THE MARVEL TEAMS
Once upon a four-colour time, when ink smelled like adventure and imagination came in a stapled book, Marvel gave us something magical: heroes who fought the bad guys. Not their selfish desires. Not their branding. Not each other in a twelve-issue “event.” Just good old-fashioned, cosmic-fueled, knuckle-swinging heroics. And leading that charge? Three teams that defined an era.
First up, The Fantastic Four. The First Family of Marvel, Reed stretching logic and limbs, Sue turning invisible before it was cool, Johnny blazing trails and full of trash talk, and Ben Grimm clobberin’ his way through impossible odds. No masks. No secret identities. Just family drama, cosmic threats, and a sense that tomorrow might involve Galactus showing up uninvited. It was bold. It was weird. It was wonderful.
Then came The Mighty Avengers. Earth’s mightiest heroes assembling before “cinematic universe” was even a phrase. Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk… a lineup so iconic it practically hums with heroism. These weren’t broken gods or morally exhausted icons. These were larger-than-life champions facing alien invasions, mad robots, and villains who knew exactly where to stand so they could get punched through a wall. The Avengers assembled.
And finally, the outsiders with the biggest hearts: The X-Men. The original team, in those gloriously simple costumes, battling evil mutants, mad scientists, and giant robots while preaching coexistence with every optic blast. Before the endless infighting, before the mutant politics became a graduate thesis, the X-Men were young heroes learning who they were, standing together, and fighting for a world that feared them.
These images. These teams. This was Marvel in its retro glory. Primary colors. Clear stakes. Bad guys who were actually bad. Heroes who believed in something bigger than themselves.
Sometimes you can’t help but wish Marvel would tap that cosmic time machine and give us a proper retro line again. Clean stories. Bold art. Timeless fun. The kind of books you could hand to a new reader and say, “Here. This is why we fell in love.”
Oh well.
A hero can dream.
