Captain America officially opens Friday and word has it there’s a trailer for the Avengers at the end, which you may have seen online in all its poorly lit, pirated glory. While the movie promises to be the biggest damn thing in the history of comic book movies to date (and that includes the two kick ass Swamp Thing movies from the 80’s) there’s still some important decisions that have to go into making sure it doesn’t tank like so much Howard the Duck. And that means making sure a handful of Avengers are scheduled to be out of town during filming. Fact is, not everyone on the team’s roster is as cool as the Hulk or Iron Man, but they do make good movie trivia fodder. And no, we will not mention anyone from the Great Lakes Avengers, because those clowns don’t count.
D-Man
Are you familiar with D-Man? Of course not. D-Bag perhaps is a better name, but D-Man (aka Demolition Man) was a second string Avenger who, quite on purpose, looked like the bastard love child of Daredevil and Wolverine. Why? Because they were both epically more popular than this jobber could ever be and D-Bag’s parents couldn’t be bothered to give a shit either way what he wore outside.
B-Man’s powers consist of the standard mix of uncreative powers that literally every lazy character has – super strength, speed and stamina, but with the added bonus of a mild drug addiction and a heart condition. Because who cares why.
In the books, after working with him on some cockamamie scheme in the past, Captain America invites D-Bag to be the first new Avenger after the old team disbands. Then he promptly blows up in a plane crash. But fear not, because much later he does return, apparently have suffered a mental breakdown and bunking with Eskimos. Avengers, ho!
Two Gun Kid
If there’s one thing modern comics don’t have enough of it’s novelty cowboys. Like, the X-men are cool and all, but wouldn’t Iceman have been way more awesome if, instead of being able to freeze things, he wore a blue cowboy hat and a red neckerchief and his superpowers consisted of no actual superpowers whatsoever, but he was really good with a lasso? No? Huh.
Dr. Druid
There are some fine doctors in the world of comics; Dr. Doom, Dr. Octopus, Dr. Phil, but every so often someone with a PhD from a Caribbean correspondence school sneaks in and makes us all feel bad. In this case, Dr. Druid (not a codename) who is a master of hypnosis and some dime-store magic, serves as the all powerful understudy to Dr. Strange! No really, his job was to be Dr. Strange if Dr. Strange couldn’t handle the job. But he did. So Dr. Druid had no point at all, really. Good for him!
Ulysses Bloodstone
With a name this awesome you’re probably wondering how Uly here got on the list, but don’t call us liars yet. You see, Ulysses is like 10,000 years old thanks to an alien stone embedded in his chest and, as a result of that stone, he has increased speed. And strength. Dexterity. Intelligence. Reflexes. Senses. Healing abilities. Plus he’s immortal. And immune to disease. And he’s rich. And he can speak all languages. And he can use all weapons. And he once invented a wetter kind of water. And he can clap with one hand. And he’s seen all celebrities naked. And he can pee and then just stop mid stream if he wants to. He should have been the Avengers all by himself.
The Whizzer
After graduating from the Superhero Community College of Awesome Names, The Whizzer jumped right into the Avengers with the super unique power of running very fast. Yeah, he’s the Flash. Except the Flash is a DC character, so he’s the Marvel version. Except Quicksilver is the Marvel version. And had been an Avenger for over 10 years before the Whizzer showed up. So he’s just a rerun with a piss name.
Silverclaw
Lest you think there’s no diversity in the Avengers, meet Maria de Guadalupe Santiago, the Avenger with the most Hispanic name Marvel writers could come up with after a 2 hour brainstorming session. Maria may trick you, at first glance, into thinking she doesn’t suck, because he powers are to basically become a werewolf. Thing is it’s not necessarily a wolf that she turns into, it’s various rainforesty animals from her home country of Marvel-Made-Up-A-South-American-Country-Istan. They could have just said she was Columbian, but instead they made her from Costa Verde. Whatever.
Anyway, it still seems like she could have potential – werejaguar, wereanaconda, that’s kind of badass. But then you look at the list of things she’s turned into you and you’ll see the words “cockatoo” and “sloth.”
Now admittedly, a weresloth can do all kinds of things, Renee Zellwegger is remarkably popular, but in the world of superheroes you really need to step it up.
Starfox
Oh, Starfox. So this guy’s real name is Eros and his super power is the ability to stimulate the pleasure centers of your brain. So he’s like a psychic boner. And he was accused in one storyline of being a rapist. Superhero indeed.
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