The Avengers Appreciation 2022

[strathcona]

"What we need is to make the Avengers as garbage as they were before Bendis made them big".

Avengers was a much better team before Bendis took over. He made the word Avengers be synonymous with superhero in the MU. That's just lazy writing. And the team hasn't recovered since.

Also, Busiek's run sold extremely well and Marvel would love to have sales numbers like that today.

[Witchfan]

1. The team should move its base back to New York City.
2. The team should be a family instead of an army.

[gurkle]

Avengers was a much better team before Bendis took over. He made the word Avengers be synonymous with superhero in the MU. That's just lazy writing. And the team hasn't recovered since.

Also, Busiek's run sold extremely well and Marvel would love to have sales numbers like that today.

Brevoort, who edited both runs, said near the end of Bendis's run that he would never go back to the "classic Avengers" approach because Bendis's revamped version was so much more successful. And I see his point. Busiek fell out of the top 10 after George Pérez left -- though some of that is on Brevoort for not being able to get a new artist who lasted more than 6 issues -- while Bendis had more sustained success at that level no matter who was drawing it.

However, I don't think anyone would argue that Aaron's run is a success on that level. It sells well enough to keep going, unfortunately, as long as Aaron wants to do it. But the Avengers are back to being what they were in the early '90s, afterthoughts compared to the X-Men. That will change again, but not for a while.

In some ways Remender's "Uncanny Avengers" was the closest thing to a classic Avengers revival, since it used the mansion and a lot of the classic Avengers cast; it was basically a traditional Avengers lineup with a few more mutants than usual. And then "Avengers: No Road Home" was a book for the classic Avengers characters, but they've been in limbo ever since with no sign of getting out.

I refuse to believe that it would be a sales problem if they put Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wasp, etc. back on the Avengers where they belong. If it wasn't a sales problem for "Uncanny Avengers" when none of them were in the MCU, why would it be a problem now? I think Marvel is just stubborn in refusing to revert the main Avengers team back to anything resembling a classic Avengers lineup, because that would be old-fashioned or something.

[Nomads1]

1. The team should move its base back to New York City.
2. The team should be a family instead of an army.

I never saw the Avengers as a family. I think other teams, such as the X-Men (once upon a time), the New Warriors and, obviously, the FF, better fit that niche. I always thought the Avengers as a well-oiled team of professionals. Like a highly efficient team of soldiers who bond over the crises they face. A police force, where your partners are as close to you as your family, but in a different way. That's why I don't think every big name at Marvel, such as Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Blade, Daredevil or whoever, should be Avengers. Sometimes, once relatively nobodies, such as Hawkeye, Vision, Wonder Man, Starfox, She-Hulk, Captain 'Monica Rambeau' Marvel and so many others, who, mostly, can't carry books by themselves for very long, work much better in the team, because being an Avenger is special, is important to them. With some exceptions, many Avengers went on to became big names, but didn't start that way. For me, Bendis was the one who started bending that trend, effectively missing the point, and ruining what made the Avengers unique.

Peace

[gurkle]

The line about the Avengers as a family vs. an army was most famously used by Simon Williams/Wonder Man in "Avengers: The Children's Crusade." Now, I'm sure the writer would say he was just writing Simon's thoughts on the Avengers, but it does sort of sum up some how old-school fans saw the Bendis run, and it's even more true of Hickman and Aaron's runs.

For a lot of its run, the Avengers was as much a "family" book as the X-Men with a similar dynamic: a group of characters live and train in the same house together, and sometimes go out on missions to fight bad guys, and have a lot of soap-opera complications. (Editor-in-chief and former Avengers writer Bob Harras reportedly said he wanted the 1998 run to be like "Melrose Place.") That is the way fans of the core B-listers, like Wanda and Vision and Clint, often see the team, or at least want to see it.

I think in many ways Bendis kept some of the feel of classic Avengers, though not the core cast, but the Hickman and Aaron runs are definitely closer to a Justice League type of book where the emphasis is on the threats that are too big for one superhero to withstand, rather than the individual character development.

[Nomads1]

I read, and enjoyed, Children's Crusade, but I didn't make the connection, even if I did agree a lot with Simon in that mini.

Peace

[Kurt Busiek]

Editor-in-chief and former Avengers writer Bob Harras reportedly said he wanted the 1998 run to be like "Melrose Place."

While Bob is a soap fan, from what I've heard, it was me -- after Bob's time on the book -- who described the Avengers as "Earth's Mightiest Melrose Place."

That was rooted in my reading of the Silver age Roy Thomas years, where the Big Three came into and out of the book (Roy used them as often as Stan would let him) while the ongoing character continuity was provided by the less-well-known characters who were there every issue, and the Bronze Age Englehart years, where the Big Four (Steve included the Panther in that, since he had his on book) kind of set policy for the team, and the character dynamics were about, again, the less-known characters who were living at the Mansion and there every month to do character stuff.

Out of all that came the extended Pym Family -- Hank and Jan begat Ultron, who begat the Vision and Jocasta, who link to Wonder Man and Mockingbird as siblings, and Mockingbird connects to Hawkeye who connects to the Black Window, and the Vision connects to Wanda, daughter of Magneto and brother of Quicksilver, and so on. That core "family" romances and feuds and spends time together and creates all kinds of interesting drama.

That's a flavor the Avengers has for me that other books don't -- the FF is a family, the X-Men are minority-rights crusaders (with lots of family within), the Inhumans are both family and a ruling clique, etc., but the Avengers are colleagues with that family stuff creating a lot of the interest within. It doesn't need to be all about the Pym family (though there's lots of good stuff there to be used), but that sense that they're all colleagues and there's that soap churning at its heart is what feels essential to me.

Whereas, say, the JLA doesn't (usually) have that same sense of family at most of its most successful points. They're a league of equals, most of whom have their own "territory," but they join together as needed to handle the bigger threats, but they feel much more like colleagues than they do like family, and the relationships that happen in the team (Superman-Batman, GL-GA-Canary, etc) seem to come from their other books more than happening in JLA.

So, oddly, it sometimes feels to me like Giffen, DeMatteis and friends successfully turned the JLA into the Avengers for a while, and Bendis and crew very successfully turned the Avengers into the JLA.

But that's comics for you. Anyway, I think I'm the guy who first brought in Melrose Place (a show I've never watched) as a comparison.

kdb

[JorgeJ77]

Listen, everyone, sorry that I said that the Avengers was garbage. It's just not my style of Avengers. So, anyways, if I can have an Avengers team with my favorite characters, you old Avengers fans can have a classic Avengers lineup. So, anyways, sorry for my previous comment and I hope that 2023 is a great year for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

[Nomads1]

While Bob is a soap fan, from what I've heard, it was me -- after Bob's time on the book -- who described the Avengers as "Earth's Mightiest Melrose Place."

That was rooted in my reading of the Silver age Roy Thomas years, where the Big Three came into and out of the book (Roy used them as often as Stan would let him) while the ongoing character continuity was provided by the less-well-known characters who were there every issue, and the Bronze Age Englehart years, where the Big Four (Steve included the Panther in that, since he had his on book) kind of set policy for the team, and the character dynamics were about, again, the less-known characters who were living at the Mansion and there every month to do character stuff.

Out of all that came the extended Pym Family -- Hank and Jan begat Ultron, who begat the Vision and Jocasta, who link to Wonder Man and Mockingbird as siblings, and Mockingbird connects to Hawkeye who connects to the Black Window, and the Vision connects to Wanda, daughter of Magneto and brother of Quicksilver, and so on. That core "family" romances and feuds and spends time together and creates all kinds of interesting drama.

That's a flavor the Avengers has for me that other books don't -- the FF is a family, the X-Men are minority-rights crusaders (with lots of family within), the Inhumans are both family and a ruling clique, etc., but the Avengers are colleagues with that family stuff creating a lot of the interest within. It doesn't need to be all about the Pym family (though there's lots of good stuff there to be used), but that sense that they're all colleagues and there's that soap churning at its heart is what feels essential to me.

Whereas, say, the JLA doesn't (usually) have that same sense of family at most of its most successful points. They're a league of equals, most of whom have their own "territory," but they join together as needed to handle the bigger threats, but they feel much more like colleagues than they do like family, and the relationships that happen in the team (Superman-Batman, GL-GA-Canary, etc) seem to come from their other books more than happening in JLA.

So, oddly, it sometimes feels to me like Giffen, DeMatteis and friends successfully turned the JLA into the Avengers for a while, and Bendis and crew very successfully turned the Avengers into the JLA.

But that's comics for you. Anyway, I think I'm the guy who first brought in Melrose Place (a show I've never watched) as a comparison.

kdb

Expressed my impressions much better than I could. Thank you, Mr. Busiek.

Peace

[strathcona]

So, oddly, it sometimes feels to me like Giffen, DeMatteis and friends successfully turned the JLA into the Avengers for a while, and Bendis and crew very successfully turned the Avengers into the JLA.


kdb

That explains why the only JLA run I've ever liked was the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI era. And why I stopped reading Avengers only at the Bendis era.

I really want to see some writer come in and bring that feeling back to the Avengers.

[Frontier]

I don't view the Avengers as a family on the level of the FF or X-Men but I view them as a group that is close and supportive of each other beyond the normal confines of being work friends/colleagues.

[gurkle]

I don't view the Avengers as a family on the level of the FF or X-Men but I view them as a group that is close and supportive of each other beyond the normal confines of being work friends/colleagues.

The party scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron did a good job with that dynamic. People may differ on how good that movie is, but it's definitely the most "classic Avengers" in feel, with the Avengers hanging together after work, the classic B-listers joining the team, the Avengers fighting a villain they created themselves, the characters who start out attacking the Avengers and then immediately join the team, etc. Too bad MCU synergy was no longer a thing in comics by that time, so the comics didn't follow suit.

[Frontier]

The party scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron did a good job with that dynamic. People may differ on how good that movie is, but it's definitely the most "classic Avengers" in feel, with the Avengers hanging together after work, the classic B-listers joining the team, the Avengers fighting a villain they created themselves, the characters who start out attacking the Avengers and then immediately join the team, etc. Too bad MCU synergy was no longer a thing in comics by that time, so the comics didn't follow suit.

I definitely had my problems with AoU but I feel like one thing it got right was being a bit more of a "standard" adventure for character building rather than the big "event" film every MCU movie basically is at this point. But I think that was part of why people had a problem with it.

[Tony Stark]

The party scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron did a good job with that dynamic. People may differ on how good that movie is, but it's definitely the most "classic Avengers" in feel, with the Avengers hanging together after work, the classic B-listers joining the team, the Avengers fighting a villain they created themselves, the characters who start out attacking the Avengers and then immediately join the team, etc. Too bad MCU synergy was no longer a thing in comics by that time, so the comics didn't follow suit.

This is one of the reasons it's my favorite Avengers movie.

[Thundershot]

Maybe the solution is to have two books. One classic in the mansion and the other more modern. Busiek pulled me into loving Avengers, but Bendis, while cool at first, slowly pushed me away. I felt they didn’t feel like the same characters anymore. Everyone since save Hickman (and while I loved the writing, I still didn’t care for the premise) hasn’t clicked for me. And that’s fine. Obviously others enjoy it. If a future iteration strikes my fancy, I’ll be back.