@oldnightcrawler: well the Avengers were meant to be a decent sized group of Earth Mightiest Heroes. These days damn near anyone can get in.
A lot of these heroes would be better fitted for different teams/stories.
yeah, I get that.. but to say that some characters "never should have become Avengers" implies that the range of different types of characters who have been Avengers would be way less diverse, and, to my mind, much less interesting.
I mean, to me, what makes the Avengers interesting as a concept is that most lineups are made up of characters from their own disparate mythologies or sub-genres; so for the Avengers to be limited to a specific genre themselves seems to totally miss the point. I mean, a huge part of the appeal is that you get to see characters who seemingly have nothing in common interact, because it's those interactions that are most interesting about the stories.
In hindsight it's easy to see how a character like Black Widow or Hawkeye might be more in their element in another, more specific genre book, and those books are out there, but that Hawkeye thought he could be in the same league as Iron Man or Thor, and ended up being an inspiration to both of them, is a big part of not only what makes Hawkeye special, but what makes the Avengers special too.
Some people seem to see the Avengers in terms of other superhero teams, but to me that also misses the point. You see all this nonsense about how members of the X-men or the FF shouldn't be Avengers, but in my mind the X-men and FF represent just two specific corners of the MU, with their own specific themes and types of stories, the same way we might think of Black Widow or Dr.Strange inhabiting more specific corners because of their individual strengths/sub-genres; the Avengers, on the other hand, have always been at the center of this rich mosaic.
They're where the best and most interesting of all the corners come together; they're the embodiment of the overlapping sub-genres that you only see in a shared universe. They're like the ultimate team-up book, and that is (and should be) their strength, because that's really what makes them most special.
I mean, I'm not saying I don't see the appeal of more specialized books like the Secret Avengers, the Illuminati, or what have you, because those books can play to what some specific characters thematically have in common that other characters don't, but for the Avengers themselves, as a team or a book, I really think it should be anything goes.
I mean, characters like Wolverine, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Dr.Strange, Namor, Black Panther, etc, etc, may all have perfectly good reasons for not being on the team (or for the team not calling them up when they're having a membership drive or whatever), and if none of them ever were again, that would make sense. But that they all have been a part of the team doesn't just add to their individual characters, it definitively is what makes the team and it's stories so diverse and interesting.
That's a compelling and insightful explanation. I wish I had read this earlier. While I am not entirely convinced that Wolverine or Mr Fantastic should be members of the Avengers, I can definitely see what you are saying. Hats off to you, man.
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