Jim Lemoine
Sep 28, 2003, 12:57 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/acovers/avg239.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/acovers/avg239t.jpg" border=0 align=left alt="Avengers (Vol. 1) #239"></a>And Now For Something Completely Different Part 1: Roasting the Avengers!
Written quite maliciously by Anthony Lucynski
As we close out the anniversary celebrations, I can’t help but ponder the fact that I was only celebrating half the time. The X-Books got me into this business of collecting and spending ungodly amounts of time reading (when I should be playing video games or watching movies or something), but the Avengers? I’m not very into the Avengers. At all. Ever. Why? I don’t know! I mean, heck, 40 years is a long, long time to be around and still be a fan favorite. But I never got into it. The only Avengers issues I own are the ones where they crossed over with my X-books! So I sat down and pondered why this was. And I came to some conclusions.
I’m not an Avengers fan and there’s a reason: The Avengers are boring. At least conceptually they are. Think about it: the mightiest of the mighty. The big guns of the Universe. The noble, pure defenders of blah blah blah. Wake me when it’s over, please?
Even the name is misleading to me. Avengers? What are they avenging? These guys are the gods of the spandex-wearing crowd. Defend the Earth and the Universe? Sure. Fight crime? You betcha. But they aren’t avenging anything! The Avengers meet up in a billion dollar mansion and drink a martini before the next great adventure (or if you’re Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron man, you’re drinking, like, five). I dunno. It’s odd. Adventurers? Defenders? Sure, but I’ve never really seen Captain America holding up his shield, screaming “Vengeance is mine” while avenging the death of some innocent lady or whathaveyou. So first off we have to get some actual avenging-type people on the team. Move them the heck away from the mansion (into the ghetto, perhaps), and call it The Crew. Wait, that was a typo.
Ahem. At any rate, I present to you my very own creation, The Avengers (the non-boring ones, the ones that actually avenge!):
Team Leader: The Punisher. Why? Even though we’re picking a team of Avengers, we still need someone who has a sense of right and wrong. Don’t laugh too hard now, Frank knows what he’s doing. He can (and will) separate the good guys from the bad. The most recent example of this that springs to mind is Born #2, where Frank punishes one of his own troops for something he did to a POW. Check it out. Frank Castle is the ULTIMATE Avenger, in my mind. He’ll avenge your mother’s death, he’ll avenge your financial loss due to a crooked Enron-type broker. And best of all, he’ll do all this for free! And he’ll do it because it’s part of his personal war on crime. As great of an example of an Avenger that he is, though, Frank is mainly street-level. That’s okay though, you need a street-level human type of character as a leader. If a person (or a reader for that matter) can’t relate to the guy, then the team is doomed right from the start. But what happens when the street is taken away from Frank and his vigilante justice? What happens when this new team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes confront a threat on a cosmic scale that guns and grenades just won’t work against? Why, you have our next member!
Team Co-Leader: Captain Marvel. He’s freaking insane at the moment, which is great because he’s become that much more involved in, well, anything that catches his interest. Who you gonna call to get the Kree and the Skrulls to finally stop fighting? Call Marv! Who you gonna call when the Absorbing Man starts doing not-so-cool stuff to highways and downtown structures just for the heck of it? Call Marv! Who you gonna... aww, you get the picture. The son of Marv-Ell is the PERFECT cosmic balance to our street level leader, the Punisher. Some may question putting someone that has lost their proverbial marbles (and that happens to have the power of a god) on a team. Well, fine, you can question all you want, but when YOU have an alien armada bearing down on you and you need to get rid of them fast, would you hunt down Thor and the rest of the old Avengers, or would you call Marv (who has no real moral dilemmas)? I’d call Marv. Who’s to say his insanity is permanent anyway? When he eventually comes back down from that phase, he’ll be an even greater asset (provided he still has no qualms about killing. That’s what’s wrong with heroes these days, sometimes you just need to kill).
Deadpool: Hey, we already have ONE psychopath on the team, what gives? Well, his experience alone makes him an excellent asset to the team! Come on, Deadpool has been hired to avenge everything! Him and the Punisher both use the same type of arsenal to wage their wars, but Deadpool has the lighthearted, snappy dialogue to keep the team in high spirits while they’re avenging whatever it is that needs avenging that day. And lets face it folks, Frank needs some lightening up once in a while. In addition to that, who better to send into a deadly situation than someone who has a healing factor and is next to impossible to kill? His costume already has a striking similarity to Spider-Man, which can only help with public relations, right? The only problem with having Deadpool on the team is, he usually does things only for cash, thus his reputed mercenary status. Which is fine, because that’s where our next Avenger comes in....
Emma Frost: She’s got money. Lots and lots of money. And she will do the dirty work that nobody else will. I’ve never seen someone so fixated with success, and she is NOT afraid to take on the worst the world has to offer. Gorgeous looks only help her because quite frankly, men are pigs and they will seriously underestimate her and her power (I should know, I’m a guy). The former White Queen is NO pushover, and thanks to the wonders of secondary mutations, she is now more powerful than ever! And let's face it, every team needs a sexy female psi. So she’s the token female, the token psi, and the token rich financier all rolled into one. Perfect.
Prodigy: Who? What? Hey, who’s this guy? He’s the token armored guy, that’s who! Last seen regularly in the pages of Slingers (in a suit that kinda looked like armor), Prodigy has a burning desire to prove himself to the world and to himself. And he’ll do whatever needs to be done to accomplish that. If that means being an Avenger and taking on the jobs that go with it, fine. He’ll do it, and he’ll flaunt it afterwards. While he’s not the “Iron Man” type of armored person, he’s got the golden body armor, the cape, the mask. He reeks of superhero... umm... he’s just... well, honestly he's not. Not quite a hero (but then again, not everybody on this team is), not a villain, he’s the perfect addition to our team of Avengers, and he’ll tell you so if you ask him.
Meltdown: Every team needs somebody who can blow stuff up real good without the aid of man-made devices. Meltdown, a.k.a. Boom-Boom of New Mutants and X-Force fame, can blow stuff up. Real good. Without any help! Like Prodigy, in a way, Meltdown also has something to prove in her continued quest to define herself and leave the good-girl image behind. With the proper mentor in the White Queen, she’ll make an explosive addition to the group. Add in the fact that she’s already used to being on a team and is therefore used to the dynamics of team work, well, there ya go.
Hulk: The only real tie to the Avengers of old, the Hulk is the muscle of the team, and he’ll fit in a whole heck of a lot better with these guys then he ever did with the goody-goody Avengers of the past. Sure, he’s had his problems with some of the team members, but hey, that'll just make some interesting tension occur! Right? Bruce Banner will come to realize (and has) that the Hulk is part of him, and he now has greater control over the beast than ever before. Being able to “hulk out” whenever he needs to will give the new Avengers the backbone they need. When in doubt, send in the Hulk. It’ll be on T-shirts and Baseball Caps. Honestly.
It will be very interesting to see how these new Avengers not only get away with having some (labeled) criminals on their team, but if they can survive themselves! Heck, it took Captain America to get re-animated for the original Avengers to finally really come together, right? So who would finally bring these guys together after an arduous coming together? I’m not revealing my secrets, but the dude’s name rhymes with the phrase, “Sick with Worry”.
The dynamics of the group are what would interest me the most, to be honest. Frank Castle and Wade Wilson don’t get along. Come to think of it, The Hulk and Wade Wilson don’t get along. And Wade Wilson and Meltdown probably have a hatred of some sort thanks to Wade’s run-ins with X-Force in the past. But Emma would realize the need for Wade, and keep him around. And nobody, I mean nobody, would trust Marv too much (maybe Wade, but that’s because they are both insane). And what about the Hulk? Can you imagine the government letting the most dangerous force of nature on the planet reside on a team that’s supposed to be synonymous with the word “hero”? Prodigy and his attitude would probably cause all sorts of chaos, and let's not forget Meltdown and her ability to be a hothead. All that alone would make for an interesting first year, at least. And let's not forget the backstory of how this new team would come together. What, you think they’d just meet up and decide to form a team? Hardly. Something catastrophic would have to happen to the OLD Avengers first, bringing all of the new players into the picture! I’m thinking Thanos, and Deadpool, and a plot started towards the end of Deadpool’s solo title....
For the first time, I would be interested in this team! But wait a minute, this isn’t the Avengers you say! This is a bunch of people under the Avengers name! Sorry, but it is. It’s the new Avengers. My Avengers. When Mike Allred and Peter Milligan took X-Force and evolved it into something new and exciting and different, it worked. Sure, the old guard felt betrayed by the new direction, but sometimes you need to shake things up to get rid of the stagnancy of a title that’s been around for 40 years with pretty much the usual suspects. As long as you have a competent creative team on-board, it’ll do fine!
That’s my Avengers. Take the old Avengers, call them what they are (The Defenders), and give me a pro-active, kick butt team. Slap a fan-favorite writer and artist on the book, you have your new #1 Top Ten book, just in-time to celebrate turning 40!
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Tune in tomorrow when we roast... well... you know....
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Anthony Lucynski loves Deadpool and hates the Avengers. Oh, wait... did you get that already?
Now more than ever, the opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general. It's all Anthony's fault.
Written quite maliciously by Anthony Lucynski
As we close out the anniversary celebrations, I can’t help but ponder the fact that I was only celebrating half the time. The X-Books got me into this business of collecting and spending ungodly amounts of time reading (when I should be playing video games or watching movies or something), but the Avengers? I’m not very into the Avengers. At all. Ever. Why? I don’t know! I mean, heck, 40 years is a long, long time to be around and still be a fan favorite. But I never got into it. The only Avengers issues I own are the ones where they crossed over with my X-books! So I sat down and pondered why this was. And I came to some conclusions.
I’m not an Avengers fan and there’s a reason: The Avengers are boring. At least conceptually they are. Think about it: the mightiest of the mighty. The big guns of the Universe. The noble, pure defenders of blah blah blah. Wake me when it’s over, please?
Even the name is misleading to me. Avengers? What are they avenging? These guys are the gods of the spandex-wearing crowd. Defend the Earth and the Universe? Sure. Fight crime? You betcha. But they aren’t avenging anything! The Avengers meet up in a billion dollar mansion and drink a martini before the next great adventure (or if you’re Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron man, you’re drinking, like, five). I dunno. It’s odd. Adventurers? Defenders? Sure, but I’ve never really seen Captain America holding up his shield, screaming “Vengeance is mine” while avenging the death of some innocent lady or whathaveyou. So first off we have to get some actual avenging-type people on the team. Move them the heck away from the mansion (into the ghetto, perhaps), and call it The Crew. Wait, that was a typo.
Ahem. At any rate, I present to you my very own creation, The Avengers (the non-boring ones, the ones that actually avenge!):
Team Leader: The Punisher. Why? Even though we’re picking a team of Avengers, we still need someone who has a sense of right and wrong. Don’t laugh too hard now, Frank knows what he’s doing. He can (and will) separate the good guys from the bad. The most recent example of this that springs to mind is Born #2, where Frank punishes one of his own troops for something he did to a POW. Check it out. Frank Castle is the ULTIMATE Avenger, in my mind. He’ll avenge your mother’s death, he’ll avenge your financial loss due to a crooked Enron-type broker. And best of all, he’ll do all this for free! And he’ll do it because it’s part of his personal war on crime. As great of an example of an Avenger that he is, though, Frank is mainly street-level. That’s okay though, you need a street-level human type of character as a leader. If a person (or a reader for that matter) can’t relate to the guy, then the team is doomed right from the start. But what happens when the street is taken away from Frank and his vigilante justice? What happens when this new team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes confront a threat on a cosmic scale that guns and grenades just won’t work against? Why, you have our next member!
Team Co-Leader: Captain Marvel. He’s freaking insane at the moment, which is great because he’s become that much more involved in, well, anything that catches his interest. Who you gonna call to get the Kree and the Skrulls to finally stop fighting? Call Marv! Who you gonna call when the Absorbing Man starts doing not-so-cool stuff to highways and downtown structures just for the heck of it? Call Marv! Who you gonna... aww, you get the picture. The son of Marv-Ell is the PERFECT cosmic balance to our street level leader, the Punisher. Some may question putting someone that has lost their proverbial marbles (and that happens to have the power of a god) on a team. Well, fine, you can question all you want, but when YOU have an alien armada bearing down on you and you need to get rid of them fast, would you hunt down Thor and the rest of the old Avengers, or would you call Marv (who has no real moral dilemmas)? I’d call Marv. Who’s to say his insanity is permanent anyway? When he eventually comes back down from that phase, he’ll be an even greater asset (provided he still has no qualms about killing. That’s what’s wrong with heroes these days, sometimes you just need to kill).
Deadpool: Hey, we already have ONE psychopath on the team, what gives? Well, his experience alone makes him an excellent asset to the team! Come on, Deadpool has been hired to avenge everything! Him and the Punisher both use the same type of arsenal to wage their wars, but Deadpool has the lighthearted, snappy dialogue to keep the team in high spirits while they’re avenging whatever it is that needs avenging that day. And lets face it folks, Frank needs some lightening up once in a while. In addition to that, who better to send into a deadly situation than someone who has a healing factor and is next to impossible to kill? His costume already has a striking similarity to Spider-Man, which can only help with public relations, right? The only problem with having Deadpool on the team is, he usually does things only for cash, thus his reputed mercenary status. Which is fine, because that’s where our next Avenger comes in....
Emma Frost: She’s got money. Lots and lots of money. And she will do the dirty work that nobody else will. I’ve never seen someone so fixated with success, and she is NOT afraid to take on the worst the world has to offer. Gorgeous looks only help her because quite frankly, men are pigs and they will seriously underestimate her and her power (I should know, I’m a guy). The former White Queen is NO pushover, and thanks to the wonders of secondary mutations, she is now more powerful than ever! And let's face it, every team needs a sexy female psi. So she’s the token female, the token psi, and the token rich financier all rolled into one. Perfect.
Prodigy: Who? What? Hey, who’s this guy? He’s the token armored guy, that’s who! Last seen regularly in the pages of Slingers (in a suit that kinda looked like armor), Prodigy has a burning desire to prove himself to the world and to himself. And he’ll do whatever needs to be done to accomplish that. If that means being an Avenger and taking on the jobs that go with it, fine. He’ll do it, and he’ll flaunt it afterwards. While he’s not the “Iron Man” type of armored person, he’s got the golden body armor, the cape, the mask. He reeks of superhero... umm... he’s just... well, honestly he's not. Not quite a hero (but then again, not everybody on this team is), not a villain, he’s the perfect addition to our team of Avengers, and he’ll tell you so if you ask him.
Meltdown: Every team needs somebody who can blow stuff up real good without the aid of man-made devices. Meltdown, a.k.a. Boom-Boom of New Mutants and X-Force fame, can blow stuff up. Real good. Without any help! Like Prodigy, in a way, Meltdown also has something to prove in her continued quest to define herself and leave the good-girl image behind. With the proper mentor in the White Queen, she’ll make an explosive addition to the group. Add in the fact that she’s already used to being on a team and is therefore used to the dynamics of team work, well, there ya go.
Hulk: The only real tie to the Avengers of old, the Hulk is the muscle of the team, and he’ll fit in a whole heck of a lot better with these guys then he ever did with the goody-goody Avengers of the past. Sure, he’s had his problems with some of the team members, but hey, that'll just make some interesting tension occur! Right? Bruce Banner will come to realize (and has) that the Hulk is part of him, and he now has greater control over the beast than ever before. Being able to “hulk out” whenever he needs to will give the new Avengers the backbone they need. When in doubt, send in the Hulk. It’ll be on T-shirts and Baseball Caps. Honestly.
It will be very interesting to see how these new Avengers not only get away with having some (labeled) criminals on their team, but if they can survive themselves! Heck, it took Captain America to get re-animated for the original Avengers to finally really come together, right? So who would finally bring these guys together after an arduous coming together? I’m not revealing my secrets, but the dude’s name rhymes with the phrase, “Sick with Worry”.
The dynamics of the group are what would interest me the most, to be honest. Frank Castle and Wade Wilson don’t get along. Come to think of it, The Hulk and Wade Wilson don’t get along. And Wade Wilson and Meltdown probably have a hatred of some sort thanks to Wade’s run-ins with X-Force in the past. But Emma would realize the need for Wade, and keep him around. And nobody, I mean nobody, would trust Marv too much (maybe Wade, but that’s because they are both insane). And what about the Hulk? Can you imagine the government letting the most dangerous force of nature on the planet reside on a team that’s supposed to be synonymous with the word “hero”? Prodigy and his attitude would probably cause all sorts of chaos, and let's not forget Meltdown and her ability to be a hothead. All that alone would make for an interesting first year, at least. And let's not forget the backstory of how this new team would come together. What, you think they’d just meet up and decide to form a team? Hardly. Something catastrophic would have to happen to the OLD Avengers first, bringing all of the new players into the picture! I’m thinking Thanos, and Deadpool, and a plot started towards the end of Deadpool’s solo title....
For the first time, I would be interested in this team! But wait a minute, this isn’t the Avengers you say! This is a bunch of people under the Avengers name! Sorry, but it is. It’s the new Avengers. My Avengers. When Mike Allred and Peter Milligan took X-Force and evolved it into something new and exciting and different, it worked. Sure, the old guard felt betrayed by the new direction, but sometimes you need to shake things up to get rid of the stagnancy of a title that’s been around for 40 years with pretty much the usual suspects. As long as you have a competent creative team on-board, it’ll do fine!
That’s my Avengers. Take the old Avengers, call them what they are (The Defenders), and give me a pro-active, kick butt team. Slap a fan-favorite writer and artist on the book, you have your new #1 Top Ten book, just in-time to celebrate turning 40!
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Tune in tomorrow when we roast... well... you know....
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Anthony Lucynski loves Deadpool and hates the Avengers. Oh, wait... did you get that already?
Now more than ever, the opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general. It's all Anthony's fault.