Ant-Man: 10 Ways It Can Link To The Avengers
5. The 60s Avengers?
Its never been stated but it was more or less assumed that there were no other superheroes active between the time Captain America was frozen at the end of The First Avenger and when Tony first suited up in the first Iron Man film (where the Hulk first appeared in that chronology is a bit fuzzy, but Marvel has said that the events of The Incredible Hulk occurred after Iron Man 2).
But now its known that Hank Pym was active as Ant-Man in the 60s, as the prequel comic book, which was recently released, shows Pym using the Ant-Man suit as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Maybe the idea of using superheroes wasnt something Fury dusted off from WW2, but from more recently in history? Could there have been a team of proto-Avengers active during the Cold War?
Ant-Man is an obvious choice and another possibility could be Jim Hammond, the Golden Age Human Torch. Hammond was a synthetic man and was seen in a blink-and-youll-miss-it cameo during the Worlds Fair scene in The First Avenger. And given Evangeline Lilys comment about how shes the daughter of two superheroes, that means Janet Van Dyne could also have been one of these proto-Avengers.
There could potentially be other heroes that might have been active, most-likely in secret, during this time. This might be a place to at the very least name-drop some classic Marvel characters like the Invaders or the Agents of Atlas. Even though they date back to WW2, some timeline shuffling would work here.
Its too late to make Pym a founding Avenger, but maybe he was a founder in spirit by being part of an earlier team of heroes that gave Fury the inspiration he needed.