How Disappointed were you with Hickman's Avengers?

[TonyStark1012]

Red She-Hulk is pretty awesome and is going to awesome places.

More people need to read the book.

I have to say I've been enjoying it. Both the art and the writing have been on point.

[PupsOfWar]

It was the secondary characters Beast, Hawkeye, Vision, Wasp, Scarlet Witch that made the team great.

...

Like Manifold, Girl Smasher, Sunspot and Hyperion are "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Maybe some of these characters will be developed into something interesting, but I doubt it.

I don't get how these two attitudes can coexist successfully.

Critique the size of the team, that's fine and valid.
Critique Hickman's writing style, fine and valid.
Critique structure chosen for this introductory issue, fine and valid.

But I don't know if I'll ever understand how the people who really lobby for Avengers membership to be more exclusive - suggesting that letting the wrong people in degrades the value of being an Avenger, or what have you - are often the same people who are most appreciative of characters with roughly zero prestige outside of being classic Avengers members, like Wasp and Vision, and will lobby in favor of their inclusion.

As someone who is new to Avengers things after a longer-term interest in Fantastic Four and occasionally X-Men, this really confounds me.

The Avengers aren't the Justice League. "Earth's Mightiest Hero" monicker aside, they don't have the same history of having a core membership of only A-List heroes.


Why be a stickler about whether more recent or obscure characters are worthy of membership?

[ProfessorX]

Personally, I am intrigued by this new Avengers lineup. I have enjoyed Hickman's writing in the past, so I am curious to find out what happens next. I think that the issue could have been better, but it was a decent start.

[marvell2100]

Hickman was on game with this. Loved it. Avengers facing big threats is what it's all about.

[HaveAtThee]

IMO, Remender's title seems to be the more ambitious title at the moment. It might fall flat on its face, who knows for sure, but you can't fault Remender for having unique and grand ideas. Perhaps it was a given with UA's unconventional assembly of members that it would "break new ground" in the team dynamic. The fact that Hickman has more characters to play with can really stretch out a grand story with smaller, self-contained arcs for issues on end. Remender has less wiggle room given that he has to please both Avengers and X-fans.

[Voss]

I'm curious-when did you start reading the Avengers?
In fact, when did everyone start reading the Avengers?

I grew up with the Avengers. My first story was actually MTIO Annual 2 which was the second part of a story that started in Avengers Annual 7. Personally I feel once Bendis took over they threw what made the Avengers the Avengers out the window. Thor, Cap and Iron Man were always in the group, but since they all had their own titles there wasn't much to be done with them (although Cap always messing up was kind of funny). It was the secondary characters Beast, Hawkeye, Vision, Wasp, Scarlet Witch that made the team great. And the membership was always in flux but there were usually no more that seven at a time. Now we have about 20 in this book. This feels like the Legion of Super-Heroes.

To say I'm not an Avengers' fan because I was disappointed with this book? Like Manifold, Girl Smasher, Sunspot and Hyperion are "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Maybe some of these characters will be developed into something interesting, but I doubt it.

Off topic, but did we just lose the Squadron Supreme and the Imperial Guard on the first page?

Sure, I'll spill the beans and let you know that I've never been an Avengers fan. I'm interested in this book for two reasons

1. Hickman
2. The diverse roster

I've always been a fan of Hickmans work. I love his pitch for this team. "Foward, progressive, international, diverse." If you are a traditional fan this might alienate you. I can understand that. This book is catering to new readers like me, so I can understand some of your fustration. But when you make points about Avengers being great because of secondary characters then bash Manifold and the rest in the next sentence it doesn't come off well thought out. It's really bad logic. As a Hickman fan let me tell you this man doesn't play around when it comes to plotting or the details of a story. This book was an intro, your should treat it as such. More details will come down the tube in future issues.

[murdershewrote]

It was the secondary characters Beast, Hawkeye, Vision, Wasp, Scarlet Witch that made the team great.

To say I'm not an Avengers' fan because I was disappointed with this book? Like Manifold, Girl Smasher, Sunspot and Hyperion are "Earth's Mightiest Heroes."

LOL the unintentional irony behind your statements is delicious.

I don't blame you for wanting to stick with the classics. They're always there for you to enjoy, luckily. Go reread your favorite runs - I do all the time in my favorite books.

But to bitch about this line-up for not being traditional enough is A) completely missing the point of the Avengers and their new 'looking forward' manifesto Hickman has stated. and B) completely freaking stupid. Especially since every single on of the the 'not earth mightiest heroes' that you cited are exceptionally powerful characters.

The Avengers have ALWAYS been a revolving roster, always introduced new characters, and has always changed along with the writers. Get used to it or get over it.

[marvelprince]

I don't get how these two attitudes can coexist successfully.

Critique the size of the team, that's fine and valid.
Critique Hickman's writing style, fine and valid.
Critique structure chosen for this introductory issue, fine and valid.

But I don't know if I'll ever understand how the people who really lobby for Avengers membership to be more exclusive - suggesting that letting the wrong people in degrades the value of being an Avenger, or what have you - are often the same people who are most appreciative of characters with roughly zero prestige outside of being classic Avengers members, like Wasp and Vision, and will lobby in favor of their inclusion.

As someone who is new to Avengers things after a longer-term interest in Fantastic Four and occasionally X-Men, this really confounds me.

The Avengers aren't the Justice League. "Earth's Mightiest Hero" monicker aside, they don't have the same history of having a core membership of only A-List heroes.

Why be a stickler about whether more recent or obscure characters are worthy of membership?

Its such a pervasive argument that you learn to just sort of accept it sometimes. For as long as I've been on these boards people have been griping about adding new characters to Avengers but begging for guys like Vision, Jack of Hearts or Triathlon to show up again. Really all it comes down to though is people want characters they're used to. Thats fine an dandy, but they must recognise that if the powers that be shared this reasoning the team would still be Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp and Hulk. All those guys were new Avengers once, its time for new blood. Really all the new characters are a big part of the reason I'm so excited for Hickman's run.

[Frank]

I thought it was a hallow experience.

They start with several pages saying how big it's going to be, then we have the Avengers heading to Mars because 2 million people died off panel. I'm sorry, but I really didn't care about any of the stuff that happened on Mars cause there was no emotional investment. Even worst was that the Avengers charged in like a bunch of amateurs.

The book is a pufferfish. Claims it's epic and grand, nothing much on the inside.

Well Hickman usualy delivers on the "Big" part as seen in FF. Doesn't mean everything will happen in one issue.

[Frank]

I liked it alot and I'm looking foward to seeing where it goes over the next few years.

My only whine is the lack of long time classic Avengers on the team-Vision, Scarlet Witch, Wonderman, Wasp, Hank Pym.....I know I can find them in other spots, but I miss the days of all my favs in the same book. Oh well, onward and upward I guess.

Yea I asked Hickman this and he said "we're going forward, not backward" but frankly the Big Three are still and they've been with the team forever. I'm not asking for the moon, I like new members and new characters but at least he could use three classic Avengers over Wolverine/Spider-Man/Spider-Woman. And you have Bendis on X-Men using the original X-Men, if it's a Marvel policy, then something got lost in the translation as far as "going forward".

[tingray]

I get the going forward and not backward bit, but really, the Hulk hasn't been on the team since 1963. I guess the movie guys have to be in there though. I also like most of the new characters, and Wanda, Simon, Wasp and Beast are all appearing in the other Avengers titles. The two I really miss are Vision and Hank Pym, both of whom have pretty useful powers that are not duplicated by any of the new members. Shame they're not on the team.

[Black Manta]

I am in no way complaining about adding new members to the Avengers. You have to add new characters. I personally feel that the team between issues (roughly) 150-200 was the best they had. And after the reboot of the early 90s they brought back a similiar team. And there have always been characters that have joined that I have not been happy with. But I think opening up the team to every Tom, Dick and Harry who has ever worn spandex dilutes the concept.

To be fair pretty much every team book has been doing this for years. The Avengers were my favorite so I'm probably more defensive about them than I should be. I feel that 9 times out of 10 these big reboots are just gimmicks to get sales up. The stories are usually very weak. Sales drop and they have a new #1 with new team members. I don't know. I been reading comics since I was 3 or 4 and I miss them. I keep trying to get back into Marvel and DC but the quality just isn't there. It's a constant feeling that they are just jumping the shark over and over and over again. I'm probably just getting old but I don't see how the majority of you guys like this stuff, but there are people who like the more recent Star Wars movies more than the ones that came out in the 70s and 80s so I guess it's just a matter of preference.

[PupsOfWar]

I am in no way complaining about adding new members to the Avengers. You have to add new characters. I personally feel that the team between issues (roughly) 150-200 was the best they had. And after the reboot of the early 90s they brought back a similiar team. And there have always been characters that have joined that I have not been happy with. But I think opening up the team to every Tom, Dick and Harry who has ever worn spandex dilutes the concept.

To be fair pretty much every team book has been doing this for years. The Avengers were my favorite so I'm probably more defensive about them than I should be. I feel that 9 times out of 10 these big reboots are just gimmicks to get sales up. The stories are usually very weak. Sales drop and they have a new #1 with new team members. I don't know. I been reading comics since I was 3 or 4 and I miss them. I keep trying to get back into Marvel and DC but the quality just isn't there. It's a constant feeling that they are just jumping the shark over and over and over again. I'm probably just getting old but I don't see how the majority of you guys like this stuff, but there are people who like the more recent Star Wars movies more than the ones that came out in the 70s and 80s so I guess it's just a matter of preference.

Well, I didn't think that's what you were doing per se, but you've gotta admit that's how it somewhat comes across.

I wish dudes that want to pine for classic characters weren't made to feel that they needed to have some sort of formal argument that rests not in the nostalgia and soforth that is really at the heart of these things, but in the mechanics of constructing lineups. Never holds up.

It's the same everywhere, really.
X-Men have been bouncing back and forth between revisionism and Bold New Directions for decades, which is the main reason people maintain Bobby Drake as an important character.

Also, the whole reason for Aquaman's continued status in the DCU.

Not to say those are bad things.

I guess what I'm saying is, where do you draw the line for who is "every dick and jane"?

Attaching your incredulity at Manifold, Sunspot, Smasher and Hyperion to the "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" label seems to make it a power-level thing, which doesn't make sense since the weakest of those could mop the floor with, say, Black Knight or any number of old Avengers.

Attaching it to general iconicness also doesn't work, as secondary Avengers members of the past also lack this.

Power diversity might work maybe? In that someone could say there are too many supermen (Thor, Cap Uni, Smasher, Hyperion, Captain Marvel, whoever) or too many street-level melee brawlers (Wolvie, Shang-Chi, Falcon a lot of the time, etc)

Attaching it to the new dudes not being interesting characters doesn't work outside of general cynicism about whether people can make things, since, you know, they're new.

I don't see why we have to dress arguments up in things that they don't need.

[Voss]

I am in no way complaining about adding new members to the Avengers. You have to add new characters. I personally feel that the team between issues (roughly) 150-200 was the best they had. And after the reboot of the early 90s they brought back a similiar team. And there have always been characters that have joined that I have not been happy with. But I think opening up the team to every Tom, Dick and Harry who has ever worn spandex dilutes the concept.

To be fair pretty much every team book has been doing this for years. The Avengers were my favorite so I'm probably more defensive about them than I should be. I feel that 9 times out of 10 these big reboots are just gimmicks to get sales up. The stories are usually very weak. Sales drop and they have a new #1 with new team members. I don't know. I been reading comics since I was 3 or 4 and I miss them. I keep trying to get back into Marvel and DC but the quality just isn't there. It's a constant feeling that they are just jumping the shark over and over and over again. I'm probably just getting old but I don't see how the majority of you guys like this stuff, but there are people who like the more recent Star Wars movies more than the ones that came out in the 70s and 80s so I guess it's just a matter of preference.

My opinion is that the actual writer of the book is more important then the team itself. Hickman is not Stan Lee, you can't force him to make the same book, retread the same concepts, and use the same team. As a writer I certainly would not want to do so, both from a creative aspect and from a feeling of respect to what has come before. I'm glad you had a solid 50 or so books for your generation, but you can't force the rest of us to be frozen during that time period. Again, read the interviews with Hickman. The themes are progression, moving forward, and not retreading the same things others have before. That is what the roster represents.

You keep bashing all of these selected "Tom, Dick, and Harry's" without giving the actual book a chance to play out. Had you leveled all of these criticisms and complaints against almost any other writer I might be more sympathetic to what you are saying. But you are talking about Hickman, someone who is pretty thorough about plot details, long term planning and character development. Seriously, give this a chance dude you are way over reacting. If it's not for you then at least you still have the Stan Lee era to go back to.

I think the biggest problem you have is that you latch on to a particular group characters instead of an author. In my experience, you just can't do that. Things change and constantly evolve, you can't expect people to make the same thing someone else has made while still maintaining the same quality. It's just not going to happen. I'm curious as to what books from DC and Marvel you were trying to get into. I get the feeling you tried to get into the more main stream books like the previous Bendis Avengers (which sucked), some of the New 52 stuff like Justice League (which also sucked), etc while passing over the real gems like I Vampire, Wonder Woman, Fantastic Four, Hawkeye, etc. There is also stuff outside of DC and Marvel that are better then the big 2's mainstream titles. Locke and Key, Fables, Chew, there is tons of stuff out there. I'd love a reply, maybe I can make some recommendations for you.

And for the record, the Star Wars prequels were an abomination not just for the Star Wars series, but cinema in general.

[Maestro]

lol, you can see this trolling attempt from a mile away. Stick to the X-boards!