Publication History
The Vault first appeared in Avengers Annual #15 (1986) by writers Steve Englehart and Danny Fingeroth, artist Steve Ditko and Editor Mark Gruenwald. It is unclear whether Englehart, Fingeroth or Gruenwald (or all three) originated the concept.
The Vault was not the first super-human detainment facility to appear in comic books. Marvel had shown their characters detained in various penitentiaries (usually alongside regular criminals) prior to Avengers Annual #15, most often at "Ryker's Island" (a fictionalised Rikers Island). Also, DC Comics' Arkham Asylum predates the Vault by over 12 years (though Arkham is technically a psychiatric hospital, not a prison). There is also Takron-Galtos, a prison planet which incarcerated many of the Legion of Super-Heroes' villains which first appeared in Adventure Comics #359 (August, 1967).
However, the Vault was the first prison said to be built specifically and exclusively for the detention of super-villains, and the first to be widely used across a line of comic books. Similar institutions in other comic book universes, such as "the Slab" and Iron Heights in the DC Universe, first appeared years later.
After its debut, the Vault quickly began to appear throughout Marvel's line of titles as it became the standard destination of imprisoned super-humans in the Marvel Universe. Several storylines were based around the notion of superheroes being imprisoned in the facility or a number of inmates coordinating a prison break. In 1991, the facility was the subject and main setting for an original graphic novel, Avengers: Deathtrap, the Vault (later republished as Venom: Deathtrap, the Vault), which was written by Danny Fingeroth with art by Ron Lim.
After Heroes for Hire Vol. 1 #1, the concept was abandoned. Comic book writer Kurt Busiek explained some the reasoning for this in a Usenet posting in February 2001
- " the Vault is a dramatically-flawed idea -- either villains escape a lot (which is what happened) and the result is that this supposedly-cool place looks like it's made of cardboard, or they don't, in which case villains get captured and vanish from the Marvel U. forever, since Marvel time mitigates against their sentences ever being naturally completed."
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