Welcome to the History section of the Official Handbook to the M2K Universe: Avengers Edition. Below is a detailed account of the major events that have happened in the lives of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, from the beginning of Marvel 2000 to the present!

PRE-MARVEL 2000 : Prior to the M2K cut-off point for continuity (May 1999, or Avengers # 15, vol. 3), several plots had been established. In Avengers # 4 (vol. 3), the team underwent a restructuring after the events of Onslaught and Heroes Reborn/Return. During this time, several key events happened:

-- Justice and Firestar were granted membership in the team.

-- The Vision had been severely damaged by the Morgan Le Fey, and was forced to spend most of the new team's early days in a special healing chamber. His body was eventually restored, though still weakened, in Avengers # 13 (vol. 3).

-- Hawkeye quit the team and struck out on his own, deciding to take up leadership of the former villains-turned-heroes, the Thunderbolts.

-- Wonder Man, having been killed years before, began to manifest himself as an ionic energy being, called forth by the Scarlet Witch's power. He was eventually fully returned to life by the powers of the Grim Reaper and then the Scarlet Witch in Avengers # 11 (vol. 3). After that, Simon and Wanda began a romantic relationship.

-- Warbird was expelled from the team due to a chronic alcohol problem in Avengers # 7 (vol. 3)

MARVEL 2000 - YEAR ONE : The Avengers started their M2K careers with a threat from the past (and a familiar roster, consisting of: Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Iron Man, Vision, Justice, and Firestar). The team found themselves involved in a mystery concerning the vanishing of the Asgardian Gods, save for their teammate, Thor. Heading to Asgard, the heroes were attacked and split across the Golden Realm by the villainous Loki, who was once again looking to destroy his half-brother, Thor. The plot failed, naturally, and Loki was defeated by the Avengers. As a consequence, Thor left the team in order to search for his missing brethren. When the team returned home, however, they found an old friend awaiting them: Hawkeye, who had recently left the Thunderbolts.

With Hawkeye filling the hole left in the roster by Thor's departure, the Avengers soon found themselves facing one of their oldest foes. The sentient robot Ultron came knocking on the door to Avengers Mansion, quickly defeating most of the Avengers. Only Wonder Man was able to hold off the murderous robot, chasing after Ultron when he attempted to flee. The other Avengers, after gathering their wits, seperated in an attempt to locate their teammate and foe, unaware of the true villain manipulating them. Wonder Man was found lying in the kitchen of Avengers Mansion, having fallen through the ceiling, near death and rambling incoherently about a traitor within the Avengers team. Upon further inspection of the mansion, the heroes discovered that the Vision had disappeared. After tracking down the whereabouts of Ultron, the heroes were shocked to discover that the Vision had joined forces with his malevolent creator, and had turned against the Avengers. Ultron, revealed to be a low-grade copy of the original, was easily defeated by the team, but the Vision escaped.

With the Wasp coming in to fill in the vacancy left by the Vision's departure, the team attempted to settle back into a normal routine. The Vision reappeared several weeks later, however, this time leading a team of robot Avenger duplicates, and wrecked havoc in the middle of Manhattan. The Avengers, aided by the amazing Spider-Man, easily defeated the robotic doppelgangers, but the Vision again managed to escape.

The team was interrupted again soon after by the coming of a desperate Captain Marvel, who had come to the Avengers with a warning of a horrible vision of the future. Before Marvel could explain, the enigmatic Watcher appeared with former Avengers Photon and Moondragon in tow. The Watcher teleported half of the team (along with Captain Marvel) to the far planet of Pluto, where they found a machine that was accelerating the speed of time, causing the universe to expand and contract under the pressure of its own mass. The Kree scientist responsible for creating the machine has died, leaving the device to operate uncontrollably, causing universe wide disasters. While the planet breaks up around them, the Avengers managed, through teamwork, to halt the machine's progress, and ultimately save the universe.

Upon returning back to Earth, however, the Avengers were contacted by a former member: the Black Panther, whose nation of Wakanda was under attack by the android Avengers created by the Vision. Leaving the Wasp, Justice, Firestar, Photon, and the newly inducted Captain Marvel behind, the Avengers took flight to Wakanda in hopes of stopping their former friend. When they landed, however, they were immediately attacked and defeated by the Vision's erstatz Avengers, with Hank Pym being the only hero to escape capture. The false Avengers were not true robots at all, but members of the Black Panther's tribe that had been transformed into cyborg mockeries of the heroes. While Pym was left to fend for himself against the tribal Avenger clones, the real heroes were the captives of the Vision. With the Avengers at his mercy, he subjected them to a robotic puppet show showing how the Avengers (particularly Wonder Man and the Scarlet Witch) had "betrayed" his trust. After the show ended, the Vision explained that his "eyes had been opened" by the reprogramming done on him by Ultron, and that he knew the Avengers to have never been his friends. He planned to replace all of humanity with cyborg doppelgangers, and had chosen Wakanda to begin his plan due to the natural element of Vibranium that the country had access to...the Vision had upgraded, and had become almost pure liquid Vibranium. Wonder Man, disgusted by what his former friend had done, challenged the Vision to fight him like a man...a request that the Vision surprisingly agreed to.

Pym, meanwhile, had managed to hold his own against the faux Avengers, making his way back to the Quinjet so he could return to Avengers Mansion for reinforcements. Pym returned to Wakanda, aided by Photon, Justice, Firestar, and Captain Marvel, and enaged the false Avengers while they were exterminating a group of rebel Wakandans. While Wonder Man fought hopelessly against the Vision, the lapse in concentration allowed the other captive Avengers to free themselves. The Vision, however, was in control of all the Vibranium in the Earth, and he used to attack his foes. With the Wakandan Avengers being defeated by the newcomer heroes, Pym and Photon came up with a plan. After the Vision had defeated the Avengers, Pym - shrunk down to a miniscule size and with the light form of Photon providing him protection - entered the Vision's body and reached his brain. With the former Avenger's brain in his grasp, Pym enlarged, crushing the synthetic organ...killing the Vision instantly.

With the crisis in Wakanda halted after the Vision's death, the team returned to Avengers Mansion, where a depressed and sorrowful Pym tendered his resignation from the team. The Avengers went on one final mission after the Wakanda events, an attempted apprehension of the former villain Goliath from the industrial headquarters of Justin Hammer. After engaging in a battle with the Thunderbolts, the Avengers were forced to leave without the man they had come to apprehend. After this, the team fell into disarray, with most of the members leaving due to the demoralization and emotional upheaval that the Vison's death had caused.

MARVEL 2000 - YEAR TWO: When Thor returned to the Avengers, only four members of the team remained: Hawkeye, Iron Man, Wonder Man, and the Scarlet Witch. An argument between Thor and Iron Man over how the team should be operated caused Stark to leave in anger, leaving Thor to lead the team. It was then that Thor was approached by the Olympian God Apollo, who came with a dire prophecy that a certain gathering of heroes would be needed to face a dire threat. Thor agreed to assist Apollo and helped him gather the appropriate beings for a rather unorthodox grouping of Avengers. Such men and women as Gilgamesh - the immortal demon hunter, Satana - daughter of the devil, Hyperion - leader of the otherdimensional Squadron Supreme, and Callisto - mutant and former leader of the underground Morlocks, were brought to Avengers Mansion (along with former Avengers Sersi and Crystal and other newcomers Binary, Jennifer Kale and Shaitan). While none of these questionable heroes were inducted into the official ranks of the Avengers at the time, both Hawkeye and Wonder Man felt ill at ease - and, hence, they left the team.

Immediately after forming the bizarre squadron, the Avengers received a distress call from the Shi'ar warrior Gladiator, who claimed that Lilandra's alien empire was under siege by a host of cosmic entities. The Avengers quickly took off into deep space in order to aid the Shi'ar, and the heroes became embroiled in a war in the far reaches of outer space. The team fought as much with themselves, however, as they did with their enemies, and Callisto was kidnapped by the villainous Count Abyss. When Thor and Apollo ventured to rescue her, the Olympian revealed that the Morlock was in fact his granddaughter, unaware of her godly heritage. The war in the Shi'ar empire, unbeknownst to the heroes, was connected to an Earth-bound group called simply "Menace X", who was attempting to spread a mind-controlling drug across the planet. Menace X, the evil Shi'ar diplomat Dooku, and others were all under the control of a villain known to the Avengers: Proctor, an alternate-reality version of the Black Knight who had unsuccessfully attempted to destroy the team at an earlier occasion.

With the invasion of the Shi'ar galaxy temporarily halted, the various groups of Avengers returned to Earth. Using the opportunity, Proctor attacked the team by surprise, teleporting Sersi away during the battle. Before he disappared as well, he told the heroes that they must travel back to the Shi'ar homeworld if they wanted to get their teammate back. On the alien homeworld, Proctor revealed his plan: the drug distrubuted on Earth unlocked the mutant X-gene in anyone who took it, also making the person Proctor's slave. With his new army, he planned to wrest control of the largest galactic empire in the universe, the Shi'ar. When the Avengers arrived on the planet and confronted Proctor, they were faced with yet another betrayal from one of their own: Apollo. The Olympian revealed that he had not been who the heroes had thought, his form changing into that of the dimensional alien called Cobweb, who had replaced the god before joining the Avengers. Proctor then stated that he had lined the Shi'ar empire with variations of the Nega Bomb and was prepared to destroy the entire galaxy. To show that he was serious, Proctor cold heartedly murdered the Shi'ar empress, Lilandra. As Proctor set to teleport away, however, the true Apollo came to his senses and attacked, disabling the villain before he coudl escape. Realizing that they could not stop the villain, Thor opened a dimensional gateway for the Avengers to return to Earth, right before the Nega Bombs exploded. The Shi'ar galaxy was completely annhilated, and Proctor apparently died along with the alien race. Uknown to all, however, the villain sent his psychic self into space, eventually taking over the body of one of his followers named Fat-a-Maru. With yet another crippling defeat upon them, most of the Avengers associates left the team for good, leaving only Thor, Crystal, Sersi, and the Scarlet Witch.

While the Avengers were spending most of their time space, the United States government's faith in the eccentric team of heroes had been extremely stressed. In order to once again have a team of Avengers available to protect America, the Commission on Superhuman Activities appraoched Iron Man with a desire to see the team's West Coast branch reopened. Realizing that the need for the Avengers outweighed his dislike of the Commission, Stark agreed and assembled a second team of Avengers based out of California. After collecting former mainstay Avengers Hawkeye and Warbird, Iron Man realized he would need to recruit a few lesser-known heroes to fill the holes in the roster, eventually choosing the vigilante Darkhawk and (based off of a recommendation from Captain America himself) the costumed athlete Vagabond. In their first mission as a team, the Avengers West Coast came into conflict with the racist Sons of the Serpent, who were planning to unleash a plague upon the country. The heroes won, aided by two unexpected adventurers: Captain Marvel, who wished to return to the Avengers despite his odd change in personality, and the Two-Gun Kid, a time displaced gunfighter from the 1800's that had previously been an Avenger after a trip through time. The appearance of the Two-Gun Kid caused concern to the team over the validity of his identity, and were immediately approached by the mysterious being known as Sayge. Sayge brought forth a menacing prophecy for the future, as well as casting doubt on Two-Gun's claims of being the true Mathew Hawk.

Back in New York, the holes in the Avengers roster were soon filled by the return of former member Mantis and her son Quoi, the Celestial Messiah. Mantis was contacted by the being known as the Supreme Evolutionary, who told her that the time of the Celestial Messiah would soon be near, and that she would not be able to stay with the Avengers for long - Quoi needed to become his own man, to learn responsibility before the time of his ascension. While Crystal took leave from the team to return to Attilan, the home of her family, the Inhumans, the eight mystical beings called the Exemplars took over the nation of Guam, goading the Avengers to come stop them. The heroes went to Guam, met by Crystal, Gilgamesh, and Callisto, and faced down the Exemplars, but it soon became apparent that the villains true target was one of the Avengers own. The Scarlet Witch, having had her true potential unlocked by the Scarlet Centurion months earlier, was believed by the Exemplars to be able to give them unlimited power. The Exemplars defeated the Avengers, but the Scarlet Witch underwent a startling transformation, the dark side of her soul becoming dominant. She killed three of the eight Exemplars with hardly a second thought, and afterward collapsed unconcious, back to her normal self.

After the battle with the Exemplars, Crystal and Sersi traveled to do charity work in Thailand, unaware that they were being targed by the mysterious Children of the Dark. The power of the Children was noticed by two beings: Krugarr, the Sorcerer Supreme of the 31st century, and Numinus, an abstract being of cosmic power. With both beings realizing that the Children of the Dark were a threat to the universe itself, they went about gathering forces to stop them. While Krugarr went to the Avengers themselves, Numinus gathered a mix of random superhuman individuals to act as her champions (among them Nitro, Fusion, Stellaris, Primus, and the Four Horsemen). Krugarr told the Avengers of the Children's plan, that they intended to use the elemental powers of Crystal and Sersi to unlock the dimensional gates and free their "master". The two seperate teams of heroes descended on Guam, and eventualy defeated the Children. Numinus then proclaimed that the time-displaced Fusion would be needed by the Avengers in the near future, leaving him to accompany the team to their mansion. When they returned, however, Mantis took her leave, returning to the stars with a final farewell to her son.

On the West Coast, the second Avengers team were contacted by the Commission to look into the disappearance of a small Washington town's inhabitants. The Avengers entered the town and soon found the residents, every person enthralled by the H'ythra, a race of alien symbiotes, with the queen residing in the large lake adjacent to the town. The Avengers, too, were made slaves to the alien parasites, all save Darkhawk and Iron Man. The two free heroes were then captured by another party, the maniacal Doctor Midas and his daughter, Oubliette. Midas had arranged for the Avengers to investigate the town, using the H'ythra as a way to capture Captain Marvel. Midas, encased a version of Iron Man's original armor, was obssessed with cosmic energy and had planned on using Marvel's power to enhance his own. While Two-Gun managed to free himself and most of his enthralled teammates, Iron Man and Darkhawk broke free of Midas' capture. After a battle in the streets of the town with the enslaved citizens, the Avengers were faced with the power of a H'ythra possessed Captain Marvel. Genis-Vell, aided by the mental influence of Rick Jones, managed to free himself from the mental slavery and used his considerable power to destroy the monstrous H'ythra queen that was in the lake. Midas and his daughter both escaped under the noses of both the Avengers and SHIELD.

After returning to Los Angeles, Vagabond was attacked by the super-villain assassin known only as the Scourge. After a brief fight, Vagabond was left at the Scourge's mercy, who told her that he knew her true reason for joining the Avengers. Her teammates came to her rescue, driving away the killer, but his words still haunted the woman he'd tried to kill. Unknown to the other Avengers, Vagabond had sold her soul to the villainous Baron Zemo - in exchange for providing her with a variation on the Super Soldier Serum, Vagabond was his double agent inside the Avengers.

The East Coast Avengers found a new ally in the space-faring Jack of Hearts, who came to assist the heroes against the threat of the Emperor, who was defeated shortly after. Several nights later, the Supreme Evolutionary appeared in Avengers Mansion, requesting that Quoi travel on a dimensional quest with him in order to unlock his true potential as the Celestial Messiah. Quoi agreed to take the journey, as did several of the Avengers themselves. Sersi, Gilgamesh, Callisto, and the team's guest Fusion all disappeared with Quoi and the Evolutionary, perhaps never to be seen again. In order to keep the team at fighting strength, three former members were asked to rejoin the Avengers ranks: Quasar, Photon, and the Black Knight.

Soon after, a low-level telepath named Dylan Cavanaugh requested the Avengers' aid, baiting them into a trap set by the villains Zzzax and Oort the Living Comet. Though the Avengers easily defeated the two villains, they were unaware that Cavanaugh had been possessed by the evil entity Xorr, who had allied himself with Proctor and former Avenger ally Satana. Inhabiting a new body, Proctor gained admittance to Avengers Mansion by posing as a newly-hired maintenence technician, determined to destroy the heroes from within. It was almost immediately after that the Black Knight left the team, unable to work with his ex-lover Crystal.

The Knight had been contacted by a Los Angeles business named LL Incorporated, who wanted him to meet with them about a possible job offer. Leaving New York with friend (and fellow former Avenger) Hercules tagging along, Whitman's investigation of LL was interrupted by the destructive rampage of the formerly-deceased father and son, the Whizzer and Nuklo. Joined by Wonder Man and Speedball, the Knight was able to help Nuklo and the Whizzer return to their previously-dead state without any loss of life from the citizenry of Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to the heroes, the situation had been orchestrated by the formerly villainous Grim Repear, Eric Williams, who had struck a deal with the Hell Lord Mephisto. Having assembled the group of heroes, Williams extended them an offer to join him in a new experiment: the Champions, the first reality-television super team. Reluctantly, the Black Knight, Hercules, and Wonder Man all agreed to join Williams.

Also in Los Angeles, the West Coast group of Avengers were contacted by a young girl named Lena Myers, whose grandfather had once encountered an alien wood creature named Moomba that had attempted to take over the planet decades ago. This coincided with "the march of the wooden Moomba toys" that had circulated as figurines areound the country, giving power to newly resurrected Moomba Prime. The true Moomba appeared in downtown Los Angeles, and was engaged in battle by the Avengers. Unable to defeat the alien, Darkhawk and Lena traveled to the California manufacturing plant that had been responsible for the creation of the mini-Moombas. There, they encountered the African shaman Katu, who had been thought as the person responsible for driving Moomba away the first time. Instead, Katu controlled Mooma through the use of a toy wooden totem and planned on using the alien to conquer the world himself. In desperation, Darkhawk wrested the totem away from the shaman and swallowed it, then triggering his transformation back into his human form. With the totem now in another dimension, Moomba lost his source of power (and Katu, his source of immortality, causing his death). This coincided with the battle between Moomba and the Avengers, where Warbird tapped into her previously thought lost power she had as Binary, using it to annihilate the alien warlord.

Meanwhile, the New York Avengers were contacted by the powerful group of cosmic beings called the Moon Gods, who had traveled to Earth to warn them of the plans of Tyrant. A former Herald of Galactus, Tyrant had allied himself with the High Evolutionary, Morg, and Firelord in a plan to use the Earth mutant Karma's mind-control powers to dominate the planet. While the Avengers allied themselves with the Moon Gods and the Inhumans, the cosmic trio of the Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, and Red Norvell attempted to defeat Tyrant themselves, but were defeated. The Inhumans traveled to Wundagore and defeated the High Evolutionary and Thor rescued Karma from the clutches of Firelord and Morg, but Tyrant himself used the opportunity to stage an attack on Avengers Mansion itself. Easily defeating the Avengers and Moon Gods, only the enhanced powers of the Scarlet Witch held the villain at bay until he was forced to retreat.

Sometime after this, the Scarlet Witch found herself drawn into an elaborate plot concocted by a long-thought-dead foe of the Avengers. Posing as the Grim Reaper, the demonic Master Pandemonium had escaped from imprisonment in the realm of the Hell Lord Mephisto, and by tapping into the Witch's own wildly powerful chaos magic was able to create an entirely new and seperate reality that he controlled. Pulling Wanda into this alternate world without her knowledge, Pandemonium attempted to drive her insane by murdering her friends and family in the Avengers. Gathering an eclectic group of former Avengers (in reality their alternate dimensional doppelgangers), Wanda confronted Pandemonium and was able to wrest control of the chaos energy that enfused the tangent world. The Scarlet Witch destroyed Master Pandemonium and the world he had created, afterwards awaking in the true Avengers Mansion - the events fading like a dream.

Unbeknownst to the heroes, Tyrant was acting as the thrall of the Mad Titan, Thanos. After the defeat of his underling, Thanos allied himself with the other-dimensional ruler Darkseid, offering him the Scarlet Witch in return for aid. Darkseid was searching for what he called the "anti-life equation", and Thanos explained that the Witch's probability powers could help him uncover the equation's secrets. Darkseid agreed and unleashed an army of his parademons on the major cities of Earth, while the heroes found an unlikely ally in the Kree Supreme Intellegence, who did not wish to see the universe come under the power of the death-worshiping Thanos. The Scarlet Witch and Jack of Hearts were captured by Darkseid's forces and transported to Apokolips, forcing the Avengers to split into two teams: one to defeat the armies of parademons and one to travel to Apokolips to rescue their teammates. With the assistance of both the Kree and the Shi'ar, the Avengers successfully defeated Thanos and Darkseid and rescued their kidnapped teammates.

Immediately after, the Supreme Evolutionary returned to the Avengers with Quoi and the others that had accompanied him to gather the pieces of the Celestial Puzzle. Revealing how he had subtely manipulated the heroes over the past year, the Evolutionary used the Avengers' emotional energy to unlock the Puzzle and the group then left again on another mission - this time to gather the army that would join Quoi as his Celestial Guard. Following this, the Avengers traveled to the new Shi'ar homeworld to witness an unprecedented event: the signing of a peace treaty between the Kree and the Shi'ar, effectively ending the cold war between the two empires.

Back on the West Coast, two former Avengers paid visits to the heroes' California compound. After a request from Iron Man, the Beast returned to the team in order to determine the reasons behind Warbird's power fluctuations. Then, unexpectedly, Quicksilver arrived at the compound with his lover, the X-Man Rogue. Furious at seeing the woman that had nearly destroyed her life years ago, Warbird attacked Rogue and the two battled their way across Avengers Compound. In truth, Rogue had only come to the Avengers in order to apologize for what she had done to Danvers, and Warbid succeeded only in alienating herself from her friends and teammates. Rogue, upset that Quicksilver was angry with her for fighting with Warbird, flew away from her love, leaving him alone with the Avengers.

MARVEL 2000 - YEAR THREE :