Avengers Assemble!

Marvel’s Captain Marvel releases next week and it inspired us to take everyone to Dunk School… even though Captain Marvel isn’t featured in this post (inspiration is inspirate! Super hero themes are common throughout Nike’s history, but the number of branded Marvel collaborations are few. The Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Air Jordan 1s from last year are the only Nike x Marvel shoes that come to mind actually (if you know more then tell us in the comments section below), but that hasn’t stopped collectors from using Marvel heros as nicknames for Nike SBs.

Lets take a look back at three SBs of years past with nicknames inspired by fan favorite Avengers!

March 2003 – SB Dunk High ‘Hulk’

HULK SMASH! The ~~not so~~ jolly green giant is the bruiser of Marvel’s Avengers inspired the street name of these green high top SB Dunks. The color scheme uses simple shades camper green (lighter) and forest green (darker) with black to create an aggressive look that wasn’t very popular upon release. Years later after this ‘Silver Box Era’ interest randomly increased and the ‘Hulks’ became a coveted relic fetching well over $500-600 on the secondary market, and that’s if you can even find a pair! There probably should have been some purple thrown onto this Dunk to truly warrant the title of Hulk, but these are without a double big, green and tough!

November 2008- SB Dunk Mid ‘Spider-Man’

Do whatever a spider can in these gorgeously colorful ‘Spider-Man’ mids! The SB Dunk Mid silhouette commonly gets hated on as the “black sheep” of the Dunk family, but there’s something dope about the ankle strap that works in certain situations… situations like this. Nike wisely chose the right amount of black and white to accentuate the bold blue and red upper. Any real Spider-Man fan appreciates the delicate balance between the trimming and main colors of Spidey’s costume so the attention to detail here was on point. To this day people sleep on the Web Slinger’s fist (unofficial) go around solely due to the ankle height – insane! We’d mess up a retro of these if ever released.

November 2010 – SB Dunk High ‘Iron Man’

The genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist kicks known as Iron Mans are pure heat. The most recent Marvel-ish SB release happened almost a decade ago and popularity was fairly high upon release. I remember copping these from SneakerHead.com weeks after the ‘Iron Mans’ dropped, but at the same time the SB community was jazzed to get this Blue Box banger. Shades reminiscent of various Iron Man suits inspired the colorblocking of these scorching kicks.