[DrCosmic]

My thoughts on this have changed. Yes, Masters of Evil is an incredibly difficult thing to pull of and pull of right. I would argue, though, that Avengers was considered the same thing before Iron Man came out.

I also think the payoff would be similar. We've never had a real comic-book style superhero faceoff. If Marvel could pull that off, it'd be gold, and I think they're uniquely positioned to make it happen because they have this growing list of bad guys who have survived.

Think about, when/if Red Skull comes back from wherever... if he builds an army to take down Cap's... if he grabs Justin Hammer and boots back up the Iron Monger/Whiplash suit, frees Abomination from the government, finds Loki, and then adds to that whoever survives Cap 2 (Taskmaster?) IM 3 (Mandarin?) and Thor 2 (Enchantress? Kurse?). If he uses the super soldier serum from TIH to create an army... well. Mercy. It could be a very good story that builds on the mechanism that made Avengers popular.