Are The Avengers Actually A Good Team?
The Avengers, Earth’s mightiest warriors, had their ups and downs throughout the initial phases of the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU), which effectively ended with Avengers: Endgame (2019), and there is no argument about whether they succeeded in saving the world, indeed galaxy, a LOT. However, did they actually make for a “good” team? In this article, I will tackle this subject from various angles and see where I ultimately fall on this issue, including how successful they were in saving Earth/Galaxy and how well they functioned in terms of a team.
For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing on the four Avengers films released to date, The Avengers (2012), Avengers 2: Age of Ultron (2015), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). In addition, I have decided to include Captain America: Civil War (2016), which, although not officially an Avengers movie, did feature most of the Avengers and had significant long-term consequences for the team, as well as for the events of Infinity War and Endgame.
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The first question is how successful they were in saving Earth/Galaxy. By all available evidence, the Avengers stopped many threats to Earth and the galaxy and even managed to reverse the loss of trillions of beings in the galaxy. First, they stopped Loki and his Chitauri Army, along with the possession of an infinity stone, from successfully invading and conquering Earth on behalf of the intergalactic warlord Thanos (The Avengers). They later stopped a genocidal and super intelligent robot named Ultron from wiping out the human race (Age of Ultron), gaining new allies in the process, Vision and Scarlet Witch.
Lastly, but no less importantly, they ultimately managed to defeat the Mad Titan himself, Thanos, and restored the lives of literally half the beings in the galaxy, who had previously been snapped out of existence by Thanos after he had successfully collected all the Infinity Stones (Infinity War/Endgame). There is no question that these accomplishments were more than just another day at the office for most beings. However, there were plenty of close calls, tragic mishaps, and even some major defeats along the way.
Loki’s plan in The Avengers (2012) to conquer the Earth very nearly came to fruition due to him being able to use the Mind Stone and his own magic to turn some members, such as Hawkeye and Hulk, against the team, causing internal divisions that nearly derailed them from stopping him. Loki managed to control a scientist, Dr. Selveig, long enough to open a portal that brought the Chitauri army to Earth. A last-minute sacrificial attempt by Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) to destroy the rest of the Chitauri army en route to Earth, as well as Loki’s capture after being “smashed” by the Hulk, saved the day, however. The team also made mistakes that had costly consequences for the planet. For instance, in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), the team was forced to battle Ultron, a super-intelligent artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark for peacekeeping purposes, and the outcome was catastrophic.
There was significant collateral damage in the form of a massive chunk of the country of Sokovia being destroyed, which significantly impacted the life of Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlett Witch), both in terms of the loss of her brother, Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver), and irreparable damage to their native country. The event had substantial ramifications for the future of the Avengers team regarding how the group was perceived worldwide. Another tragic mishap by the team during a fight in Captain America: Civil War (2016) resulted in the deaths of several aid workers, and Steve Rogers’ friend, Bucky Barnes (aka The Winter Solder), was later framed for a bombing that killed T’Chaka, the king of Wakanda.
These events ultimately lead to a breakup of the team for two years. Members of the group also became divided by calls from world governments to gain more control and oversight of the team, with some members like Tony agreeing to sign the resulting Sokovia Accords and Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) opposing it. The team also became divided over the fate of the Winter Soldier, who was framed for the aforementioned death of T’Chaka but also later revealed as having assassinated Tony’s parents years earlier. The Avengers reluctantly reunited to battle Thanos and his army in Infinity War (2018); however, in part due to their fractured state, it was a battle that they ultimately ended up losing to Thanos, who successfully claimed all the Infinity Stones, and eliminated half of the entire population of the galaxy with a single snap of his fingers, including many allies of the team, such as Nick Fury, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, T’Challa (aka Black Panther), Winter Solder, and most of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Thanos also killed Vision while ripping the Mind Stone out of his head. The surviving Avengers and Guardians, along with their new ally, Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel), later found and killed Thanos, but due to his destruction of the Infinity Stones after his snap, they were unable to revive those who had vanished from existence. It was the moment of their biggest failure. The surviving members licked their wounds for the next five years until they, along with Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man), devised a plan to travel through time, regain the Infinity Stones, and bring everybody who had been lost to the snap back. Their plan to restore the lives of half of the galaxy ultimately succeeded, but they had to face Thanos and his army again, albeit from an earlier timeline. They eventually prevailed over him, with Black Widow sacrificing herself to allow Hawkeye to claim the Soul Stone and Tony Stark sacrificing himself to snap Thanos and his army out of existence for good.
The second question is, how well did the individual members of the team function together? While the Avengers team generally had few problems working together when the moment called for it, the team did have many members with strong personalities that often clashed with each other, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers being the most dominant personalities on the team. Although they verbally clashed somewhat in the earlier Avenger movies over strategy and actions, the conflict between them in Captain America: Civil War (2016) over the fate of the fugitive assassin and Rogers’ friend, Winter Soldier, as well as disagreements over the Sokovia Accords, finally came to a head, with the team battling each other on an airstrip.
The end result could not have been more catastrophic. One of the team’s members, James “Rhodey” Rhoades (aka War Machine), was paralyzed during a friendly fire incident and Tony and Steve literally came to blows once Tony found out that Winter Soldier had been responsible for killing his parents and that Steve had known about it, but had not told him. The resulting fight left Tony’s Iron Man suit heavily damaged and Steve’s iconic shield torn, but the damage extended far beyond the physical scars they both sustained. The two of them had become bitter enemies, and the team was a broken mess that would take several years and a massive alien invasion resulting in mass genocide to finally come back together.
The estranged team, including Hulk and Thor, who eventually returned to Earth after a long absence, engaged in separate but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to stop Thanos during the events of Infinity War (2018). Despite some resistance from Tony and Thor, broken by Infinity War’s events, the team finally reunited in Endgame (2019) to reverse Thanos’ snap and defeat him and his army once and for all. Sadly, the events of Infinity War and Endgame also left the team heavily fragmented, with Tony, Vision, and Black Widow dead, Steve a retired older man, and Thor leaving with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Considering all the available evidence, it would seem that the Avengers, despite their flaws, mistakes, and difficult personalities, put their lives on the line multiple times throughout their battles to save the planet and the galaxy. Even though the group membership changed, fractured, and broke apart at times, and individual members sometimes pursued their own agendas and vendettas, they still managed to come together when needed the most to stand up to threats to the planet the galaxy. All the team members suffered injuries and personal losses through their adventures, and Tony, Black Widow, and Vision made the ultimate sacrifices with their lives to reverse Thanos’ victory in Infinity War.
At the end of the day, what more can be asked of a team? It will be interesting to see what happens to the surviving Avengers and how the dynamics of the new team of “Earth’s mightiest superheroes” takes shape over the subsequent phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with the upcoming Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars Avengers movies.
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