Hickman's Three-Peat: Defining Runs on Fantastic Four/Avengers/X-Men

[gurkle]

One of the things these arguments about Hickman's Avengers often come down to is whether you see the Avengers as the Marvel Universe's big powerhouse superteam, or a book with its own lore and core cast like X-Men or Fantastic Four. Both are valid approaches, especially since it started as the former (an all-star team with several powerhouses) and suddenly became the latter (Captain America leading an underpowered team of nobody ex-villains). Captain America and Iron Man are the core characters of the former approach, while to those who take the latter approach, the most important Avengers are the likes of Pym, Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch.

Hickman approached it very much as the former: the Avengers are a big super-team that needs to fight the foes no single superhero could withstand. He didn't treat the team as having its own lore, rarely used their stock villains, and very deliberately avoided using the core old-school cast members (except Hawkeye, who he was forced to use because of movie synergy). He treated the Avengers as an extension of "Marvel Universe" events like Civil War, much like Avengers: Infinity War was a Marvel universe crossover where the Avengers didn't even exist as a team.

I'm not saying his approach is invalid, far from it. I'm just explaining how Hickman's run looks to someone who prefers the "Avengers lore" approach. Hickman's Fantastic Four and X-Men, by contrast, feature the supporting characters and villains and plot tropes we have come to expect from the franchise, even though he finds new takes on them.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

One of the things these arguments about Hickman's Avengers often come down to is whether you see the Avengers as the Marvel Universe's big powerhouse superteam, or a book with its own lore and core cast like X-Men or Fantastic Four.

You hit the nail on the head there. To me the Avengers is basically a "what's up Marvel Universe" talk show. That's how the MCU approaches it. I mean the Infinity Gauntlet by Starlin wasn't an Avengers story but the MCU adapted it to become one and the way they did it was go "Avengers World" in the climax.

The biggest problem of the Avengers is they claim to be "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" but their best stories and runs (such as Stern's) focuses on second-stringers, part timers and general rejects who reflect the high-turnover of the team. They don't really feel like "all-stars" because the FF, X-Men and Spider-Man were the real stars.

...while to those who take the latter approach, the most important Avengers are the likes of Pym, Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch.

And this part of the Avengers lore mostly involve the Avengers f--king themselves and each other over. Hank Pym who created Ultron, and then slapped Janet, got fired after he called Captain America a sleazebag (I kid you not) and so on. Vision and Wanda had that adultery issue with Wonder Man, that bit where they erased her memories about her kids. To add to this, you have Cap and Tony slugfests, bits of it from before, and then CIVIL WAR. So in that respects Hickman's run is in line with Avengers. He treats him as a general all-purpose team who end the story (TIME RUNS OUT) fighting each other.

I'm not saying his approach is invalid, far from it. I'm just explaining how Hickman's run looks to someone who prefers the "Avengers lore" approach.

I accept that, and I get that. Hickman was deliberately changing how the people saw the Avengers. During his run, the Avengers finally felt to me like the Justice League (especially the League cartoons). In fact it seems inspired by Morrison's JLA run (GM is a Hickman influence). The Justice League is a team which doesn't always have Batman and Superman and others in it...so it also goes back and forth from lore and DC Universe stories.

[Agent Z]

Characters being second stringers or whatever in real life doesn't change their importance or skill set in universe. How fans feel about the Avengers from a real life standpoint has no bearing on their in-universe accomplishments.

[Woozie]

Hickman's Avengers was all high concept and big idea-ish which was a really fun thing, but I don't take it as high level Avengers in terms of story level.

Like if you're gonna ask me the best Avenger's Story of even just the last decade. The 'No' Series is gonna come up before Hickman's run.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

How fans feel about the Avengers from a real life standpoint has no bearing on their in-universe accomplishments.

Even In-Universe...the Fantastic Four were the ones who stopped Galactus not the Avengers. Galactus was the biggest threat earth ever faced.

Likewise, whenever you have stories where the Avengers talk down to Spider-Man, that works so long as you forget this one fact which Roger Stern reminded everyone.

Spider-Man: Hey I'm Spider-Man remember! I was crawling walls when you were still looking for a club-house. I'm no green rookie!

I mean that's true. Spider-Man was the senior established hero existing before the Avengers formed. Read Avengers #4 where Tony tries to recruit Avengers, X-Men and Spider-Man and all turn him down. Spider-Man basically tells Tony to get lost.

[Frontier]

One of the things these arguments about Hickman's Avengers often come down to is whether you see the Avengers as the Marvel Universe's big powerhouse superteam, or a book with its own lore and core cast like X-Men or Fantastic Four. Both are valid approaches, especially since it started as the former (an all-star team with several powerhouses) and suddenly became the latter (Captain America leading an underpowered team of nobody ex-villains). Captain America and Iron Man are the core characters of the former approach, while to those who take the latter approach, the most important Avengers are the likes of Pym, Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch.

Personally, I view the team as being both when approached correctly.

Like, in the Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon it definitely felt like both approaches meshed together for the group there.

You hit the nail on the head there. To me the Avengers is basically a "what's up Marvel Universe" talk show. That's how the MCU approaches it. I mean the Infinity Gauntlet by Starlin wasn't an Avengers story but the MCU adapted it to become one and the way they did it was go "Avengers World" in the climax.

The Avengers were involved in the Infinity Gauntlet storyline though, even if they didn't drive it as much as they did in the movies. But even then the movie kind of adapted how we had these disparate groups of people (Guardians, Strange, Panther,) who weren't' necessarily Avengers coming together to stop Thanos.

They all got collectively referred to as Avengers at the end there for the big "Avengers Assemble" moment but not everyone there was actually an Avenger.

The biggest problem of the Avengers is they claim to be "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" but their best stories and runs (such as Stern's) focuses on second-stringers, part timers and general rejects who reflect the high-turnover of the team. They don't really feel like "all-stars" because the FF, X-Men and Spider-Man were the real stars.

I mean, all-stars can be in the eye of the beholder. I think whatever roster the primary Avengers team has either is or grows into being Earth's Mightiest Heroes. They definitely don't treat their heroes as second-stringers.

And this part of the Avengers lore mostly involve the Avengers f--king themselves and each other over. Hank Pym who created Ultron, and then slapped Janet, got fired after he called Captain America a sleazebag (I kid you not) and so on. Vision and Wanda had that adultery issue with Wonder Man, that bit where they erased her memories about her kids. To add to this, you have Cap and Tony slugfests, bits of it from before, and then CIVIL WAR. So in that respects Hickman's run is in line with Avengers. He treats him as a general all-purpose team who end the story (TIME RUNS OUT) fighting each other.

But those were more isolated incidents across the entire swath of Avengers history.

I accept that, and I get that. Hickman was deliberately changing how the people saw the Avengers. During his run, the Avengers finally felt to me like the Justice League (especially the League cartoons). In fact it seems inspired by Morrison's JLA run (GM is a Hickman influence). The Justice League is a team which doesn't always have Batman and Superman and others in it...so it also goes back and forth from lore and DC Universe stories.

The approach was definitely similar to JLU even if the Justice League were more relavent to their myth arc then The Avengers were to Hickman's.

[Iron Maiden]

And which franchise is Dr. Doom a primary villain of ?

But it was more that the original Secret Wars was Doom's big moment of the 1980's.... I mean he seems to own the Beyonders. So naturally Doom was going to be in the 2015 Secret Wars.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

But it was more that the original Secret Wars was Doom's big moment of the 1980's.... I mean he seems to own the Beyonders. So naturally Doom was going to be in the 2015 Secret Wars.

Yeah Dr Doom was the protagonist and main character of the first Secret Wars and so it is for the second.

[CaptCleghorn]

But it was more that the original Secret Wars was Doom's big moment of the 1980's.... I mean he seems to own the Beyonders. So naturally Doom was going to be in the 2015 Secret Wars.

I'm not sure that kind of logic applies. Doom is head and shoulders above the rest of Marvel's villains but since this is a story in which the characters are all selected by Hickman, it's just as possible he decided to use Doom and the FF as the focus of the second Secret Wars and used the Beyonders to set that scenario up. It's not a sittuation where we KNOWE there's a Beyonder attack and need to come up with a protagonist.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm not sure that kind of logic applies. Doom is head and shoulders above the rest of Marvel's villains but since this is a story in which the characters are all selected by Hickman, it's just as possible he decided to use Doom and the FF as the focus of the second Secret Wars and used the Beyonders to set that scenario up. It's not a sittuation where we KNOWE there's a Beyonder attack and need to come up with a protagonist.

Well the fact was that it was still a surprise since most of the story revolves on black swans, Rabum Alal, Ivory kings and other stuff. It was only later that the Ivory Kings were revealed to be beyonders that it became clear it was going to be secret wars.

And even then it was still a new thing and a surprise forReed to play such a role in 2015. In 1984 it was Cap who stopped Doom. Likewise 2015 had Tchalla and Namor and other no-shows of 1984.

The last time Reed had such a big role in an event was Acts of Vengeance. After that it’s being Tony’s sidekick as in Civil War. And before reed was Cap’s sidekick in 1984.

[Agent Z]

Even In-Universe...the Fantastic Four were the ones who stopped Galactus not the Avengers. Galactus was the biggest threat earth ever faced.

And then Marvel spent the following decades having everyone and their mother make a fool out of him which kind of takes weight off that victory.

Likewise, whenever you have stories where the Avengers talk down to Spider-Man, that works so long as you forget this one fact which Roger Stern reminded everyone.

Spider-Man: Hey I'm Spider-Man remember! I was crawling walls when you were still looking for a club-house. I'm no green rookie!

I mean that's true. Spider-Man was the senior established hero existing before the Avengers formed. Read Avengers #4 where Tony tries to recruit Avengers, X-Men and Spider-Man and all turn him down. Spider-Man basically tells Tony to get lost.

You know Peter's lucky the Avengers aren't the petty sort otherwise his usual childish arrogance would mean he'd be out of luck when he turned to them for money and housing or any other time he needed them to pull his ass out of a mess he got himself into like in Millar's Marvel Knights.

And two of the Avengers (Thor and Captain America) were saving the world before Peter was even born. Not to mention the team as a whole were taken on bigger threats when Peter was dealing with the likes of Green Goblin and Otto Octavius back when they were small time.

[Iron Maiden]

I'm not sure that kind of logic applies. Doom is head and shoulders above the rest of Marvel's villains but since this is a story in which the characters are all selected by Hickman, it's just as possible he decided to use Doom and the FF as the focus of the second Secret Wars and used the Beyonders to set that scenario up. It's not a situation where we KNOW there's a Beyonder attack and need to come up with a protagonist.

We can only speculate since we don't know everything they discuss at their summits. As I remember it there was no big announcement about a new Secret Wars until very late in the game. We did see, or maybe I should say didn't see, Doom was chosen by Nathaniel as part of the plan to hold off The Mad Celestials in the Fantastic Four run. Also, there was the case of Bendis deciding he wanted to leave the Avengers so everyone was playing musical chairs with writing assignments. I'm thinking Hickman may have been chosen to do the Avengers and maybe it wasn't exactly his choice but suggested to him. We really don't know for sure. One version I think I remember reading was the the Fantastic Four wasn't really Fraction's choice either. We do know that Hickman had said he had at least a couple more years of FF stories. We know that he didn't get to tell the full Parliament of Doom story..,..it was to be a multi issue arc and it got cut down to one issue.

Maybe Marvel all along planned a remake of Secret Wars and somehow it evolved out of Hickman's Avengers story with the Incursions. I'm just theorizing because I don't think I've ever seen an account of the full genesis of how it was decided to do Secret Wars. Was it really Hickman's planned endgame? I don't know.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

We can only speculate since we don't know everything they discuss at their summits. As I remember it there was no big announcement about a new Secret Wars until very late in the game. We did see, or maybe I should say didn't see, Doom was chosen by Nathaniel as part of the plan to hold off The Mad Celestials in the Fantastic Four run. Also, there was the case of Bendis deciding he wanted to leave the Avengers so everyone was playing musical chairs with writing assignments. I'm thinking Hickman may have been chosen to do the Avengers and maybe it wasn't exactly his choice but suggested to him. We really don't know for sure. One version I think I remember reading was the the Fantastic Four wasn't really Fraction's choice either. We do know that Hickman had said he had at least a couple more years of FF stories. We know that he didn't get to tell the full Parliament of Doom story..,..it was to be a multi issue arc and it got cut down to one issue.

Maybe Marvel all along planned a remake of Secret Wars and somehow it evolved out of Hickman's Avengers story with the Incursions. I'm just theorizing because I don't think I've ever seen an account of the full genesis of how it was decided to do Secret Wars. Was int really Hickman's planned endgame? I don't know.

Hickman said SW 1984 was one of his favourites as a kid so I think it was his idea all along.?

[CaptCleghorn]

We can only speculate since we don't know everything they discuss at their summits. As I remember it there was no big announcement about a new Secret Wars until very late in the game. We did see, or maybe I should say didn't see, Doom was chosen by Nathaniel as part of the plan to hold off The Mad Celestials in the Fantastic Four run. Also, there was the case of Bendis deciding he wanted to leave the Avengers so everyone was playing musical chairs with writing assignments. I'm thinking Hickman may have been chosen to do the Avengers and maybe it wasn't exactly his choice but suggested to him. We really don't know for sure. One version I think I remember reading was the the Fantastic Four wasn't really Fraction's choice either. We do know that Hickman had said he had at least a couple more years of FF stories. We know that he didn't get to tell the full Parliament of Doom story..,..it was to be a multi issue arc and it got cut down to one issue.

Maybe Marvel all along planned a remake of Secret Wars and somehow it evolved out of Hickman's Avengers story with the Incursions. I'm just theorizing because I don't think I've ever seen an account of the full genesis of how it was decided to do Secret Wars. Was int really Hickman's planned endgame? I don't know.

I'm going to accept your statements as fact. This discussion is all conjecture and evn IF Hickman were to admit what the incentives and genesis of the story were, there will always be some doubt.

[UltimateTy]

While I enjoyed Hickman's Avengers run (New Avengers was the much stronger book) I do think having Doom be the big bad and the story ending up being a Fantastic Four story brings it down a bit for me personally.