AVENGERS #168 (Mar 1978)

Top Five Avengers Chairpersons
by Brian Cronin
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 10:26 PM EST


The Avengers did not always treat the idea of a chairperson as a major thing, and in fact, for the first 100 or so issues, they not only rotated chairpersons, they did not even always say who WAS the chairperson! So you could theoretically argue that any number of Avengers were chairpersons during the early years, but for the sake of this list, I am just listing the top five Avengers who were specifically noted as being chairpersons. Without further ado, here are the Avengers who have been chairperson of the Avengers (counting both branches) the most issues!

(excerpt)

4. Iron Man
Iron Man only edges out Black Widow because I’m counting him as at least CO-chairperson during the early New Avengers issues. That’s fair, right?

He certainly SEEMED to be leading the team.

Currently, as head of SHIELD, he is the technical “head” of the Mighty Avengers, but I think Ms. Marvel is more of what you would consider the chairperson of the group.

AVENGERS #168 (Mar 1978)

Subject: Ramblings About Comics and Stuff #81: 30 Years of Comics
Posted: 12/4/2007 4:24:28 PMWhat I’m about to say is extremely difficult, but here it goes anyways.

Last month marked thirty years since I got hooked permanently on comics.

There. I said it. Th-Th-Thirty years.

Yeah, after a few missteps and false starts, I started buying comics on a regular basis after I set eyes upon, paid for, and read thoroughly Avengers #168 (Feb 78, but actually hit the racks in November of 1977), the second part of Jim Shooter’s incredible Korvac / Michael saga.

I still can’t get over it. Thirty. Years. Why, when I started collecting in 1977, thirty years ago was, gasp, 1947. Three decades seemed like a long time ago, back then. But this morning, I woke up, and thirty years had suddenly gone by. Weird.

I remember asking my dad one time what life was like back when he was younger, eager to laugh at his anecdotes about washing clothes on a board down by the river, or hauling a block of ice back home from the corner store for the “ice box,” or having to milk the cows at dawn before walking three miles to school every day. But what he said was actually very surprising. He told me that when he was a kid, people went to church, and to picnics, and bowling every Friday night, just like they do now. They just did it while sporting funny looking clothes and hairstyles.