“I’m waiting for the plaid Avengers.”

http://www.plaidavenger.com/_store/

check it out. (not by Marvel though)

Will this be a plot point? Is it an over-sight? Did he gut the suit and fill it with his own tech, thus meaning that the Green Goblin now knows exactly how to manufacture an IM suit?

Let’s find out together!

“I’m mad at you, but I don’t remember why?” That would the funniest line ever.:)

I’m waiting for the plaid Avengers.

Hey, Bendis being Bendis, he may even be able to make Daken an interesting character. His cinematic take on comics has really revitalized Marvel.

Screw the salt, I actually like that idea! I wonder if it had to be obscured & made less clear because editorial thought it was to weird for mainstream DCU stuff.

(Incidentally my earlier sort-of-double-post was accidental, as it seemed to take forever to show up. If you guys have decided to start using a moderation queue, you really should make an announcement to that effect to prevent people double-posting because of the new waiting period…)

Carl: it was stated that SHIELD funds rebuilt the tower after World War Hulk, and that SHIELD funds were similarly funding the Avengers.

Who knows? Maybe that’s part of why Tony never got to reclaim his armor vault, too.

Keep in mind that I think “The Devil” in Batman RIP is really the Grant Morrison from Animal Man, so anything I have to say should be taken with a massive grain of salt, but here goes…

I think there could be an interesting story to be told here. Maybe Tony gave up exclusivity rights to the armor in exchange for SHIELD support. It would put the events of Civil War in a slightly different context, with Stark believing so strongly in his decisions in that book that he would give up sole ownership to his life’s endeavors, while at the same time making the Invincible Iron Man arc look different. That might be too much of a retcon for people to swallow, but I kind of like it.

Who knows? Maybe that’s part of why Tony never got to reclaim his armor vault, too.

I think the real interesting part is getting these guys to keep playing their parts. Can Venom really go without the big smile for long?

The armor in the closet was stupid given Tony’s history of protecting his armor from outsiders. By the way did Tony sell his building to the government? Doesn’t he, or at least the Maria Stark Foundation, own the Avengers name?

I’m a real sucker for recruitment issues, yeah, but I loved this.

I also think that Bendis is the only one who is using Osborn to his full potential. EVeryone else is writing him as a scene-chewing badguy. Bendis is writing him as a “hero in his own story” whose completely out of his depth and ready to plunge into his former madness at any moment.

My guess, though, is that he’s going to just go with the notion that the role is more important than the person filling it, and take the position (although most likely not explicitly stated) that claiming that the Wolverine with three metal claws per hand and no tattoo on his arm is the only REAL Wolverine is like claiming that Bush is still president or that Sean Connery is the only REAL James Bond.

As for why he picked the specific identities he did, only three of the eight have are using the identity of an active hero. Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man make perfect sense, since he already had access to people with similar powers and appearances and has a good reason to want to tick both of them off. The weakest link is Wolverine – he specificly says he just wants to tick him off too, but it’s not really explained why Osborn has anything against him personally. Maybe Osborn just agrees with all the people online who consider him overexposed and overrated. Heck, it’s not like no one’s ever hated a celebrity they’ve never met before, and Osborn isn’t exactly stable in head.

The most frustrating part is that Bendis’ Avengers books have improved dramatically from where he began; New Avengers works much better with the ” underground resistance ” theme now than it did when the team was led by Cap and Iron Man hanging out in a luxurious skyscraper, and I quite liked his first two arcs of Mighty Avengers. But while he’s definitely shown the ability to learn from some mistakes, he keeps making others again and again. The result is a book that I can never decide if I like or not, because it seems to change issue by issue.