Floating Avenger Heads!!

There is an important tradition that has sadly been lost in recent years...

Floating heads of Avengers watching solo Avengers (or occasionally villains) in action on the covers of the Avengers!!

And, yeah, villains can watch, too.

It's almost as if Marvel was afraid to feature just one hero on the cover. Like the title and the corner box full of faces wasn't enough!

Yes, other teams books used this approach too--Defenders, Invaders, West Coast Avengers, etc...

...and I'm sure DC did it, too, on some of their team books. But I'm not going to look at Outsiders covers, no matter what!

But the Avengers was clearly the grand champion of "disembodied heads watching their teammates struggle on alone."

The tradition continued on into the 70s...

Not all were done terribly well...in this case, they're not even pretending to watch the action!

Now this one was more like it!

This one is a personal favorite:

That's Jim Starlin, with the floating heads drawn by John Romita!

They do it the next issue as well, but the heads don't seem interested again (probably because it's a fill-in reprint):

But we're back in fine form just a few months later!

This one was the first issue of Avengers I ever purchased new off the newsstand, so it has a special place in my hear. Plus, it's the rare example of the floating heads talking:

This, of course, is one of the greatest ever:

I shouldn't count this next one, as it's really just an expanded corner box. But what the hell, right?

Oh, the shame...

The tradition continued through the 80s...

Wow--this must be the only time people were happy to see Starfox!

Nice variation on the concept using computer screens...

Pretty...

Broody, broody Namor...

Hell, even Jarvis got to be the star of a floating head cover!

We should have known that the Worst Avengers Lineup Ever was in trouble when, in only their third issue, they're relegated to floating heads, while the West Coasters and Quasar steal the spotlight.

Man, the Avengers just like to stand around watching Namor, don't they?

And then, like with so many other thing, the 90s ruined it all.

They started well enough...

But the pickings are less then slim for the rest of the decade. Which is why I had to include this one, which is more montage-y than floating heads-y.

The very last issue of the 90s tried to revive  the tradition...

...and the 21st century had a decent start...

But that was pretty much the last bang.

This one, again, is more montage-y than floating head-y...

And, well, this one shows us some torso, so it's not really floating heads, is it?

And from that point, the pickings got even slimmer, and the franchise split up into 47 titles, so I stopped my search.

Dear Marvel...with a new Avenger movie on the way, can we maybe revive the tradition?!?! Floating heads, please!!