The Avengers: 4 Things The Comics Can Learn From The Movie

1. Classic Roster

Let€™s go back and look at Kurt Busiek€™s return to the Avengers. He brought the team down to a stable line-up that consisted of mostly classic Avengers€”Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, the Vision, and Ms. Marvel, with new characters Justice and Firestar as reserve members. A classic team with some random elements thrown in. A team€™s roster needs to be kept to a manageable size. Five to eight members is the sweet spot that should be aimed for. Anything more and the cast starts to become bloated and characters get shoved into the background and can basically be referred to as €œwallpaper.€ There€™s also this matter of Avenger status. Back in the old days of Marvel, getting picked to be an Avenger was kind of a big deal. It was an honor to be invited to play with the big boys. But lately, it seems like everybody€™s an Avenger. While there have been questionable membership choices in the past (anyone else remember Deathcry? No? Consider yourself lucky), in recent years, the Avengers didn€™t really feel like the Avengers. For the most part, you had Captain America and Iron Man, but then the rest of the characters were either Marvel€™s cash-cows (Wolverine and Spider-Man) and then a bunch of the writer€™s personal pet characters (Luke Cage, Spider-Woman). I€™m a writer. I get there are certain characters you like more than others. But you also have to consider the motivations of those characters, as well as what role those characters are meant to fill. Spider-Man and Wolverine are perfect examples of characters who I love, but who just don€™t belong on the Avengers. In the case of Spider-Man, it€™s not that he hasn€™t proven himself as one of the premiere heroes of the Marvel Universe, it€™s that he€™s the every-man He struggles to pay the rent, he€™s often regarded with suspicion by the public, but all that goes out the window when he€™s got Tony Stark on speed-dial, when he€™s living in Avengers Mansion (or Avengers Tower, depending on which incarnation), and he€™s a member of the world€™s most beloved superhero teams. Wolverine on the flip-side is a hair-trigger loner. He€™s formed a family with the X-Men and that€™s why he stays with them, but he also runs off on his own. He€™s unpredictable, and making him the public face of mutant-kind in the Marvel Universe has diluted his character a lot. An ideal Avengers roster should really be composed of at least half, if not 75%, classic Avengers and then rounded out with some new additions or wildcards.