How would you have done Uncanny Avengers?

[king of hybrids]

right, i can't remember if i made this thread on the old forum, so sorry if repeating self

Uncanny Avengers can certainly be said to have failed to live up to its potential. a book that finally offered to bridge the narrative gap that's existed for years between the x-books and the rest of marvel, with the avengers learning from previous screw-ups in regards to mutant issues and the x-men perhaps learning to not keep so much stuff strictly in-house. instead we got month after month of bitching, incredibly convenient time-travel and generally avoiding either side of the MU in favor of 2 very universal enemies, all wedged between the "joys" of AvX and AXIS

so, how would you have done it?

what premise, what members, whats the plots, whose the enemies, whats the goal?

Ground Rules:
1) yes, it would still be marketed with that title, unless we want to go with "the avenging x-men" or something. no champions/defenders/knights
2) yes, wanda is still on the team (how is another matter), and can't be team-killed. no Axis retcon
3) half of the rest of the team still has to be non-mutant heroes (so no stuffing it with beast, logan, sunspot and cannonball) from the any of the avengers rosters as of the end of hickman's Avengers issue 1; the other half any member of any x-team (except namor*)
4) no sudden proclamations of "cyclops was right" followed by mass suicide

*because he's enough of a franchise-hopping hot potato

[dragonmp93]

Well, if the Scarlet Witch has to be part of the team, then i can only think of two changes:

- Havok actually leads the team, and never made that speech.
- Beast instead of Rogue, he has been a long-time friend of them.

[Omega Alpha]

Why Wanda has to be on that team?

Anyway, that team would only work if you had someone like Cable or Cyclops leading the team rather than someone who will inevitably become a 2nd stringer to Captain America.

[KaleRylan]

Honestly, the base premise I don't think was bad, but yes I would have changed a few things.

Get Cap off the team. He has no personality aside from leader, so his existence was always going to lead to leadership struggles. This of course turned out to be the point of his inclusion, but it was a bad idea. Also, having either Cap or Cyclops running the team brings it too far into either camp which dilutes the idea. Havok was an interesting choice if they'd let him lead.

But the real problem in the book was the whole tenor of the conversation regarding mutant rights. I'm not going to get into how 'accurate' or not the mutant metaphor really is (it's a comic, get over it) but the reason the metaphor works and is beloved by so many is not the accuracy of it, it's the sympathy. It makes people feel good, feel like superheroes, for being different. Uncanny Avengers seemingly forgot that (things I've read suggest that Remender may not have the greatest understanding or respect for minority issues, but I don't know) and instead explicitly espoused the philosophy that people should try to 'fit in' more. Which is a philosophy that is generally looked down upon by minorities, minority rights people, and other people that actually have hearts.

Wanda became the poster child of this. I have no issues with heroes turning evil and then turning good again. It's ridiculous, but superhero comics get a lot of mileage out of it. But Wanda should have been forced to earn it a little more. She committed cultural (if not physical, the number of deaths was always vague) genocide and mostly got a get out of jail free card for it. That was a bit too much. And I'm all for a good redemption story.

The weird thing about Uncanny Avengers that makes it a hard book to judge completely is that the fact that it failed was intentional. That's the plot. The leadership was poorly organized, the members couldn't get along, no one agreed on their mission statement. This wasn't simply poor writing, it was desired writing. Whether that was good or not is up to people I guess, but there's something to be said for telling the story you intend.

[nx01a]

Wanda runs around repowering mutants, facing her victims and their families and friends, acknowledging what she did whether intentionally or not was beyond horrible, eventually finding atonement and peace after about 25 issues. Throw in a few villains to keep things interesting. Keep Rogue away from the book!

[protege]

Why Wanda has to be on that team?

Anyway, that team would only work if you had someone like Cable or Cyclops leading the team rather than someone who will inevitably become a 2nd stringer to Captain America.

I can't picture cyclops and cap in on the same team without butting heads constantly; i think havok was a safer choice.

[Omega Alpha]

I can't picture cyclops and cap in on the same team without butting heads constantly; i think havok was a safer choice.

But that's EXACTLY the problem: Havok is a safer choice because he would always ultimately defer to Cap and/or not be strong enough to credibly challenge him, while someone like Cyclops or Cable would have the personality and experience to pull it off. Cap America didn't wanted that because he ultimately wanted to be in charge, and that's why that team would always fail.

[primetime21]

I just would have left the while idea alone period

[sage]

I wouldn't have.

[protege]

But that's EXACTLY the problem: Havok is a safer choice because he would always ultimately defer to Cap and/or not be strong enough to credibly challenge him, while someone like Cyclops or Cable would have the personality and experience to pull it off. Cap America didn't wanted that because he ultimately wanted to be in charge, and that's why that team would always fail.

Well, do you think cyclops would have left the xmen to lead the avengers?

[ExodusCloak]

It should have been a lot harsher on Wanda Maximoff, it should have had her atone her crimes against mutants instead of making a poor attempt to cover those up.

[Omega Alpha]

Well, do you think cyclops would have left the xmen to lead the avengers?

Well, no, not in normal circumstances (though he doesn't really have to, lots of people manage two teams at once), but I could see someone like Cable or even Storm doing it and would work.

[Jackraow21]

Why Wanda has to be on that team?

Anyway, that team would only work if you had someone like Cable or Cyclops leading the team rather than someone who will inevitably become a 2nd stringer to Captain America.

Agreed. Cable plus Deadpool and Rogue with Cap and some Avengers. Big global mandate. Major threats. Steve McNiven and other big name artists rotating. Fabian Nicieza writing. Boom.

[Anarchist]

Not at all.
Terrible premise, doomed to fail from the start.

[CJStriker]

Interesting Thread Idea King of Hybrids, Thanks for it!

Honestly I found already most of Uncanny Avengers Very Good the way Rick Remender Made it, but Indeed their be a Few Changes I make as well with the story I would have wanted to see more.

Before that King of Hybrids, another thing is that Uncanny Avengers DID Live up to the Hype, We Always Talked about it here on Old and New CBR no matter what, so any talk is a Success. Also, it always did around 50k Issues a Month and was a Flagship of Marvel that had its own Event Comic. Not matter many Comic Politics of those that did not like that book, it was a Success Threw-N-Threw cause of those Alone and the Fandom it created with me and others! ;-)

So Now to the Points on how I would have changed-up the book.

1.) I would have changed-up some Heroes, Namely Taken out Wolverine and Thor and Replaced them with Storm and Brother Voodoo, Going by the Major Fact that these 2 where originally going to be in the 1st Volume Rick said, so I like to see that. Also I replace Sunfire with Nightcrawler.

2.) Havok is still the Leader but thier is a Commander that is under him that is non-mutant to show that Mutants and Humans can share leadership. The Commander would be Janet Van Dyne.

3.) Non of the Team hating each other, mostly exclude the Rogue and Wanda forced arguments and any of the X-Men and Avengers strife from AvX is worked out threw the 1st encounters with the Red Skull.

4.) Also for the Story the Book would need to be 2 times a Month to help move the story forward.

5.) The story is a cross of not just action but internal dialogue about members forming close bonds; Rogue and Wanda becoming friends, Wasp and Alex starting to be an item, Storm interacting with all the Avengers is what is means to lead both X-Men and Mutants, Nightcralwer being the heart of the team in what it means to be mutant in both a pre and post AvX world. The dialgue would serve as a coming together moments to give roots towards the ideals of how mutants and humans can work together and it starts with them working together.

6.) My final point, although I might come-up with more later, is that after the Red Skull opening arc we get another arc right after where Red Skull is forming together all the Anti-Mutant forces one-by-one and the Unity Team comes in to not only fight them down, but to philosophically in battle bring them down and it brings them down for good. One of them would be the Purifiers would be a foe to bring down once and for all!

This would lead to Red Skull running and losing a majority amount of the Anti-Mutant organizations. This leads into the Poccy Twins arc.