10 More Comic Book Teams That Need Their Own Movie
2. Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers
Marvel's Illuminati first appeared back in 2005, created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Steve McNiven. The secretive cabal consisted of members each representing a different aspect of the Marvel universe, having been retroactively established to exist after the end of the Kree-Skrull war.
The team featured some of the smartest, the most powerful, and figures representing their community: Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, genius engineer and self-made hero; Doctor Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme; Professor Charles Xavier, mutant leader; Blackagar Boltagon AKA Black Bolt, king of the Inhumans; Reed Richards AKA Mister Fantastic, scientific adventurer and leader of the Fantastic Four; and Namor, king of Atlantis.
Together, the team worked in the shadows for the greater good, manipulating events for the betterment of Earth's inhabitants. The Illuminati provided an interesting team wrestling with moral quandaries weightier than simply punching bank robbers.
But it was with the Marvel Now! relaunch that the group were really shined. Writer Jonathan Hickman took over lead creative duties on flagship titles Avengers and New Avengers. The former focused on the public face of the superhero community, with the likes of Captain America, Wolverine, and Spider-Man protecting the earth from internal and external threats in full view of its citizens. New Avengers followed the Illuminati.
The team had changed slightly with the death of Xavier; mutant Beast had been brought in to take his seat at the table, with Black Panther joining, too. and together they faced what would be revealed to be the biggest threat to life in the multiverse: the Incursions.
The situation was devastatingly simple: the Earths of each Marvel universe were being physically drawn to each other two at a time. Either both worlds collided, resulting in their destruction, or one world destroyed the other. And that's the predicament the team finds itself in: is it acceptable to kill million, potentially billions and trillions, in order to save their home? To do nothing would be to welcome oblivion. To act would be to bathe in innocent blood forever.
And that's the crux of the New Avengers in Hickman's series: making decisions for the greater good to the detriment of their own souls. Not only do we get intimate, dialogue-heavy scenes, but also epic set pieces that only art can give us. The scale was staggering, with the Illuminati traveling to different Earths to save their own, fighting good and evil proxies along the way.
The stakes were so high, in fact, that Thanos himself was enlisted to help, and featured the debut of his Black Order. The MCU needs a significant threat to work towards beginning with Phase 4, and the Incursions and the begins behind them provide that on a grand and personal scale.