Avengers - No More Bullying #1

[history79]

3 pages of a story that is 9 pages long

Comments

[mrstatham]

I know I'm picking at flaws with an out-of-continuity one-shot designed to encourage little kids to believe they can be as awesome as their favourite heroes here, but my only problem with this is that no-one's ever really made fun of Hawkeye for those reasons. It just reads more like the writer basically saw a small amount of the fan opinion on Clint based on his presence in the Avengers movie (where, to be fair, he does very little), and suddenly saddled him with inadequacy problems based on being around the others.

[glprime]

Have to agree. Somebody mentioned over on imgur "all the hate Hawkeye's got from the Avengers movie" and I was like... has he? If you don't like non-powered characters, that seems more a personal preference. Frankly I love 'em. To me, at time's Natasha's less of a skilled character than Barton (depending on the scenario) but they're both below the God of Thunder or Iron Man level. Seeing them "keep up" and contribute in the field is part of amazing heroics.

Field leaders saying, "stay in the back and don't get hurt" is just lazy writing; I mean, isn't there always, "clear the civilians from damaged buildings near the fighting"?

[ablackraptor]

Well, Hawkeye has often been the go-to Avenger for the others to make light jokes at his expense, though usually in a friendly banter kind of way (and less about his lack of powers, and more at his general lack of book smarts), and depending on the writer he has had moments where he's been self-conscious about the fact he's the token normal of the team (best recent example I can think of would be his team-up with Spidey in Avenging Spider-Man).
I guess the writer is trying to mix those two elements together, sort of showing that 'friendly banter' can often be rather hurtful to the person if it strikes a cord they're self conscious about.

[icon_uk]

Closest I can think of was when Jeremy Renner was on Saturday Night Live

[chrys]

Clint had a big feeling of inadequacy and a huge chip on his shoulder about his lack of powers and place on the team back in the 60s/70s. He has it again in the current Hawkeye - so it feels a bit out of place when placed in a current setting but it could still stand. The issue here is the Avengers making fun of him or not taking him seriously - I don't remember that ever happening.

[randyripoff]

I remember the "I'm useless as an archer so why don't I grow instead" thing, but that was Hawkeye putting himself down. This seems pointless.

[randyripoff]

Well, no, pointless isn't the correct word. It's just a poor choice of an example.

[bizarrohulk]

Since this isn't intended to be in continuity, I don't get why they had to use the current versions of the characters rather than the classic Avengers or the movie characters. Any kid who picks up this book in a year or so's time is going to wonder why iron Man is silver, Thor is carrying an axe instead of a hammer, and Falcon is pretending to be Captain America.

And I'm pretty sure that Flying Aquaman - sorry, I mean Falcon - gets just as much if not more crap from fans for having "useless" powers than Hawkeye does. The only way this comic would really make sense is if you replaced Sam and Natasha with, say, Hulk and Captain Marvel.

[ablackraptor]

I think the comic was written with classic versions in mind, but replaced last minute in art with the current versions. After all, Sam!Cap is acting more like Steve (not to mention Clint's talking him up like Steve), and Tony isn't nearly as much of a dick here as he is in Superior Iron Man, so it definitely reads more like the classic versions were in mind.

On that note, I've not actually seen Falcon get any crap from fans for his powers, largely because talking to birds *is* pretty useful in superheroing compared to talking to fish or bugs. Hawkeye, on the other hand, has gotten a lot of unfair flack for his abilities.

[donnblake]

Plus, Falcon can fly. Which is pretty widely acknowledged to a be cool power, if not always terribly useful (looking at you, Angel about 60% of the time, dodging stuff in the air).

[sagrada]

They used the "No More [X]" line for their comic title. This is unforgiveable. Also a good sentiment.

[drtechnobabel]

"Why are you crying, Lil' Scarlet Witch?"

"It was awful, Lil' Quicksilver! Lil' Bobby poured milk on me and called me a doodoo-head."

"What? How dare he do that to my sister! I'm going to punch his smug little face in."

"No! That'll only make things worse! I don't want you guys to fight because of me!"

"But Lil' Scarlet Witch, bullies don't care about words or peace. They only understand one language: the language of fists."

"Oh, you're right Lil' Quicksilver. I just wish there were no more bullies."

And then Lil' Scarlet Witch made it so, and the universe entered a new era of peace, which lasted until it got soft-rebooted a year later in the 'Infinity Bully' event.

:D

[philippos42]

...I just realized that DC uses "Infinite" in the names of crossovers and Marvel uses "Infinity" (because of Starlin?).

[crinos]

You know, I was expecting this to be a comic where a little kid is being bullied and a super hero says something inspiring to them (Like, you know, the thing from the cover). Not a scenario where Hawkeye gets mad at being made fun of for not being able to open a jar of pickles and Thor finding it amusing, in the middle of a giant robot attack.

You know, I'm against bullying as much as any good and decent person, but Clint? That robot just crashed through a building and killed like 80 people. MAYBE THIS CAN WAIT.

[leoboiko]

When I read the title and then started reading the first baloon, with Cap telling the other avengers "this is going to have to be an attack with speed and extreme force", I thought geez!, I don't know who the bully is, but the kid is going to regret this…

[halloweenjack]

IKR? It reads like it was written as a parody of a message comic.

[chrisdv]

Hawkeye: Earth's greatest marksman through his own training & dedication.
Black Widow: A spy who's completely useless in a fight with a giant robot.
Captain America: Falcon playing dress up as Captain America.
Falcon: Captain America's plucky sidekick.
Iron Man: Drunk, built the world's powerful weapon & decided only he may have it.
Thor: Enables Iron Man's drinking, terrible brother.

Look, I can skew perspectives to make certain characters look good or bad too!

[thosefew]

As long as they're being flippantly dismissive of the destruction the robot is causing, I want to see the robot say "Ooh! An orphanage!" or something. Just to make clear the poor priorities.

[reveen]

Eh, I'm sure it's just smashing Marvel civilians. If I had to deal with those jerk wads all the time I would have stopped caring about giant robot attacks a looooong time ago.

[adnor]

Well Clint, if your arrows weren't the best phillip n° 2 in the world Tony wouldn't use them.

[randyripoff]

I realize it has nothing to do with anything, but why is the flying guy going to stay on the ground?

[deepspaceartist]

Because this was clearly written with movie or classic Cap in mind (i.e. Steve Rogers) but was swapped at the last minute for Sam as current Cap.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Shooting arrows as a superpower is in the same category as web-swinging as a mode of transportation to me; It makes for good pictures in comics, but when you think about it, it's a really stupid idea. Between every shot, he's going to have to reach behind his back to take another arrow from his quiver and if he gets into a fight, it's very possible that the contents of that quiver will spill out onto the floor. The only way you could make it worse is to use trick arrows, which all have different shapes and weight, making them impossible to fire accurately.

On the other hand, anyone who was as good an archer as Hawkeye or Green Arrow would have to have a near-computerlike mind to be able to instantly aim so accurately and incredible strength to pull back a bow and fire arrows with the force that they've sometimes been shown as doing. Odd that they never mention those things.

[chrys]

You underestimate how accurate and effective archers can be.

[starwolf_oakley]

Indeed. In "Serenity," Joss Whedon gave Inara archery skills so she'd be helpful in the final fight against the Reavers.

[philippos42]

That's kind of the point? Good archers are really crazy strong and have a seriously specialized skill set. The fact that it's more technically attainable in the real-world than being a "master of everything" like Batman or Doc Savage just makes them more likeable as action heroes.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought these guys had some sort of mechanism to prevent spillage. Or even a magnet or something.

[philippos42]

I think Hawkeye's arrows are in clips or slots or something, not jostling around loose.

[chrys]

No one's arrows should be jostling around loose in the quiver. They are supposed to have holders that keep the arrows in place.

[chrys]

Of course they do. Even real archers have some tricks so they can bend and even tip the quiver partially upside down without spilling any arrows.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to a point, but would something that works for real archers bending still work for someone who does all the running, jumping, falling, etc that goes with a lifestyle in which you regularly fight giant robots? I guess you could find something, especially in a universe with unstable molecules, but that would slow you down even more.

Still, at least they're regular arrows. Every time I see Green Arrow fire a stunt arrow, it takes me out of the story and I think "but, wait, how would that work?"

[skemono]

On the other hand, anyone who was as good an archer as Hawkeye or Green Arrow would have to have ... incredible strength to pull back a bow and fire arrows with the force that they've sometimes been shown as doing. Odd that they never mention those things.

Well, there was that time when Oliver choked out Solomon Grundy with his bowstring precisely because the pull of his bow was so strong.

[starwolf_oakley]

This seems silly, but keep in mind Scott broke out "Jean never loved you" to Logan when a giant super sentinel was lurching towards Utopia. And that was in continuity.

[philippos42]

Well, that's terrible, but that was a) in an X-Men comic, and the X-Men are terrible at being super-heroes, because b) they're often caught in a ridiculous soap opera, and c) it was Slim Summers, who is awful, and was probably the most awful Summers before they decided to up Alex's terribleness just recently. ;)

It's sad to see the Avengers brought down to that level.

Well, I say sad. I'm laughing at the badness of this.

[ablackraptor]

Eh, as an X-Men fan, I'd really have to disagree with all three of those points (especially since the cited example was basically just a terrible story no different from Civil War, which was something that was primarily the Avengers' basket, and the moment in question was a bad attempt by a bad writer to add some legitimacy to Wolverine's stupidity by making Cyclops act out of character).

[donnblake]

A and C may be up for debate, but the X-men definitely are frequently caught up in a ridiculous soap opera.

[starwolf_oakley]

Ah, but does that soap opera element limit how effective the X-Men are as superheroes? Usually the X-Men being bad at being superheroes is because the general public of the Marvel Universe are spiteful jerks.

[ablackraptor]

I don't see how that's any different than any comic book series published for a long enough time.

[donnblake]

It's not, particularly, except that X-men (depending on the writer) focuses more heavily on the relationships than some others, which dedicate more time to the punching. Which, personally, I don't think is a bad thing.

[philippos42]

I was kind of kidding but not really. The X-Men are pretty terrible super-heroes a lot of the time. But you're right that Civil War took the Avengers into the basement superheroism-wise.

[ablackraptor]

I don't really think that's fair; I mean, in terms of handling, the X-Men aren't really any different from the Avengers, Justice League, Titans, or any other big group of heroes; they have a lot of bad stories and runs, but a lot of awesome and spectacular runs too. What particular about them makes them any better or worse than any other group, considering every team goes through the same shifting quality?

[philippos42]

It depends. The X-Men have had good runs, but they can come across as something other than proper superheroes, especially now that they're split and quarreling.

[philippos42]

Wow, this was...something.

Looks like they wrote this with Steve in mind and reskinned him as Sam.

Why is Natasha so terrible in this!?

[freezer]

So basically, if Steve Sam had just sent Clint with Natasha (and why wouldn't he?), the whole comic doesn't happen?

[stubbleupdate]

This was a great story in a good issue.

It's important that we let people know how to assert themselves with their friends in a way that doesn't cause bad feelings to grow

[thatnickguy]

"We're not gonna wait to have one of these heart-to-hearts until after we take down the rampaging robot killing everyone! That's just crazy talk!"