Now on to the topic at hand.
Without a doubt, the Avengers have earned their rightful title as "earth's mightiest heroes". Not the most popular, to be sure, but heroes nonetheless. If they were more well-known, they'd be the Justice League. Heck, they'd be the X-men!
I guess that's the mystique of the Avengers for me. When I first got into them, they were just this bunch of characters, most of whom I had never even heard of before, and they were up to me to discover them! And the more I got to know them, the less these guys below evoked the Avengers for me.
This is probably why I didn't mind the line-up for "United They Stand" regardless of how bad the show turned out to be: For me, the Avengers don't necessarily have to include the big 3! After all, earth's mightiest's colorful history is built on the backs of its more obscure members - Hank Pym and the Wasp being prime examples as founders of the team! And some of the stories I enjoyed the most in recent years happened on books that didn't have any member of the big 3 with them!
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| The new Mighty Avengers |
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| The new Secret Avengers |
Multiple codenames, costumes, and personalities later, it's a wonder this character continues to fascinate me at all. He pretty much starts off with a clean slate with every new persona (and writer)! My favorite identity of his would have to be the Goliath one from the Busiek era.
People assume she's one of the weakest and lamest heroes but what they don't understand is that her true strength was really in her ability to lead - something she worked hard to develop. She used to be the underpowered but overly enthusiastic ray of sunshine in the original Avengers' rank. Sadly she is currently "decommissioned".
A friend of mine has the hardest time accepting her inborn probability altering powers and for a while I've had the same question: If I had that ability in the real world, how exactly do I use it? Regardless, I've always liked her but for some reason I don't feel as strongly about her brother!
Another Avengers who wins major brownie points for personality and attitude rather than power (seeing a pattern there?). Interestingly, at the time when I first started reading and collecting the Avengers, he was hardly ever in the books because he was leading the Thunderbolts.
Ah, the one character whose story is intricately tangled with the Avengers - after all, he was the first character created specifically to be an Avenger! I'm glad they brought him back. Just picked up Avengers 24.1 and, despite Bendis' disregard for character history, it was a pretty good Vision-centric issue.
True to his animal namesake, he's one of the more elusive Avengers. If there was one thing I was looking forward to back in the post-Busiek of Geoff Johns, it was this guy. I'm glad they included him in the line up for "Earth's Mightiest Heroes"! It also looks like he's part of the lineup going into AvX!
Once again another character that some writers don't really know what to do with. He brings major muscle to the table but he's also a super fun guy! He's like that cool dude buddy you like to hang around with! I don't like what Bendis reduced the character to in last year's annuals but then again, I treat his work as fan fiction anyway.
I like her old name better actually. "Wardbird" has a nice ring to it, but I guess having the "Marvel" name is way more iconic. The thing with her is that she never had to live in her male counterpart's shadow. Same goes for Spider-woman, which is probably why the bond so well. I can't wait to see her in "Earth's Mightiest Heroes".
For all my dislike of most of what Bendis had done with the Avengers, introducing Spider-woman is something I was on board with. Unlike her fellow New Avengers, she's someone who's not tied with any other team or franchise - not even Spider-man. So her inclusion among earth's mightiest is long overdue.
I've often opined that she's probably the only alpha female who's got the chops to be the Avengers' Wonder Woman - not in terms of power levels but rather in terms of stature in the team. She can lead and she kicks ass! So I'm all for her inclusion in the movie, even if it bypassed the first two lady Avengers - the Wasp and the Scarlet Witch!
These are the characters that I enjoy reading the most of, who I really love seeing together, and who really bring the Avengers to my mind! I would buy a book that had all these guys in the roster!
Notice how most of these guys were pro-registration back in the Civil War, which was why I sided with them and not with Cap.
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| So close! The original Mighty Avengers with Spider-woman. |
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| Alex Ross San Diego Comic Con 2010 Exclusive |
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