So what happened with "the Mighty Avengers?"

Cafe Society
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A few months back, the Cafe Society was full of (well, that’s perhaps a slight exaggeration) about the comic book “the Avengers” and the supposedly radical overhaul the new writer was performing on the team. I haven’t read the book since Kurt Busiek wrote it, but I was (slightly) interested in what the dramatic change in the team was going to be.

I know Jack of Hearts was instantly ressurected in order to die again, Ant-Man died and Hawkeye died. But IMO these are hardly shockingly dramatic since comic book “deaths” last about as long as a J-Lo marriage. A future writer will eventually come along to “shockingly” reveal that - whodathunkit? - none of those characters died after all, or Kang will change history so that they don’t die, or something or other.

My question is, did anything shocking or truly spectacular actually happen? And how did the Avengers actually change? If at all?

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Well, New Avengers #1 by Brian Michael Bendis came out yesterday, and it looks like the new team will consist of Spider-Man, Captain America, Daredevil, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), Luke Cage, Wolverine, Sentry, and possibly Iron Man.

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Spider-Man’s a team player, now? I remember him turning Thor down (after much soull-searching) when the big guy offered to sponsor him for membership.

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IIRC Spider-Man accepted an auxilliary membership at one point.

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How many books is Wolverine in now, anyway? For a moody loner, he sure gets around.

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At this point, I’m just counting my lucky stars they didn’t throw in Blade and The Hulk.

Seriously though, Spider-Woman? Luke Cage? Did someone hit me on the head and wake me up in 1979?

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Meant to add, I hope they do better by Spider-Woman this time. I mean, I realize that she was conceived largely to secure the trademark but I always thought she was interesting and was saddened that they sort of turned her into a “dump everything bad on her” kind of character.

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They are two of Bendis’ favorite characters. Luke Cage is featured prominently in two of the other books he writes, Daredevil (where he is Matt Murdock’s bodyguard) and Alias. And he’s always had a thing for Jessica Drew too, I believe.

The only one worse at being a moody loner is Batman, a member in good standing of several incarnations of the Justice League, former leader of the Outsiders, trainer/partner of four Robins, constant ally of Superman, and unofficial leader of all the Gotham City heroes: Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, Huntress, Azrael… Not bad for describing himself as “not a people person.”

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I’m thinking they franchise Woverine out, kinda like Ronald McDonald. And no two Wolverines can be in the same place at a given time, except for a secret convention held once a year. :stuck_out_tongue:

Okay, Wolvy and Spidey are the only characters that sell. They figure with them on one team, they’ll outsell everything. MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHA

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You’re forgetting “The Brave and the Bold” which was basically a Batman teamup book. :slight_smile:
I remember when the current run of JLA started with the “Big Guns”, some complained that Batman wasn’t a team player, like JLA stalwart J’onn J’onnz. Someone did the math and figured out that Batman was in more League incarnations than the Martian Manhunter! More than any other leaguer!

To be fair, though, Batman was never in the JLA and the Outsiders at the same time. Wolverine, I assume, will still be prominent in the X-Men books.

Now there’s a question. Which comic book character appears in the most books at the same time? That’s solo titles, team titles, and other books where they appear, say, more than once every four issues.
Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine are all good early contenders.

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But they’re both genuinely B-list nobodies. It’s not that they didn’t, at one point, have potential; it’s just that they never seriously lived up to it.

I mean, I have my pet characters too (You’re so dreamy, Booster). But if I were given the chance to write the premiere super hero team in one of the major comics universes, I don’t think I could, in good conscience, fill it with the Paladins, Polarises and Speedballs of the world.

This kind of thing, bizarrely enough, happens all the time in the wacky world of pro wrestling. A new booker (the wrestling version of a writer) will get promoted and suddenly his best friends and relatives, none of whom have ever been popular or drawn a dime, are fighting for the world title. It always ends in tears, despite the occasional good intentions behind it.

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Forgot to mention, every since Queseda took over the reigns as Editor in chief of Marvel, the comic policy is that no heroes get to come back. If they dead, they dead. The only likely exception to this would be Phoenix, given what she’s named after and all.
Could somebody recap what happened to the rest of the Avengers in the Disassembled plotline. I know that Hawkeye, Jack of Hearts, and Vision are all gone. She Hulk flipped out and got herself arrested. But what about the rest? Where are Thor, Hercules, Wonder Man, and the rest?

This doesn’t look like an Avengers line up. It’s closer to a revamp of The Defenders.

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Or the Champions.

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I don’t read any Marvel books, but I heard Colossus ALREADY came back from the dead! Is this true?

JDeMobray, I’m a Blue Beetle fan myself, but remember it was Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis who took a bunch of B- and C-list characters (including Beetle and your Booster Gold) and made the into the great Justice League International of the 1980s! I believe a good enough writer can make any character cool and exciting–that’s why I’m also a big Wildcats fan, after James Robinson, Alan Moore, and Joe Casey have all left their marks on the team over the years. And if someone gets lucky enough to write a comic and they love obscure or “lesser” characters, I can’t be too surprised when they bring them back (coughgeoffjohnscough)!

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Yeah, he did. I have no idea if that means Quesada’s “no one gets to come back” rule is gone or what. And really, does anyone expect Hawkeye not to be back within, oh, a year or two (Ant-Man I’m not so sure of, just because who’s going to bother to bring him back)?

As for the team itself… well…

I really like Spider-Woman. A lot, actually. Watched her cartoon when I was little and have had a fondness for her ever since (it doesn’t hurt that I think she has one of, if not the, best female costume in all of comics). I agree with Otto that they’ve dumped a ton of shit on her since her creation, so I’m all for seeing Bendis do some cool stuff with her (if she gets a solo book I am there).

And since my favorite comic books ever are the Giffen JLA issues and most of my favorite characters are B and C-list characters, it should come as no surprise that I don’t have a problem with an unconventional Avengers lineup.

All that said, I have reservations about the New Avengers. As Fenris said in another thread, this just isn’t the Avengers. If the team was, say, Cap, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage even, and, I dunno, Nova and Sleepwalker, I wouldn’t really have a problem with it. But Spider-Man and Wolverine? Ugh! I read Avengers to get away from those two particular ubiquitous characters.

So, yeah, no problem whatsoever with a dramatic lineup change or obscure characters (heck, if New Avengers consisted of Swordsman, Mantis, Stingray, Darkhawk, and Moondragon, I’d be a perfectly happy camper). My problem is the whole Spider-Man and Wolverine thing.

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It worked for the 1988 version of the Justice League. Which was one of the better runs of the team, IMO.

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That’s an interesting lineup and I kind of like it, but not for the Avengers.

What are Spider-woman’s powers, by the way? And who is Sentry? And can Luke Cage please get a codename? Not Power Man either.

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Okay, first things first. Giffen and DeMatteis never wanted the JLI they ended up with. It was an editorial mandate that stuck them with those characters. They made the best of the situation and turned out a great book.

Bendis, on the other hand, undoubtedly has Carte Blanche to use whoever he wants for his new Avengers. I can’t figure out why he would want to start out, essentially, in the hole. (I suppose it has to do with the curious state of modern comics: none of the creators, and few of the readers really stick around for more than a couple “arcs” at a time. If you can move books based on celebrity status and re-numbering schemes for your 12 issues then whatever happens next is somebody elses problem.)

I hear this all the time and I just don’t buy it. But that is an argument with no end and barely a beginning.

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There’s a webtoon called the “Uncanny X-Sprites” - I’m sure googling will turn up a link, as I don’t have one handy. The strips follow along with current X-continuity - one of them had two X-teams bumping into each other after one team had been in another dimension. Both had a Wolverine on it.

One of the Wolverine KO’s the other, and the team leaders have a quick chat about the situation.

Cyke? : “How do we explain it this time?”
Angel? : “Skrull?”
Cyke? : “Skrull.”

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Assuming no retcon of which I’m unaware, she has super-strength (not sure if it’s the proportionate strength of a spider, though), can cling to walls, can fly/glide, can fire bio-electric “venom blasts” and once exposed to a toxin develops an immunity to it.

She’s also a world-class detective, but she doesn’t have much of a singing voice (bonus points to anyone who knows how we know that).