8 Comics To Catch Up on Before Marvel’s New Avengers #1

Published Sep 30, 2026, 4:51 PM EDT Emedo Ashibeze is a tenured journalist and critic specializing in the entertainment industry. Before joining ScreenRant in 2025. he wrote for several major publications, including GameRant. When Marvel resets Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, it rarely does so in a vacuum. These flagship launches carry over lingering plot threads, fractured alliances, and sweeping status quo changes across the Marvel Universe. New Avengers #1 does the unthinkable by bringing together the world’s most volatile assets to face an Avengers-level threat. The comic features a team of dangerous loners and antiheroes, including Carnage, Black Widow, Namor, Clea, and Wolverine, assembled by the Winter Soldier to take down evil duplicates of the Illuminati. The lineup alone raises the question of whether characters with mile-long rap sheets are even able or deserving of being Avengers. However, to fully understand the gravity of these circumstances and why this highly volatile team was assembled, fans must first know their stories and past events. This article highlights 8 comics fans need to read to catch up before New Avengers #1, showcasing old loyalties and unresolved grudges you need to understand to appreciate the comic fully. 8 Dungeons of Doom Set in the aftermath of One World under Doom, Dungeons of Doom follows Victor von Doom after he leaves an entire empire’s worth of secrets locked behind his castle walls. The world’s powers, seeing Doom’s Latverian stronghold as empty, masterless, and up for grabs, race to his castle to claim the untold power and technology within it. However, an explosion sent them plummeting into a secret dungeon/labyrinth and inadvertently set off a terrifying game of survival. What makes this comic worth following is what it says about Doom as a character, even in his absence. Dungeons of Doom turns Doom’s arrogance into the engine of the story, highlighting Doom’s terrifying scope and influence. 7 Red Hulk Benjamin Percy and Geoff Shaw’s ‘Red Hulk’ is a tie-in series to One World Under Doom that kicks off when Doctor Doom imprisons Ross in Latveria to exploit his military expertise. Trapped with some of the world’s sharpest military, political, and criminal minds, Ross finds the Red Hulk to be his only way of escaping his predicament. Therefore, Ross unleashes the Red Hulk to wage a brutal guerrilla-style campaign from the inside out. He teams up with allies like Machine Man and Deathlok and leads an internal prison break that snowballs into a full-scale rebellion. The story is packed with tactical action and espionage, contrasting Ross’s fiery patriotic fury with Doom’s calculated, tyrannical order. 6 Captain America #6–11 Written by Chip Zdarsky, Captain America features a five-part story set shortly after Steve Rogers first awoke from the ice, chronicling his earliest showdown with Doctor Doom. The story flashes forward to the present day in issue #6, after Doom’s downfall during One World Under Doom. Furthermore, as Thunderbolt Ross’s violent incursion pushes Latveria toward civil war, Captain America is sent to protect civilians and investigate a rumoured hidden weapons stockpile. Nick Fury Jr.’s newly formed S.H.I.E.L.D., with agents like Red Widow and Joe Ramos, complicates matters as its goals often clash with Steve Rogers’ ideals. A squad of Shield agents races to claim Doom’s arsenal before anyone else can, and warring factions and clashing agendas turn a peacekeeping mission into a scramble for Latveria’s spoils. These events put Cap on a collision course with Red Hulk and his all-Hulk strike team, setting up the exact confrontation that ignites Avengers: Armageddon. 5 Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion #1–5 Written by Deniz Camp and Cody Ziglar, drawn by Jonas Scharf, Incursion is the Ultimate Universe’s first true crossover, uniting Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Black Panther, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimates, and Ultimate Wolverine. Miles Morales’ baby sister, Billie, serves as the catalyst, using the key the Maker once left him to reach Earth-6160 and forcing Miles into a hostile universe. Miles enters unfamiliar territory with its own complicated dynamics. Luckily, an all-new Peter Parker becomes an unlikely ally after a Spot attack, while Wakanda’s Black Panther bristles at Giant-Man and the Wasp’s presence. Camp and Ziglar use Miles’s disorientation to show readers just how unstable this universe has become. Real stakes undercut the action as the story sets up the return of the Maker, the architect of the entire Ultimate line. Incursion is less like a self-contained detour and more like the hinge the whole Ultimate Universe swings on next, which makes catching up on it less optional than most of Marvel’s crossovers. 4 Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #1–4 Written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Luca Maresca, this four-issue series follows the fallout of One World Under Doom and leads directly into Marvel’s Armageddon event. Logan is drawn by an old acquaintance into the hunt for a kidnapped mutant, only to uncover that the defunct Weapon X program’s methods are still disturbingly alive at PRIMEWARRIOR. Tracking down the feral mutant, Tyler forces Wolverine to confront his past as Zdarsky leans heavily into Logan’s trauma at Weapon X’s hands, rather than treating this as a straightforward action romp. The story also carries real stakes, as PRIMEWARRIOR, a new super-soldier corporation, deploys a fully armed, upgraded Nuke as muscle. 3 The Will of Doom #1 The Will of Doom #1 follows the Fantastic Four as they deal with the brutal fallout from One World Under Doom. After Victor von Doom abruptly disappears from the global stage, the story focuses on the immediate power vacuum left behind. It explores the unsettling reality of a world forced to confront the lingering structural remnants of Emperor Doom’s rule. At the core of the story is a character-driven look at the Fantastic Four as they sift through Doom’s affairs and manage widespread public unrest. The focus is on the emotional strain within the Richards family, particularly Sue Storm and Valeria, as they navigate the trauma of their recent losses alongside the political hostility of a chaotic post-Doom society. CAFU’s clean, grounded artwork also anchors the issue visually. The Will of Doom #1 trades bombastic superhero spectacle for tense political intrigue and psychological depth. It highlights the influence Doctor Doom still exerts, even though he no longer holds the absolute power he once did. 2 Avengers: Armageddon #1–5 When Red Hulk seizes Latveria, the world goes to war in Avengers: Armageddon #1–5. Set in the aftermath of One World Under Doom, this event from writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Frank Alpizar and Delio Diaz follows Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross as he claims Doom’s abandoned homeland, to the alarm of Earth’s mightiest heroes and every nation watching. Earth’s heroes are pulled into a war that spirals well past a single rogue Hulk. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Wolverine, and more scramble into an escalating fight against Ross’s forces, testing the limits of their leadership as public trust in superhuman protectors erodes. 1 One World Under Doom One World Under Doom is a massive 2025 crossover event helmed by writer Ryan North and artist R.B. Silva that radically reframes the traditional supervillain takeover narrative. After acquiring the “Sorcerer Supreme” title, Doctor Doom aims to achieve his goal of “saving the world” by uniting it under his single, iron rule. Doom secures global compliance without brute force, relying instead on diplomacy, political leverage, and solutions like abolishing international borders, providing universal resources, and establishing Pax Victoris. This creates an ethical dilemma for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He wins over citizens and leaders by promising stability and addressing systemic crises. Ultimately, the Avengers cannot simply punch their way out of a regime that the global populace has voluntarily accepted. However, when Doom banishes Earth’s heroes to cement his reign and neglects the tedious magical wards required of the Sorcerer Supreme, he leaves the planet vulnerable to catastrophic extradimensional threats like Dormammu, forcing him to bring the heroes back.