September 2018 solicitations

[Mike_Murdock]

^ Precisely. The fact that it's the West Coast Avengers shows it's an offbeat team. The original team didn't have a much better pedigree.

[Gaastra]

By the way as a kid i choose the wca over the all star avengers book because I liked the wca c-list cast better!

[Frontier]

I admit that while I think the idea of having only one Avengers book is a good one in theory, I feel that if they are going to have only one it should include more of the supporting characters who are tied to the team instead of being an all-star lineup. I would rather have the Avengers brand diluted with multiple books than have so many characters in limbo while characters like Carol, T'Challa, Tony Stark etc. double-dip.

Or at least if you're going to go with an "all-star" lineup, put in more "all-stars."

Scott Snyder's main Justice League team has a Big Seven roster, more or less, but it's also got one or two members for a total of nine compared to Aaron's six.

Now, maybe six members is better for Aaron to write and balance, but it would've been nice to see a few more non-solo characters in the book.

[Digifiend]

Uh, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, She-Hulk, Ghost Rider, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, that's seven.

[gurkle]

^ Precisely. The fact that it's the West Coast Avengers shows it's an offbeat team. The original team didn't have a much better pedigree.

The original team was set up by the East Coast branch though and a lot of the early stories revolved around them trying to follow official Avenger rules, like the rule that there had to be exactly six members. (I think Mark Gruenwald, the editor at the time, was a bit too obsessed with the idea of the Avengers being a tightly-regulated, government-approved team compared to weirder teams like the X-Men and Defenders.) They were struggling to prove that they were worthy of being considered the equal of the East Coast branch, especially after it turned out Vision was out of his mind when he set up the team, but they were still an official team and the series ended with both branches of Avengers voting on whether to dissolve the West Coast branch. And at some points, particularly during the early '90s, the West Coast probably had a more impressive cast than the East Coast.

This seems more like the Great Lakes Avengers, a team that uses the name but is more of a bootleg group. I guess we'll see. Just because Brevoort doesn't consider it a real Avengers book doesn't mean we have to agree, but I suspect I'll agree.

[Mike_Murdock]

We have no reason yet to believe this is some offbrand team that's using the name without permission - particularly given Clint Barton being on the team.

[Drops Of Venus]

I would rather have the Avengers brand diluted with multiple books than have so many characters in limbo while characters like Carol, T'Challa, Tony Stark etc. double-dip.

My feelings exactly. I don't give a damn about ''brand purity''. Characters should be a priority over names.

[Frontier]

We have no reason yet to believe this is some offbrand team that's using the name without permission - particularly given Clint Barton being on the team.

Well, they're involved in a reality show, so I imagine that's going to be pretty offbrand .

Clint being there gives them some legitimacy, but I'm not sure if his actual role in the book will.

[Kintor]

My feelings exactly. I don't give a damn about ''brand purity''. Characters should be a priority over names.

If branding wasn't important then these reject heroes in the new WCA wouldn't bother to call themselves 'Avengers'. The branding of a more successful hero team is the only thing that makes this book even remotely viable, when the new WCA can leech off the legacy of a nostalgic title for unearned credibility. Of course, in doing so the new WCA will actually damage the brand integrity of the Avengers as a whole, hurting all characters associated with the brand.

[nnelg]

The nWo was awesome. Then they made everyone a member. The brand got cheapened because everyone became a member.

[WebLurker]

If branding wasn't important then these reject heroes in the new WCA wouldn't bother to call themselves 'Avengers'. The branding of a more successful hero team is the only thing that makes this book even remotely viable, when the new WCA can leech off the legacy of a nostalgic title for unearned credibility. Of course, in doing so the new WCA will actually damage the brand integrity of the Avengers as a whole, hurting all characters associated with the brand.

Or maybe there's a logical reason to use the name that we'll see in the series proper. Crazy, I know, but it happens.

[gurkle]

I don't really buy that it cheapens the Avengers if too many people are members because basically anyone can be an Avenger. That's been kind of the deal with the team since at least issue #16. Anyone can join if the writer likes them.

The problem since at least the late 2000s is that you would have two or more separate teams of Avengers, operating out of the same city, and you never knew who would show up if characters called "the Avengers." This got even worse after Bendis left and you had Hickman and Remender both essentially writing "The Avengers" at the same time, with several members overlapping and no acknowledgement of each other's books. I may have liked that status quo better than the current one (because Remender used more of the "classic" Avengers Hickman and Aaron don't want to use) but I also think it created the sense that it didn't mean anything to be an Avenger.

I keep wondering why they don't just try something like Justice League Unlimited where everyone is an active Avenger but different arcs call for different groupings of characters.

[nickytesla96]

If it weren't for America Chavez and the Ultimates (Ewing), the First Firmament would've destroyed Eternity and the multiverse.

[Kintor]

I don't really buy that it cheapens the Avengers if too many people are members because basically anyone can be an Avenger. That's been kind of the deal with the team since at least issue #16. Anyone can join if the writer likes them.

Think of it as a 'Tragedy of the Commons' type situation. Brand integrity is a finite resource, the more books that use the Avengers branding the less valuable that resource becomes. So each new Avengers book acts in its own self-interest, drawing from that brand integrity, without regard to the whole Marvel community. With time these Avengers books deplete that resource and the brand is worthless.

[Drops Of Venus]

If branding wasn't important then these reject heroes in the new WCA wouldn't bother to call themselves 'Avengers'. The branding of a more successful hero team is the only thing that makes this book even remotely viable, when the new WCA can leech off the legacy of a nostalgic title for unearned credibility. Of course, in doing so the new WCA will actually damage the brand integrity of the Avengers as a whole, hurting all characters associated with the brand.

Except I never said branding wasn't important for Marvel. I argued against brand purity, not branding itself. In my personal opinion, characters are more important than whatever name's on the cover, which is why I don't mind if there are multiple books with Avengers written on it. I never even disputed the idea that certain books get ''Avengers'' on the title for marketing purposes. You don't have to turn everything into one of your ridiculous rants against certain characters, dear.