Who are the Illuminati
The Illuminati are Marvel’s secret cabal: six of the most powerful people in the universe, meeting in private to make the calls no one elected them to make. They first appeared in New Avengers #7, cover-dated July 2005, by Brian Michael Bendis and Steve McNiven.
The reveal was retroactive, which is the clever part. Bendis did not introduce a new team so much as claim that one had always been there, that after the Kree-Skrull War a handful of leaders started meeting quietly to coordinate, and Marvel history had simply never shown the room.
The members
Roster: Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Doctor Strange, Professor X, the Sub-Mariner, and Black Bolt.
Each member is a delegate from a power bloc: science (Stark and Richards), magic (Strange), mutants (Xavier), Atlantis (Namor), and the Inhumans (Black Bolt). The conceit is that real power in the Marvel Universe is held by a few people who could decide anything, and mostly disagree.
What the secret cost
The Illuminati exist to generate consequences. They sent the Hulk into space to be rid of him, which brought him back angrier in World War Hulk. They split over the Superhuman Registration Act and helped trigger Civil War. They held the Infinity Gems, lost track of a Skrull infiltration before Secret Invasion, and finally faced colliding parallel Earths in the Time Runs Out arc that fed into Secret Wars. The through-line is that secrecy among powerful friends keeps backfiring.
Notable issues
- New Avengers #7 (2005): first appearance of the Illuminati.
- New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (2006): the one-shot that detailed the group’s secret history.
For collectors
The key is New Avengers #7 (2005), the first appearance. The 2006 New Avengers: Illuminati one-shot is the companion issue for the group’s backstory. As a recent book with a large print run, the Illuminati’s debut is a reader and event key rather than a scarce one.
