The 90's was a strange time for the
Avengers as the
X-Men and
Spider-Man dominated the airwaves during much of that time with their cartoons on Fox. In the comics, the
X-Titles as well as
Spider-Man had all the hot artists on board like
Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Eric Larsen and
Todd McFarlane. Earth's Mightiest Heroes during that time seemed often to struggle to really find its footing in the Marvel Universe which in turn caused many iconic characters to go through some often drastic makeovers.
Trends were started in the pages of X-Men like wearing leather jackets and having letters that represented your team featured on your outfits that soon carried over to the Avengers.
Then, as the 90's began to come to a close, Marvel and the comic industry itself began experiencing extreme turmoil, and we ended up with things like Heroes Reborn.
Still that time period brought us many interesting looks and outfits for the Avengers. Which begs the question, should Hasbro do more Avengers action figures from that time period? After all, Hasbro did give us a very
90's Black Widow figure last year in her grey outfit with the "A" sleeved leather jacket.
Other notable Avengers characters who sported the leather jacket look included
Eternals member
Sersi who at the time wore a red and black outfit.
Then there was
The Black Knight who ditched the cape for the jacket and also started using a Lightsaber-type laser sword instead of his traditional Ebony Blade weapon. With the
Eternals movie featuring both characters coming next year, I could even see Hasbro giving us a 2-pack of these two with their 90's looks.
The
Olympian God Hercules also switched up his look in the 90's, often sporting shoulder pads (another look made to be cool in the 90s) and shirts with the letter A featured on it.
Speaking of Gods, another character who experienced some pretty drastic changes in the 90's was
Thor. For a while the mantle of
Thor was handed off to a human named
Eric Masterson who gave us a subtle update to the classic Thor look.
Eventually
Masterson ended up giving Mjölnir back to its original owner and assumed the identity of
Thunderstrike giving his own twist on the leather look. I would love to see Hasbro do both the
Masterson Thor and
Thunderstrike for the Marvel Legends line.
Thor himself probably experienced one of his most drastic makeovers in the late 90's although it was very short-lived. It had all the classic traits of the 90's including leather, big shoulder pads, and chains.
Another Avengers member fairly new to the team at the time was the
Inhumans character
Crystal.
Not to be outdone by
Black Widow and
Sersi, she too soon dumped the traditional plain yellow costume look after joining and started sporting a white and black costume with the added Avengers leather jacket.
Hank Pym, officially returned to the Avengers during this time with his
Giant Man persona, and ditched the traditional mask in favor of Cable-like communication headgear and cyclops-like belt pouches.The hair sticking out of the top of the mask was also a look that became very popular in the 90s, especially if you had blonde hair.
Fortunately
Steve Rogers was spared that particular look, but
Clint Barton couldn't say the same with his new
Hawkeye outfit.
Speaking of blonde hair characters,
Quasar is another character from the 90s that
Hasbro should definitely consider giving a
Marvel Legends figure. The character first appeared back in 1979, but it wasn't until
Wendell Vaughn picked up the mantle in his own title that first debuted in 1989. That, I think, is when the character really picked up steam.
Captain America ended up taking Vaughn under his wing and bringing him onboard the
Avengers for a short time.
The 90's also saw
Wanda Maximoff go through some pretty major changes as she separated from her android husband Vision, found out her children were not real, and was manipulated by the likes of both
Kang and
Magneto. During this time,
Scarlet Witch sported a number of different looks but this one was probably my favorite. Of course, all eventually lead us to "No More Mutants".
Not to be outdone by costume changes,
Scarlet Witch's brother
Quicksilver ditched his long standing blue outfit for a new one. In keeping with the look of his now separated wife Crystal's white and black look,
Pietro began wearing a dark black and white outfit.
Since we know how much
Hasbro loves
Iron Man, we should note that this time period is when Tony started wearing this very popular armor design featured in the
90's Iron Man animated series as well as done in figure form by
Toy Biz. We have to imagine Hasbro will get around to doing it at some point.
By the end of the 90's, almost all the Avengers had gotten costume make-overs. Some better than others, but we feel there is a lot of potential here for Hasbro to explore with new action figures.
After all, Hasbro has been giving us the 90's versions of the X-Men. It only seems fair the Avengers get the same treatment, right???