The Collection of AVENGERS

Membership (not a team, but a list of all those Avengers collected by the Collectors): Black Panther (T'Challa), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Captain America (Steve Rogers), Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), Goliath (Henry Pym), Hawkeye (Clint Burton), Hercules (Heracles/Alcaeus), Hulk (Bruce Banner), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Jocasta, Moondragon (Heather Douglas), Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), Thor (Thor Odinson), Two-Gun Kid (Matt Hawk), Vision, Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Wonder Man (Simon Williams), Yellowjacket (Henry Pym) 

Purpose: To avoid the cosmic war between "the Enemy" (Korvac) and the other cosmic entities, to amuse the Collector

Affiliations: Collector (owner)

Enemies: Korvac, Carina Tivan, Collector (Taneleer Tivan)

Aliases: The Avengers

Base of Operations: Varying and mobile in space and in sub-space, as well as spaceships with tesseract capabilities;
    previously a spaceship in sub-space;
    previously a spaceship with tesseract capabilities landed near Omegaville, Florida;
    previously Rutland, Vermont, USA;
    previously a gargantuan spaceship in the skies above New York;
    previously a medieval castle on the hills, presumably USA

First Appearance: Avengers I#27 (April, 1966)

History:(Avengers I#27) - The Collector choose the Wasp as the first Avenger to collect. She became the bait to lure the Avengers into his base.

(Avengers I#28) - Using the traps of his Medieval Castle, the Collector managed to capture the Avengers who had gone to help the Wasp: Goliath (Hank Pym), Captain America (Rogers), Hawkeye (Barton), Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Thanks to Goliath, the Avengers succeeded in escaping their imprisonment and freeing the Wasp, but the Collector fled.

(Avengers I#51 (fb)) - Months later, the Collector restarted his Avengers' Collection with the Mighty Thor, thanks to an Obedience Potion empowered with herbs coming from Asgard.

(Avengers I#51) - Shortly after, the Collector chose to again collect the Wasp, capturing her using a hair-comb-trap.
    Giant-Man and Hawkeye pursued Wasp on the enormous spaceship, and they all were restrained by the Venusian Retriever Anemone. The Collector stunned them with an energy blast, adding three Avengers to the Collection. 

(Avengers I#51) - The Collector cared for the pieces of his collection. He learned that Henry Pym could not grow anymore as before, so he tampered with his powers to restore Goliath to his gargantuan stature.

    Other Avengers were under observation thanks to the Cosmic Viewer. The fifth Avenger to be collected was intended to be Iron Man, but the fight between him and Thor lasted too long, and the other Avengers got free.

(Avengers I#119 (fb) - BTS) - The Collector kept his Collection in his stellar ship, but also established a smaller base on Earth, at Rutland, Vermont. The purpose of his settlement on Earth was to collect the Avengers. It was spring when the Collector modified his dwelling at Rutland in order to lure and capture the Avengers there. The house was the one once inhabited by Tom Fagan, well-known to the Avengers. There, among valuable collection pieces, he also stored weapons.

(Avengers I#119) - The Night of Halloween, the Avengers went to Rutland, thanks to one of Mantis danger psychic perceptions.

    The parties filled the streets for the 14^th annual Halloween Parade. Tom Fagan welcomed the Avengers, who split, to find the hidden threat. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and Black Panther were seemingly taken by surprise by Tom Fagan, whom the Collector was impersonating. The four were defeated by the animated hides. Unconscious, they were transported into the house and pinned to the wall like butterflies. They were freed by the other Avengers: Vision, Swordsman, Scarlet Witch and Mantis.
 
(Incredible Hulk II#198) - When the Collector captured the Hulk near Omegaville, it was merely by chance. He didn't actually search for him. However, once in his possession, the Elder classified him as one of the original Avengers, and he began thinking about collecting the other founder members, too.

(Avengers I#174 (fb) - BTS) - In order to fight the rising, cosmic threat of Korvac, the Collector started again to collect the Avengers. He needed them as weapons against the god-like power of his enemy. In the following days, he would seize them using his time machine, and store them into stasis tubes on his sub-spatial base.
 
(Avengers I#159 - BTS / Avengers I#162 (fb) - BTS / Avengers I#165 (fb) - BTS) - Thor was seized from Asgard, and sent to help the Avengers. In the following days, Thor would be be re-seized, memory-wiped and time-teleported where and when needed in order to keep the Avengers safe.

(Avengers I#168) - Two-Gun Kid was seized from a train in Colorado.

(Avengers I#170) - Quicksilver was seized from Attilan in  the Himalayan mountains.

(Avengers I#171) - Jocasta and Captain America were seized from the catholic convent where the Avengers had just defeated Ultron.

(Avengers I#172) - The Vision was seized after the Avengers defeated Tyrak. The android lied in the stasis tube alongside five other Avengers.

(Avengers I#173 - BTS) - Captain Mar-Vell, Black Widow and Hercules were seized after leaving the Avengers' mansion.

(Avengers I#173) - Black Panther, Yellowjacket, Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man were seized from the Avengers' mansion. They were stored in stasis tubes.

(Avengers I#174) - The Collector's sub-spatial base was invaded by the remaining Avengers: Iron Man, Hawkeye, Thor and Wasp. With them present, the Collector claimed that his collection was complete.

    During the fight Iron Man was immobilized within his own armor. Thor was knocked out by the anti-matter/positronic combination. Wasp was stunned by an electrocuting net. But Hawkeye was not collected and saved the day, arrow-stunning the Collector. Shortly after, Korvac, the Enemy, incinerated the Collector by sending cosmic lightning from Earth that crossed sub-space and struck the Elder.

(Astonishing Thor#2) - Taneleer Tivan's precognitive abilities told him that Thor would come to meet him.

    Thor indeed did so, seeking help to stop Ego the Living Planet. However, the Collector was more interested in acquiring Thor as an exemplar. When he met Thor and tried to restrain him, he confessed to the God of Thunder that he had many ways to classify him. He could place Thor into the Norse Pantheon exhibit, or into the Weather Deities or into the Avengers. Thor's strikes denied all those possibilities, and the son of Odin didn't enter in any collection.

(The Unworthy Thor#2/3/4 (fb) - BTS) - Sometime later, the Collector added Thor Odinson to his collection. To succeed he used a bomb nine million years old.

    Actually Tivan needed the Unworthy Thor to test whether the god could use a Mjolnir from another dimension. Thor remained prisoner for months and eventually escaped.

Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Don Heck
     Even though the Beast was depicted in one of the tubes of stasis on the cover of Avengers I#174, he wasn't captured by the Collector. Tivan performed many tasks behind-the-scenes, during his anti-Korvac plans, so it could also be possible that he played with the Beast in the same manner he played with Thor, fetching and sending McCoy back whenever he needed.

    Jocasta was not on the Avengers' roster when she was in-tubed. She became an Avenger later. However, the Collector had precognition powers that could have foreseen this development.

    Before she was seen prisoner in Avengers#172, Moondragon's last appearance was Marvel Two-in-One Annual#2, when the Avengers mourned Adam Warlock's death. Tivan could have collected her any moment between these two events.

    Espirita was a guest of Tivan's ship for a while, but she wasn't in his possession, from West Coast Avengers Annual#2 to Silver Surfer III#3. At the time, she wasn't an Avenger.

Profile Spidermay.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Collection of Avengers should not be confused with:

• AVENGERS COLLECTOR's EDITION - one-shot story printed by Marvel Comics--Avengers Collector's Edition#1
• JLA/AVENGERS COLLECTOR's EDITION - hardcover collection of the series where the Avengers met the Justice League of America--JLA/Avengers Collector's Edition
  
• or any other Collection or Avengers formation or group with a similar name.
  

images:
Avengers I#28, page 8, panel 6 (the Avengers prisoners in the medieval castle)
Avengers I#51, page 8, panel 1 (the Avengers, captive in the gargantuan starship)
Avengers I#119, cover (four Avengers pinpointed like butterflies)
Incredible Hulk II#198, page panel (the Hulk, shackled by Captain Cutlass' crew into the Collector's museum)
Avengers I#172, page 17, panel 1 (Captain America and other Avengers in the stasis tubes)
Avengers I#174, page 1, panel 1 (Scarlet Witch in the stasis tube)
Avengers I#173, page 16, panel 1 (Hercules and other Avengers in the stasis tubes)
Avengers I#174, cover (the Beast)

Appearances:
Avengers I#27 (April, 1966) - Stan Lee (writer), Don Heck (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)
Avengers I#28 (May, 1966) - Stan Lee (writer), Don Heck (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)
Avengers I#51 (April, 1968) - Roy Thomas (writer), John Buscema (pencils), George Tuska (inks)
Avengers I#119 (January 1974) - Steve Englehart (writer), Bob Brown (pencils), Don Heck (inks), Glynis Wein (colors), Roy Thomas (editor)     
Incredible Hulk II#198 (April, 1976) - Len Wein (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Joe Staton (inks), Glynis Oliver (colors), Len Wein and Marv Wolfman (editors)
Avengers I#159 (May, 1977) - Jim Shooter (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), John Verpoorten (colors), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Avengers I#168 (February, 1978) - Jim Shooter (writer), George Perez (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Avengers I#171 (May 1978) - Jim Shooter (writer), George Pérez (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Phil Rachelson (colors), Jim Shooter (editor)
Avengers I#172 (June 1978) - Jim Shooter (writer), George Pérez (pencils), Klaus Janso (inks), Phil Rachelson (colors), Jim Shooter (editor)
Avengers I#173 (July, 1978) - David Michelinie (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Pablo Marcos, John Tartaglione, Joe Rubinstein, Klaus Janson & Joe Staton (inks), Roger Stern (editor)
Avengers I#174 (August, 1978) - Jim Shooter & Bill Mantlo (writer), Dave Wenzel (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Roger Stern (editor)
The Unworthy Thor#2 (February, 2017) - Jason Aaron (writer), Olivier Coipel (pencils and inks), Matthew Wilson (colors), Wilson Moss
The Unworthy Thor#3 (March, 2017) - Jason Aaron (writer), Olivier Coipel (pencils and inks), Matthew Wilson (colors), Wilson Moss

First Posted: 03/30/2026
Last updated: 03/30/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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