Following the cancelation of the Avengers (2nd series) reimaging title and the Heroes Reborn storyarc, this third series was relaunched by Kurt Busiek & George Pérez.
Series lasted for 88 issues. However, when Brian Michael Bendis took over the series, the issue that would have been #85 was instead a legacy numbered #500. This was only temporary, as he ended the series with #503 at the conclusion of his Avengers Disassembled storyarc and replaced it with New Avengers (1st series).