AVENGERS #37: Proactive Superheroes

[starwolf_oakley]

In Kurt Busiek's AVENGERS run, Captain America once thought that the Avengers should become pro-active.

Edit: The picture should be right-side up now.





So, is "take the fight to our enemies" just a 1990s thing? It seemed to start with X-Force and then just became a thing that certain superheroes did, mainly in the 1990s. They would go after the villains instead of waiting for them to exact an "evil plan."

Of course, going after the bad guys caused the first CIVIL WAR. And wanting to stop the bad guys before they doing something REALLY bad is the cause of CIVIL WAR II. Of course, in both cases, Tony Stark is a jerk, which turns them both into wars.

Comments

[reveen]

Are the scans supposed to be upside down?

Anyway, the modern "tough on crime" movement really seemed to have taken off in the 90s to my naive perspective, so it makes sense that this would translate to some dumb "take the fight to them!" logic.

Considering how tied up in racism these issues are, it's hard not to see the continued insistence on these themes in comics to be kinda sinister.

[starwolf_oakley]

I have no idea why this is upside down. I will try to fix it.

[matrix_dragon]

The really weird thing is, when I saved it with the intention of flipping it around, it was already the right way up.

In fairness, Cap's reaction here is understandable. The bad guys, who weren't new, never before seen threats, but existing villains who had a well-established criminal record, had just murdered a country. Hunting down and arresting wanted criminals? That's the right sort of proactive really.

[starwolf_oakley]

The next issue (the start of the Alan Davis run) has the Avengers looking at a holographic globe with pictures of various established super-villains.

[john_wyatt]

My recollection is a few months earlier in his run, Busiek asked fans (on usenet, AOL, or something) to list outstanding major super-villain threats whjo were still at large. People came up with a lot of good responses.

After that issue with the holographic globe was published, Busiek revealed that he only asked about those threats so he could populate that hologram. He already had decided what the next few arcs would be, so the responses didn't affect any stories.

I didn't know the word at the time, but it was pretty good crowdsourcing.

[remial]

when I view JUST the image it is right side up, if that helps.

[tcampbell1000]

The idea of proactive superheroes existed before then, but in the 1980s it was usually done as a reaction to established superhero practice rather than a modification of it. See SQUADRON SUPREME, WATCHMEN and MIRACLEMAN, among others.

[coldfury]

I think by the '90s a lot of books were taking issue with the tropes of the superhero genre, one of which was how the heroes always just responded to a crisis, instead of proactively trying to prevent them.

The first Civil War wasn't really about going after bad guys, though. It was more about the government trying to regulate or draft (depending on who was writing) superheroes.

And I would argue that Tony's been *less* of a jerk in the second one, where at least:
1.) He *was* having a nervous breakdown when he kidnapped Ulysses.
2.) He appealed to authority multiple times to slow/shut this thing down, and was rebuffed. To the point where Carol was shown holding a (probably) innocent woman captive illegally because of a (probably) false positive vision.

[icon_uk]

The proactive setup that Busiek created was functional and efficient, utilising the wide range of team members and their various powers, and missions to excellent effect. Classic Busiek in other words.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

That logical development was junked instantly by the next writer.

Sadly, also classic Kurt

[scorntx]

Who was the next writer? Wasn't it Geoff Johns?

[starwolf_oakley]

Geoff Johns was the next writer, who did the whole "The Secretary of State is Dell Rusk, really the Red Skull." After that was Chuck Austen, who did "Lionheart of Avalon" and "Once an Invader." Finally, Brian Micheal Bendis took over.

[scorntx]

I suppose after a few issues of Austen (His name tastes heinous!), the proposal of nuking the team and starting over must've sounded like a pretty damned fantastic idea.

And hey, Johns did other things in his run.
Like introducing that new Zodiac that never appeared again. And redeeming Gyrich, which Avengers: The Initiative managed to utterly torpedo.
And making the Avengers part of the U.N. (*teehee* ... sorry), which Brian Bendis torpedoed.
And killing Jack of Hearts for... some reason.
And that horrific mass biological attack which should by all logic have made any real-life terrorist attack look like a bunch of drunken frat boys pissing around. Which was, of course, promptly forgotten.
Oh, and having a whole story-arc where She-Hulk loses her mind, goes on a rampage and we get her explaining her transformation is powered by fear rather than anger (oy...)
But he did bring Hawkeye back to the team. Yay!

[bradygirl_12]

I'm polishing my upside-down reading skills. :)

Funny how the text looks like a foreign language upside-down.

Glitches! Don't ya just love 'em? NOT!

[burkeonthesly]

It does seem like the "we should be proactive" mantra got passed around a lot in the '90s. I remember Excalibur from that time, with Nightcrawler being all, "we want to be proactive. Okay, well, we're reacting to this one thing, but we're going to do it in a really big way. And then we'll be proactive."