3 Visualizations that Make the Avengers Even More Awesome

"The Avengers: Age of Ultron" hits theaters today, and as data geeks, we’re pretty excited to see all the data it generates. Between movie reviews, social media mentions, and box office numbers, tons of data is going to be created this weekend. We know we’ll be looking at Google search data from this weekend. (Stay tuned to see what we build with it!)

Of course, data about the Avengers has been available for a long time. After all, Marvel first introduced the superhero team back in 1963. So to celebrate the new release, we rounded up our all-time favorite visualizations about the Marvel universe:

1. "Wheels within Wheels" by Chris Toomey
   
   Chris used Wikipedia data to create this stunning visualization about Marvel comic characters. Explore each character’s history (divided into Avengers and X-Men characters) from 1963 to present day.
   
   
   
   
   Click the image to see the live visualization, then read Chris’ blog post about how he made it.


2. “The Marvel Comic Universe” by Curtis Harris
   
   Curtis tapped the Marvel API to discover which characters have the most significance across decades of comics. His findings? There is a long tail of characters that only appear once or twice over decades of comics.
   
   
   
   
   To learn how to use the Marvel API, check out Curtis’ blog post!


3. “50 Years of ‘Avengers’ Comic Book Covers Through Color” by Jon Keegan
   
   This last visualization is all about color and branding, and it focuses on the Avengers specifically. Since their 1963 debut, have Avengers comic book covers become darker?
   
   
   
   This visualization appeared in the Wall Street Journal last month. Click the image above to explore it yourself!

Over the years, the Avengers series has inspired a lot of creative projects, including these vizzes. We can’t wait to see what “Age of Ultron” will inspire other data rockstars to build. Next week, we plan to add our own visualization to the mix. So don’t forget to stay tuned on the blog and let us know if you see any other awesome Avengers-themed vizzes!