Yeah, I'm going to talk comics in this entry... which I've rarely done in the past few weeks...
My AvengersI've probably mentioned that I haven't been buying any of Marvel's Avengers comics in some time... actually, shortly after Busiek left the revived book is when I stopped. Kurt's run was, in my humble opinion, the last great run of the book (although towards the end, I felt even he was running out of steam). He really got the book right, I feel... and I fear sometimes we won't see the book "right" again.
But regardless of that... here's how I see the Avengers, and how the book should be.
The TeamAs many others before me have said, you can't have the Avengers without Captain America. It just doesn't feel like the team! (kind of like if you had the Defenders without the Hulk, if you will) Cap should always be front and center in any Avengers grouping, acting as team spokesman and, yes, as team leader. The guy's the best strategist in the Marvel Universe, and is probably the only super-hero whom the public almost universally admires and believes.
Who else would be on the team? I think a seven-member roster works best, although if I were to write the book, I'd keep the teams going on missions to no more than five or six, unless it's a major threat. There's always been lip service paid to the idea of one Avenger remaining on monitor duty at all times, but the only time it's been a factor is when the writer wanted a character to bail from monitor duty (the Beast has done this a time or two, to help out the X-Men). Having a seven-member team with rotating monitor duty so that five or six are available to go on missions works for me... heck, you could have one on monitor duty, and one member absent entirely from the issue because they're busy with events in their own book!
So, aside from Cap... who's on the team? Well, I've always been a fan of the classic line-up from the Englehart era, so I'd put Thor and Iron Man there -- but those two would likely be the ones most often absent due to their own activities. These two members provide the tech know-how and sheer power the team needs.
That's three... I need four more, right? In the past, the Vision would've been one of my members, as well as the Scarlet Witch, but both characters have been messed up way too much to deal with, so they're out.
Goliath and the Wasp. Yes, I said it. Sure, Hank and Tony both provide science know-how, but I'd want to focus Hank's expertise on biology, and Tony on tech. Yeah, I know, Hank built Ultron, but his field is supposed to be biochemistry, and that's where he should be. The Wasp would be there because 1) She's a fun character, 2) It works well to have her and Hank play off each other, and 3) We need women on the team!
Two more members? Well, let's throw in Songbird. Why? Partly because in AVENGERS FOREVER, she was included in the group, so at some point in the future, she's supposed to be on the team, and this would get her in there. Captain Marvel (or whatever Genis is calling himself these days) is also supposed to be a future member, but I'd save him for a time (although more on that below).
Last member? Hawkeye. But isn't he dead? Or has he come back to life yet? In the afore-mentioned AVENGERS FOREVER, there was no reaction from Songbird or Captain Marvel about him being alive -- no, "But you're dead in my era!" thoughts or anything. To me, this indicates that his death isn't permanent. And besides, if DC can bring Green Arrow back from the dead, Marvel can bring back Hawkeye (although I'd prefer it if we could find a way to show that Hawkeye didn't really die in the first place -- perhaps he was just so greviously wounded it took him some time to be treated for his wounds... maybe even suffered from amnesia or something).
So, that's my core group, right? But there are a lot of other super-heroes I'd love to use on the team... so how do I use them?
Well, there's the hoary Reserve Avengers thing I could use... but I almost think it would be better to rename the status Standby Avengers. If you're a Standby Avenger, that means you'd be available at any time to get the call to go on active duty, whether it means supplementing the main team, or even forming a temporary team with one of the active Avengers on a one-time basis. I'd have Cap making contact with former Avengers and potential new members for this new status, and recruiting new members this way... with the understanding being that if an active member has to drop out of active membership, a Standby would be called to take their place.
This idea also opens up some interesting possibilities -- like I said, Cap's a strategist, and he could determine not only how to best use his active team, but also when he might need a specialist. Need someone who can go really, really fast for a specific mission? Call Quicksilver and see if he's available. If he's not, contact Nova.
Yeah, Nova. It's been shown that he wants to be an Avenger, and I'd probably use him in the first Standby storyline that came up. And I like Nova, even if I don't always like how he's been used.
The StoriesNaturally, the first story would have to be an "Old Order Changeth" kind of thing, but we need something going on other than changing the membership. Cap would learn about something that's going to be coming up in the near future, and he would of course know he'll need to re-align the whole team in order to prepare for it. Maybe it's a future planned invasion by Kang, utilizing an army of alien races from all over the Marvel Universe, because he's sick and tired of the Avengers always beating him, and it's about time he finished them off once and for all. So Cap finds out this is coming up several years in advance, and starts preparing for it. Whatever it is, it's got to be something huger than big. Maybe Cap finds out because the Tomorrow Man has come back to fight the Avengers, and he lets slip something about knowing Kang was going to conquer this era in a few years, and that he wants to take over first... whatever.
From there, we use Cap recruiting a major Avengers army, and cataloging abilities, powers and skills while we have other cool stuff happening. We can see how the Avengers' working relationship with other groups, like the Fantastic Four and SHIELD, actually work, but not get bogged down in detail there. Establish additional Avengers bases all over the world -- not necessarily full-fledged mansions, mind you, but smaller bases that have medical facilities, dorms, meeting rooms, labs, and so forth -- none of these would be as deluxe as Avengers Mansion, but would provide a "home away from home" for an away team to use as a base of operations. No matter how fast the Quinjets are, it's still a big planet, and the days are gone when we can just accept that Quicksilver can run all over the world several times a day, or that the Torch can fly cross-country in a few hours. These Avengers Outposts would be part of Cap's plans to prepare for this Big Event.
While things are under way for the big deal that Cap's reworking the group, there should be other big things, too... like a new Masters of Evil that would be a major kick-ass group. Perhaps Zemo or some other master villain, upon hearing what the Avengers are doing, want to do the same thing for the villains (even if they don't know why the Avengers are recruiting). What happens when all over the country, different locations are attacked by groups of seven or eight villains, each group different, all claiming to be the Masters of Evil?
Lastly, the Avengers has always been one of two books that really lets us explore the Marvel Universe (the FF is the other one). How long has it been since we've seen the latest in Atlantis? What are the Skrulls up to, or the Kree? What's the latest in the Savage Land? Those are just examples -- the Avengers should never be confined to New York City issue after issue after issue, you know? There are lots of super-heroes there, we shouldn't be portraying things as "Oh no, the Avengers are in California -- New York is unprotected! We only have the Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, Daredevil, Spider-Man, SHIELD, etc. to protect us!" Heck, if the Avengers were going to be away from NYC for an extended period, why, Cap would simply call up some Standby members to form a temporary seven person team to cover for their absence!
Another part of the stories would be the training sessions -- they wouldn't necessarily be a main focus of a story, but there'd be at least a reference in each issue as we start things up. Even standby members get training, because Cap needs to know who would be the best Field Leaders in case he needs to send out different groups. This would let us have a lot of cameos of the standby members as they're coming or going from training sessions.
The Bottom LineThe whole idea here is to make the Avengers exciting again... not "kewl" or "rad" or whatever, but exciting! Make it a book that you finish reading the new issue and can hardly wait until the next one comes out... that people talk about on their blogs and review sites... and make it fun to read, too! Just because the Avengers are the super-hero elite of the MU, they are human (or humanoid, anyway)... there should be humor, natural humor. When not in combat, even Captain America could make a joke or two.
So, would I take on the assignment to write the Avengers, using these ideas? Well, yeah, of course -- but not until I could plot out several years' worth of ideas, knowing what I wanted to accomplish at each point as I built up to the Big Event -- and planning what to do beyond that. Once I had a solid foundation to begin my run with, then I'd be willing to start.
Jon
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