When Red Skull is dying due to his imperfect Super Soldier Serum, he allies with MODOK who upgrades HYDRA‘s tech from A.I.M. to kidnap Captain America and has him transfer his mind to Captain America’s body. After his defeat by a reassembled team of Avengers, Red Skull takes Iron Man‘s armor for its life support system. Red Skull attacks them at their mansion. Red Skull is once again defeated. The Avengers Mansion is destroyed during the fight. Red Skull plans to take away everything the Avengers hold dear from their lives to their country by trying to have them hated by the people for failing to save the day.
To even the playing field, Red Skull brings together his team of power giants called the Cabal. Red Skull’s invitational transmissions are shown to have been received by Attuma, Doctor Doom, and Dracula. Attuma and Dracula accept the invitation while Doctor Doom declined. The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. intercept the transmission, and decide to remain together to battle the Cabal. To stay close to each other after Avengers Mansion blew up, they set up their base in Avengers Tower. The Cabal later on adds Justin Hammer‘s robot creation Super-Adaptoid and Hyperion, an alien psychopath believing himself to be a superhero, to their team. With the threat of the Cabal, the Avengers fight them at every end as well as other threats that come to Earth.
The Avengers encounter Red Skull’s master, Thanos, who is on the hunt for the Infinity Stones to power his Infinity Gauntlet after Red Skull stole the Power Stone from him.[6] After the Avengers collect all five infinity stones and manage to defeat Thanos, the gems are drained of their power by Ultron who threatens to exterminate the human race after possessing Arsenal‘s body. After the Avengers ultimately defeat Ultron, Ant-Man becomes a new member of the team.