4. A Conventional Military Is Sort Of Terrible And Untrustworthy
It's probably taken as a given, but still, just hear me out. With the exception of Captain America where the enemies happen to be fellow humans, albeit with pimped-out weaponry the military is good for absolutely squat in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man blew up tanks with non-chalance, The Abomination demolished an armed response team in Harlem, Ivan Vanko laid siege to the Stark Expo, The Destroyer swatted off our best efforts and those good folk with Extremis managed to kidnap the President like it wasn't even a thing. Frankly, until the new series tells me different, SHIELD's job appears to be turning up and looking shocked at what happens before calling in an Avenger and having them sort out the mess. If they can add give Samuel L. Jackson some badass lines in the process, then so much the better. Needless to say, in the Marvel world, the military is hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer, and after many embarrassing screw-ups we can't really count on them to protect us. Again, a big green rage monster publicly destroyed a crack unit on a University campus and the army were left at sixes and sevens when the Chitauri poured into New York. Seriously, two cops have a debate about where the National Guard are, and we're left as confused as they are. In fact, just to make us feel safer, they almost publicly nuked the island of Manhattan when they ran out of ideas. So really, there's no way you can feel safe in the Marvel Universe the nation's military appears to be run by incompetents, and their tech can be easily scrunched up and thrown away like yesterday's newspaper. Hell, I can see why Nick Fury wanted those Hydra weapons we're onto a hiding to nothing at the moment, and just because we're not ready for war, it doesn't mean it's not coming.