The Avengers

Foreword by Leigh Bardugo
Introduction by José Alaniz
Series edited by Ben Saunders
Look inside
Paperback
$28.00 US
7.05"W x 9.89"H x 1"D  
On sale Sep 12, 2023 | 400 Pages | 9780143135791
Grades 6-12 + AP/IB
FOC Aug 14, 2023
The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy
 
Collects The Avengers #1-4, 9, 16, 26, 28, 44, 57, 58, 71, 74, and 83. It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.
 
Starting in 1961, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and their collaborators transformed the Super Hero genre with a series of new creations, including the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, and the Invincible Iron Man. In 1963, Lee and Kirby brought these characters together for the first time in a new magazine called The Avengers—adding a resurrected Captain America shortly after. Over time the Avengers’ roster would frequently change, mirroring transformations in the Marvel Universe and the society that it reflected. This unique collection gathers key issues from the first few years of the series.
 
A foreword by Leigh Bardugo, a scholarly introduction and apparatus by José Alaniz, and a general series introduction by Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of The Avengers and classic Marvel comics.
© Ten Speed Press
Stan Lee is the co-creator of the most beloved characters in the history of comics, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and many others. He is also the author of Stan Lee's Riftworld: Odyssey, and the editor of The Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimate Super-Villains, The Ultimate Silver Surfer, and The Ultimate X-Men, all from Boulevard. View titles by Stan Lee
Jack Kirby (1917–1994) was an American comic book artist and writer best known for cocreating iconic characters such as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. He is recognized as one of the industry's greatest innovators and was one of the first people inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. View titles by Jack Kirby

Educator Guide for The Avengers

Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

(Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

“A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.”
—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans—initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too—found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That’s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why—or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby—or his successor on “Captain America,” Jim Steranko—barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper—unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.”
—Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

“As before, all three of these volumes re-present Professor Ben Saunders’ learned general series intro which does an excellent job of succinctly explaining the rise of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Method.”
—Forces of Geek

About

The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy
 
Collects The Avengers #1-4, 9, 16, 26, 28, 44, 57, 58, 71, 74, and 83. It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.
 
Starting in 1961, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and their collaborators transformed the Super Hero genre with a series of new creations, including the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, and the Invincible Iron Man. In 1963, Lee and Kirby brought these characters together for the first time in a new magazine called The Avengers—adding a resurrected Captain America shortly after. Over time the Avengers’ roster would frequently change, mirroring transformations in the Marvel Universe and the society that it reflected. This unique collection gathers key issues from the first few years of the series.
 
A foreword by Leigh Bardugo, a scholarly introduction and apparatus by José Alaniz, and a general series introduction by Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of The Avengers and classic Marvel comics.

Author

© Ten Speed Press
Stan Lee is the co-creator of the most beloved characters in the history of comics, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and many others. He is also the author of Stan Lee's Riftworld: Odyssey, and the editor of The Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimate Super-Villains, The Ultimate Silver Surfer, and The Ultimate X-Men, all from Boulevard. View titles by Stan Lee
Jack Kirby (1917–1994) was an American comic book artist and writer best known for cocreating iconic characters such as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. He is recognized as one of the industry's greatest innovators and was one of the first people inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. View titles by Jack Kirby

Guides

Educator Guide for The Avengers

Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

(Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

Praise

“A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.”
—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans—initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too—found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That’s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why—or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby—or his successor on “Captain America,” Jim Steranko—barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper—unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.”
—Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

“As before, all three of these volumes re-present Professor Ben Saunders’ learned general series intro which does an excellent job of succinctly explaining the rise of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Method.”
—Forces of Geek

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