While Marvel’s New Avengers may sound like just another offshoot of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, this band of varied heroes is far more than the average knockoff. Comprised of street-level brawlers, cosmic and mystic juggernauts, and a few feral mutants, this complex team of rebels breaks away from rules and procedures to deliver justice as they see fit. In truth, the New Avengers are far greater than their predecessor team.

The New Avengers first fully debuted in New Avengers #3 (2005) - by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch - after the Avengers were forced to disassemble formally. In the absence of Marvel’s greatest team of heroes, a new team was formed to combat a massive supervillain prison break. The New Avengers serve as a parallel alternative to the main Avengers, capable of operating outside the law to avoid unnecessary bureaucratic tape when a supervillain threat is present. To get you up to speed before the newest iteration of the team debuts, here are eight facts about Marvel’s toughest team of heroes.

8 The Original New Avengers Formed After Scarlet Witch Destroyed The Avengers

All Hope Was Lost Until The New Avengers Formed

Prior to the cataclysmic event that triggered the destruction of the Avengers, the Scarlet Witch was in a particularly unhinged state of mind. Wanda Maximoff had recently learned that her original “children” were figments of her power and had recently disappeared from existence. Wrought with grief, Wanda’s depression transformed into rage and then insanity. She blamed the Avengers for their part to play and felt that her once-allies deserved to be punished.

The Scarlet Witch unleashed a barrage of magical attacks against Avengers Mansion, destroying the home entirely. In the process, Wanda killed multiple Avengers, leaving the team homeless, hollow, and broken. Feeling like they had failed as superheroes, the Avengers formally disbanded despite heartfelt pleas from the public to stay together. While each hero returned to their solo endeavors, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were seemingly, permanently broken apart until a new tragedy summoned the need for a new superheroic team.

7 The New Avengers’ First Mission Was To Stop An Invasion Of Supervillains

A Super-Criminal Jail Break Led To Major Consequences

Half a year after the Avengers formally broke apart, a conspiracy was formed in the shadows to infiltrate a maximum security prison for supervillains called the Raft. In New Avengers #1 (2005), Electro is hired to unleash an unparalleled lightning storm upon the Raft, deactivating New York City’s power grid in the process. Successfully breaking through the Raft’s barriers, Electro freed dozens of supervillains, now free to wreak a wave of havoc across the city.

Captain America, Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman were all present at the time of the attack but were overwhelmingly defeated by the horde of escapees. The conflict was a savage, miniature apocalypse as the likes of Carnage eviscerated and ate their way through guards, while common thugs immediately worked to unmask Spider-Man. In what became one of the greatest superheroic failures of all time, Captain America and Iron Man forged a new bond with the heroes present that day, thus forming the New Avengers.

6 The New Avengers Operated As An Underground Resistance During The Civil War Event

Captain America Recruited Most Of The New Avengers

Months after the New Avengers formed, a conflict between the New Warriors and the villain Nitro took the lives of dozens of people. This triggering event ultimately saw the rise of the first Superhuman Civil War, which completely turned most of Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains against each other. While Iron Man took some recruits from the New Avengers to constitute his government-sponsored Mighty Avengers, Captain America drafted the rest of the New Avengers to his resistance.

However, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the New Avengers were left without a leader and the 50-States Initiative barred any non-ed hero from participating in hero work. In response, the New Avengers reformed under the name Avengers Underground and moved into Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. Now, the New Avengers were considered fugitives from the law and continued to fight against Iron Man and SHIELD until the emergence of the Skrull Invasion on Earth.

5 Many Of The New Avengers Are Morally Gray Killers

The Team Has Always Ignored The Rules

Because the New Avengers were forged out of necessity, there was no qualifying information that would have barred any new from ing; frankly, they were desperate. In the face of one of the greatest supervillain threats of all time, the New Avengers needed a team that was willing to operate outside the law and bring these threats down, no matter the cost. While heroes like Spider-Man and Captain America remained the team’s moral com, other significantly deviated away from those standards.

Throughout the team’s existence, they have sported a number of savage heroes like Ronin, Echo, Wolverine, and the Winter Soldier. Today, the newest iteration of the New Avengers is more akin to the traditional Thunderbolts teams, including extremely, morally gray heroes such as Eddie Brock’s Carnage, Laura Kinney’s Wolverine, and the Hulk. While the team is varied, their lack of moral clarity is what made them a valuable tool to face enemies that the main Avengers couldn’t stand up to, whether that be escaped convicts or the Avengers themselves.

4 The New Avengers Once Disbanded Because Of A Baby

Luke Cage Left To Be A Better Dad

While this may sound ridiculous at first glance, it’s absolutely the truth. The New Avengers were formed to face threats that would have normally broken apart the main team. Realizing how fragile the Avengers were, the New Avengers offered hope in the face of chaos. The team frequently stuck together in one way or another and didn’t officially disband until after Luke Cage and Jessica Jones had a baby girl.

The New Avengers, by the point of their disassembling, had gone through a lot. They persisted through city-wide chaos, wars, invasions, and the Green Goblin’s vicious takeover during the Dark Reign event. However, after the war between the Avengers and the X-Men, Luke Cage decided to follow in his wife’s footsteps and left behind hero-work entirely. Because Luke Cage had served as the New Avengers’ primary leader, the team didn’t hold together in his absence and informally disbanded.

3 The New Avengers Debuted Wiccan’s Demiurge Powers

Wiccan Is Bound To Sur The Scarlet Witch

As the spiritual son of the Scarlet Witch, Billy Kaplan, aka Wiccan, was always bound for greatness. However, it wasn’t until Marvel’s All-New, All-Different Marvel event that readers discovered that Wiccan is destined to become an entity known as the Demiurge, an ancient and primordial power dating back to the Elder Gods. During Wiccan’s time with the New Avengers, Moridun, the Multiverse’s first-known Sorcerer Supreme, targeted this power to become the next god of all gods.

The original Demiurge, also referred to as the Demiurge Primordial, was the sentient lifeforce of Earth’s collective energy who used his powers to birth the Elder Gods. Once Wiccan achieves his destiny, he too will have that unparalleled power, even suring the mystical strength of the Scarlet Witch. Fortunately for Wiccan, his fellow New Avengers were able to pierce through Moridun’s control over the fledgling Demiurge and purge the Sorcerer Supreme’s spirit from Wiccan’s body.

2 An X-Man Once Bought The New Avengers

A Feud Between The Avengers And SHIELD Created This Team

Alongside Wiccan’s transformation into the Demiurge, the All-New, All-Different Marvel event also saw a radical change when the X-Men’s Sunspot purchased Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) and restructured it to become a new organization of Avengers called the Avengers Idea Mechanics. Under Sunspot’s direction, the newly formed New Avengers served as both an official Avengers team and a formal extension of SHIELD thanks to Hawkeye’s involvement with AIM.

However, their relationship with AIM and SHIELD was only temporary backers when the team received a distress call from Rick Jones, who had recently fallen into SHIELD custody. While many of AIM’s new Avengers answered the call, Hulkling, Wiccan, and Squirrel Girl were the only heroes to protest the act of rebellion. In response, the three dissenters were ejected from AIM and officially formed a rebel band of New Avengers.

1 The Team’s Newest Iteration Is Its Deadliest Yet

The New Avengers Have More Anti-Heroes Than Ever Before

While the New Avengers have always served as a band of rebels against authority, no iteration has been quite as violently unpredictable and amoral as its newest cast of characters. Comprised of famed killers like the Carnage symbiote, Black Widow, Wolverine, and the Winter Solider, this team of alternative Avengers is far deadlier than any iteration of the team before. No longer a healthy mix of street-level forces and godly powers, the newest New Avengers promises to be more gruesome than any of its predecessors.

Originally introduced as a new team of Thunderbolts, Marvel Comics recently revealed that the unconventional heroes were, in fact, the New Avengers alongside the MCU’s jaw-dropping twist that its version of the Thunderbolts would also take the name “New Avengers.” While the series has yet to debut, Marvel promises a chaotic adventure that sees the New Avengers take on an evil variant of the Illuminati nicknamed the “Killuminati.” Throw in an Immortal Hulk and this team of New Avengers will certainly be the deadliest yet.