After Chuck Austen’s run on The Avengers series ended, Brian Michael Bendis took his place and rebooted the series with the “Avengers Disassembled” storyline. This is the start of a new Marvel era full of events. Avengers Disassembled was not supposed to become an event, it was and mostly is a storyline, with tie-ins.
As the official synopsis described it: it begins with the return of a team member thought dead – and by the time it’s over, everything you know about the Avengers will have changed! The event that will rock the entirety of the Marvel Universe starts here!
What to read before Avengers Disassembled?
Being a new entry point, the beginning of Bendis’s run (see the full reading order of The Avengers by Bendis), you can start The Avengers with “Avengers Disassembled,” even if it took the form of a conclusion.
Most of the tie-ins are barely connected to the event, they take place in the continuity of their own series (especially Fantastic Four and Excalibur, at least Spectacular Spider-Man offered a team-up with Cap).
Avengers Disassembled Reading Order: Collected Editions
- Avengers Disassembled
Collects Avengers (1998) #500-503 and Avengers Finale #1. Also collected in New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: The Complete Collection Vol. 1. - Avengers Disassembled: Thor
Collects Thor #80-85. - Avengers: Disassembled – Iron Man
Collects Iron Man (1998) #84-89. - Avengers Disassembled: Captain America
Collects Captain America #29-32 and Captain America And The Falcon #5-7. - Fantastic Four Vol. 5: Disassembled
Collects Fantastic Four (1998) #514-519. - Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 4: Disassembled
Collects Spectacular Spider-Man (2003) #15-20. - Excalibur Vol. 2: Saturday Night Fever
Collects Excalibur #5-10.
Avengers Disassembled Reading Order: Issue by Issue
- Iron Man #84-85
- Thor #80-81
- Captain America and the Falcon #5-7
- Captain America #29
- Avengers #500-503
- Excalibur #8
- Iron Man #86-89
- Excalibur #9-10
- Captain America #30-32
- Fantastic Four #517-519
- Spectacular Spider-Man #15-20
- Thor #82-85
- Avengers Finale #1
- New Thunderbolts #1
After Avengers Disassembled
After that? see the full reading order of The Avengers by Bendis. But first, what’s coming next is “House of M” (Reading Order), but before that Brian Michael Bendis had to pave the way to this next universe-redefining event. In the wake of the systematic destruction of the original Avengers, just what sort of threat to the world could persuade Captain America to assemble an all-new team? It started with:
- Secret War
Collects Secret War (2004) #1-5. - New Avengers Vol. 1: Breakout
Collects New Avengers (2004) #1-6. Also collected in New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: The Complete Collection Vol. 1- Spider-Man: Breakout
Collects Spider-Man: Breakout #1-5
- Spider-Man: Breakout
- New Avengers Vol. 2: The Sentry
Collects New Avengers (2004) #7-10. Also collected in New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: The Complete Collection Vol. 1
At the same time New Avengers Vol. 1 started, Marvel launched Young Avengers.