The Avengers (Comic Book)/Awesome

• Ultron, and an army of Ultron drones, has committed genocide of an entire country, held off a massive UN invasion force, and the Avengers wade into the battle anyway and are overwhelmed. In his headquarters Ultron is gloating to his prisoners when a wall explodes, revealing Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, Firestar and Captain America wounded, bleeding, their costumes in shreds, standing there. Thor sums up the situation:

"Ultron. We would have words with thee."

• • And then Ultron kicks their asses. The narration even states that they wouldn't have been able to beat him with their full strength. And then the Scarlet Witch's Hex Power, the only hope they had of beating him, backfires making him more powerful than ever. At which point Justice, who had been left back at the base due to a broken leg (which he got due to his refusal to stay on the sidelines), shows up. He has spent his time studying every encounter anyone has ever had with Ultron, desperately searching for anything which might be useful. He has flown half-way across the world, still with a broken leg, to deliver something that might be useful. Which he hands over to...
    • Hank Pym, the usual Butt Monkey of the Marvel superhero community and the creator of Ultron. Who proceeds to destroy Ultron by savagely beating him with Applied Phlebotinum that dissolves metal. And if you don't understand the significance of that: Ultron is a robot.

Hank Pym: Hey, "Son" -- Ultron: Eh? Hank Pym: I've got a present for you!

• For the villain side, basically everything Kang the Conqueror does in the Kang Dynasty storyline that lasted for a year and a half. The first thing he does is give a speech, broadcast worldwide, that lasts for basically a whole issue...but even if he had vanished from the story immediately afterward, this would STILL be a crowning moment, as that one speech leads to military coups, invasions by two separate subspecies of humanity, worldwide supervillain uprisings, basically more chaos than most villains accomplish in their entire career. But, naturally, he doesn't vanish and becomes more and more badass as the story continues, until he conquers the entire planet Earth through military cunning and a knack for predicting his enemies, something no other Marvel villain had ever done. This story essentially turned him into Marvel's version of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
• When the Grim Reaper used a group of dead Avengers in a plan against the Avengers. Every member gets taken down, except the Scarlet Witch, who arrived late that day. The lead dead guy was her lover, who has been Not Quite Dead lately. While tied to a chair, she basically talks at them until she can use her magic to try and convert them. The end result is left a little vague for dramatic reasons, so when the heroes go back to their former master, someone just has to say something:

Wonder Man: You brought us back because you though it would be poetic to use us as your pawns... but you forgot something. We're Avengers. And the Avengers will oppose you... to the bitter end... and beyond."

• • Special mention should go to the cover: the undead heroes, breaking to fourth wall to stare out at the reader. The blurb reads "Yeah, they're dead... wanna make something of it?"
• In Avengers #400, Jarvis has been tricked by Loki to use his knowledge of Avengers' history to conjure duplicates of EVERY VILLAIN THE AVENGERS HAVE FACED BEFORE. When Loki doesn't have more use to Jarvis, tries to kill him, but Jarvis activates his Avengers commcard. He has only one card, but it's an ace. The seven Avengers still conscious ignore enemies that were about to kill them moments before, because one of them (Jarvis) is in danger.
• During the Onslaught Saga, the Avengers face Holocaust and Post. When Cap says "We cannot defeat them" Wasp thinks all hope is lost. It turns that Cap meant they needed to use their own strength against them. Cap activates Post's camouflage to trick Holocaust into shooting the invisible Post (trying to hit Cap). When Holocaust notices he was tricked, he gets so confused that becomes defeatable by Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
• The ending of Avengers Forever. When the Timekeepers fling an army of every single evil Avenger that ever existed in the multiverse at the tiny group of time-hoppers brought together to stop their plans, what do said time-hoppers, who have already been through multiple battles do? Proceed to fight like hell, until Rick Jones succeeds in channeling the power he got from the Kree Intelligence in such a way that they can summon up every GOOD Avenger who ever existed to aid them. The ensuing melee is epically awesome.
• One of Tony Stark's Iron Man armors underwent a viral-invasion-induced metamorphosis, turning him into a naked woman with a silvery gleam on her body who turned out to be Ultron. After announcing her intent to destroy the Earth, the Avengers fight her off, so she pulls off several plans to keep it going. With time running out, the Avengers pull a desperate plan. Hank Pym shrinks down the Avenger Ares, and launches him into the mouth of the female Ultron, so he can defeat her from the inside with his secret weapon: A Commodore 64.
  • For added amusement/WTF factor, that naked metal woman? Was a clone of Pym's ex-wife Janet, who was also part of the plan to take it down.
• The low-level legacy hero Triathlon meets the guy whose power he inherited. Senior guy muses that he should return to action, despite not having any powers, getting by on simply being "old school. And nothing beats old school!"; then he comes to his senses and gives Triathlon his original goggles, which let him see shapeshifters. A day later, Triathlon stumbles onto a secret conspiracy of shapeshifting aliens, and singlehandedly defeats a superpowered sleeper agent. The alien starts whining that his race spent years working on ways of avoiding detection by the humans. Triathlon's response:

"See these goggles? They're old school. And nothing beats old school." (cue the villain getting a sword through his head)

• During the Avengers: Disassembled story arc, after the mansion's been leveled, Ant-Man and The Vision are killed, She-Hulk's gone berserk, and Iron Man has humiliated himself things look pretty grim. While SHIELD is investigating what happened, Captain America is told by Hawkeye that some other heroes are here. Cap goes out and sees nearly every former and reserve member of the Avengers has come to help.
• The first day after the Parker Family moves into Avengers Tower, May tells Wolverine, "There's no smoking and no drinking in the breakfast room until after noon at the earliest," plucking the burning cigar out of his face and dropping it into the drink in his hand.
• Ares gets several MOA during his Avenger career:
  • During a battle with Iron Man's armors controlled by female Ultron he ran out of ammo, so he just ripped in half one of the armors and used its rocket legs to burn other ones.
  • Later in the same battle he jumped at one of the armors, embedded a knife in its head and used it to steer while he rode the armor.
  • In his own mini-series he got two new ones, first by shooting at people with a Gatling gun, while drinking a beer in other hand, and second by surfing a bomb.
• In "Breakout", in New Avengers, Daredevil, Spider-Woman and Foggy Nelson are cornered by Carnage in a cramped prison 42 stories underground. Nelson pleads with the then unknown Sentry to step out of his catatonia and help them. A few panels later we see him walk up to Carnage, grab him by the throat and take off straight up. The next page is nothing but a dozen "Boom" sound effects over the exterior of the prison, and then we see him rip Carnage in two in the stratosphere.