The Avengers

The Avengers films' long story ends with Jim Starlin's crossover: Thanos gathers the six Infinity Stones into a gauntlet and wipes out half of all life with a snap of his fingers, and the surviving heroes set out to undo it. The films change his motive, from courting Death to thinning a crowded universe.

Marvel's films took their version of the Avengers from Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates: a team assembled by S.H.I.E.L.D. as a military project, a grounded widescreen style, and a Nick Fury drawn with Samuel L. Jackson's face, which is how Jackson came to play him.