The Avengers aren't just Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man - there's just so much more to the group. Including honorary members, there have actually been 130 heroes in Earth's mightiest team over the years. That's a tremendously rich seam of characters to mine for the films. It's no surprise, then, that fans (myself included) are curious about which characters will be included in future movies. And, indeed, which characters won't be. Without a doubt, the next few years are going to see a lot of great Marvel Comics characters being translated onto the big and small screens, and that's just fantastic. What's less fantastic is the thought that there are a whole host of truly great Avengers that audiences most likely will NEVER see, for the most unfair and unreasonable of reasons. The absences of these irreplaceable characters mean the cinematic version of the Avengers may never feel quite right to long-time comic book readers. Here are the 20 most important Avengers that - boo, hiss! - fans will not be enjoying in films, ranked in order of improbability from "just about maybe, if pigs can fly" all the up to "there's no way, even if hell actually does freeze over". Are your favourite Avengers consigned to this list? I know mine are.
20. The Original Guardians Of The Galaxy
The original 1978 Guardians of the Galaxy - Aleta, Vance Astro, Martinex, Nikki, Starhawk, Charlie-27 and Yondu - were also, briefly, Avengers. Because of the time travel involved, the first group of Guardians are actually from the future and are, therefore, chronologically the second group (wrap your heads around that one). Even more confusingly, they're from the future of a parallel Earth. And OK, these merely honorary Avengers members only get a mention in this list due to two, highly subjective reasons: 1. they're awesome and 2. They're. Awesome. Either of those reasons is justification enough for them being in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I mean, come on, Astro used Captain America's shield for a while. He's that bad-ass. Why they won't be in the Avengers movies: It would take an entire film just to introduce them, and it's doubtful that will ever happen. Except, well, a "Yondu Udonta" is actually in the Guardians of the Galaxy film, played by Michael Rooker, so at least one of this team has already been name-checked on screen. That cinematic representation, however, is problematic because Yondu's race are meant to be descended from human colonists in the future, but in the film they're shown as living in the current day... For people who've read the comics, this makes no sense. But, hey, the movie was fun anyway.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
