High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Illuminati are a group of comic book superheroes who joined forces and secretly work behind the scenes in Marvel Comics` main shared universe. The Illuminati were established to exist (via story retcon) in their first published appearance in New Avengers #7 (July 2005), written by Brian Michael Bendis. Their history was discussed in the special New Avengers: Illuminati (May 2006). The group was revealed to have been formed very shortly after the Kree-Skrull War, which was depicted in Avengers #89-97 (1971-1972).