How come it's so easy to become an Avenger?

[Ingonyama]

I think Marvel is a little too enamored of the Avengers title, and the fact that with the movie tie-in it's more likely to draw in cash these days.

"Avengers" is pretty much a catch-all title now for "any super-team that's not the X-Men or FF."

So their instincts, when a new non-mutant team is formed, is to slap the Avengers label on it. There are other team names out there that could be used...the Defenders, the Champions, the Liberators...and of course there's always the option of creating an entirely new team altogether, but Marvel's throwing everything they've got into making their comics mainstream, so these ideas are probably going to stay in the corner until someone decides to dust them off and play with them.

[XPac]

Oh, no. Belive me, I know oddballs teams wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell in the current movie oriented Marvel, and those are my favorite kind of teams (you're talking to one of the few people alive that admit out loud to have been a fan of the Justice League Detroit ). Champions, Bomber Jacket Avengers, Force Works, I've always loved those guys. The point is that, in-story, this overload of Avengers is starting to affect the credibility of the stories. Take for exemple Fear Itself. Thing were the worse ever, and yet the Avengers couldn't be bothered to call on Photon, Firebird or the Black Knight. Or AvsX. Why didn't Cap call on all the reserves and crush the X-Men? Not a single call to Quasar, Moondragon, Sersi, etc? I don't know if a smaller Avengers organization will be seen as more effective or not, if it will result in better stories or not, but, at least, it'll make a bit more sense to keep track of who the members are, what they're doing and why the team doesn't make use of all it's resources when the chips are down.

Peace

You'd still have that problem anyways though. Even if they rebooted the team and essentially revoked a lot of peoples Avengers status (and you can argue they did that after Avengers Disassembled... I'm not actually sure reserve Avengers status still officiall exists), it's not like Cap hasn't lost their cell phone numbers. I'm sure he in theory could still call and ask people for help. The issue I think is more a practical storytelling one... you don't necessarily want 50 Avengers showing up in a story. You just use the ones you want, and apply a bit of suspenion of belief in assuming the ones that aren't there are unavailable for some reason. Comics just need to work that way sometimes.

[nitake92]

To me the reason for the way many people think that becoming an Avengers is easy nowadays is because of the huge influx that started during Bendis’s run when the previous run by Busiek and the others are slow to add in new members over an amount of time.

In Universe, it starts with the forming of the New Avengers where most of the team outside of Cap and Iron Man were new to calling themselves Avengers and the New Avengers were looser with their membership qualification (being more of a group of friends,associate) than the original Avengers Association.

That’s not to say that the original Avengers association was extremely strict or anything, they let people like Dr. Druid, Deathcry, Triathlon and others who really weren’t major players in the superhero scene or didn’t have much credits at the time joined. The only time I can see where they may be strict or really pondering their membership is after Gyrich forced them to tone themselves down to 7 members and they got around that legal hurdle quickly but it forced them to maybe be a bit picky due to government clearance but I think the original criteria is pretty much, “Do we want to work with this person on a regular basis?” and they work to overcome other hurdles in having the new member joins. Of course there has been those that joined under other circumstances like USAgent (forced on by the Feds) Triathon (Strings pulled by Triune Understanding via public pressure for minority members made Avengers offer him membership) and such


With Marvel Now, we have a couple more additions culled from the other parts of the Marvel U. but I hope they do slow it down a little, maybe for five years or so, I never really feel that they got the most out of having Spiderman, The Thing, Wolverine, Dr. Strange and more as Avengers during Bendis’s run. For one thing, I wouldn’t mind Wolverine villain, Dr. Strange villain and maybe even a few Luke Cage, iron Fist villain take on the Avengers to elevate them up to major league status (We’ve had Spiderman villains in the Sinister Six when the Avengers guest star in Spiderman End of Earth, Spider Island, etc)

[XPac]

I think Marvel is a little too enamored of the Avengers title, and the fact that with the movie tie-in it's more likely to draw in cash these days.

"Avengers" is pretty much a catch-all title now for "any super-team that's not the X-Men or FF."

So their instincts, when a new non-mutant team is formed, is to slap the Avengers label on it. There are other team names out there that could be used...the Defenders, the Champions, the Liberators...and of course there's always the option of creating an entirely new team altogether, but Marvel's throwing everything they've got into making their comics mainstream, so these ideas are probably going to stay in the corner until someone decides to dust them off and play with them.

The thing is, it's not that Marvel is only interested in putting out Avengers books. It's just that the other franchises don't necessarily sell well.

In the last couple years they did put out Heroes for Hire, Guardians of the Galaxy (which at least is getting another shot), Mi-13, Agents of Atlas, Alpha and Omega Flight, and 2 different versions of the Defenders. Marvel publishing the book is only half the equation. Readers buying it in sufficient numbers to justify the books continued publication is the other, tricker part of the problem.

[nitake92]

As for members like say Venom or Red Hulk, I think storywise, they are foisted onto the Avengers for special ops or like a work release program ala Thunderbolts (and to be fair, the Flash Venom is the most heroic out of all the Venoms and Captain America had to be reassured that the symbiote won’t influence Flash to offer him a spot)


As for Red Hulk, it was at the insistence of Bruce Banner, because of his love for Ross’s daughter, that he asked Captain America to help turn Red Hulk into a productive member of the hero community, and even then Red Hulk took a lot of humbling and payback from the Avengers member he earlier humiliated like Thor, Iron Man, Namor and even the Watcher . Afterward they begrudgingly worked with him and it’s pretty clear that he’s not exactly Mr.popular with everyone but, a line of reasoning can be made that a Hulk is just too valuable a resource to be wasted and the only way to kept Red Hulk in prison is to put him in solitary confinement for the rest of his life outside of depowerment and then his life is ruined anyway.

I'd say that if Cap and Banner didn't push him in the redemption path and foisted him on the Avengers, others like say Baron Zemo, Doom or any shadowy government agency would have found a way to use him, get his powers etc.


Beside, a Hulk that’s willing to be a team player and toe the line (for now) (Something Bruce hasn't done until now no matter how intelligent he was in the past) is a valuable resource that shouldn’t be ignored and Red Hulk has proven that he’s just that. Should a story be done about the consequence from the devastation and doucherythat he’s done in his Loeb day be done? Sure, and I’d say it’d be a good story if say Ben Urich tries to get the truth from the Avengers about it considering that Red Hulk once threatened to kill everyone at the FrontLine if he dare dig into Red Hulk’s true identity.

Beside it’s not as if an Avengers tenure never ended badly. Moondragon, Mantis, Swordsman and Dr. Druid’s run ended badly or they had a lot of problems working with the others during their tenure if I recalled and come Marvel Now, Venom and Red Hulk are no longer Avengers so maybe ideological difference or consequence from the bad things they (or their predecessor ) did will rear it’s ugly head.

[Rosebunse]

If only it was that easy...

Oh, so true! And she actually deserves it.

I remember reading somewhere that even Werewolf-by-Night and Morbius are technically reserve Avengers.

*Red Hulk joins the Avengers*
*Loki is offered membership*
*Rogue and Havok join the Avengers*

Well, they can't be accused of not being open-minded.

To be fair, Pym was the only one offering Loki a spot on the real Avengers, and even Loki thought it was an awful idea at the time. As for him being in the YA, why not?

And Rogue and Havok are great characters, especially for the new "mutant" inclusion thing.

I don't get Red Hulk, either, except that he's a military man. A crazy military man, but a military man.

[XPac]

Oh, so true! And she actually deserves it.

I remember reading somewhere that even Werewolf-by-Night and Morbius are technically reserve Avengers.

In Songbirds case, the Avengers clearly agreed that she deserved a spot on the team. They actually offered one to her. She turned them down.

[tony ingram]

Defenders are not SUPPOSED to be a team. They're SUPPOSED to be at the most a gathering of heroes. If you're there, you want to pitch in, you're one of us. After that, it's bye-bye (at least in theory).

that's not always been the case though, has it? The whole non-team concept was already being challenged by the time Valkyrie turned up in Defenders #4 and the team was formalized when Nighthawk gave them the Richmond Riding Academy as an HQ. Then later, the Beast actively organized a new team of Defenders which was even recognized by the authorities. There have been several occasions when the Defenders were very definitely a formally recognized team.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

The thing is, it's not that Marvel is only interested in putting out Avengers books. It's just that the other franchises don't necessarily sell well.

In the last couple years they did put out Heroes for Hire, Guardians of the Galaxy (which at least is getting another shot), Mi-13, Agents of Atlas, Alpha and Omega Flight, and 2 different versions of the Defenders. Marvel publishing the book is only half the equation. Readers buying it in sufficient numbers to justify the books continued publication is the other, tricker part of the problem.

Exactly. Marvel's tried other teams multiple times, they just don't manage to sustain themselves for long regardless of quality. Agents of Atlas got about 3 chances to succeed and it just couldn't get a sizeable fanbase to continue publishing. Runaways got a third shot after BKV's volume two, but didn't work and that's with a number of different creative teams. Oh and let's not forget the Order spinning out of Civil War, which was a completely new team with completely new characters. Also, it's hard not to mention Nextwave, fun book that it was. There was also Young Allies a few years back.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

They're not the Legion of Super-Heroes (even though I do think the Avengers have already surpassed them in number of members, and I'm talking about ALL LSH versions put together).



Defenders are not SUPPOSED to be a team. They're SUPPOSED to be at the most a gathering of heroes. If you're there, you want to pitch in, you're one of us. After that, it's bye-bye (at least in theory).





So I gather nobody in the MU has heard of prisons, mental institutions or even community service. Guys do bad things, you "punish" them by placing them in the most prestigious order keeping organization in the world, exactly where they can do most damage, just so Cap can keep an eye on them. (What an eye that guy must have.) Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

While I do acknowledge that the Avengers have a history of redemption, I do belive you have to draw the line somewhere. That's exactly why I'll never be able to accept Wolverine as an Avenger. The team is not a vehicle of redemption for him, an oportunity to change his ways. Logan will always be a stab, maim and kill first, ask questions later kind of guy. Marvel will never allow him to wimp out and change that. So, no redemption on the table, what's the point? ($$$$$ of course, screw story sense.)

Ask yourself realistically what mental institution or prison could hold the Sentry/Void at bay. Heck even Wonderman escaped pretty easily when they locked him up. Also Noh-Varr was in prison before they pulled him out to do more than waste his life there.

[Nomads1]

You'd still have that problem anyways though. Even if they rebooted the team and essentially revoked a lot of peoples Avengers status (and you can argue they did that after Avengers Disassembled... I'm not actually sure reserve Avengers status still officiall exists), it's not like Cap hasn't lost their cell phone numbers. I'm sure he in theory could still call and ask people for help. The issue I think is more a practical storytelling one... you don't necessarily want 50 Avengers showing up in a story. You just use the ones you want, and apply a bit of suspenion of belief in assuming the ones that aren't there are unavailable for some reason. Comics just need to work that way sometimes.

Suspension of belif is accepting that a grown man can use his underwear on the outside and fly, or that every problem has a sollution (and that most of them can be solved with fists), however, honestly, IMHO, writers counting on suspension of belief to bail them out of in-story logical jams can only lead to lazy and bad storytelling.

Peace

[mugiwara]

I'm telling you, next time they'll start recruiting Iron Man foes or evil mutants.

[Nomads1]

To me the reason for the way many people think that becoming an Avengers is easy nowadays is because of the huge influx that started during Bendis’s run when the previous run by Busiek and the others are slow to add in new members over an amount of time.

To be fair, in his 8 plus years, Bendis didn't introduce ALL that many new members to the team. He brought in a couple of old, rarely used member (Spidey, Mockingbird and Thing), gave a couple of others new Ids (Hawkeye as moron killer ninja, Bucky as Cap) and brought in others that had, for long gravitated around the Avengers without actually joining (Cage, Spider Woman, Strange, Iron Fist). but, in all those years, writing two teams, he brought in maybe a dozen NEW members. Going back to when there was the east and west costa teams, that's not such a large influx (in each of their 5 years run, Stern and Busiek introduced about 5 characters each to the team - Stern: Photon, Starfox, Namor, Dr. Druid and, arguably Mockingbird. Busiek - Firestar, Justice, Triathlon, Silver Claw and Jack of Hearts. A dozen in 8 years, writing two books is not that much. I'm not counting Dark Avengers, of course, though that did muddy the waters). I think the multiple teams was what really blew things out of proportion. Dark, Secret, New, Mighty, etc... all of them with their new teams and new members, that's where we really lost sight of things.

Peace

[Vic Vega]

You'd still have that problem anyways though. Even if they rebooted the team and essentially revoked a lot of peoples Avengers status (and you can argue they did that after Avengers Disassembled... I'm not actually sure reserve Avengers status still officiall exists), it's not like Cap hasn't lost their cell phone numbers. I'm sure he in theory could still call and ask people for help. The issue I think is more a practical storytelling one... you don't necessarily want 50 Avengers showing up in a story. You just use the ones you want, and apply a bit of suspenion of belief in assuming the ones that aren't there are unavailable for some reason. Comics just need to work that way sometimes.

You have to assume that many reserve Avengers are either on other missions, off world or just plain not answering their phone.

I mean, Moondragon, Quasar, Mantis and Starfox weren't even on Earth the last we saw any of them.

The difference between now and prior depictions of the Avengers is that before the writer would actually make it clear that say, Cap tried calling Starfox but couldn't find him or something.

[tony ingram]

The difference between now and prior depictions of the Avengers is that before the writer would actually make it clear that say, Cap tried calling Starfox but couldn't find him or something.

I think that's just what Cap used to tell Starfox when he couldn't avoid running into him: "Oh, yeah. I called, but you were out".

Realistically, if they were absolutely desperate for just one additional Avenger for a mission, I think most people would call the Two Gun Kid before they'd call Starfox...