The 1968 Avengers Annual featured a top-notch story by Roy Thomas that pitted the original Avengers against their replacements, thanks to the machinations of the Scarlet Centurion--a time traveler who stops off in our century after his defeat in ancient Egypt as Rama-Tut and plots to rid the Earth of everyone who's invested with super-powers. And while there isn't a plethora of super-powered beings in '68, the Centurion still has his work cut out for him--so to facilitate his plan, he conscripts, of all people, the Avengers, who at this point in time are about to see one of their most powerful members, the Hulk, angrily depart from their ranks. That is, until fate materializes in their midst.
The Avengers, as Captain America later puts it, have of course been sold a bill of goods by the Centurion. We learn later in the story that the Centurion was also using "mildly hypnotic aura and vocal devices" to help convince the Avengers of his sincerity (and there will be a revisionist twist that sought to strengthen that part of Thomas's plot); so despite the very real possibility that the Avengers have been duped, and the fact that they haven't insisted that the Centurion substantiate these "flawless calculations" of his that conclude that those with super-powers must be neutralized before paradise can become a reality for the Earth, the team proceeds with their treacherous mission.
And once the Avengers have eliminated the heroes on their list in a virtual blitzkrieg of attacks, the world's villains are targeted and dealt with.
Mission accomplished, the Avengers move to ensure that no other super-powered humans appear on Earth in the future--though at this point, you'd probably be hard-pressed to find anyone left in the world who still regards these five as "Avengers," or even heroes.
The Centurion speaks of the five Avengers--Captain America, Goliath, the Wasp, the Black Panther, and Hawkeye--who have been displaced in time and are now at large in this altered past. Having already confronted and escaped the Avengers who had "gone bad," the group discovers the details of how the original team became corrupted and resolves to use the components of Dr. Doom's time machine in an attempt to set things right. In the process, they're forced to again battle their predecessors and, through resourcefulness and knowledge of their foes' capabilities and tactics, prevail. That left the Centurion to deal with, whom they learned was the mastermind behind their appearing in the past--reasoning that the newer team of Avengers might successfully manage to overcome the more powerful lineup and thus be a less formidable team of Avengers for the Centurion to dispose of. And though the Avengers' battle against the Centurion looks grim at the outset, they manage to activate the time machine and send the Centurion helplessly adrift through (you guessed it) the centuries.
Everything works out for the Avengers, who return to their own time with no memory of what had happened (thanks to our resident buttinsky, the Watcher, whose habit of interference makes him a laughing stock in his profession). But a 1981 What If story picks up this ball again when it asks the question:
And this time, we'll hear from the original Avengers on the subject.
Continued »»»
