Wonder Man Fact — November 5, 2026

Today's Fact

A former Avenger did not merely quit the team — he published an indictment, recruited the aggrieved, and brought the argument to their front door.

WONDER MAN DECLARED THE AVENGERS THE PROBLEM — THEN BUILT THE REVENGERS, SMASHED THEIR MANSION, AND ENDED UP IN AN IONIC PRISON BUILT BY IRON MAN!

The Featured Fact

When Steve Rogers offered Simon Williams a place on the rebuilt Avengers in Avengers Vol. 4 #1 (2010), Simon refused and warned him not to re-form the team at all. His charge sheet ran for years of Marvel history: Ultron, the Scarlet Witch’s breakdown, the Hulk’s rampages, the superhuman Civil War, the Skrull invasion and Norman Osborn’s rise — each, in Simon’s telling, a disaster the Avengers had caused or failed to prevent.

Rogers rebuilt anyway, so Simon escalated from words to recruitment. In New Avengers Annual Vol. 2 #1 (2011) he assembled the Revengers — Anti-Venom, Atlas, Captain Ultra, Century, D-Man, Devil-Slayer, a new Goliath and Virtue — heroes and ex-heroes carrying their own grudges, and led them through the wall of Avengers Mansion. They waited until Squirrel Girl had left with Luke Cage’s infant daughter, then collapsed much of the building on the team inside.

Simon then held a press conference to make the case in public before the Avengers arrived in force in Avengers Annual Vol. 2 #1 (2012). Iron Man trapped his leaking ionic form inside a containment sphere designed for exactly that energy, and the combined Avengers defeated the Revengers at an empty Citi Field. In custody, Simon confessed the fear underneath the crusade to his old friend Beast: after Wanda’s summons, he no longer trusted that he was a real person at all — and then he vanished from the cell as public doubt about the Avengers spread anyway.

Why It's Obscure

Hero-versus-hero fights are common; a hero founding a rival team purely to argue his old team out of existence is a stranger and more pointed invention.

The warning

Refusal as an ultimatum — Simon’s answer to Rogers in 2010 was not a polite no; it came with a deadline, and every later attack was framed as Rogers ignoring it.

Leaking energy

A body matching the crisis — During this period Simon’s ionic form kept destabilising, and Iron Man openly questioned whether the man arguing so clearly was mentally unravelling with it.

The empty stadium

A brawl moved offstage — Rather than fight amid civilians at the press conference, Thor teleported the Revengers to deserted Citi Field, where numbers settled the argument Simon had started.

The vanishing

Winning the headline, losing the cell — News coverage kept repeating Simon’s accusations after his capture, and his empty containment bubble left even his escape feeling like part of the message.

Gallery

Simon crackling with the ionic energy Iron Man would have to cage, his classic Avengers-era look, and one of the recruits who answered his call.

Cover of New Avengers Annual 1 showing Wonder Man wreathed in crackling purple ionic energy above rubble — **The Revengers arrive**The cover of New Avengers Annual #1 — Simon wreathed in unstable ionic lightning over rubble, the exact leaking-energy state this story worries over.

Classic comic art of Wonder Man in his green and red costume with fists raised, surrounded by the heads of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Wasp and Giant-Man — **The team he turned on**Simon in his classic green-and-red costume beneath the Avengers he once served beside — the family portrait his Revengers were built to break up.

Anti-Venom, a white symbiote figure with a black spider emblem, clutching his chest — **Anti-Venom**One of Simon’s recruits — the white-symbiote Anti-Venom joined the Revengers convinced the Avengers genuinely did more harm than good.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Revengers — Marvel.com Official Marvel team history: Simon blames the Avengers for Wanda, Civil War, the Skrull invasion, Osborn and Ultron, refuses Rogers, attacks Avengers Tower, then assembles the Revengers and targets Cage’s team at the Mansion.
Avengers Annual Vol. 2 #1 — Marvel Database Issue entry: Iron Man traps Simon’s ionic form in a sphere, the Revengers are teleported to empty Citi Field and defeated, and Simon smiles and vanishes from custody in white light.
Why Wonder Man Turned Against the Avengers — CBR Account of the 2010 refusal, the Tower attack, the 2011 Revengers formation in New Avengers Annual #1, and Simon’s fear that Wanda’s resurrection meant he was not real.