The Avengers are Marvel's number one super team. Consisting of the greatest heroes, the group has been the Earth's first and last line of defense against the most dangerous villains around. With the advent of the MCU, they've become one of the biggest franchises in pop culture, supplanting the X-Men as Marvel's most popular team.
The Avengers are pretty popular and people think highly of them but a lot of the time, it feels like a case of groupthink. In fact, there are a lot of rather unpopular Avengers opinions out there, ones that make sense but a lot of people don't like.
10 The Avengers Don't Do Nearly Enough
The Avengers is an assemblage of the most famous and powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe. Several of them are extremely wealthy - Black Panther is easily one of the wealthiest people on the planet - and yet they do surprisingly little beyond fighting bad guys. For example, they have never stood up for mutants. Ever.
They never use their pull with the governments of the world to make things better for mutants. They didn't even try to help when the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist clouds started to kill mutants; in fact, they basically sided with the Inhumans and overlooked one of their worst acts. The Avengers are Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but only if it involves punching people.
9 Captain America Probably Shouldn't Be A Member Of The Group
Captain America is an inspiring hero and a great strategist. He stands as the personification of the American soul but when it comes right down to it, his skills and abilities aren't exactly Avengers caliber. Sure, strategy is a good thing and great leadership helps as well, but is Cap really needed anymore? He often seems more like a liability than anything else.
At this point in time, there are other Avengers who are just as skilled at strategy as him and there are better leaders. He's a good symbol but that doesn't mean he needs to be an Avenger; in fact, he's better used in other ways than fighting all-powerful foes.
8 Thor Is More Trouble Than He's Worth
Everyone loves Thor and, really, what's not to love? He's a powerful thunder god with a cool hammer who beats on the most powerful and deadly villains. He's a cool Viking sort of guy. He's probably a lot of fun to be around. He's also often more trouble than he's worth when it comes to the Avengers.
Thor brings a lot of problems to the team. Sure, Loki is the whole reason the team exists but that doesn't mean that Thor doesn't bring a lot of trouble to the team. He's powerful and all that, but is it really worth keeping him around? Captain Marvel can pretty much do everything he can do. His attitude has caused him to butt heads with team members and he is just not as useful as he seems.
7 Iron Man Is A Terrible Person And Shouldn't Be Allowed On The Team
Iron Man is one of the Avengers' founding members and bankrolled the team for years. However, he's also one of the shadiest heroes on Earth. He's attacked his friends for simply using his tech without permission, founded the Illuminati, and did terrible things during Civil War. His time as S.H.I.E.L.D. director was a massive failure caused by his own hubris.
Iron Man has spent years doing things that should have disqualified him from the Avengers. He's a terrible person and not even that great of a hero in the grand scheme of things compared to his compatriots.
6 They Should Have Imprisoned Hank Pym Years Ago
Hank Pym has gone through multiple names over the years - Ant-Man, Giant Man, Yellowjacket, Goliath - and is a founding member of the Avengers. He's also another super shady member of the team and his negative impact on the group outweighs his positive impact on them. He's hit the Wasp while they were married and that's just the beginning of his sins.
His biggest one is the creation of Ultron; the mad android has killed millions. He's betrayed the team, building a robot to attack them. His inventions aren't exactly very good and he's done more harm than he's worth. They should have imprisoned him after he betrayed the team and that's not even counting the whole Ultron thing, which he almost certainly could have ended years ago if he really tried.
5 Brian Michael Bendis's Avengers Run Was Not As Great As People Think
The Avengers lost a lot of prominence throughout the '80s and '90s. The series had a comeback when writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez came on but once they both left, things went downhill again. In 2004, Brian Michael Bendis was put on the book and would stay on for eight years.
Fans loved the run and it brought the Avengers back to prominence, introducing new heroes like Wolverine, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Spider-Woman to the franchise. However, going back and re-reading it, the stories are often pretty boring, the characters all talk like Spider-Man, and, because of its status as the book that drove events, doesn't actually hold up well. There are some high points but not as many as people think.
4 "The Kree-Skrull War" Is Hard To Read For Modern Audiences
Comics have evolved a lot over the years and one of the biggest ways is the writing. Older comics are written in ways that would seem foreign to modern fans and "The Kree-Skrull War" falls into this category. The art, from artists Neal Adams, John Buscema, and Sal Buscema, is very good but the writing by Roy Thomas can be hard to get through for modern readers.
Thomas was a student of Stan Lee and it shows. The plot is great but the dialogue and captions can be pretty hokey, which can take fans right out of the book.
3 Avengers: Age Of Ultron Is Better Than It Gets Credit For
The MCU is a juggernaut and people love the Avengers. Of the four Avengers movies, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is generally agreed upon to be the least popular installment. The movie does have its problems, but it's actually a better movie than it gets credit for. While it has problems, there is a lot of great stuff in the movie.
Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye all got character development and it introduced Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Quicksilver, and began the build-up to Black Panther. There's a lot to love about the movie and it's better than it gets credit for.
2 Scarlet Witch Should Have Been Dealt With Years Ago
When people think of Scarlet Witch and her wrongdoing, they usually think of the more recent Avengers Disassembled and House of M. However, Scarlet Witch has actually been attacking the Avengers for years. She's always been much too powerful and can't really be trusted with the amount of power that she has.
The fact the Avengers never tried to get her help - or tried getting her help by mindwiping her - is a huge problem and proves that the team isn't actually very good about helping people, even their friends. Scarlet Witch needed real help and the Avengers kept throwing her out in the field without dealing with her underlying problems.
1 The New Roster Isn't Great
When Jason Aaron took over the book, he changed the roster of the team, which is pretty common. However, this new roster - Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, She-Hulk, Blade, and Ghost Rider - isn't that great. It feels very MCU and on top of that feels like too many cooks in the kitchen situation.
There are too many leaders, too much power, and the team is both weirdly overpowered and kind of ineffectual. Most of the characters have their own books, cutting down the drama, and it just doesn't feel like the Avengers very much.
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