DIE RACHER vol 2, #1, cover scan from DC Fanpage

DIE RACHER: DIE WIEDERGEBURT DER HELDEN #1, cover scan from DC Fanpage

DIE RACHER vol 3, #1, cover scan from Coverscans.de

The current German publisher of Marvel Comics is Marvel Deutschland which is part of Panini Comics (who currently also publish DC Comics in Germany... weird!).

The guy responsible for the web site and answering emails is named Bernd Glasstetter, he is a really nice person and also a big comic fan himself (he's also responsible for hosting a large German comics fan site, www.splashcomics.de which I'm sometimes working for, and probably the largest German comics community, www.comicforum.de where I'm a very active member).

Concerning cover scans... You may find them at www.coverscans.de , the webmaster is also a nice person and his email adress is a.mail2me@gmx.de. German Avengers covers can be found by via the following path: Covers/Deutschland/Panini/Marvel Deutschland/Rächer. You may even choose between different scans of the same cover!

About the different series... Panini took over in 1997 and started with Spider-Man (clone saga) and the X-Men (Age of Apocalypse). The format was back to original size (the previous publisher had banned many series into the way-too-small "digest" format). Anyway, the first Avengers stories published by Panini were the final issues from "Onslaught" in two X-Men books (which had double length back then due to "Onslaught").

Next was "Die Wiedergeburt der Helden" (Heroes Reborn), all four series were given their respective German equivalents in original size and length (usually, German comic books consist of two US issues).

Panini's "Die Rächer" vol. 2 was the Heroes Return series by Busiek and Pérez, with Busiek's "Iron Man" as a back-up (as I said, usually two US issues). The series lasted 11 issues (the "Live Kree or Die" story was published in issue 21 of a series called "Marvel Special", together with the rest of the crossover, you may find it via Covers/Deutschland/Panini/Marvel Deutschland/Marvel Special).

Afterwards, the series was changed once more due to low sales, starting again as "Die Rächer" (vol. 3), four US issues in a format somewhere between "prestige" and paperback, published six times a year, in an attempt to shorten the distance (two years back then) to the US stories. Currently, "Die Rächer" (vol. 3) consist of two US issues, the rest is filled with some sort of back-up from mini series or one-shots like "The Ultron Imperative" etc.

You may also be interested in the German Pérez covers for the "Justice Leagues" story. The path is Covers/Deutschland/Panini [as I said... same publisher in Germany]/DC Deutschland/JLA/JLA. And yes, that's the "Justice Leagues" story published within the ongoing series... ;-)