The Avengers Appreciation 2021

[Nomads1]

The Crossing > Austen > Johns > Aaron

I like the idea behind the Crossing. There were some great stuff that was abandoned later on, such as Mantis going bad and the Kang family. The idea of a founding Avenger betraying the team was also potentially good. IMHO, the Crossing gets a really bad rep for the solution it found for it's plot twists. I mean, whoever thought Teen Tony was actually a good idea? Being a top notch engineer is not a magical power. It comes from knowledge, study and hard earned experience. It's the same way, for me, why characters like Moon Girl and Iron Heart really don't work. Unlike guys like Reed or Tony, they haven't earned their chops. Those only come, in that specific field, with some grey hairs. The Crossing already had another better sollution in it that was not even considered. Cybermancer came from a dimension where our heroes already had been corrupted, in fact, she mentions that their Tony Stark was willingly in league with Kang. It would have been, IMHO, a much simpler and better sollution (that has been used in other heroes gone bad scenarios), to have their Stark replace ours. It would allow for some drama (how do I regain people's trust?), maybe even more Crossing (a team would have to go to a dieing dimension to rescue our Tony), and it wouldn't have completely ruined a cornerstone character (I'd also have done without bug Wasp, but that is a story for another day).
As for Johns, my only real problem with him was that wierd sex scene between Hank and Jan, and I found the rest of that issue kind of good, setting up the new rules for their relationship. I know a lot of people only see in Hank an abuser, I prefer to look at him as a recovering victim of a bout of mental illness . He was not in his right mind when he struck Jan. Having dealt with pleanty of mental health issues in my family, I guess it's more relatable for me in that way. Thank God, I never had to deal in any way with abuse. Other than that, I think Johns run was just fine. I liked the large roster, the JLI Avengers idea, Red Zone was, IMHO, a pretty good story, and so on. For me, my biggest issue with Johns' run was that it started with an already established expiration date, for he closed an exclusive contract with DC before his first issue even came out. I think this turned most people off to his ideas.
Now, Austen's run, Thank God, was kind of short. What I hated so much about it? In favor of cheap drama, he spat on the integrity of key Avengers, he contradicted things that were established merely a few issues before, and ignored other things that went to the core of certain characters. Honestly, his Avengers were like a bad parody of the team. It was like another company creating their own team of pseudo Avengers just to take shots at Marvel. I hate what Bendis did with the Avengers, but he, at least, deven if very stupidly, cleaned the field of the real Avengers, before putting his own team together. Austen crapped on the team we all loved and followed. As for Aaron, there's been so much damage done to these characters over the last couple of decades that I guess I've just become numb. I just foud it boring as hell, not hate it.
So, for me, it'd go: Johns > The Crossing > Aaron > Austen. But, to each it's own. What would be of the apples, if everbody only liked oranges, I always say.

Peace