World How many groups can call themselves "Avengers"?

Fantasyartist

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I've just seen the first installment of "Dark Avengers". I'm curious- just how many groups can call themselves "Avengers"? I KNOW I asked this question before, but you'd think that a savvy businessman like Tony Stark would at last trademark or copyright the title- hey, it works for Coca-Cola and the Hells' Angels "Motorcycle Club"!

Terry
 
After several years in "Marvel time", the Great Lakes Avengers ("GLA") at one point were asked by the Maria Stark Foundation to stop using the name Avengers for their team in Wisconsin, lest they be sued. That caused them to briefly call themselves the Great Lakes X-Men (because they all are mutants), and then the Great Lakes Champions.

The "official" team right now are Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. The New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers are not legally sanctioned and would be considered outlaws. In the past, though, it was very common for there to be at least two Avengers teams operating at once; AVENGERS WEST COAST ran with Californian adventures for many years.

(Despite the title, AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE really has little to do with the actual Avengers team beyond often focusing on B and C list heroes who at one point were Avengers, such as Tigra, Justice, War Machine, Rage, etc. at various points.)
 
I think they may have addressed that, albeit perhaps weakly, since its been established that Tony wrote over alot of his assets over to SHIELD or the US government during his time as the Director of SHIELD and overseer of the the 50 State Admendment and that is why Osborn's group is in Avengers Tower now.

I think its also reasonable to consider that they may have not wanted to make a business out of the Avengers by establishing a federal trademark since it could taint it in the public consciousness. Maybe they could still assert an applied trademark to stop other groups from using the name if all of the "real Avengers" werent either dead or outlaws now.
 
Tony Stark set up the MARIA STARK FOUNDATION to fund the Avengers as well as other charities, separately from whatever Star Enterprises was doing. Granted, I think that has been gutted, though. Right now the Dark Avengers are being presumably funded by Osborn, the federal government and whatever resources were in SHIELD when it became HAMMER, while the New Avengers seem to live off Danial "Iron Fist" Rand's bank account, and the Mighty Avengers live off of Pym's account. Granted, Hercules does have gold coins now and again...
 
Question. I'm not too hip on this, but when Civil War came out, the point was the New Avengers were outlaws; the Mighty were sanctioned, right? Well, now that Osborn has taken over, and there's new sanctioned team, why don't the New and Mighty Avengers pool their resources? Why are there TWO outlaw teams?
 
The Mighty Avengers recently hooked up with an international paranormal investigation network called GRAMPA (don't ask) which has given them international authority to investigate and do superhero works outside the United States. The new Mighty team, consisting of Hank Pym, Jocasta, Hercules, Amadeus Cho, Stature, Vision Jr., Quicksilver, and U.S. Agent, see themselves as a global response team. They presumably get funding from either GRAMPA or the assets of Pym or even Hercules.

The New Avengers are still considered "outlaws". They haven't teamed with the Mighty team yet, but at some point they will. Why they haven't pooled resources is a good question. My answer is that the New Avengers see themselves as operating in the United States in general and New York in particular. Beyond a fight with the Fantastic Four, the Mighty Avengers have usually adventured in other countries. Norman Osborn is peeved that the international community sees Pym's team as "the real Avengers" right now.

The Dark Avengers are Osborn's flunky squad of Avengers, and most of them are psychopaths or sociopaths. He also has drafted a Dark X-Men.
 
Does this mean that the Avengers will be going "global"-working with heroes/heroines all over the world such as Omega Flight(Canada), Winter Guard (Russia), Super Heroes of Europe or turning up in real life hot spots such as Darfur in Sudan? What about the governments (of these countries) sovereign rights? Cool!
 
Technically, U.S. Agent had been stationed in Canada with Omega Flight before deciding to join Pym's Mighty Avengers after the demon Chthon attacked the world (including Canada), and he aided in stopping it. So far the Mighty Avengers have been active in France, Tokyo, Bolivia and other nations. Right now two of them are in China dealing with the latest major threat, and have met a Chinese GRAMPA agent there, Ban-Luck. They are dealing with the Chinese superheroes (formerly known as "China Force") who were hardly thrilled to see them.
 
I've just seen the first installment of "Dark Avengers". I'm curious- just how many groups can call themselves "Avengers"? I KNOW I asked this question before, but you'd think that a savvy businessman like Tony Stark would at last trademark or copyright the title- hey, it works for Coca-Cola and the Hells' Angels "Motorcycle Club"!

Terry

I think another relevant question is just exactly what are they avenging? It seems they do more investigative work and superhero police work than anything.
 

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