Avengers Forever: The Greatest Epic Ever Written

Hot on the heels on his hit run on the Avengers, Kurt Busiek produced what I call his first magnum opus. Avengers Forever was a 12 issue series that celebrated the nearly 40 year legacy of the Avengers up to that point. It was a love letter to the title, its characters, and every story that came before it. It asked the question: What was the Avengers destiny? However, it goes a step further by asking who decides what that destiny is. The entire story features a group of time displaced Avengers working together to protect their long time ally Rick Jones, who is apparently the shepherd of this bold destiny. Threatening Rick is the time lord Immortus who, for some unknown reason, needs to kill the young man in order to prevent a dystopian future from happening.

This leads the team of Avengers on a mission through time and space as they uncover secrets regarding Immortus, his mission, and the fact that he has been manipulating the Avengers almost since day one. The story touches on nearly ever era of the Avengers publications, tying plot threads together and taking the work of countless writers and artists of the past and tying them all together into a cohesive conspiracy.

Busiek uses this series to explain long standing mysteries surrounding Immortus, tying up loose ends, resetting certain status quos, hand waving unpopular stories, and even introducing a brand new era for a character.

It is arguably the best Avengers epic ever printed. If you haven’t read this series then do yourself a favor. There’s not really much more that I can say about it than that.

However, the continuity rich story that pays homage to the Avengers likely played no small part for when, a few years later, Busiek was tapped to do the long anticipated JLA/Avengers with artist George Pérez. These two epics makes Busiek — in my opinion — one of the greatest comic book writers of his generation.