Being an Avenger should mean more....

[babyblob]

I love the Avengers. I am a huge fan. But there is a problem I have with them. Marvel tries to make them the premier team in the universe and being an Avenger is a huge honor but I dont think that is the case. It seems to me that almost everyone in the Marvel Universe has been or has been invited to join the team. I can only think of a handful of heroes that havnt been. If being an Avenger is such a huge honor why has everyone in the world been on their roster at one point or another? It seems to me that if you just put on a costume and stop a few bank robberies that you will be invited to join. It just seems very watered down. I think being an Avenger should mean more but to be honest it really doesnt.
What are your thoughts?

[Snoop Dogg]

The Avengers comprise the lion's share of the Marvel Universe because the Avengers are the Marvel Universe and its core.

[Personamanx]

Eh, I don't think it has to mean much of anything. If you can play an integral role in conflict resolution why not give them a membership card, just in case they're needed again.

I always liked how Justice League Unlimited worked, sure there are a handful of core members who are often present. But it was largely just a network of superheroes with access to the Watchtower, and assembled as needed for specific problems. It feels like that works well within the pretense of a shared universe.

[cranger]

The Avengers comprise the lion's share of the Marvel Universe because the Avengers are the Marvel Universe and its core.

Eh, I don't think it has to mean much of anything. If you can play an integral role in conflict resolution why not give them a membership card, just in case they're needed again.

Yeah, this is the problem. Avengers is just basically another way to say Marvel superhero. Sort of like X-Men became pretty much every mutant who wasn't trying to kill the X-Men (and some who were.)

Obviously the distinction means nothing to some, but I myself do miss it.

[XPac]

Mighty Avengers definately brought about the idea that being an Avenger isn't some elite thing. Ewing sold the notion that regular people on the street that try and do good were Avengers. In some ways it does make more watered down.... but I thought it was kinda cool too.

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[Alan2099]

I'm not a big fan of how many Avengers teams there have been since New Avengers kicked it off. Now it seems whenever anybody wants to start a team it's "Something something Avengers".

[Ultimate Captain America]

Nowadays, if you want a conclave of the "best" superheroes, that's the Illuminati.

[Sutekh]

What are your thoughts?

Your avatar is Hawkeye. He's a carnival sharpshooter turned criminal turned classic Avenger, despite having no super-powers and a lackadaisical and casual (some might even say disrespectful) attitude in general. In theory, he's pretty darn close to the last person who 'deserves' to be on the franchise superhero team of the 616.

I definitely do not agree with the idea that the Avengers need to be some special elite, since some of the best of them (Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hulk, Namor) have been former or recurring foes, and stretched the definition of 'hero.' They've got room for the paragons of virtue like Captain America, and the scary and not-exactly-a-superhero types like Blade or Moondragon, for the cosmically powerful like Thor or Blue Marvel, or the mostly or completely powerless like the Black Widow or Shang Chi. That's cool.

I do recoil a bit when seeing individuals who had earlier been told (or shown) to not really work as Avengers, like Spider-Man or Wolverine on the team, but things change and people change (Spider-Man has grown a lot from the teen who tried to join the Avengers for the paycheck, so I'm okay with that one). About the only members recently I'm not keen with are people with huge bodycounts and happy to add to them like Wolverine or Deadpool or Ares (and even with those three, it depends on who is writing them, since Logan can be a noble philosopher soul wannabe-samurai, when he's not a beer-obsessed psycho who wants to gut Wiccan because he *might* turn out like Wanda...).

Cranger does have an interesting point that Marvel seems to do the same thing with the X-Men. At times it seems like every Marvel mutant defaults to becoming an X-Man eventually, including former foes like Magneto, Emma Frost and (kid versions of) Apocalypse, Krakoa and Gladiator. Around the Utopia era, there were a fair number of former supervillains like Frenzy and Lady Mastermind hanging around, and it was a little weird since some of them were known murderers (Frenzy, for all I love the character, having killed an X-Men ally (Tom Corsi) *on mansion grounds* before, and being an odd one to just be walking around).

[XPac]

Your avatar is Hawkeye. He's a carnival sharpshooter turned criminal turned classic Avenger, despite having no super-powers and a lackadaisical and casual (some might even say disrespectful) attitude in general. In theory, he's pretty darn close to the last person who 'deserves' to be on the franchise superhero team of the 616.

I definitely do not agree with the idea that the Avengers need to be some special elite, since some of the best of them (Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hulk, Namor) have been former or recurring foes, and stretched the definition of 'hero.' They've got room for the paragons of virtue like Captain America, and the scary and not-exactly-a-superhero types like Blade or Moondragon, for the cosmically powerful like Thor or Blue Marvel, or the mostly or completely powerless like the Black Widow or Shang Chi. That's cool.

I do recoil a bit when seeing individuals who had earlier been told (or shown) to not really work as Avengers, like Spider-Man or Wolverine on the team, but things change and people change (Spider-Man has grown a lot from the teen who tried to join the Avengers for the paycheck, so I'm okay with that one). About the only members recently I'm not keen with are people with huge bodycounts and happy to add to them like Wolverine or Deadpool or Ares (and even with those three, it depends on who is writing them, since Logan can be a noble philosopher soul wannabe-samurai, when he's not a beer-obsessed psycho who wants to gut Wiccan because he *might* turn out like Wanda...).

Cranger does have an interesting point that Marvel seems to do the same thing with the X-Men. At times it seems like every Marvel mutant defaults to becoming an X-Man eventually, including former foes like Magneto, Emma Frost and (kid versions of) Apocalypse, Krakoa and Gladiator. Around the Utopia era, there were a fair number of former supervillains like Frenzy and Lady Mastermind hanging around, and it was a little weird since some of them were known murderers (Frenzy, for all I love the character, having killed an X-Men ally (Tom Corsi) *on mansion grounds* before, and being an odd one to just be walking around).

YOu can definately argue the Kooky Quartet was a slap in the face to any sort of notion of elitism in the Avengers. Yeah, the Founders were all arguably marvels big characters at the time (minus Spider-Man). But the second version consisted of 2 mutant terrorist and the criminal boyfriend of a russian spy (who would later also join). I can only imagine the the reaction might have been if the internet were around back then.

[Zero Hunter]

I get what your saying and I agree. When EVERYONE is something then that thing loses most of its meaning. Every big Marvel character has been an Avenger now the same way every mutant is now and X-Man. It just make being a member of that team no so special anymore. It makes the universe seem small.

[MichaelC]

At its core, the Avengers is an emergency militia. It's not a coincidence that the Big Three are composed of a soldier, a warrior-prince, and a high-tech knight. Like a real-world militia, they make a public display of it being an honor, but fundamentally it's about grabbing whoever is available and throwing them at the invasion. It's not a family of explorers, or a racial political activist group, it's a militia assembled because Kang is invading, or Ultron is invading, or Thanos is invading. I thought the whole scene where Iron Man dubs Spider-Man in the movies was played perfectly: Stark does the motions of honoring someone, but it's obvious from his tone and body-language that in his heart he's throwing together a team because something needs to be done RIGHT NOW. There's no real "honor" in all of this, it's just, people are about to die, we gotta stop it, who's available? That's it. That's all.

[Alan2099]

At its core, the Avengers is an emergency militia. It's not a coincidence that the Big Three are composed of a soldier, a warrior-prince, and a high-tech knight. Like a real-world militia, they make a public display of it being an honor, but fundamentally it's about grabbing whoever is available and throwing them at the invasion. It's not a family of explorers, or a racial political activist group, it's a militia assembled because Kang is invading, or Ultron is invading, or Thanos is invading. I thought the whole scene where Iron Man dubs Spider-Man in the movies was played perfectly: Stark does the motions of honoring someone, but it's obvious from his tone and body-language that in his heart he's throwing together a team because something needs to be done RIGHT NOW. There's no real "honor" in all of this, it's just, people are about to die, we gotta stop it, who's available? That's it. That's all.

I see where you're coming from, out I can't say I agree with it.

Maybe now it's like that when everything is a huge world ending plot that takes 15 issues to resolve. In those cases, sure you take everything you can get, but I don't see those people as joining the Avengers as much as they are just helping out in an emergency.

The Avengers, the actual team itself should be a group that is dedicated to being able to handle those things. They work together, train together, and are avalible whenever something is going down.

If Captain America sees something going down and calls the Avengers, he needs to be able to know that Hawkeye, Vision, Black Knight, Seris, and Hercules are going to show up. He knows who they are, he knows what they can do, and they're going to be all the more effective because of it. the Avengers need to be a team, not just a group of whatever individuals feel like answering the phone.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, there should be a fixed team, and maybe reserves on call (that's how they used to operate pre-Disassembled, and how the Champions now operate). Doesn't mean there can't be more than one team though (like a West Coast branch).

[Crimz]

I see your point.

My problem is when prominent members from other teams join. For example, a member of the X-Men like Cyclops should never be an Avenger imo.

[Electricmastro]

I see your point.

My problem is when prominent members from other teams join. For example, a member of the X-Men like Cyclops should never be an Avenger imo.

While I can understand that point, as long as they have good chemistry with the teams they’re on and the storylines they’re in are written well, then I don’t really get selective over what teams they should or shouldn’t be on. I guess me looking at this as a consumer of entertainment has quite a bit to do with my view.