Long before “Avengers vs. X-Men,” Marvel’s two most famous super-teams clashed over Magneto in a 1980s crossover event.
The X-Men and Avengers have the same basic goal of protecting mankind but that hasn’t stopped a rivalry from developing between them. Fans of both groups constantly debate which is Marvel’s greatest super-team and the argument has often made its way into the comics themselves, with multiple instances of them battling each other due to misunderstandings or disagreements. The most recent example of this was in the 2012 crossover event Avengers Vs. X-Men, in which the groups went to war over the fate of Hope Summers and the Phoenix Force, but their first major battle came decades earlier. In the similarly titled X-Men Vs. Avengers, the heroes came into conflict when the Avengers attempted to apprehend Magneto, who was allied with the X-Men at the time.
X-Men vs Avengers was a four-issue mini-series by Roger Stern, Marc Silvestri, Jim Shooter and Keith Pollard published in 1987. At the beginning of the series, the Avengers stop an asteroid from crashing in the U.S. which is later found to be a piece of Magneto’s former outer-space headquarters, Asteroid M. Another piece of the asteroid was headed for Russia when it was stopped by Crimson Dynamo and the Soviet Super-Soldiers, who then resolve to hunt down Magneto to bring him to justice for this and past crimes against Russia, including sinking a military submarine several years earlier. The Avengers also plan to arrest Magneto, although they intend to turn him over to the world court.
Magneto sets out to locate and destroy the largest Asteroid M fragment before it can do any more harm but he doesn’t inform the X-Men of what he’s doing, leading them to worry that he was returning to his villainous ways. They set out to find him and resolve to bring him down if he has done so but were angered when the Avengers had already detained him. The two teams find themselves in a stand-off which is made more intense by the arrival of the Russian heroes, who demanded Magneto be turned over to them and attack when they perceive aggression from She-Hulk.