How the heck did he become an Avenger?

I just recently got a bunch of Hulk comics with the Red Hulk, and I find it... odd that he became an Avenger.

How did that happen?

I think Captain America was impressed with his skills when he helped fight someone who was trying to get all the Infinity Gems, early in the 2010 series of Avengers.

I'll go and check if that's right.

From what I can tell, there are only two requirements for being an Avenger these days:

1. Be in the Marvel Universe.

2. Be alive.

Yep. The Hood was trying to bring the gems together in Infinity Quest(2010 Avengers #7-12), and Red Hulk brought this to The Avengers attention and helped deal with him.

He's useful.

@squares: And he has a really, REALLY bad reputation. Just saying.

The Red Hulk is a Hulk with the mentality of a war veteran and soldier. That's an incredibly valuable asset. After his crimes as Red Hulk and identity as Ross were brought to light and he was defeated, then confined, Banner and Rogers approached him with a deal. Then immediately took the deal off the table when he seemed a bit smug, and left him to rot. Returned a couple weeks later, and offered the deal again once he was more contrite.

Deal was he'd take care of special missions, under Rogers' supervision until he worked off his crimes. Think a less evil version of the Suicide Squad deal: They wouldn't kill Red Hulk if he screwed up, but they'd take the deal back off the table and lock him up again.

Eventually he worked off his sentence, proved he was trustworthy, and was (much to the chagrin of multiple Avengers) brought onto the main, official, roster.

And The Scarlet Witch doesn't? How about Hawkeye? Quicksilver? Havok? Rogue? Black Widow?

@jonsmith: Okay, that's... surprisingly reasonable.

Or even Iron man for that matter.

@xwraith: It's the same for X-men except replace 1 with "Be a Mutant".

@squares: Quicksilver claimed it was a Skrull who did all that crab he did. I still dont get why Havok and Rouge are Avengers instead of being in jail. Hawkeye's only crime was being naive.

@waezi2: Quicksilver was a terrorist, as was his sister, and they still were accepted into the avengers. And I'll accept your point about Hawkeye, but what about Black Widow?

@maccyd: There have actually been a handful of non mutant X-Men. Danger is an AI, Hepzibah is an alien catgirl, and I'm not entirely sure what Longshot and Fantomex are.

@xwraith: Danger is a mutated computer program, Hepzibah is a Starjammer, Longshot and Fantomex are both mutants. You should have brought up Ms Marvel.

@squares: When was Carol an X-Man?

@xwraith: Brief period of time in the 70s or 80s. Though by your logic, as a member of the Starjammers she was a member of the X-men for quite some time.

@squares: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch got the benefit of the doubt because they were manipulated by Magneto. And I dont know when or how Black Widow became an Avenger.

@waezi2: Okay then, how about when Wanda did the whole 'turning her ex-husband into a bomb' thing? By that I mean what about the House of M stuff that happened before Magneto and Quicksilver stepped in?

@squares: Well, she saved the world during A Vs. X, and she was insane during the whole HOM and Avengers Disassemble thing because she apparently forgot that she knew about her children.

There was also made an explanation during Avengers: Children Crusade that it was Doc Doom who manipulated her or something. Trying to clean up bad writing can be difficult.

So you're saying Wanda's being on the Avengers is okay because she's just mentally unstable and not actually a murderer?

@squares: No, I'm saying its better than being a terrorist who knows exactly what he's doing. But that's only a lesser of two evils.

If Wanda should even start to become an Avenger again, she should see a really, REALLY good psychiatrist first. Doc Samson good.

@waezi2: What drove Wanda to her psychotic episode in the first place were her own powers. I'm saying she shouldn't be an Avenger at all, she should retire ASAP and stop being a threat to herself and everyone else.

Not according to Avengers Children's Crusade.

What about Iron Man?

Corporate stooge fascist that turned on his friends, created a clone of Thor without his consent and in the end sent Cap to prison

@waezi2: Everybody gets to be an Avenger eventually. Pretty much every hero in the Marvel Universe have been members of it or one of its off shoot teams. Even a few villains have been on the team.

With half of the hero-community, slightly influenced by the Skrulls, while the other half yelled Murica, punching everything and worked with the Punisher.

How come everyone want to make the Civil War Iron Man's fault?

Why are we still TALKING about the Civil War instead of forgetting it ever happened?

Because he was written as a villain so there fore pepole treat him as a villain

@jonny_anonymous: Then what about Tigra, Wasp, Wonderman, War Machine, She Hulk, Mr. Fantastic, Ms. Marvel and Black Widow?

And again, are you a hero when you work with the Punisher?

Well that's exctly our point when it comes to Red Hulk.

Spider-Man and Daredevil have worked with the Punisher hundreds of times, working with Frank is no different than working with Wolverine.

To be fair regular Hulk doesn't have a great reputation and there are quite a few former criminals that are or have been members, and if they'll let the fury mass murdering Canadian that Marvel loves so much on the team Red Hulk isn't much of a stretch.

Yeah, Red Hulk was kind of second strongest after Green Hulk and he surrendered after the Battle of the Hulks series. I think they didn't quite know what to do with him but decided to use his soldier skills and give him a chance to prove himself.

Because Bendis.

Ehh, the Avengers roster has had worse. Case in point: Sandman & Doctor Druid.

They let anyone in these days.