I have been swimming in the world of comics recently__reading, watching, researching__and I felt like spilling a little bit of the stuff in my head out on the internet. The wife and I saw Iron Man 2 this weekend. It was pretty good and we both enjoyed it, etc etc. I am not going to talk about the movie directly, but something that was in 1, 2, and the Hulk movie: the hints at the Avengers Initiative. I have issues with this.
In the movies, we have Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD, hinting around about making a team of super heroes...or at least he is using the word Avengers and every comic book nerd knows what he is talking about. The Iron Man Movies gave us Iron Man, War Machine, and the Black Widow; the Hulk gave us, well, the Hulk; there is an upcoming Thor movie giving us Thor; and Captain America: The First Avenger gives us Cap (Despite the title, Captain America was not an original member of the Avengers in the comics. He was, however, alive and kicking bad guy ass before any of the rest of the crew were even born, so he is First in that respect). The Avengers roster changes about as often as you change a roll of toilet paper, but just from the movies, we have three of the original line up, one that was added 4 issues in, and two that were added much later.
So, we got the people, where are the issues, right? Well, my main issue is with the formation. The Avengers were just a few random people responding to the same threat, a threat none of them could handle by themselves, so they teamed up. "And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born — to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand!" It was happenstance. There was no planning, no organization, just poof we got a team. My second issue is with SHIELD's involvement in the first place. These two groups traditionally don't have anything to do with each other. Sure, at one point in the comics, Tony Stark is Iron Man in the Avengers, the Secretary of Defense, and the head of SHIELD and the lines have been sort of blurred a little since.
I don't know. I am sure the movies will rock, but it pains me when there is a drastic departure from the source to the end product. I am looking at you Wolverine Origins and X3.
