entities eventually reveal that, in various futures, mankind will travel into space and establish the warlike Terran Empire, an interstellar dictatorship policed by the Galactic Avengers Battalion and ruled by humans with access to the Destiny Force, which will thrive at the cost of many alien cultures. A future version of the Avengers will apparently be at the forefront of the expansion, but the Avengers reject the idea that mankind must be destroyed or contained to prevent these futures' happening, with Captain America and Songbird arguing that humanity deserves a chance to show that it can be better rather than being condemned for things that have not happened yet.
Kang aids the Avengers and, in the final battle, kills the Time Keepers when they attempt to punish Immortus for failing. The Avengers resolve to strike against the Time Keepers even after they learn their enemies' motives, arguing that the Time Keepers only seek to eliminate those that might threaten them, when they do not even attempt to erase themselves, despite the existence of alternate timelines where they themselves became the Time Twisters. During a mass conflict where the Time-Keepers unleash the Avengers of the corrupted timelines against an army of Avengers drawn from the worlds where they remained true to their original purpose, the Time Keepers attempt to force Kang to become Immortus after they kill the future Immortus for his attempt to protect the Avengers. However, Kang's strength of will and the unique temporal conditions of the conflict results in a temporal backlash, culminating in Kang and Immortus being recreated as separate beings. When Rick is injured using the Destiny Force to destroy the Time-Keepers' equipment, Captain Marvel merges with Rick to save his life—the link with Marvel's future self resulting in Rick being unintentionally linked to Marvel's present self when he, Giant-Man, and the Wasp return to their present—and all the Avengers are returned to their respective timelines with a lingering memory of the incident.[7]
While Genis-Vell is revealed to have come from a few months in the future, with the greater age of Rick's future self revealed to be the result of accelerated aging while helpingThanos separateDeath fromMarlo Chandler, it is generally accepted that the Songbird who fought with the Avengers in this storyline originated from an alternate future rather than the future.[citation needed]
The series has been collected into a singlevolume:
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In 2021, a newAvengers: Forever series was released. It detailsGhost Rider and one of theDeathloks working for the mysterious Avenger Prime traveling across the Multiverse to put together an army of Multiversal Avengers in order to combat the Multiversal Masters of Evil who have either conquered other Earths.[8]