The Avengers#3

The Avengers #3

Jan 1964 · Marvel

📊 ~92,165 copies sold its debut month

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★ Key event — Hulk

About this Issue

Avengers #3 is the earliest Marvel Comics story to position the Hulk as an outright antagonist to his former teammates, a dynamic that would define the character's turbulent relationship with the team for decades and prefigure his role in the Defenders. The issue also stands as a landmark in early Marvel Universe-building: Iron Man's attempt to recruit help brings cameo appearances by the Fantastic Four, the original X-Men, and Spider-Man in a single story — an unprecedented cross-promotional gathering of the nascent Marvel stable just three months into the title's run. The team-up of two alienated, anti-human powerhouses — the Hulk and Namor — planted seeds that writers would return to when founding the Defenders in the 1970s, making this issue a quiet structural pillar of Marvel's shared universe. As the bridge between the founding roster of issues #1–2 and the watershed Captain America revival in #4, it is also an essential chapter in the tightest four-issue run of Silver Age team storytelling.

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History

Written by Stan Lee with pencils by Jack Kirby — who handled art chores on the title's first eight issues — the book went on sale November 5, 1963, carrying a January 1964 cover date, during the period when the Avengers was still published bi-monthly. Inker Paul Reinman and letterer Sam Rosen completed the production team, the same crew that had worked the previous issues. The series itself had been launched at publisher Martin Goodman's direction, inspired by the sales of DC's Justice League of America, with Lee and Kirby assembling pre-existing Marvel heroes rather than creating a team from scratch — a formula that made crossover stories like this one an especially natural fit for the young franchise.

Trivia · 7 facts

Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Paul Reinman, lettered by Sam Rosen — Kirby's involvement as penciler on the series ran through issue #8.
First time Hulk and Sub-Mariner team up against the Avengers — an alliance later recognized as a conceptual forerunner to the Defenders super-group.
Features cameo appearances by the Fantastic Four (at the Baxter Building), Spider-Man, and all five original X-Men (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman, Angel, and Professor X) — an early Marvel Universe-wide crossover moment.
This issue is the first in-continuity clash between the Avengers and the rogue Hulk after he quit the team in issue #2, establishing a recurring tension in Avengers storytelling.
The story clarifies the Hulk/Banner transformation status quo for the era: Banner's stress-triggered reversion to human form at the climax is used as the plot mechanism that ends the battle and allows Namor to escape.
The main story title is 'The Avengers Meet... Sub-Mariner!'; the issue's internal battle splash reads 'The Hulk and Sub-Mariner vs. the Avengers!'
The story has been reprinted extensively, including in The Mighty World of Marvel (Marvel UK, 1973), Marvel Super-Heroes #21 (1969), Avengers Annual #4 (1971), Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1 (multiple editions), Avengers Classic #3 (2007), the Avengers Omnibus Vol. 1 (2012), the Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 1 (2016), the Namor the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection Vol. 1 (2021), Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1 (2021), and The Avengers Penguin Classics Marvel Collection (2023).