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| Invaders | |
|---|---|
.png) Cover ofThe Invaders #1 (August 1975) Art byJohn Romita Sr. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Avengers #71 (December 1969) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas Sal Buscema |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Various |
| Member(s) | Current members: Captain America (Sam Wilson) Human Torch I Iron Cross (Clare Gruler) Namor Radiance Toro Bucky Barnes Former members: Blazing Skull Blonde Phantom Bucky (Fred Davis) Captain America (William Nasland) Captain America (Steve Rogers) TheFin Major Mapleleaf Miss America Nia Noble Silver Scorpion Spitfire Tara Thin Man Union Jack (Joseph Chapman) Union Jack (Brian Falsworth) Union Jack (James Falsworth) U.S. Agent Vision (Aarkus) Whizzer |
The Invaders is the name of twosuperhero teams appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics.
The original team was created by writerRoy Thomas and artistSal Buscema inThe Avengers #71 (December 1969).[1]
A present-day incarnation was introduced by writerChuck Austen and artistScott Kolins inThe Avengers (vol. 3) #82 (July 2004).
The prototype for the Invaders, theAll-Winners Squad, created by publisherMartin Goodman and scripterBill Finger, was a comic book feature published in theGolden Age with only two appearances, inAll Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946) and #21 (Winter 1947; there was no issue #20).
This team had much of the same membership as the Invaders, but had its adventures in the post–World War II era, the time that their adventures were published.
This group was also notable as its members did not entirely get along, prefiguring the internal conflicts of theFantastic Four in the 1960s.[citation needed]
The Invaders team first appeared in flashback stories set duringWorld War II, and comprised existing characters fromTimely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel. Originally,Captain America (Steve Rogers), his sidekickBucky Barnes, the original androidHuman Torch ("Jim Hammond"), the Torch's sidekickToro (Thomas Raymond) andNamor were together as heroes opposing the forces ofNazism. When these superheroes savedBritish Prime MinisterWinston Churchill fromMaster Man, Churchill suggested that they should become a team, known as the Invaders.
The Invaders fight theAxis powers over the world until eventually finding themselves inEngland, where they meet James Falsworth, the originalUnion Jack. He joins the team and provides them with a base of operations in England.[2] Eventually, Falsworth's children Brian (Union Jack II) and Jacqueline (Spitfire) become members.[3] The team later addsMiss America (Madeline Joyce) and super-speedster theWhizzer (Bob Frank), during a battle with theSuper-Axis.[4] Later, against the threat of the Battle-Axis, the team is assisted by theBlazing Skull and theSilver Scorpion.
The team continues to fight against several threats, (including a Nazi occupation ofAtlantis and the emergence ofHYDRA backed by the time-travellingBaron Strucker) and faces an emotional trauma with the apparent deaths of Captain America and Bucky in adroneaircraft's explosion near the end of World War II, as first described inThe Avengers #4 (March 1964). After the war's end, several members—including the secondBucky and Captain America (respectively, Fred Davis and William Naslund, formerly the superhero known as theSpirit of '76)—created a new team, the All-Winners Squad. When that team dissolves, Marvelretroactively changes the continuity ("retcon") of several members, having them joinCitizen V'sV-Battalion.
After the Invaders' introduction in the pages ofThe Avengers, the team appeared in its own try-out title,Giant-Size Invaders #1 in 1975, followed by the ongoing series;The Invaders later that year, and a singleAnnual in 1977. Issues #5–6 of the series introduced another retroactively changed World War II team, theLiberty Legion, in a two-part story arc, "The Red Skull Strikes", interlaced with another two-part story inMarvel Premiere #29–30.
In 2004, a new Invaders team was created in the four-issue story arc "Once an Invader...", beginning withThe Avengers (vol. 3) #82, written byChuck Austen.[5] The revived team wasspun off into its own title,The New Invaders, running 10 issues (August 2004 – June 2005) beginning with issue #0. It was written by Allan Jacobsen[6] with artwork by C. P. Smith.[7]
The new team consisted of theBlazing Skull (Mark Todd), a flame-generating girl named Tara, formerLiberty Legion memberThin Man (Bruce Dickson),U.S. Agent (John Walker, a.k.a. Captain America V),Union Jack III (Joey Chapman) and returning members Namor and Spitfire. Later, the android theHuman Torch joins the team, feeling an affinity for Tara, revealed as an android herself. The Invaders are also assisted by formerGolden Age hero theFin and his Atlantean wife Nia, although they did not officially join the team.
They are formed by the supposedU.S. Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk—in actuality theRed Skull—who coerces the Thin Man into gathering this new team, which the Skull intends to use for his own goals. The new Invaders eventually learn of the plan, however, and thwart it. The apparent "death" of the android Human Torch came as a result of the betrayal of the Skull-planted Tara. The majority of the members quit the team after this incident.
The 2007 12-issue crossover seriesAvengers/Invaders saw the original WWII team ofCaptain America,Bucky,Namor, theHuman Torch, andToro brought to the present-dayMarvel Universe by theCosmic Cube, which had fallen into the hands of the demonD'Spayre. His use of it to draw on the grief generated by Captain America's death had unintentionally caused it to grant the wish of those who wished for his return.
Upon arriving in the present day, the Invaders battled theThunderbolts andThe Mighty Avengers, believing them to be Nazi agents. Eventually, the Invaders came to trust the Avengers teams (both Mighty andNew versions) and agreed to go back to where they belonged. The teams collected the Cosmic Cube and an American soldier who traveled into the future with the Invaders. However, the soldier took it upon himself to steal the Cosmic Cube and save his dead friends in the past.
This triggers an alternative reality to emerge where most of the Avengers are wiped from time.Doctor Strange manages to send the Invaders and the surviving members of the Avengers into the past before being wiped from time himself.[8]
In the past, the soldier raised his dead friends and healed a dying Union Jack. The soldier then attempted to destroy the Nazis with the Cosmic Cube, but lost it when he was attacked byRed Skull's henchmen. The Red Skull I later came into possession of the Cosmic Cube and transformed the world into one made in his own image. Elsewhere, the Invaders and the Avengers arrived in the past, but found that it had dramatically changed. The Avengers took up identities of Golden Age characters so that they could fit into the past without giving the Red Skull too much information about the future:Luke Cage as theBlack Avenger,Iron Man asElectro,Ms. Marvel asBlack Widow,Spider-Man as theChallenger,Spider-Woman as theSilver Scorpion, andWolverine as Captain Terror. TheWasp uses her powers to stay hidden from sight. They end the Red Skull's reign of terror and restore the original timeline.[9]
At the end of the series, Toro is revived after Bucky acquires the Cube.[10] His story is continued in the eight-issue limited seriesThe Torch, which deals with the resurrection of the original Human Torch. In the series, the twoGolden Age heroes battle theMad Thinker and the Inhuman Torch.[11]
In September 2010, Marvel launchedInvaders Now!, a miniseries starringCaptain America (Bucky Barnes), the originalHuman Torch,Namor,Steve Rogers,Spitfire, andToro. The Invaders are all reunited by the originalVision andUnion Jack to face a resurfaced threat from World War II. This threat manifests as a disease that mutates those infected, causing horrible deformation, granting superhuman strength, and driving the victim insane with pain and rage. Those infected are driven to attack and thereby infect others. In World War II this pathogen was created byArnim Zola, as his last project before suffering wounds which necessitated his consciousness being transferred into a robot. To contain the plague, the Invaders had to kill the entire population of a village in the Netherlands, including some who had been infected, but had not yet transformed. In this miniseries, the infection reappears in the modern era.[12]
In 2014, Marvel launched a new series written byJames Robinson and starring Captain America who is eventually replaced bySam Wilson,Winter Soldier, the originalHuman Torch, and Namor.[13] A Japanese heroine named Radiance (the granddaughter ofGolden Girl) joins the team during the book's second arc,[14] and the daughter ofIron Cross joins in issue # 10.
In January 2019, Marvel launched a new series written byChip Zdarsky that saw original membersSteve Rogers, theWinter Soldier, and theHuman Torch reunite to stop Namor, who has become a global threat and mentally unstable.[15]
| Title | Material collected | Year | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invaders Classic Vol. 1 | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #1–9,Giant-Size Invaders #1 (1975) andMarvel Premiere #29–30 | July 2007 | 978-0785127062 |
| Invaders Classic Vol. 2 | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #10–21 andAnnual #1 (1977) | July 2008 | 978-0785131205 |
| Invaders Classic Vol. 3 | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #22–23,[16] 25–34 | February 2009 | 978-0785137207 |
| Invaders Classic Vol. 4 | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #35–41,Invaders (vol. 2, 1993) #1–4 | July 2010 | 978-0785145516 |
| Invaders Classic: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 | Giant-Size Invaders #1 (1975),Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #1–22 &Annual #1 (1977),Avengers (vol. 1) #71 (1969), andMarvel Premiere #29–30 (1976) | July 2014 | 978-0785190578 |
| Invaders Classic: The Complete Collection Vol. 2 | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #23, 25-41,The Invaders (vol. 2, 1993) #1–4,Giant-Size Invaders #2 (2005), andWhat If (vol. 1, 1977) #4 | December 2014 | 978-0785190585 |
| Invaders Omnibus | Invaders (vol. 1, 1975) #1-23, 25-41,Annual (1977) #1;Marvel Premiere (1972) #29–30;Avengers (1963) #71;Invaders (vol. 2,1993) #1–4;What If? (vol. 1,1977) #4; material fromCaptain America Comics (1941) #22;Giant-Size Invaders (1975) #1–2;[17] | November 2022 | 978-1302934750 |
| Avengers: Once An Invader | Avengers (vol. 3) #82–84 andNew Invaders #0 (2004), withInvaders Annual #1 (1977) andAvengers (vol. 1) #71 (1969) | November 2004 | 978-0785114819 |
| New Invaders: To End All Wars | New Invaders #1–9 | July 2005 | 978-0785114499 |
| Avengers/Invaders | Avengers/Invaders #1–12 | October 2009 | 978-0785129424 |
| Invaders: The Eve of Destruction | Marvel Universe #1-7 | August 2010 | 978-0785145523 |
| Invaders Now! | Invaders Now! #1-5 | April 2011 | 978-0785139126 |
| All-New Invaders Vol. 1: Gods and Soldiers | All-New Invaders #1–5 and material fromAll-New Marvel Now Point One #1 | August 2014 | 978-0785189145 |
| All-New Invaders Vol. 2: Original Sin | All-New Invaders #6–10 | December 2014 | 978-0785189152 |
| All-New Invaders Vol. 3: The Martians are Coming | All-New Invaders #11–15 | June 2015 | 978-0785192473 |
| Invaders Vol. 1: War Ghost | Invaders (vol. 3, 2019) #1-6 | August 2019 | 978-1302917494 |
| Invaders Vol. 2: Dead in the Water | Invaders (vol. 3, 2019) #7-12 | March 2020 | 978-1302917500 |
| Always an Invader | Invaders (vol. 3, 2019) #1-12 andNamor: The Best Defense #1 | February 2021 | 978-1302927356 |
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The Invaders as a concept, hybridized with theHowling Commandos, appear inCaptain America: The First Avenger. This version of the group is a hand-selected Special Forces infantry unit underCaptain America's field command, and hasBucky Barnes andJames Falsworth among its number.[18][19]