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The one thing I’ve never quite understood is what exactly are they “avenging?” From their first issue on, they were intervening and protecting and challenging and so on… but what was the vengeance thing all about?

In the very last panel of the first issue (talk about after-thoughts!)they muse about what to call their new group, and the Wasp says their name “should be something colorful and dramatic like… the Avengers, or…”
And Hank Pym interrupts with “‘or’ nothing! That’s it! The Avengers!!”
Couldn’t he have held off a second just to hear her second or third suggestions? The guy’s crazy, I tell you.

John,
THANK YOU!
I agree totally… Every great Avengers run has been about that huge responsibility of being an Avenger… Some characters rise above their failings and live up to he mantle… others are overcome by their failings and either fall from grace or willingly remove themselves from the team to focus on their issues…

For this reason, I’m glad the the Ultimates DON’T call themselves Avengers. The Ultimates act as if they’re entitled to their roles on the teams, as if they were somehow conscious of the reputation their mainstream counterparts had brought to their code names.

They avenge injustice. Avenging doesn’t require seeking vengeance. It’s a great name for the team, and it’s why Iron Man is often referred to as the golden avenger. The name has nothing to do with revenge.

Yes in retrospect, listening to Hank Pym, is a bad idea.

Well, the Wasp is all about appearances… she didn’t care about what the name MEANT… just that it was impressive… Over the years, they made Avenger mean something noble and respectable… but they would have done that with a name like “The Mighty Toilet Cleaners”.

I’ve always thought it a little silly when people complain that the Avengers never avenged anything. I think Millar gives that as one of the reasons his team is just the ultimates, not Ultimate Avengers. The X-Men have plenty of women on the team. Should they be the X-People? The Justice League/Society of America has members from other countries and frequently operates in other countries. No one seems to mind their names. The Avengers is a cool name. Why can’t that be enough?

I’m not sure I agree with the statement regarding the current state of the Avengers. I agree that the beginning of New Avengers lost that direction but the current incarnation, as well as the Mighty Avengers, both seem to be about honoring the name and standing up for whats right.

The issue with the Avengers I had was that they constantly went in circles with that whole assembly thing. Either the line-up would completely change every 3 months (the other two months would be an Ultron fight), or a writer would stick with a select few and have them replaced when he is.

The X-Men, at least before the mid 80s, were just like a family. And they must have sold 300 billion copies every day.

The Avengers is the title with the single greatest opportunity for Mary Sues. Whatever heroes teh writer favors, they’re in. If he hates them, c-ya! It’s the same with their foes. The rotating membership basically gives the writer license to use whomever he pleases, for whatever reasons he can invent. Rage? PM/IF? Doesn’t matter.

I tend to disagree that Bendis’ current lineups don’t fall in line with the historic methodology of the team formation dynamic. It does, however, follow along with the way the story has developed through & after the Civil War.

And that’s OK.

Marvel was based on not being afraid to go in a different direction. With that in mind, I feel the current thought process with the two teams falls EXACTLY in line with the original Avengers vibe. Chuck it all, blow up, and start over. What the hell… let’s just go for it and see what happens.

Yep. THAT’S Marvel in the 60’s. I think he captured it to a certain extent.

I love that ever since Cronin went to the trouble of defining Mary Sue for CSBG, certain posters go out of their way to include usages that in no way fit his definition.

Well THAT wasn’t the slightest bit antagonistic or insulting. Please excuse me for not going through evey post made here, double checking that I make sure to use YOUR terminology. As I recall, there was a debate in the responses to that particular post weather it was Mary Sue or Polyanna, and exactly what constituted the same. As there was a debate, there is no one clear accepted term for the use and pushing of a favorite character. Therefore, my use of Mary Sue is perfectably acceptable.

Was my intention or implied defination unclear in the post in any way? NO! Then why did you feel that snark was necessary?

I agree. The Bendis Avengers do not work as Avenger stories.

Ah but Bendis’s Avengers do work as Bendis stories…

If all you want is slow plot development, lots of cure dialog, and strong characterization of street characters, with only a nod to the more archetypal characters, then his Avengers work is just the thing….

I never noticed the Luke Cage sounded like Robert Smith. Interesting.

Well THAT wasn’t the slightest bit antagonistic or insulting. Please excuse me for not going through evey post made here, double checking that I make sure to use YOUR terminology. As I recall, there was a debate in the responses to that particular post weather it was Mary Sue or Polyanna, and exactly what constituted the same. As there was a debate, there is no one clear accepted term for the use and pushing of a favorite character. Therefore, my use of Mary Sue is perfectably acceptable.

Was my intention or implied defination unclear in the post in any way? NO! Then why did you feel that snark was necessary?

Don’t pay him any mind. There have been times where I’ve correctly used Mary Sue and I’ve gotten the same elitist flack claiming that I misused it (though I can’t remember if it was from Sgt. Pepper or another poster). It seems to be some hangup some posters around here, where they think the only people capable of understanding the definition are themselves and Cronin, while everyone else misuses it. Strange, really.

Well THAT wasn’t the slightest bit antagonistic or insulting.

Antagonistic, maybe. Not by any large degree or anything, but I guess you can argue it. Insulting? No way. Don’t try to make a mountain out of this molehill.

Also, he’s referring to Cronin’s definition, so that “YOUR definition” line is totally off-base, and I should say, slightly antagonistic. I think that makes you the pot.

As for whether the snark was necessary or not, it doesn’t really matter. Nothing on this entire blog is really necessary, actually, and he has just as much right to give his opinion of your writing as you do of his.

I’ve gotten the same elitist flack

As a confirmed elitist, I strongly resent you using the term to describe anyone who would care enough to argue the definition of “Mary Sue”.

Seriously, this use of “elitist” as the blanket insult for anybody who criticizes you is getting really old. Go to thesaurus.com and pick another word or something. It’s just lazy.

As there was a debate, there is no one clear accepted term for the use and pushing of a favorite character.

Depends who won the debate really.

Also, just because someone disagrees doesn’t mean they are right.

Come to think of it, one would be hard-pressed to decide which role a _real_ Avengers team would play during Civil War.

Early “New Avengers” did not even try to live up to the Avengers premise, which is indeed somewhat elitistic; it was a team born out of circunstance and sustained by the mix of Captain America’s nostalgy with Iron Man’s ambition. Of course, behind the curtains it was pretty much Bendis’s favorite toys joined in the same box.

In the end it just didn’t have much of a reason for sticking together, and indeed it fell apart at its first significant crisis (after a remarkably short passage of story time, even). Mighty Avengers and Initiative have even more artificial reasons for being , while the current New Avengers are more like a group of runaways than a true team.

It’s just lazy.

What is this, a term paper or a manuscript or something? Why do I need word alternatives when the word I’m originally using works just fine? Here’s a wild idea: maybe I use the word “elitist” a lot because there’s a lot of elitists here. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll throw in “snob” occasionally.

I just love the idea of people going off to speak my Gospel.

You should have slapped a trademark on it, you’d be getting the royalties now.

What is this, a term paper or a manuscript or something? Why do I need word alternatives when the word I’m originally using works just fine? Here’s a wild idea: maybe I use the word “elitist” a lot because there’s a lot of elitists here. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll throw in “snob” occasionally.

Maybe we’re not elitists, it’s just you are our genuine lesser.

Did you think of it that way?

This thread could use a little air freshener or something.

Why do I need word alternatives when the word I’m originally using works just fine?

That’s the problem. It doesn’t work just fine. Seriously, anybody’s who’s arguing about the definition of the term “Mary Sue” is not an elitist. An elitist response would be something like “It doesn’t really matter if that character’s a Mary Sue or not, because they’re a complete waste of paper either way.”

But the way you’re using it is inaccurate and lame. It implies an insecurity on your part. As if you were so ashamed of your own assumed inferiority that, when confronted with someone who disagrees with you, you assume they must see the same inferiority in you that you see in yourself.

Of course, I’ve never met you, so I don’t know if that’s right or not. But it doesn’t really matter, because we’re talking about how you come across. And that’s how you come across when you use “elitist” inappropriately. And yes, again, you were using it inappropriately.

I forget… what is this discussion about? Elitism or something? uh… isn’t language malleable and often depending on context…

Sigh… If I had a dollar everytime people got into an argument about definitions in an email or post… The absence of emotional context, visual cues, and other things that help clarify conversations seem to lead to this kind of thing…

I think its best not to harp on exact wordage but allow people to clarify and move on… otherwise you get caught in the “semantics loop” this page has fallen into.

Wow, this got ugly fast.

Thread-killer!

Luis Dantas said:

“In the end it just didn’t have much of a reason for sticking together, and indeed it fell apart at its first significant crisis (after a remarkably short passage of story time, even). Mighty Avengers and Initiative have even more artificial reasons for being , while the current New Avengers are more like a group of runaways than a true team.”

For the record, if I was writing the Avengers, I’d have the New/Mighty Avengers crossover happen, and at the end, Ronin (Hawkeye) just goes off on both teams, tells them neither one of them is living up to the ideals of the Avengers. “I said once that a killer like Wolverine would join the Avengers over my dead body. It’s nice to know that everyone thought I was giving them a timetable! And don’t act like you’re any better, Tony! You had freaking ARES join the team! Did you, oh, I dunno, check to see that he wasn’t planning to take control of the world’s nuclear arsenals again? Did you even get an apology out of him for that, maybe an ‘oops, my bad’? You’re all of you out for order, or security, or safety, or maybe just to prove you’re right. None of you even remembers the word ‘justice’. But I do.”

And he’d stomp off and form his own team of Avengers. Because that’s the kind of guy Hawkeye is.

Now THAT would be a beautiful thing to see in print.

Tantamount to Hawkeye dissolving the Avengers: “none of you are living up to Avengers standards! Time you started calling yourselves something else! Anyway Cap would want it that way!”

Ouch, Tony. Hard to engineer a counterargument to that. Because Cap may have surrendered, but he didn’t exactly say “My bad! Everybody else go about your business, ’cause I’m just crazy…”

Hawkeye could say: “So everybody who thinks they’re a real Avenger, follow me!” After all, he’s not wanted. He’s dead. And he doesn’t remotely have superpowers, anyway, he’s just really good with a bow and arrow…

It’s like Coriolanus: “Rome, I exile you…”

Although actually, it wouldn’t be really like Coriolanus unless it was Iron Man who was exiled.

Well, Hawkeye could do that too. “As the senior Reserve Avenger, membership never having been revoked, I invoke Article 13 of our Charter and call an extraordinary hearing on Iron Man’s fitness for membership! Unless you just wanna lock me up in the Negative Zone now, Shell-Head, and get it over with?” That would work. The Initiative may be a wholly U.S. government or SHIELD operation, but the main Avengers group isn’t, and can’t be. So Iron Man’s subject to its Charter’s rules and regulations as much as anyone.

My God, this should have happened MONTHS ago! In Marvel time!

Love the “timetable” crack, John.

Would the charter still be in effect? The team officially disolved at the end of Disassembled. They regrouped directly under Stark’s personal funding in teh relaunch. Now, the “official” team is funded by the US as an initiative team. With all that in place, would it really work? I’d LOVE to see it pulled off, though. Maybe under some non-expiring UN charter.

John Seavy,
The fact that you aren’t writing the Avengers proves that there is no justice in this world.

I didn’t read Disassembled, but if they didn’t have a chairman call a meeting to order, take a head-count, determine if they had quorum, and then put forward a proposition to be voted on…then they didn’t officially dissolve nuthin’, Maria Stark Foundation or no Maria Stark Foundation.

Wow, I’m some kinda nitpicker, huh?

But wait, it gets worse: if they did do all that, then when Tony and Cap put their new team together, they could hardly have called it the Avengers, could they?

IIRC, Cap has clearance under the Avengers charter to put together a team of anyone he sees fit to be an Avenger, according to the early issues of ‘New Avengers’. Also, issue #4 of Busiek’s run suggests that the founding members (with Cap subbing for Hulk under the charter) can step in and change the membership, no matter who the current leader is or what the current roster votes to do, as a safety measure to prevent the name from being tarnished.

It’d be a kind of fun project to comb through all the references to the “Avengers charter” and see if you could actually piece together what it says.

Avengers Charter - Probably not official, but the TSR Marvel Superheroes Advanced set had a supplement “Avengers Assembled” that had the charter in it. It is 16 pages or so of dense text.

On the “good enough to be an Avenger” side of things - Eric Masterson, yes or no? Tom DeFalco had that poor man catch a lot of flack from every Avenger - even Hercules, in his friendly way - while he was on the team. Did he have what it took, or didn’t he? It seems to me, on the current Thor back issue re-read I am on, that he did, and everyone expected him to be Thor. He wasn’t Thor, and thereby failed everyone and seemed to miss the Avenger mark. It is my opinion that the man had what it took, and if he’d just shown up with random powers and a non-descript origin, he would have been accepted as a good Avenger. Since everyone wanted Thor, they ran him down. Thoughts?

John Seavey - that is great Hawkeye, and desperately needs to get into continuity. “I said once that a killer like Wolverine would join the Avengers over my dead body. It’s nice to know that everyone thought I was giving them a timetable!” Fantastic.

It seems to me that the Avengers Charter could only have been drawn up after Cap joined: the first mention of it that I can recall off the top of my head is when Spider-Man first comes by to try out.

I doubt there could be a provision included in it which just lets Cap form new Avengers groups anytime he wants to — it would be like having him as perpetual Chairman, no? Although if he were Chairman at the time of Disassembled, he would still be Chairman by the time New Avengers rolled around, and I guess could then induct whomever he liked, if everybody else had quit…

Hmm…sounds an awful lot like the Charter’s still in force, either way….

You know, that could all make for a somewhat interesting (if procedural) storyline. Did Tony, Jan, and Hank ever have a show of hands to say Luke Cage, Wolverine etc. had been officially removed as Avengers? And on what grounds? More importantly, if they did so, did they ever communicate that information to them in so many words? If not, then the new “official” team would now probably exist only by Jan’s sufference of it, without actually having ever technically replaced the original NA team. I mean, you could argue that when Cap died Tony technically took over as Acting Chairman, but that’d probably be quite an uphill battle…

Boy, does that all ever sound like it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on in these Avengers titles now! John must be right: if this stuff doesn’t matter, then the Avengers “standards” don’t matter, which would mean these aren’t Avengers books but something else instead.

Damn this administration. Iraq, the Constitution, Captain America got whacked, now the Avengers Charter, it just keeps getting worse.