THE TONY ISABELLA AVENGERS

 

Today’s bloggy is a fun exercise in building a team, specifically, the Avengers team I’d like to write. The notion first hit me when, after watching the second season of Loki, I said Sylvie would make a good addition to the Avengers.

My next idea was to create a team of Avengers that kind of sort of copied the original team with different characters. That idea came and went and came back.

I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends how many members should my new incarnation have. The responses ranged from three to infinity. The most frequent number was seven. I thought that was a perfectly workable number of members. Then I started putting together a team I’d love to write and seven didn’t seem as definitive as I thought.

No Avengers team would be complete without CAPTAIN AMERICA. Steve Rogers was my first choice for that role. However, it also struck me that a position as important as Avengers leader needed back-ups. So, on my Avengers team, Steve’s role would occasionally be taken over by Captain America Sam Wilson or Captain Carter.

My next choices were GIANT-MAN and THE WASP. The former would be a back-from-the-dead Bill Foster because killing him off in Civil War was as monumentally stupid as Civil War itself. The latter would be Janet van Dyne because I always liked her and think she’d be great fun to write. Super-capable, feisty, smart, fashionable. What’s not to love there?

SYLVIE. She’s Loki, but not as self-assured as the original god of mischief. Her coming into her considerable power could bring some interesting situations into the series.

SHE-HULK. Okay, yes, she’s an obvious choice, but she’s a favorite character of mine I’ve never gotten to write. Look at that. I just re-created the original Avengers line-up. That’s five.

The next two members are MISTY KNIGHT and TIGRA. Because I created them and have long wanted to write them again. That’s seven.

But I’m not done yet.

JESUS RIDER or maybe just THE RIDER. Long-suffering Johnny Blaze has his soul redeemed by accepting Jesus as his lord and savior. He no longer has his Hell-spawned powers. What he has are supernatural powers given him by Jesus. He accepts there are many other god-like beings in the Marvel Universe. He doesn’t disrespect them at all. He has chosen to follow Jesus, who, of course, preached loving all people. Including gay people. Like Johnny himself.

People do come out late in life. Having his authentic self seen and accepted and loved by the One who rescued him from Hell’s agonies means everything to Johnny. If you object to my having a gay hero on this team, there are dozens of Avengers teams who don’t have any members of the LGBTQ+ community on them. That’s eight.

The final member of my Avengers team is HALLOWS EVE. I really like Janine Godby. Her masks are a super-power we don’t see too often. The only changes I would make: only she can use the masks and they always return to her. That’s nine.

If you like this Avengers line-up, feel free to tell Marvel you’d like to see me write such a title. Just expect to be disappointed. I doubt many of the current Marvel Comics editors know who I am or anything about my work. If they do know who I am, they likely think of me as an old guy who couldn’t possibly still write great comics.Such is life.

One more thing. If you count Captain Carter and Sam Wilson, my team actually has eleven members. Which is way too many.

I’ll be back soon with more stuff.

© 2023 Tony Isabella