The Avengers What was the Avengers Initiative anyway?

[ThePowerCosmic]

Oh, I see what you mean then. I agree, I like the fact that Fury alluded to other heroes but didn't outright name them. Gives Marvel a lot of breathing room to introduce their characters as they see fit, and not feel obligated just because they were already mentioned.

... Although, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them to mention Wakanda and K'un-Lun.

 

[LostSon88]

Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Again, before Iron Man, the only supernatural thing in existence (i.e. not dead or presumed dead) was the Hulk. Unless things were happening off screen, which they haven't bothered to mention (six movies and counting).

Well, isn't that the idea?

SHIELD has been around for decades. Howard Stark was one of the founding members. One can argue that they've encountered quite a few 'extraordinary' people in the world and that the only reason no ones ever heard about it was because they never had a serious enough threat.

When Fury met Stark at the end of IM1, it could've simply been done to let him in on the project, not necessarily for a particular mission. Just to let him know that frankly, he's not exactly "special" and that they've been doing and dealing with people like him (superheroes) for years.

Look, these movies are not going to spoon feed us everything we need to know. Sometimes you just gotta fill in the blanks on your own.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

Well, isn't that the idea?
Sometimes you just gotta fill in the blanks on your own.

That's half the fun of it.

 

[DarkJester]

Well, isn't that the idea?

SHIELD has been around for decades. Howard Stark was one of the founding members. One can argue that they've encountered quite a few 'extraordinary' people in the world and that the only reason no ones ever heard about it was because they never had a serious enough threat.

When Fury met Stark at the end of IM1, it could've simply been done to let him in on the project, not necessarily for a particular mission. Just to let him know that frankly, he's not exactly "special" and that they've been doing and dealing with people like him (superheroes) for years.

Look, these movies are not going to spoon feed us everything we need to know. Sometimes you just gotta fill in the blanks on your own.

Well put. Now can we close this thread? (Or perhaps move it to the Iron Man 1 boards and edit the original post's timestamp to 2008 so it doesn't seem incredibly stupid?)

 

[Thundercrack85]

Darkjester, if you don't like the thread, and have nothing to contribute, or anything mature to say, leave. Go troll elsewhere.

"You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

Must be keeping a low profile if Tony Stark doesn't know about them, and they still haven't show up, six movies later.

Though they did allude to the Black Panther briefly in an easter egg.

 

[LostSon88]

"You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

Must be keeping a low profile if Tony Stark doesn't know about them, and they still haven't show up, six movies later.

Though they did allude to the Black Panther briefly in an easter egg.

Again, what would be the relevance of having random superheroes mentioned in any of the six films if they have absolutely no relevance to the particular stories and/or the studio has absolutely zero intention of using them in "The Avengers"?

Why do they need to explicitly show you that other heroes exist? Why can't you just assume that they do and the reason they don't show up in the Avengers is for various reasons. May it be for reasons of being 'unfit' for the Initiative or SHIELD didn't have enough time to gather more of a response team and thus stuck with what they had, there are a myriad of reasons why other heroes didn't participate from a story standpoint.

From a studio standpoint its simple…no one gives a damn about seeing a bunch of random superheroes in "The Avengers" or any of the previous films for the sake of making it clear that, "Yes indeed, other heroes do exist, happy now?".

They'll throw us an Easter Egg here and there and that's good enough for me.

Its the Thors, Hulks, Iron Mans and Captain Americas that we care about seeing and they know that.

 

[DarkJester]

Asks what The Avengers Initiative is after a movie dedicated to answering that question ENTIRELY is released. Calls me the troll.

Again dude, I think you're missing the point entirely. Avengers was but the FAINTEST bit of a reality when Iron Man was made. They shot that scene as nothing more than a tease, something to get the nerds like us all riled up and our imaginations running wild. But, even if we ignore the fact that at the time they filmed that they had practically zero intentions of actually making The Avengers, what the hell more could you want? A scene at the beginning of The Avengers where Nick Fury says "Well we couldn't get ahold of Ant-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, blahblah, bleeblee, or bloobloo, but we have THESE FOUR GUYS!"

 

[LostSon88]

It sounds like thats exactly what he wanted...

 

[DarkJester]

It's like walking out of Return of the King and asking "...So why's it called Lord of the Rings, anyway?"

 

[Thundercrack85]

I'm presumably wasting my breath, but i'll reiterate. The initiative was begun for what purpose? What threat? There was none until after Iron Man. Was Fury just anticipating a random alien invasion?

Are we supposed to assume that other heroes exist, in an otherwise mundane world? A universe which has otherwise laid out every hero ahead of time? If you allude to heroes, have nothing to show for it five movies later, I find that odd.

Darkjester, I'm ignoring you, so don't bother responding.

 

[DarkJester]

Again, I'll re-iterate (because you'll read it anyway): you're reading way too deeply into something that was shot with no actual plans at the time of making an Avengers film. Furthermore, you apparently have zero imagination if it really bothers you this much. Not a single soul knew how the MCU was going to turn out at the time Iron Man was released. Furthermore, we have 6 films written by different writers and directed by different directors: inconsistencies WILL pop up (such as Selvig already being under Loki's influence in the post-credits scene in Thor and that be completely ignored in The Avengers).

 

[LostSon88]

I'm presumably wasting my breath, but i'll reiterate. The initiative was begun for what purpose? What threat? There was none until after Iron Man. Was Fury just anticipating a random alien invasion?

And i'll reiterate what i've already stated: The initiative was begun for purposes of putting together a team of extrodinary people in the event of a Doomsday/Worst Case Scenerio/Extinction Level Occurance that threatened humanity.

At that time he spoke to Iron Man, there probably wasn't a threat. Fury was simply consdering adding Iron Man to the roster as a member of his response team.

You don't think the military has a repsonse plan in the event of another terrorist attack? You think the Secret Service has a response plan if the White House is attacked?

There may not always be an immediate threat to face…but you must always be prepared.

Are we supposed to assume that other heroes exist, in an otherwise mundane world? A universe which has otherwise laid out every hero ahead of time? If you allude to heroes, have nothing to show for it five movies later, I find that odd.

I'm not going to repeat myself again on this issue word for word so i'll keep it at this: YES. We ARE suppose to assume that other heroes exist.

And the reason we've never heard of them in 6 films is because:

WE DON'T NEED TO.

If you can explain to me how mentioning these heroes within the context of the previous 5 films enhances their narratives then i'll relent. Otherwise, mentioning a bunch of heroes we wouldn't see in the films anyway is completely pointless and a waste of time.

 

[Herolee10]

It's interesting to note that within all of the comic book tie-ins and insider's look into the history of the MCU, it doesn't seem like BW and Hawkeye were ever officially considered or approached to be brought on the actual "team" and that they were brought on the group because they were the only ones aside from the main four that were there on the battlefront (not to take away anything from their skills of course).

Also, the "Avengers Initiative" comic book tie-in seems to indicate that the Hulk had shown several signs of heroism during his time going around the world and that Fury was aware of this as well (Fury mentions on how the Hulk has gone out of his way to save people in need whenever encountering any and that he's only caused destruction whenever being attacked by someone first). Given that the Hulk was created 5 years before Tony became Iron Man, that's one potential superhero that Fury was talking about at the end of Iron Man.

If anything, my belief is that CA, Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor were the ones that SHIELD had in mind in approaching first for the initiative due the inside info that they had on all four along with what each could bring to the table and that any other "hero" were considered as back-ups in case if they couldn't recruit the members that they needed had they more time.

 

[captainrogers]

Also, let me throw this little gold nugget that Coulson threw out in TA to Cap:
"One of MANY attempts to recreate Erskine's serum"
(when Steve asks about Bruce becoming Hulk)
Lotta room to fill in the blanks.
Heck, in the 616 comics, Luke Cage and ManThing were just two such "failed" attempts.

 

[Themanofbat]

Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Again, before Iron Man, the only supernatural thing in existence (i.e. not dead or presumed dead) was the Hulk. Unless things were happening off screen, which they haven't bothered to mention (six movies and counting).

The threat of the Hulk alone would have been reason enough to create a team....