The Avengers #6
Avengers #6 (July 1964) is the foundational villain-team issue of Marvel's Silver Age, delivering the first full appearance and formal naming of Baron Heinrich Zemo alongside the debut of the Masters of Evil — a concept that would reverberate through Marvel continuity for decades and spawn multiple successor rosters. By pitting a mirror-image villain collective directly against the Avengers, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby established a narrative template — the evil counterpart team assembled from heroes' individual enemies — that became one of the most durable structural devices in superhero comics. The issue also folds in the wartime WWII backstory of Captain America's feud with Zemo, giving the still-new Silver Age Cap emotional depth and a personal vendetta that would pay off in Avengers #15 with Zemo's death. Thematically, it marks the moment the Avengers series crystallized its own distinct mythology, separate from its members' solo books, by creating a shared rogues' gallery rather than borrowing any single antagonist.
In "The Mighty Avengers Meet the Masters of Evil!", the Avengers confront a new threat as Baron Zemo assembles the Masters of Evil to settle an old score with Captain America. Written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with dynamic art by Kirby and inks by Chic Stone, this 1964 classic delivers a high-stakes clash of heroes and villains, all rendered in bold colors by Stan Goldberg and sharp lettering by S. Rosen. The cover by Kirby and Stone captures the intensity of the battle before it even begins.
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Written and edited by Stan Lee with pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Chic Stone, the issue went on sale May 5, 1964, carrying a July 1964 cover date — the last issue the series would publish on a bimonthly schedule before shifting to monthly. Kirby remained on the title through issue #8, after which Don Heck took over penciling duties. Baron Zemo had been glimpsed unnamed in a flashback two issues earlier in Avengers #4, but it was here and simultaneously in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #8 (also written by Lee) that the character was identified by name as Heinrich Zemo — a retroactive construction that threaded the villain directly into Captain America's WWII history just issues after Cap's Silver Age reintroduction.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First full appearance and first naming of Baron Heinrich Zemo (the 12th Baron Zemo), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; he had made only an unnamed flashback cameo in Avengers #4.
- First appearance of the Masters of Evil as a team, consisting of Baron Zemo, the Melter (Bruno Horgan), Radioactive Man (Chen Lu), and the Black Knight (Nathan Garrett) — each chosen as a direct counterpart to an individual Avenger.
- The Black Knight (Nathan Garrett) makes his second overall appearance here, having debuted in Tales to Astonish #52 (Feb. 1964); this issue marks his first team affiliation.
- Issue is the last in the series' bimonthly publication schedule; beginning with the following issue the title shifted to monthly.
- The story establishes that Zemo's hood was permanently bonded to his face by his own Adhesive X during a WWII confrontation with Captain America — the body-horror origin detail that defined the character throughout his Silver Age run.
- Paste-Pot Pete (Peter Petruski) appears as an unlikely Avengers ally, providing the solvent to counter Adhesive X in exchange for consideration on his prison sentence — a notably morally ambiguous plot device for 1964.
- The story has been reprinted extensively, including in Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1 (1988 and multiple later editions), the Avengers Omnibus Vol. 1 (2011), Avengers Epic Collection: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2014), Avengers Classic #6 (2008), and True Believers: The Criminally Insane — Masters of Evil (2020).
- The events of this issue were revisited and dramatized in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #3 (2005), and the original Masters of Evil appeared in the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes animated episode 'Zemo and His Masters of Evil.'
Cast · 24 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Zemo forms the Masters of Evil to exact revenge against Captain America.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).