Yeah, that entire Avengers line-up is almost entirely street level. Like Dr. Strange is the only guy that Cap couldn’t probably beat straight up in a fist fight. But you know that if Cap ever went rogue and took them on, Strange would catch a shield in the face mid-sentence before it started anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
The DC/JLA equilvalent would be like Black Canary, Connor Hawke, Nightwing, Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger, Batgirl, Hawkman, and then like…Green Lanturn or something. What possible situation would come up in which Green Lanturn couldn’t take care of by himself?
…actually that would be a fucking awesome team - that’s like six of the top seven martial artists in the DCU. And thus that New Avengers line-up doesn’t look that bad by comparison.
Assuming Ronin’s like Daredevil or Cap, they have like three or four of the top ten non-Gamora-level martial artists in the Marvel universe. If all the stories are with villians of comparable street level - and no more of those insane Magneto/House of M/Xorn bullshit stories - it could be really cool.
With the exception of Strange, this team is almost kind of Outsiders level powerful. Kind of like the old Claremont/Byrne X-Men, before stuff like…Jean Grey lifting buildings or creating fire with her telekinesis by rubbing air molecules together, and just Magneto by himself was powerful enough to make everyone shit their pants - you wouldn’t want to see this team running around the Savage Land or a Shi’ar starship or something?
But if Bendis goes back to the standard Avengers or JLA level stories, like on a planetary level, then things will go badly.
The best way to do it would be to emphasize how fucking badass it is to have a team that knows this much old school Kung-Fu - Iron Fist, Ronin, Echo, and Wolvie? I want them in Madripoor, with Wolvie as Patch, fighting Hand ninjas and Omega Red or something. (Maybe guess starring Psylocke…? Please?)
Like that previous Hand fight in New Avengers would hav kicked three times as much ass with this team (again, minus Strange).
Unfortunately I don’t see Bendis writing that kind of book. You know who would be perfect though, for a cast like this? Not Bru. Not specifically at least - he’s good at everything. But a guy who would fit perfectly for this book would be like Chuck Dixon. Write New Avengers not like old Avengers, but more like the old Carlos Pachelo Heroes For Hire or Power Man and Iron Fist - street level stuff.
Wheldon would be pretty good too.
A shame that I have absolutely no faith in the big companies to get a big name book right though these days.
