THE TEN WORST MOMENTS IN AVENGERS HISTORY
by JURMOON


10. Fantastic Two and Gilgamesh join the team:

  Comprising three fifths of the worst Avengers lineup ever.   Dull, pointless
storylines result from completely inappropriate and inexplicable characters
brought together by Steve Rogers (who was not Captain America at the time).  


9. Marcus Immortus:

Disturbing, confusing, lame.  Characters behaving out of ....well....
character.  Serves to eliminate and alienate the most interesting female
character in comics, and further fucks up the Immortus plotline, which has
rarely made sense.


8. Mockingbird killed:

A pointless death cooked up to correspond with an "anniversary" issue.
Absolutely unnecessary to the story, undramatic, and unlikely.  Did a monkey
write this?   It's very simple:  if you kill a character off, have a point.


7. Giant Man returns to duty.

Ignoring years of health problems, psychological problems, and a determination
to avoid his previous identities, Hank Pym suddenly shifts gears and becomes
Giant Man again with no explanation.  Represents a major problem in comics in
general: a lack of respect for character arc and continuity.  


6.  Force Works debuts

Who the fuck dreamed up this masterpiece?  Embarrassingly awful, an even more
transparent attempt to X-ize the Avengers than the "A" jackets and Gambit-
Dane.  Moonraker and Century two of the worst characters in Avengers history. 


5.  Deathcry joins

But this is *the* worst character in Avengers history.  I spit on Deathcry.  I
fart in her general direction.  Her mother was a hamster and her father
smelled of elderberries.  


4. The Crossing

The Crossing.  I admit I never understood it.  Maybe it's too "sophisticated"
for me.  But it surely resulted in some of the worst Avengers moments ever.
Iron Man turns killer.  Teen Tony replaces him.  Kang suddenly responsible for
Hank's breakdown, thus erasing a great story told by writers that Bob Harras
is not fit to smooch the asses of.    The twins return (??????)   Just FUBAR.


3.  Wonder Man blown to pieces:

Even more shameless than the Mockingbird death.  Force Works tries to
establish that they are a gritty, realistic book by blowing up one of the most
popular Avengers comics in their debut issue.  Even worse, they amaze fandom
with their stupidity by admitting as much.  As if we are somehow impressed
with their ability to arbitrarily kill characters off.  As if we consider
random, meaningless death a selling point in our fiction.  Justice is served
as Force Works tanks and its name is added to the scrolls of humiliating
failure.


2. Liefeld steals the Avengers

>From the frying pan of the Crossing to the fire of the Robverse, the Avengers
endure what is nearly their darkest hour.  Awful art, awful scripting,
ludicrous dialogue, a butchered collection of facsimile Avenger characters.
This one has it all.  Again, mercifully canceled soon thereafter.


1. AWC canceled

There are so many reasons that this is the Avengers worst moment.  The fact
that the AWC was a far superior book at the time.  The fact that it banished
characters like Hawkeye to comic limbo (however briefly).  The fact that it
banished characters like Living Lightning, who would never again achieve
exposure.  The fact that it was incorporated into the series in a fashion that
insulted the intelligence.   I've served up a number of posts on just how
ludicrous AWC #102 was, I don't want to get into it again, but this was the
primary reason why I abandoned Marvel Comics for a number of years.


Jurmoon