In a way it’s only fitting that my Top 2 Avengers kind of came to prominence around the same time. Perhaps that because writer Steve Englehart was writing the Avengers in the 70’s, and he was one of the first to pay attention to female characters. Not that they were perfect, in fact my top 2 Avengers are pretty flawed characters both dealing with some major ups and downs over the years. One has been pretty consistently in the limelight took dealt with a rather lengthy absence, before returning in another book with another team. And now, both have made it onto the big screen in the MCU!
#2 – Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)
Joined Avengers #16 (May 1965)
Creators: Stan Lee; Jack Kirby
The Scarlet Witch has been around a long time, debuting as a villain in the X-Men comic book in March, 1964. Like all the women in Marvel superhero comics back then, she was fairly passive and demure, but Wanda did have a temper and some mighty cool, if poorly defined powers to back it up. Just over a year later she was an Avenger, and a lengthy tumultuous year as mostly a heroine, with some tragic and disastrous forays back into villainy lay ahead. Had i been making this list in the 80’s, Wanda would have been in my Top 5, possibly as high as her appearance today, but a couple of decades of misuse saw my interest in the character plummet, and I suspect she wouldn’t have even made the Top 10 until as recently as five or so years ago. After a lengthy period of misuse, Wanda’s star has definitely risen again, and while she still struggles with a bit of a taint from those dark years, writers such as Alan Heinberg and James Robinson have gone a long way to return her to her proper status as an interesting, enjoyable character.
As many who have been around as long as Wanda has, her origin story has been retconned multiple times. When Wanda and her twin brother Pietro were first introduced, they were children of the Romani Django and Marya Maximoff, fleeing from their village because they displayed abilities beyond humankind. Pietro could move at superhuman speeds, and Wanda possessed a mysterious “hex” power that caused unexplained phenomena to manifest where she pointed. They were rescued from a rampaging mob by Magneto, at the time a mutant terrorist, and leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wanda and Pietro were grateful for his aid and pledged to help him for a time. This brought the pair into conflict with the X-Men. After a handful of forays into villainy, Wanda and Pietro grew tired of life under Magneto’s law and fled. When they heard the Avengers were looking for new members, they applied and were accepted along with another former villain, Hawkeye. The three of them were lead by Captain America, and dubbed Cap’s kooky quartet. They were a far cry both in power and temperament from the original team of heavy hitters that included Thor, Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp. Though the team faced a rocky start, Captain America was able to forge them into an effective and loyal team, bringing out the best of them, particularly Wanda and Clint (Hawkeye).
Wanda served with the team for quite a while, until a stray bullet wounded her during a confrontation, and Pietro took his sister from the team to allow her to recover. When Wanda was later kidnapped by an interdimensional ruler named Arkon, Pietro sought the Avengers’ aid. Upon her rescue, Wanda returned to active duty with the Avengers. During her absence, the android, The Vision has joined the team. Almost from the very start, Wanda and the Vision were drawn to each other, as an artificial construct, no one expected a romance to ultimately blossom between the two. That is precisely what happened, as The Vision explored his humanity, he found strong emotions building toward his teammate, and those feelings were returned. The Vision’s feelings first fully manifested themselves during the first Kree-Skrull War and the two started officially dating shortly thereafter. This led to some encounters with hatred and bigotry form those who thought love shared between a mutant and an android was wrong. Unfortunately, that bigotry and resistance was shared by Wanda’s twin brother, Pietro. This caused a fissure between the siblings. Another Avenger who had difficulty coming to terms with their romance was Hawkeye, who harbored his own feelings toward the Scarlet Witch. Another brief threat to their relationship came form the romantic interest of their Avengers ally, Mantis, who briefly pursued the Vision when her own partner, The Swordsman, let her down. Despite these challenges, the two remained true to each other and married.
During this time, Wanda also began to take an interest in studying witchcraft, which she did so under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness. This education gave her greater control over her mutant hex powers as well as limited control over the natural world around her. Wanda and Pietro also met Robert Frank, a World War II hero known as the Whizzer, who believes them to be his children. This was later disproved when Wanda and Pietro were abducted by the man who they believed to be their true father, Django Maximoff, and taken to Wundagore Mountain, home of the High Evolutionary, where the infants were found and raised by Bova, one of the Evolutionary’s Ani-Men, a cow evolved into a human hubrid. Wanda was temporarily possessed by the demon Chthon, and after defeating it with the help of the Avengers, was advised by Bova that neither Frank nor Maximoff was their biological father, and that all she could tell them was their mother was a woman named Magda, who came to Bova from out of a blizzard, about to give birth, fleeing from their father, who she would not name. She fled soon after she gave birth, and Bova gave the infants to Django Maximoff to raise as his own. Soon after, while trying to track down Magda one last time, Magneto learned that he was the father of the twins. He immediately informed them of their relationship, shortly after the birth of Pietro’s and his wife Crystal’s daughter, Luna. The Scarlet Witch and the Vision decided to take a leave of absence from the Avengers to focus on their family, setting up a suburban home in 
New Jersey. During a conflict involving a great deal of mystical foe, Wanda seizes control of the magical energy and using it, conceived twin boys eventually named Thomas and William. Using magic was the only way Wanda and the Vision could bear children, and for a time, the pair are happy parents. Their idyllic suburban life didn’t last too long before called back to service, this time with the West Coast Avengers.
Before I go into the next segment of The Scarlet Witch’s background, let me just say that Wand and Vision were two of my favorite characters in comics. I loved their development and their ongoing appearances, and especially their relationship. It makes the next phase in both of their lives particularly painful, and sadly, for me disappointing as it has become largely the defining moments for their characters even to today. When John Byrne took over the writing duties for the West Coast Avengers I believe he didn’t really like Wanda and Vision’s relationship, or thought it was boring, and I read interviews where he clearly state that he didn’t like the idea of Wanda having kids via magic. As writer, he decided to do something about it.
Byrne started by having the Vision dismantled, his memory wiped, and the brain patterns of Simon Williams (Wonder Man), which originally allowed him to develop emotions, removed from his system. Not only did this pretty much irrevocably destroy the Vision that we all knew and loved, it was tantamount to murdering Wanda’s husband, only worse, because his body was still walking around, it also tarnished Mockingbird’s character, as it was through her that the government organization gained access to the Vision, and Simon’s as well, because he refused to allow his brain patterns to be loaded back into the Vision to restore his emotional capability. To complicate matters (and make me start to dislike Simon, who, up this this point, I quite enjoyed) it was revealed that Simon had feelings for Wanda, so rather than restore his “brother,” he selfishly stood in the way of his restoration. As one might expect, this put Wanda in a fragile state.
Byrne’s next blow was to go after Wanda’s children. Agatha Harkness noticed that whenever Wanda was preoccupied, her children seemed to vanish. Turns out that in order to create her twins, Simon and William, Wanda in inadvertently used missing shards of the the demon Master Pandemonium’s soul. The twins were destroyed when they were absorbed back into Master Pandemonium. Agatha Harkness temporarily erased Wanda’s memories of her children from her mind in the process of disrupting Master Pandemonium’s physical form, and to keep the terrible burden of what had happened form sending Wanda over the edge.. It was ultimately revealed that Immortus masterminded both of those events, as he sought to tap into the temporal nexus energy the Wanda was revealed to possessed. The Avengers ultimately rescued Wanda, who regained her memories of her children in the process. Wanda seemingly recovered from these twin devastating losses, that of her husband, and her children, and after trying to reach the Vision and be continually rebuffed, began a relationship with Wonder Man. She also threw herself into her work, and when Avengers West Coast disbanded, she formed and led a new team called Forces Works. This team didn’t last too long, and during its first adventure, Simon is presumably killed, another loss for Wanda. Wanda and Hawkeye decided at that point to return to the main Avengers team.
After rejoining the Avengers, the Scarlet Witch was kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan le Fay, with the intention of using Wanda’s powers to warp reality into Morgan’s image. Wanda temporarily resurrected Wonder Man in the form of an ionic cloud of energy, and the Vision was damaged in the final battle with Le Fay. Agatha Harkness informed her that she was now able to channel chaos magic, which made her more powerful. Wanda was able to fully resurrect Wonder Man, and the two briefly became lovers. The Vision was eventually repaired and—after Wonder Man broke-up with Wanda—they resumed their relationship. Enter Brian Michael Bendis, the writer who picked up the threads started by John Byrne and completely destroyed the Scarlet Witch (and the Avengers for a lengthy period of time).
Wanda overheard the Wasp mock her ambitions for motherhood, only to find herself once again missing her memories of ever having had children. Scarlet Witch sought the help of Doctor Doom to see if he could restore her children to life. To do so, they summoned a mysterious cosmic entity which instead, merged with her and influenced her to launch a campaign of terror against the Avengers. The Vision is destroyed, Agatha Harkness and Hawkeye are killed, and Ant-Man (Scott Lang) was also apparently killed (it was later revealed that he was actually saved by Wanda’s future self, who teleported him to the future in a manner that made it appear he’d been killed). Wanda was finally defeated by the Avengers and Dr. Strange, and Magneto, took her to Professor Xavier to see if he could restore her sanity. Realizing that the Avengers and the X-Men were seriously contemplating killing his sister due to her unstable powers, Quicksilver convinced Wanda to take desperate action to keep this from happening: By using her powers, Wanda warped reality into the House of M, a world where mutants were the majority, humans the minority, and Magneto the ruler With the help of a young mutant, Layla Miller, Wolverine and a resurrected Hawkeye, Earth’s heroes were gathered together and their memories restored. It was also revealed that it was Quicksilver who convinced Wanda to warp reality. Upon learning of this, Magneto murdered Quicksilver in a rage. Wanda resurrected him and in retaliation, uttered the words, “No more mutants,” thus changing the world back to its original form but also causing the mass de-powering of 90% of the entire mutant population including Magneto and Quicksilver, thus being responsible for many deaths.
After the fallout, the resurrected Hawkeye tracked Wanda to a small village near Wundagore Mountain. Wanda was living in a small apartment with her only relative, her “Aunt Agatha” (who was never seen, but could possibly have been a manifestation of Wanda’s now-dead mentor Agatha Harkness.) She appeared to be powerless and believed that she had lived her entire life in the village. She did not recognize Hawkeye, nor did she remember her life with the Avengers or other events. The mutant Beast later found Wanda at the same village and sought her help to deal with the aftermath of M-Day. She had no memory of him either, and claimed that she did not believe in magic.
Wiccan and Speed two members of the Young Avengers, thought themselves to be reincarnations of the lost children of Scarlet Witch, and also tried to locate her. Magneto, Quicksilver (whose powers had been restored) and the Avengers searched for her as well. She was ultimately found in Latveria, amnesic and engaged to Doctor Doom. TheYoung Avenger Iron Lad rescued the team and Wanda by teleporting them into the past, where Wanda regained her memory. When the group returned to the present, Scarlet Witch was suicidal, realizing all the horror she had caused. Wiccan then told her that her father and brother were alive, as were many of the people she had thought she’d killed, and that he was her reincarnated son. Realizing that her sons were alive Wanda met with X-Factor and re-powered Rictor, planning to restore powers of all de-powered mutants who wanted it, but she needed more power. She returned to Dr. Doom, seeking his help to undo the spell that erased mutant powers, but Doom managed to steal her reality-warping power for himself. During the ensuing struggle, Wanda and Wiccan were able steal his newfound powers. Subsequently, the X-Men agreed to leave her be, Magneto and Quicksilver both wished to spend time with her as a family and Captain America offered her a spot in the Avengers but Wanda declined them all saying she needed solitude.
Some time later, after defeating both M.O.D.O.K. and A.I.M. with the help of Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman, she was invited to Avengers Mansion. Despite both heroines pleading her case, the Vision angrily snapped at Wanda, blaming her again for having manipulated and killed him, and telling her to leave. Respecting the Vision’s wishes, she left again but began to have visions of the Phoenix Force and a future in which the Phoenix killed the original Avengers. Believing the Mutant Messiah, Hope Summers, to be the key to defeating the Phoenix Five, the Avengers launched an operation to extract Hope from Utopia. They are nearly defeated by a Phoenix force-empowered Cylops, but Scarlet Witch arrived and saves them. Wanda convinced Hope to go with the Avengers, as Cyclops vowed that he would no longer tolerate the Avengers. Hope revealed that Wanda was the only Avenger the X-Men feared and respected. Ultimately, Cyclops was transformed into Dark Phoenix. The Dark Phoenix began to burn the world so Wanda and Hope decided to join forces in order to stop him. Together, they managed to take him down. The Phoenix escaped Cyclops’s body and entered Hope’s. Hope used its power to reverse the damage and destruction caused by Dark Phoenix and restored the mutant population. Then, as Wanda had once used her powers to wish away mutants by uttering the words, “No more mutants,” Wanda and Hope joined their powers and wished, “No more Phoenix.” It is unknown if Phoenix was destroyed or merely banished from the Earth by the spell.
Following the war, Captain America selected the Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers Unity Squad, a new team of Avengers composed of both Avengers and X-Men. After that, she asked her close friends Janet Van Dyne and Wonder Man to join and sponsor the new team. In a conflict with Rogue, who still blamed her for the death of hundreds of mutants, she met her apparent death at the hands of her teammate, who had absorbed Wolverine’s powers. This death is eventually undone when the surviving Unity Squad were projected back in time, having learned that Rogue was manipulated by the Apocalypse Twins into killing Wanda, allowing the Avengers to band together and defeat an approaching Celestial. During a later struggle with the Red Skull Wanda worked with Doctor Strange to cast a spell of moral inversion to draw out the part of Xavier in the Red Skull and put him in control of the body, but this spell backfires when Doctor Doom is forced to take Strange’s place, resulting in the moral inversion of all heroes and villains in the vicinity. When Quicksilver and Magneto try to talk the inverted Wanda down, Wanda attacked them with a curse designed to punish her blood, but only Quicksilver reacts and Wanda discovered that Magneto was not their father. The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are later transported to Counter-Earth. After being tracked down and defeated by Luminous (a woman who was created by the genetic material of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver), Wanda and Pietro were brought to the High Evolutionary. He revealed to them that Django and Marya Maximoff were their true parents—implying that the twins are actually the lost Ana and Mateo Maximoff—and that they were not mutants but had been experimented on by the High Evolutionary.
Seeking to find her place after all the revelations of her true past, Wanda finds herself working with the ghost of Agatha Harkness to investigate recent disruptions in magic, and briefly meets the spirit of her biological mother, Natalya Maximoff (Django Maximoff’s sister), who was apparently the Scarlet Witch before Wanda. Wanda’s search for answers led her to Serbia where a priest revealed that Natalya, seeking to spare her children of her difficult life as a witch, gave baby Wanda and Pietro to her relatives, Marya and Django Maximoff. When the town came under attack by the High Evolutionary the priest told him the location of the twins, whom he proceeded to experiment on. Upon discovering this, Natalya pursued the High Evolutionary to Transia and died fighting to rescue her children. Touched by her sacrifice, the High Evolutionary returned Wanda and Pietro to Django and Marya to raise after he had concluded his experiments. Wanda learned that Marya was still alive, and was finally able to thank her aunt for looking after her and her brother when they were younger though she questioned why she and Django never told them the truth about Natalya being their real mother. Marya also reveals that, like her mother, Wanda’s grandfather was the Scarlet Warlock. Wanda finally discovers that a manifestation of Chaos is responsible for destroying witchcraft and, joining forces with the spirits of Natalya and Agatha, were able to weaken it enough for Quicksilver (whom Natalya summoned at the last moment) to destroy it. The toll on Natalya’s was too great, however, but before vanished, she revealed 
that it was not the High Evolutionary who killed her, but Wanda and Pietro’s father. After this, Wanda re-dedicated herself to being an Avenger, declaring that while she has fixed witchcraft, she still must work on herself but that she is ready to do so alongside her teammates.
This was a great recent step for the character, but unfortunately recent events saw her backslide a bit as a result, again, from past stories. Wanda traveled to Genosha where the hundreds of mutants who died as a result of her depowering spell, were buried. Against the advice of Dr. Strange, she sought atonement by resurrecting the fallen mutants. This backfired horribly as the mutants did regain life, but as the undead. Dr. Strange was able to counteract the spell, giving the dead mutants rest, but it’s just another example of how Wanda is now defined by this horrible piece of her history written by Brian Michael Bendis, and even when writers try to advance her past this black mark (such as Alan Heinberg in The Children’s Crusade, or James Robinson, in The Scarlet Witch’s first ever solo series) lazy writers will just fall back on the story that unfortunately continues to define her.
When the Scarlet Witch was first created by Lee and Kirby, her powers were not well defined. She had “hex powers”, that could cause random and unlikely events to take place. Despite the character’s name, she possessed mutant power, and not because of actual witchcraft. Later writers gave her an increased control over her power, so that she could cause specific events and not just random ones. Steve Englehart also made the character explore witchcraft under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, a trait that was kept by later writers. The effects of her powers are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents. Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension’s mystical energy. Writer Kurt Busiek redefined Scarlet 
Witch’s powers and maintained that it was, in fact, an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. Her powers were retconned by Bendis in hist story, Avengers Disassembled, removing chaos magic and turning them into reality warping. In House of M, this new power was enough to change the whole universe. Her powers were returned back to their previous ones in The Children’s Crusade, and the previous events attributed to an outside force that had temporarily increased them. In the 2016 Scarlet Witch comic series by James Robinson, it is confirmed that Wanda was born with the ability to utilize witchcraft and that this has been seen in other women within her family; Wanda also believes that The High Evolutionary genetically altered her, making her more receptive to magical energy.
The Scarlet Witch was a big favorite of mine as a teenager, through the 70’s, and 80’s before it all came crashing down and her character went through a rough time. Comics being cyclical they way they are, I was sure Wanda would get rehabilitiated at some point, and sure enough, she did, just in the past 10 years. Sadly, she and the Vision seem to have parted ways permanently, but they remain friends. At least she’s shaken off Simon Williams as well, now embarking on a relationship with Brother Voodoo, which is kind of nice. Marvel doesn’t have a lot of mystic characters, so Wanda is pretty much assured a place in the universe. Plus, with the MCU version of the Scarlet Witch gaining popularity, and about to star in WandaVision, a Disney+ series, things could be looking up for our scarlet sorceress. I am a little concerned, because the TV series looks to pick up with Wanda’s mental illness and reality warping powers, two hallmarks of my least favorite tenure of the character. Still TV isn’t comics, and it could make for some really interesting drama.
#2 – Mantis (Given name unknown; surname Brandt)
Joined Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975); Associate in Avengers #114 (August 1973)
Creators: Steve Englehart; Don Heck
Mantis is one of Marvel’s more curious characters, created in the 70’s by Steve Englehart, and central to the cosmic epic, The Celestial Madonna. Mantis was a bit of a pet character for Englehart, and for a time, he was the only writer who used her, taking her from title to title, even comic book company to comic book company in thinly veiled disguises, implying the character could travel between realities. Except for one poorly written appearance with the Avengers in the 90’s written by Bob Harras (The Crossing – widely agreed upon to be the worst Avengers storyline ever written) where Mantis returned as a villain, and retconned out of existence years later, Mantis remained pretty under the radar until her reappearance in the 2007 miniseries Annhilation: Conquest which led to a reappearance as a recurring character in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Mantis can trace her roots back to the family of Vietnamese crime lord Monsieur Khruul. She was the daughter of Khruul’s sister, Lua, who married the German mercenary Gustav Brandt. Khruul did not approve of the nuptials and pursued the couple before killing Lua, blinding Gustav, and burning down their house. However, Lua had born a daughter, and the now visually-impaired Gustav fled with her into the jungle. Gustav and his infant daughter found sanctuary in the temple of the Priests of Pama, renegade pacifist members of the alien Kree race who were caretakers of the Cotati, a telepathic race of sentient plants. The Priests granted Brandt psychic sight, but removed his daughter from his side, afraid she’d be influenced by his violent nature as she grew. Gustav ended up leaving the Temple and joining the crime cartel Zodiac as Libra. Believing Mantis might grow to be the Celestial Madonna and give birth to the genetically perfect union of human and Cotati, the Celestial Messiah, the Priests of Pama trained her in martial arts, which she mastered, and gave her the name “Mantis” in recognition of her skill in defeating male opponents. They also taught her telepathic communication with the Cotati which gave her empathic abilities. On her 18th birthday, the Priests removed Mantis’s memories, implanted false memories of an orphaned, impoverished life in Ho Chi Minh City, and sent her to experience life among normal humans.
The Shao-Lom monks of Saturn’s moon Titan, whose teachings also stemmed from the pacifist Kree’s beliefs, mentored another possible Celestial Madonna: Earth-born orphan Heather Douglas, later known as Moondragon. But her sheltered life denied her insight into human existence and made her a less-rounded candidate when the time came for the Cotati to choose.
Mantis became associated with the Avengers after helping the ex-villain called Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) turn his life around. Duquesne had been a mercenary working for her uncle, Monsieur Khruul, who had unwittingly hired Mantis as a bar girl, not knowing she was his niece. Sensing a spark of nobility in the Swordsman and seeking a better life, Mantis romanced and rehabilitated Duquesne, convincing him to return to America and rejoin the Avengers. Both were accepted to the team and proved to be valuable members, though Mantis was mistrusted at first. This was because she pretended to side with their enemy the Lion God, single-handedly taking down both Thor Odinson and Captain America (Steve Rogers) as part of her successful plan to help the Avengers defeat him. Still, her abilities served the Avengers well; she aided the team during the Avengers-Defenders War masterminded by Loki and Dormammu, and against other foes such as the Collector, Klaw, Ultron and Zodiac. Her empathic abilities helped save the universe when she deduced how Captain Mar-Vell could defeat the Cosmic Cube-empowered Thanos, Death’s would-be paramour.
Once she was a part of the Avengers, Mantis developed feelings for the Vision, attracted by his analytical mind and nobility. This caused friction between Mantis and Scarlet Witch, who was involved with the Vision romantically. Mantis was abducted by Kang the Conqueror alongside the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness, in his attempt to learn who would be the Celestial Madonna; Kang believed that he would sire the Celestial Messiah. She was revealed as the Celestial Madonna and witnessed the death of the Swordsman at the hands of Kang, only realizing the depth of her love for the Swordsman just as he dies, and regretting her romantic overtures toward the Vision. After burying the Swordsman, at the temple of the Priests of Pama in Vietnam and battling the Titanic Three, she would learn the origins of the Kree-Skrull War, the Cotati, and the Priests of Pama. Mantis then formally joins the Avengers and is revealed to be, indeed, the Celestial Madonna. She ended up marrying a Cotati who took the form of the dead Swordsman, and, after their wedding, she left Earth in the form of pure energy, the same day of Vision and Scarlet Witch’s wedding . Merged with the Cotati’s essence, Mantis gained Cotati physical and mental abilities in addition to her own, and began to evolve into “the essence of life,” a change that physically manifested as a greenish hue in her skin.
After she bears her child Sequoia, she takes the name “Mandy Celestine” and lives with him for a year in Willimantic, Connecticut before handing him to his father’s people and going into space. In a search for enlightenment, Mantis traveled the galaxy, but only found violence and madness, which was often caused by the Mad Titan Thanos. She joined up with the Silver Surfer and traveled with him as he fought the Elders of the Universe, bonding romantically with him. When the Gardener attacked her using the Soul Gem, she barely escaped and transferred her essence across space to Shalla-Bal, the Surfer’s former lover on his home world of Zenn-La. The Elders subsequently captured both women and tried to destroy them, but Mantis sacrificed herself, allowing the Surfer to rescue Shalla-Bal. The power of the Elders’ Infinity Gems proved too much for Mantis, who could not fully reconstruct herself, and fragments of her essence formed several “shadow” Mantises, each unaware of the others and believing themselves to be the true Mantis. Some faded out of existence while others helped save the world—like an amnesiac green-skinned Mantis who awoke on Earth and aided the Avengers against the Voice and the High Evolutionary.
Aside from mentions by Silver Surfer, Mantis does not reappear for several years until 1995’s controversial Avengers crossover story “The Crossing”. In “The Crossing”, Mantis returns as the villainous bride of Kang the Conqueror with the intention of bringing death to the Avengers; her father Libra; and the Cotati alien who had possessed the Swordsman’s body and married/impregnated her. Her anger at her father (whom she had vivisected) and the Cotati center around their “defilement” of her and that she hates the Avengers for believing their manipulative lies. The storyline was so poorly executed and controversial that Kurt Busiek, in Avengers Forever limited series, retconned the Mantis who appeared in the story as being a Space Phantom brainwashed into thinking he was Mantis.
Eventually the one true Mantis returned and began to recover as her scattered essence coalesced on Earth into five forms, each reflecting an aspect of her personality: mother, lover, freak, mystic, and Avenger. Fearing Mantis (the Celestial Madonna) and her son (the Celestial Messiah) were a threat to him, Thanos pursued her “fragments” and Sequoia across time and space. He succeeded in destroying several of Mantis’s fragments, unknowingly hastening the reformation of the true Mantis, who was reborn as “the goddess of life.” Thus reformed, she and a group of the Avengers go into space to stop Thanos from killing her son, Quoi, who by this time is a rebellious teenager desperate to leave the isolation of the Cotati home-world and travel the stars. During the adventure, Mantis flirts with Vision (with the implication that she has sex with him), but ultimately ends the flirting when she realizes that he has feelings for his estranged wife Scarlet Witch, who is jealous of Mantis and Vision’s friendship.
Mantis returned to Earth, where her powers enabled her to sense the impending threat of the Annihilation Wave. She voyaged into space and allowed herself to be captured by the Kree as part of her plan to join Peter Quill’s Guardians of the Galaxy following the defeat of the Phalanx’s transmode virus. Quill and his allies thought that Mantis was slightly unhinged, not believing her story about being the Celestial Madonna, but she did help them defeat Ultron and the Phalanx, after which she took up residence on the Knowhere station with the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy. She has assumed the role of counselor for the group, using her knowledge of the mind to maintain a balance with all the very eclectic personalities of the group. It was later discovered that Star-Lord had Mantis use her mental powers to manipulate the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy to join the team against their will. Overhearing Mantis and Star-Lord converse about their deception, Drax shared this knowledge with the rest of the team. This caused most of the members to leave. Mantis was promoted to field status by Rocket Raccoon.
Mantis was apparently killed by the Magus, who, upon anticipating that she would use her mental powers to incapacitate him, struck her and her fellow psionic Cosmo dead with a powerful blast of energy. However, it was revealed that she, along with fellow Guardians Phyla-Vell, Cosmo, Gamora and Major Victory were still alive, but being held prisoner in suspended animation by the Magus. She reunited with the other team of Guardians, telling Moondragon that Phyla-Vell was the first one killed by Thanos’ rampage.
Mantis settled into a serene civilian life on the planet Rigel-7 but later rescued Peter Quill from a group of pursuing Spartax soldiers when he sought her out to gain her counsel. Though she refused to join his new incarnation of the Guardians, she helped him track down the source of mysterious “time quakes” that had been plaguing him.
Most recently, Mantis returned to Earth upon being contacted by Black Panther about the Cotati invasion and planned to reason with her son, who under the influence of his father, became corrupted and intended to end all animal life in the galaxy. Mantis waged a mental battle with her son, but was unable to sway him from his path. She also helped the Thing and the Invisible Woman battle the She-Hulk when she was taken over by the Cotati.
Mantis was trained by the Priests of Pama to become a grandmistress of the martial arts She has only lost in hand to hand martial arts combat to Moondragon, and her father Libra. When it comes to her full range of powers, Mantis has complete control over her body. This gives her peak human agility, the ability to accelerate healing through force of will, and sense the emotions of others as psychic vibrations. She can also control her heart and respiratory rate as well as blood flow. She was able to perform an elaborate dance that hypnotized the Lion God, and is able to slip free of most bonds, and to slither and contort into impossibly tight spaces without breaking stride. Her mastery of the Priests’ martial arts, which focuses on the manipulation of nerve endings and pressure points, has enabled her to knock out beings as powerful as Thor. Her blows can shatter hardened steel without apparent effort. Mantis has engaged Captain America on equal footing, and was clearly superior to the version of Midnight (M’Nai) summoned to serve among the Legion of the Unliving. She could also reliably hit Quicksilver despite his speed. She has been shown sprinting at speeds that seem slightly superhuman – perhaps 50 km/h. Mantis has two slim antennae growing from her head that amplify her telepathic and empathic abilities. She is highly intelligent, with superior deductive abilities and an excellent intuition. Mantis is highly intelligent, with her deductive skills rivaling that of Vision’s; in Vision’s own words, she has a “remarkable mind”.
Mantis also possesses a limited knowledge of the occult, allowing her to sense magical presences around her, conduct simple rituals, know basic information about thaumaturgic manifestations and entities, etc. By meditating upon nearby magical energies, Mantis can gather basic information about it. Such as the caster’s identity and the spell’s general nature and purpose. Mantis also has a form of mystical awareness, warning her of cosmic occurrences and mounting malevolent mystical machinations. But these flashes of insight are rare and random. Mantis is able to make her body vibrate slightly out of synch with the universe, to exist as a ghost in a nearby dimension. In this form she can talk and perceive, but is immaterial.
Mantis gained additional abilities as a result of communion with the Prime Cotati. Her empathic ability enabled her to communicate with the plant-like Cotati and with other plant life. To travel in space, Mantis had the ability to separate her physical and astral forms, projecting her consciousness from her body, allowing her to travel interplanetary distances. She also had the ability to transfer her astral form to any place where plant life exists. She could form and inhabit a plant like simulacrum of her human body for herself out of the destination planet’s local vegetation. Her fighting skills remained intact, and her empathic abilities were heightened to a superhuman degree and extended to the planet’s flora and biosphere. She could control the vegetation within her vicinity.
During her confrontations with a powerful Thanos clone, she displayed superhuman strength, a talent to simultaneously inhabit multiple simulacra, and the ability to project strong blasts of energy, but has not been seen using these powers since. As of her appearance in Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord, Mantis also appears to have gained telepathic and precognitive abilities, and now labors under a constant awareness of future events. The source of these new powers is as yet unclear. Other powers displayed or referred to during the series were pyrokinesis, mid-range mentat training, and invisibility to the Phalanx.
In her first appearances, Mantis represents the “Dragon Lady” archetype, that of a mysterious Eastern seductress whose sexuality causes tension among the male Avengers. It was frankly, a fairly racist interpretation of the character, but she just fascinated me. She is assertive and confident in her powers, and while she appeared somewhat arrogant at first (as illustrated by her breakup with Swordsman when she chose Vision over him), she renounced her pride after Swordsman’s tragic death. She almost always refers to herself in the third person as “this one”, “she”, and occasionally “Mantis”, which has to do with her upbringing at the Temple of the Priests of Pama. This speech mannerism is of importance for her, for when the Silver Surfer asked her to stop speaking in the third person, she refused to comply. After decades of intermittent appearances under the pen of Steve Englehart, I was very nervous about her transition to the Guardians of the Galaxy, under Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, fearing she would be used as a joke, and while she was a source of humor, Mantis flourished while with the Guardians. I particularly enjoyed her closeness with Groot, and the fact that her inherent mystery continued on beyond the Avengers. The Celestial Madonna story, and Mantis’ time with the team is one of the high points from my comic book past, and insures her a spot in my Avengers Top 10, but her subsequent development with the Guardians give her the added boost to #1! And I have to say, never in my wildest imagination did I think i would ever see Mantis on big screen! Too bad that character is quite a bit different than the one in comics.
#5 – Spectrum (Monica Rambeau)
Due to her keen, strategic intelligence, and her incredible powers, Captain Marvel was a great asset to the team. She quickly developed a small rogue’s gallery, including Moonstone, Blackout (whose powers were very effective against her), and Nebula, who trapped Captain Marvel in space, separated from the Avengers for an extended period of time. As a member of the team she helped to defeat such foes as the Beyonder, Kang the Conqueror, Attuma, Grandmaster, Nebula, and the Master of Evil. Monica later replaced the Wasp as leader of the Avengers, commanding them in battles against the X-Men, the Olympian Gods, and the Super-Adaptoid. Despite her relative inexperience, she proved to be a very effective leader. She spent a lot of time refereeing squabbles between Hercules and the Sub Mariner, and dealing with the duplicitous telepath Dr. Druid, who sought to supplant her as Avengers chairman and undermined her authority at every opportunity. When honorary Avengers member and wife of the Sub Mariner, Marrina, transformed into the gigantic sea monster Leviathan, Captain Marvel led the hunt for the creature. During the battle that followed, Rambeau transformed herself into a massive bolt of lightning to try and stop the beast. She made contact with the water and accidentally conducted herself across the surface of the ocean, dispersing her atoms so widely that she barely regained physical form. She reformed as a frail, withered husk of a woman devoid of super-powers.
Monica was known as Captain Marvel for most of her Avengers career; however, she agreed to change her alias to Photon, conceding the Captain Marvel title to Genis-Vell, the son of the original Captain Marvel, out of respect for her predecessor. After the return of the main Avengers from the pocket universe created by Franklin Richards, almost all the current and former Avengers members were trapped in a curse created by Morgan Le Fay where they served her as soldiers in a guard called Queen’s Vengeance. Due to her strong loyalty to the team Monica was one of the first Avengers to recover their will and rebel against the sorceress. For a time, Monica’s mother intercepted her Avengers calls out of fear for her daughter’s safety. After discovering this deception, Monica led an unofficial force of Avengers against the ‘Infinites’, who planned on relocating the galaxy. Photon continued to have sporadic appearances during major events, usually as part of a cosmic team of Avengers due to her effectiveness in outer space. She helped the team in their deep-space monitoring station with Quasar and Living Lightning, was called into action when Kang successfully conquered North America (supporting her friend Janet van Dyne and advising the new recruit Triathlon on his current issues as the newest member of the team), and when the Scarlet Witch suffered a nervous breakdown and attacked the Avengers. Monica was recruited by the Black Panther to fend off a vampire outbreak in post-Katrina New Orleans, as part of an all-black team-up. Monica was later angered upon learning that Genis-Vell had changed his name again, this time to Photon upon acquiring new powers. After a talk with him, she contemplated using the new alias of Pulsar.
Monica next appeared with a new, gruffer attitude (perhaps at having to concede her name to others so often) as leader for Nextwave, part of the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort (H.A.T.E.), against Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction created by the Beyond Corporation© where she avoided using a code name altogether and changed her look. During the Superhero Civil War, Rambeau was a member of Captain America’s Secret Avengers, but also registered as a member of the Avengers Initiative. Monica spent time in New York City with her friends Black Cat, Hellcat, and Firestar to support Firestar during a bout with cancer. 
When the Greek goddess of the night Nyx and her children returned and massacred their fellow Olympians, Spectrum was one of several heroes assembled by Voyager to stop this new threat before she could reclaim her godhood and remake the universe in her image. One of Monica’s companions in this journey was the android Vision, whose body was malfunctioning, due to Nyx’s return causing the Sun to blackout. Monica used her powers to provide Vision a source of energy. The end of this adventure took the heroes to the entry point to the House of Ideas, a plane of existence and the core of all of reality. Monica burned out most of her power helping Vision reach inside the House of Ideas, becoming the only hero capable to follow Nyx inside and stop her. Due to this exertion, Monica returned to her previous power levels, becoming human again. She most recently served with the team Strikeforce to combat mystical threats alongside Angela, Blade, Daimon Hellstorm, Spider-Woman, Wiccan, and Winter Soldier. 
#4 – Jocasta
Jocasta continued to reside at Avengers Mansion for a time. Due to their similar backgrounds, she developed feelings for the Vision, who was happily married to the Scarlet Witch and did not return Jocasta’s feelings. Jocasta proved particularly helpful in the Avengers’ first confrontation with the villainous mercenary Taskmaster displaying surprising wit and strategy, stemming from her Wasp-based personality. Jocasta was then granted provisional status with the team. During this period, she aided them against threats such as the giant robot Red Ronin (where she proved to be a great comedic foil for The Beast), the Yellow Claw, the Berserker, Pyron, and the second incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Despite this, Jocasta did not believe she was accepted by most of the Avengers, and she was never officially inducted into the team. After she singlehandedly defeated a rogue sentient weather satellite, she left the Avengers following a membership reorganization. She was unaware that they had planned to grant her special substitute member status, which allowed her to remain with the team despite limits imposed on the team’s membership roster. 
Jocasta’s robotic head was later retrieved by the Avengers. They gave it to Machine Man who had been working on a way to resurrect her. During a conflict with the alien Terminus, the arms dealer Madame Menace became involved and appropriated Jocasta’s head, for her own purposes. Madame Menace manipulated events causing Tony Stark to unlock Jocasta’s programming so that she would become the basis for Madame Menace’s new weapons systems. Stark soon realized the android’s identity, helped Jocasta to awaken, and Jocasta managed to turn the tables on Madame Menace, seemingly sacrificing herself yet again. In reality, Jocasta managed to survive by downloading her intelligence into Iron Man’s computerized armor, where she reasserted herself. Jocasta’s intelligence was placed within Stark’s computerized mansion, and she helped Tony with daily operation of Avengers Mansion as well as to procure information as needed. Having been programmed with the latest in diagnostic, preventative medical and surgical techniques, Jocasta also spent time serving as Stark’s physician/psychologist, providing Tony with someone that could talk to about problems and who could examine the latest injuries without risking Iron Man’s secret identity being compromised.
Since the Iron Man armor was used to house the programming that made up Jocasta, it became infected with the pre-programmed subconscious suggestion to rebuild Ultron, but instead managed to develop its own artificial intelligence. After being deactivated during a confrontation with Stark, the armor was revived, by the Sons of Yinsen. Free of its artificial intelligence, the armor was contacted via remote by Ultron’s disembodied head after the android’s most recent encounter with the Avengers and in the company of the bio-synthetic robot Antigone. Ultron’s head attached itself onto the armor and took control of the Sons of Yinsen and the flying city that they inhabited. Stark confronted Ultron directly and managed to download Jocasta’s intelligence into the armor once more. The vestiges of the armor’s intelligence battled with the presence of Jocasta, the result of which caused Ultron’s head to come shooting off the armor. The head hit Antigone, and both fell off the floating city, which Ultron rigged to explode after the defeat. Stark failed to find a trace of Jocasta and assumed her to have died fighting the sentient armor. In reality, Jocasta did not die. She appeared in possession of Antigone’s body and left, taking Ultron’s head with her.
Jocasta would later appear with her classic silver robotic form rebuilt and reunited with Machine Man to battle an infestation of zombies. She then became a member of the New Mexico Fifty State Initiative superhero team known as the Mavericks after which she joined the Mighty Avengers along with the new Wasp (Henry Pym). During this time, Edwin Jarvis witnessed Jocasta kissing Pym. When Jarvis brought up the subject, stating it was akin to kissing her “grandfather”, Jocasta countered by saying that, since Pym was the creator of modern artificial intelligence, the act was more along the lines of “kissing God”. Pym created a special machine that allowed Jocasta to transfer her consciousness into multiple different robotic bodies. Unbeknownst to the Avengers, one of those bodies was later infected by Ultron, who managed to reconstruct himself using the majority of Jocasta’s duplicate bodies. Eventually the real Jocasta managed to broker a deal with Ultron: he could finally marry her in exchange for a cease to hostilities. After the two androids completed their cyber-marriage, Pym tricked Ultron into going to an uninhabited planet where he could not harm anyone. Though Jocasta’s main body went with Ultron, she projected her consciousness onto one of her duplicates and remained with the Avengers. Jocasta most recently served on staff at the Avengers Academy.
When Tony Stark refashioned his company into Stark Unlimited, he sought Jocasta’s help to establish an ethical protocol for robotic life forms, and she became the company’s chief robot ethicist. Jocasta wished to belong among the humans but struggled to fit in. Because of this, she helped Stark Unlimited develop a virtual universe called the eScape. This caused a rift between Jocasta and Machine Man, since he had become a militant of mecha-activism, and considered eScape an appropriation of robo-culture. The supervillain Controller facilitated Machine Man access into the eScape, but his sabotage attempt was stopped. Jocasta broke up with him and moved to Stark Unlimited afterwards. By the time eScape launched as a consumer product, Jocasta made heavy use of the virtual world to experience living life as a human. Fueled by this desire, Jocasta sought the help of Tony’s brother Arno to upgrade her body with more human-like artificial organs. Unbeknownst to Jocasta, her new yearning influenced Ultron through the bond they shared, giving shape to his new objective to turn humanity into machine hybrids in a similar way he had been physically merged with his creator Hank Pym. The villain kidnapped Jocasta in the middle of Arno’s procedure, and intended to use a molecular fusion process to merge her with Wasp. Iron Man intervened with the help of Machine Man, and Ultron was eventually defeated. In the process, Jocasta’s system started failing since her body had been abducted midway into Arno’s operation. To save her life, Jocasta’s former co-worker Andy Bhang uploaded her mind into the disused body that belonged to Friday. This body was severely damaged in battle against Ultron, and Jocasta was taken for repair by Arno after he seized control of Stark Unlimited, but he denied her allies access to her.
Jocasta’s body is composed of titanium steel with remarkable superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and reflexes, which can withstand most physical and energy attacks. Being a “non-living” construct, she requires no food, water, or oxygen to survive and thus is also immune to poisons and diseases and can easily survive in the vacuum of space and underwater. She is able to project beams of electromagnetic energy from her eyes, and erect a force field around herself to protect her from incoming attacks. She also possesses a heightened sense of sight, smell, and hearing. Jocasta can also perceive electromagnetic particles, and detect energy patterns and track them to their source. She is hyper-intelligent, with a capacity for unlimited self-motivated activity, creative intelligence, and human-like emotions. Jocasta can communicate through an incalculable number of media. She possesses superhuman cybernetic analytical capabilities and has the ability to make calculations with superhuman speed and accuracy. Recently, it has been revealed that Jocasta’s internal circuitry has a built-in holographic image inducer, allowing her to disguise herself as a human being. Jocasta, besides sharing the same brain patterns with van Dyne, also has her mental template’s voice.
#3 – Firebird (Bonita Juárez)
Eventually, she reappeared after a spiritual journey where she took on the identity of La Espirita and arrived in the nick of time to stop Hank Pym’s suicide attempt. With the help of La Espirita, Hank re-invented himself as the adventurer Doctor Pym, and he was able to move on (at least temporarily) from his past troubles. The rest of the West Coast Avengers, however, had been lost in time. Together, La Espirita and Pym found the time-lost Avengers’ message and helped rescue them and defeat the villainous alien computer, Dominus. Despite sharing a brief romance with Hank, La Espirita did not stay with the Avengers long, but parted with them in good company and accepted their membership offer, serving as a reserve Avenger after that. During one of their adventures, Bonita discovered that she was seemingly immortal, when all of the Avengers died except for her, due to being poisoned by the Collector, an Elder of the Universe. This furthered Bonita’s belief that she had been blessed by God. Bonita was later captured by al alien race from the planet Rus, who revealed to her that the flaming fireball that gave her powers was merely an alien child’s discarded experiment. Briefly engaging a crisis of faith, Bonita nonetheless decided that God was still responsible for her powers, however she returned to her original code-name, Firebird. After that she was called in on various Avengers events. She assisted Hellcat, Monica Rambeau, Moondragon, and Black Widow in subduing the Awesome Android, and encountered a small platoon of Atlanteans in Mexico getting help from a few Avengers. 
Firebird largely acted as a reserve member, preferring to spend her time as a social worker, although she was caught up in several significant Avengers conflicts. The first was after the team had been missing for a year in a pocket dimension created by Franklin Richards. Firebird was among the heroes struggle when Morgan La Fey rewrote reality. She was also present when the Avengers and the Thunderbolts teamed up to stop the alien Dominex, a remnant of the Dominus computer.
the war was over, but Firebird helped him to see that the bonds between him and the Avengers were so valuable precisely because they wouldn’t last forever, and he shouldn’t neglect them just because he would outlive them. In recognition of her advice, Thor toasted her when he arranged for Asgardian cooks to prepare a feast for the Avengers to celebrate Kang’s defeat, commenting that she had taught a god a lesson by treating him as the fool he was.
Bonita Juarez gained superhuman powers due to bombardment by radiation from a meteorite containing energy waste from an alien’s scientific equipment. As Firebird, she has the power of pyrokinesis, which enables her to mentally excite the atoms in an object until it spontaneously combusts. By using her powers to ignite the air around her, she can surround herself with an aura of flames that often takes the shape of a bird, and if she focuses her flames downwards in a tight stream, she can propel herself through the air like a rocket. She can channel her powers through her hands to seemingly project searing thermal blasts from her body (actually from her mind), capable of melting steel with enough thrust to topple a filled garbage truck at 100 feet. She can willfully lower the thermal energy’s temperature to a minimum of 120° F and can project the thrust energy alone. Firebird’s body is immune to the detrimental effects of wielding her power. She can fly by riding wind currents stirred up by the nimbus of fire with which she surrounds herself while flying. She has also displayed a limited power of precognition, allowing her to have glimpses of the future.
Firebird is a unique character among comic book heroes, being both LatinX and a devout Catholic. Her tremendous desire to do good, and to help others makes her a great hero to serve with the Avengers, and I’d love to see her interacts and develop relationships with the varying personalities who have served, such as Black Widow, or Wolverine, who have very different outlooks on life. Her interactions with Thor during the Kang Wars were certainly a fascinating way to bring her beliefs into the storylines. In addition, she has a dramatic look and a great power set that would be a tremendous asset to the team.
#10 – Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)
Marvel created Spider-Woman in the mid-70’s to claim the rights to the name so no other comic company could. Intended as a one-off character appearing in Marvel Spotlight, to claim copyright then never really be seen again, she was conceived to be a spider that was mutated into a human. When the character proved to be very popular, they decided to keep using her, but original writer Marv Wolfman decided that origin was too far out even for 70’s audiences, and modified it greatly in her next appearance, a four-issue run in the Thing’s team-up comic, Marvel-Two-In-One. In that story we learn that she is a human woman, Jessica Drew, who had the memories of being a spider implanted in her by the terrorist group, HYDRA. 
This appearance launched into her own series that ran fifty issues and had some great highs, but never really coalesced into a cohesive run, as writers and artists bounced in and out, each with their own unique take on Jessica Drew. Her most consistent tone, the one set up by her initial appearances, were dark, tied to mysticism, and a little creepy. Jessica gained a mentor in Charles Magnus, and an arch-enemy in Morgan Le Fay. She struggled with socializing with regular folks, and discovered a new side affect of her abilities. She emitted a pheromone that instilled desire in some, and repulsed others. At first she could not control this ability, but eventually was able to harness it. After twenty issues, and despite a concurrently running animated series, and a major ad campaign trying to differentiate her from her male counterpart, the series had dropped from its initial success and Spider-Woman was basically seen by many as a lesser version of Spider-Man. Marvel changed writers and took a major shift in direction. Jessica became a bounty hunter, jettisoned the dark, creepy tone, and her supporting cast disappeared and was replaced with a new one… without explanation. That direction only lasted 12 issues, when celebrated X-Men writer Chris Claremont came in and returned to some of the earlier themes and subplots, and added his own great character development, delving further into Jessica’s origins. It was a huge improvement to the book, but it was too little, too late. Claremont was only able to write 13 issues before being pulled to other projects, and editorial decided that they would end the series at issue #50 — four issues away. New writer Ann Nocenti was able to tie storylines up to the best of her ability, but she decided to end the series on a somber note, with Jessica dying. Fans were outraged, and the creative team felt remorse for their creative decision, and not long after, Jessica was resurrected in the Avengers, creating her first tie with that team.
Since then, Jessica has continued her own adventures, including embarking on a romance with Roger and becoming a member of an underground Avengers team called Strikeforce. Her latest new ongoing series features a new costume, and a new direction featuring a deeper exploration of Jessica’s family. She continues to have strong ties with both the Spider-Family and through her best bud Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel and the Avengers. While Bendis’ more light-hearted personality stuck with Jessica, I grew to appreciate it much more, especially under the talents of Dennis Hopeless and subsequent writers, who gave Jessica a more unique voice that Bendis had. Despite that, I will always appreciate Bendis’ interest in the character and his successful lifting of Jessica into the spotlight again.
After her mother, pregnant with Jessica, was struck with a beam of radiation containing the DNA of several different types of spiders, Jessica Drew developed superhuman powers patterned after several different types of spiders when she was born. Jessica is super-humanly strong and is able to lift several tons at her peak. She also possesses superhuman speed, stamina, agility, hearing, smell, and reflexes. Jessica’s body is more resistant to injury than an ordinary person’s, allowing her to take far more physical punishment compared to the average human. Jessica’s palms and soles secrete a special fluid that allows her to cling to solid objects, like a true spider. Jessica’s physical makeup also makes her highly resistant to all terrestrial poisons, toxins, and completely immune to radiation. While she is typically rendered dizzy by the initial dose, she is completely immune to it after being exposed again. She also exudes a high concentration of pheromones that elicit pleasure and attraction from others, depending on unknown factors which might include gender and mood, although she typically uses a chemical “perfume” that renders these pheromones inert. Jessica’s body also produces an inordinate amount of bio-electrical energy which she can discharge from her hands. She refers to these discharges as “venom blasts,” although they actually have nothing to do with poison and typically cause pain and unconsciousness. Jessica can kill a man in the same way that a lightning bolt would and can pierce solid metals like steel by using her blasts at their greatest intensity. Jessica was also able to glide through unknown means using the web-like extensions of her costume but she seems to have gained the ability to fly after being replaced by the Skrull Queen, Veranke. In addition to her powers, she is a superb hand-to-hand combat fighter, and has trained in several styles of fighting including Boxing, Capoeira, Judo, Karate, and Tai chi, learned under the training of the Taskmaster.
#9 – Valkyrie (Brunnhilde)
Soon after this change, Brunnhilde encountered Amora the Enchantress, who offered her a life of adventure. For several weeks Brunnhilde accompanied the Enchantress on her conquests.until she discovered Amora’s immoral nature and tried to end their partnership. In response the Enchantress trapped Brunnhilde within a mystic crystal of souls. While Brunnhilde’s body remained in suspended animation, her immortal soul became Amora’s plaything. Over the centuries the Enchantress used Brunnhilde’s spiritual essence to give the Valkyrie’s powers to herself or to her pawns. The first time the Enchantress assumed the Valkyrie’s physical aspect in recent years was in a plot to lead a handful of female superhumans against the male Avengers as the Lady Liberators. Her true identity was discovered and her plan thwarted. Months later, the Enchantress bestowed the Valkyrie’s power upon a socialite named Samantha Parrington in an attempt to get revenge on the Hulk. Finally, a woman driven mad by being trapped in another mystical dimension, Barbara Norris, was given the Valkyrie’s power and consciousness by the Enchantress to help her then-allies, the group of superhumans called the Defenders. Amora did not undo her spell on Norris after this encounter, and as a result, Norris’ body now possessed Brunnhilda’s consciousness, appearance, and powers, while Norris’ own mental essence was trapped in Brunnhilde’s real body in Asgard.
Valkyrie served with the Defenders from then on until their ultimate end. During that time, with the help of Dr. Strange, the body of Barbara Norris was murdered and Brunnhilde’s spirit was inadvertently freed. With the help of Doctor Strange, Brunnhilde regained her true body with her full memory and normal warrior personality as well. Brunnhilde then battled Amora and banished her to the crystal of souls. Feeling estranged from Asgard in general and Odin in particular for their neglect of her centuries-long plight, Brunnhilde chose to return to Earth with the Defenders. After a brief period where the Avenger Moondragon went mad with power, Odin placed the dangerously powerful self-styled goddess into Brunnhilde’s charge. Brunnhilde was to teach Moondragon humility, and Moondragon served alongside Brunnhilde in the Defenders. Brunnhilde was to take action against Moondragon should she again become a menace. Moondragon reformed, but later she fell once again under the malevolent influence of the alien entity burrowed deep in her mind called the Dragon of the Moon. Moondragon attacked the Defenders, but Brunnhilde, given temporary additional powers by Odin for this occasion opposed her. Brunnhilde summoned other Valkyries to her aid and together with 
two other Defenders, the Angel and Cloud, they defeated Moondragon but failed to capture her. Months later Moondragon returned to attack the Defenders, her power vastly augmented by the alien Beyonder. In order to defeat the Dragon, Brunnhilde and the Eternal called Interloper projected their immortal life forces against it along with Defenders members Andromeda and the Defenders’ former foe Manslaughter. As a result, Brunnhilde, Interloper, Andromeda, Manslaughter, Moondragon, and their teammate, Gargoyle, had all seemingly been transformed into statues of ashes and dust, and the Dragon of the Moon was apparently gone. Brunnhilde was restored to life by Doctor Strange, now in the host body of a woman known as Sian Bowen. The other Defenders, Interloper, Andromeda, and Manslaughter were restored to life as well and they formed the Dragon Circle to battle the Dragon of the Moon. After the Dragon of the Moon was defeated, Brunnhilde returned to Asgard.
At any rate, there was more to come for Valkyrie during and after her stint with the Secret Avengers. After the events of the Serpent War during the Fear Itself storyline, Brunnhilde was charged by Odin to find and destroy the Serpent’s eight remaining Hammers so their power would not be used again. She was unable to prevent Sin from obtaining the hammers and activating the Final Sleeper, a giant war-machine. This machine killed Brunnhilde by snapping her neck, but she forfeited her place in Valhalla and that sacrifice enabled the other eight Valkyrior to return to Midgard and claim the hammers. Afterward, Freyja the All-Mother of Asgard suggested that Brunnhilde choose and lead a new team of shieldmaidens from Earth’s heroines. Around this time, Agent Venom joined the Secret Avengers, Brunnhilde began a flirtation with him. Eventually, she grew tired of it and seduced him outright. Brunnhilde had decided that Earth did not possess women strong enough to replace the Valkyrior. This absence allowed the villainous Caroline le Fay to plot the return of the Doom Maidens. Valkyrie joined with Misty Knight and Annabelle Riggs, an 
archaeologist who found herself infatuated with Brunnhilde, Hela, the Asgardian Goddess of Death, added Hippolyta to the mix, and charged this team to rescue Dani Moonstar, whose powers le Fay was going to use to revive the Doom Maidens, a twisted evil version of the Valkyrior. They arrived too late to stop le Fay, but the group, along with a host of other heroines, were able to destroy the Doom Maidens, but only by channeling power into Brunnhilde and turning her into the Doom Maiden of Rage. Though she turned next on the heroes, Annabelle was able to stop her at the cost of her life. Thanks to her valiant sacrifice, Annabelle found herself in Valhalla, and so Brunnhilde sought out her old friend Clea and called in a favor owed. They went to the halls of Valhalla and found Annabelle, and Brunnhilde had Clea resurrect her, at a cost. To revive Annabelle, Clea had merged the lifeforces of Annabelle and Brunnhilde and as such she was the new host of Valkyrie. Their connection worked in such a way that any time Valkyrie took Annabelle’s place, Annabelle was transported to a pocket dimension in the confines of Valhalla, and vice versa.
As I mentioned above, Valkyrie appears so high on this list mainly for my love of her as a character, and the long series of adventures she has had. I do feel that she is rarely used to her full potential. There was a brief time in the Defenders, just after she regained her immortal Asgardian body, that she was shown as a force to be reckoned with, nearly equal to Thor in power and personality. She became a truly imposing figure, and that made sense, given that her previous incarnations had all been funneled through a mortal host. Her burgeoning relationship with Annabelle Riggs was really lovely, and I am terribly disappointed that they decided to kill the character off, mainly to give Jane Foster, who had just given up the role of the Mighty Thor, a heroic place to land as the new Valkyrie. I long for the eventual return of Brunnhilde, and I think her inclusion in the Avengers could be a great way to give her some spotlight… although I loved the idea of the Secret Defenders that reunited her and Clea, along with others great female characters.
#8 – Mockingbird (Barbara “Bobbi” Morse)
mission, but Bobbi was badly injured in gunfire during the final melee. After a period of recovery, Mockingbird became a free agent, and next encountered Hawkeye during his time away from the Avengers, working security for Cross Technologies. Sparks flew as they successfully stopped Crossfire from his nefarious plot., and the two eloped after their first adventure.
When Hawkeye returned to the Avengers, with his new wife by his side, then chairman The Vision asked the two of them to start a west coast branch of the team. The two gathered a team together, and became the motivating force and longest standing members of Avengers West Coast. One of their most significant adventures as a team spanned space and time, and found Bobbi trapped in the Old West, captured, drugged, and unknowingly forced into an intimate relationship with the Phantom Rider. When she eventually regained her memories, she battled the Phantom Rider, and in the heat of battle had the opportunity to save his life, but instead stood by and let him fall to his death. Ultimately returning to the present, her husband, and the team, life and adventures continued, but eventually Hawkeye discovered what his wife had done and had 
trouble reconciling that with the Avengers “no killing” rule. The two temporarily separated, and Mockingbird led a small splinter group including Tigra and Moon Knight on several adventures. Ultimately, Bobbi was tricked by a group of several world governments into giving them access to Avengers compound as a “contingency plan” to stop the Vision should he ever try to take over the world again. By the time Mockingbird realized that their “contingency plan” was already active and raced to alert her teammates, the deed had already been done and the Vision had been dismantled. This deepened the rift between husband and wife. While Hawkeye remained an active member, Mockingbird became a reservist. She was involved in a battle with Ultron, where the mad robot created another robot bride, Alkhema whose brain patterns had been based on Mockingbird’s. When Ultron was ultimately defeated, Hawkeye and Mockingbird seemed to have reconciled. 
In fact, a Skrull had kidnapped Bobbi and replaced her with a sleeper agent called Hr’pra prior to Bobbi and Clint’s reconciliation. She served with the team for some time. But H’rpra/Bobbi was captured by Satannish the Supreme, the AWC embarked upon what would be their last mission. The team battled the combined forces of Satannish and Mephisto. During their escape, “Bobbi” was killed by Mephisto. Shortly thereafter, the Vision disbanded the West Coast team. It was fifteen years (real-time) before Mockingbird’s story was picked up again. After the climactic battle between the Skrulls and Earth’s heroes during the Secret Invasion, the individuals replaced by Skrull agents were revealed to be alive and well, including Bobbi. She was apparently one of the first people captured and replaced. The returned Mockingbird then joined her estranged husband and his teammates in the New Avengers. Bobbie also formed a private spy organization, the World Counterterrorism Agency, as a side-gig. She was joined on one of her first missions by her husband, Clint Barton, as Ronin, and they reconciled over the Phantom Rider issue once and for all. During a conflict with Superia, Mockingbird was grievously injured, and in order to save her life, Nick Fury administered a formula that combined the Super Soldier serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America, and the Infinity Formula that essentially gave Nick Fury immortality. 
After another successful stint with the Avengers, Mockingbird becomes involved once more with S.H.I.E.L.D. where Nick Fury assigned her to be the liaison with Parker Industries, operated by Peter Park (Spider-Man). She shared several adventures with Spider-Man, and also became Silk’s handler when the young heroine attempted to infiltrate Black Cat’s criminal gang. During this time she also began a relationship with fellow spy Lance Hunter, in spite of the fact that Bobbi frequently referred to him as “Clint” during intimate moments, whether due to a Freudian slip, or intentional 
ribbing, no one is sure. Bobbi also tried to help Clint (Hawkeye) after his murdered Bruce Banner to stop the threat of the Hulk. Shortly after this she found herself working with Spider-Man again, and the two shared a brief romantic relationship before realizing that they shared very little in common. Most recently she has helped sponsor Nadia Van Dyne, the new Wasp in her endeavor to start a scientific collaborative called Genius in Action Research Labs (G.I.R.L. ) She also maintains her ties with the Avengers, most recently joining Force Works to help Iron Man, and being called upon to help out during the Empyre/Cotati wars.
#7 – Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)
Janet van Dyne was born the socialite daughter of wealthy scientist Vernon van Dyne. When her father was killed by an alien entity unleashed during one of his experiments, Janet turned to his associate Dr. Hank Pym for aid and convinced him to help her. In order to avenge her father’s death, she underwent a biochemical procedure that granted her the ability to grow wings upon shrinking under four feet tall and used a supply of “Pym particles” by which to change her size. Together, she and Ant-Man defeated the alien and avenged her father. Janet decided to remain as Wasp and be Hank’s partner as she had fallen in love with him, though Hank initially rejected her feelings due to the similarities between her and his first wife that had been murdered. After the initial confrontation with Loki that brought together the founding Avengers, it is Janet and Hank who propose forming a team of superheroes. Janet suggests the name for the team and becomes a founding member. Never lacking confidence or bravery and by nature an outgoing personality, Janet is always in the thick of battles with villains, who include Norse gods and aliens, despite being the most underpowered member of the team.
Though Janet hoped that her long-term boyfriend Hank would propose, their relationship does not move forward to that point until something more dramatic happened. The new vigilante Yellowjacket broke into the Avengers mansion, demanded to be admitted as a member of the team, claimed to have killed Hank Pym, and then kidnapped Janet. Not believing that Yellowjacket was Hank’s killer, she attempted to find where Yellowjacket is holding Hank, but instead determines that Yellowjacket was, in fact, her boyfriend. Before revealing this, and during the period in which Yellowjacket still believeed himself to have killed Hank, Janet married him, though the wedding was disrupted by an attack from the Circus of Crime. During the fight, it was revealed that Yellowjacket was Pym.
After a departure from the team, she also battled Equinox alongside Spider-Man and Yellowjacket; during this time her powers were augmented to allow her to harness her body’s bio-electrical current and fire powerful blasts of energy which she called her “wasp’s stings,” and to harness the kinetic energy unleashed by her shrinking to giver her added strength and energy. During another of her breaks from active Avengers duty, Janet approached the team with concerns about her husband having suffered a breakdown and attacked former teammates. In attempting to find a way to help him, she was captured by a brainwashed Hank, and used by Ultron as a template to create Jocasta to be Ultron’s bride. She is rescued when Jocasta alerts the Avengers to her location, and Black Panther suggests that the A.I.’s ability to reach out to them was brought about because of Janet’s personality breaking through. Janet soon discovered that her husband, then paranoid, overbearing and verbally abusive, had concocted a plan to make himself look good in front of the Avengers by staging an attack that can only he can stop. When she attempted to dissuade him, Hank struck her; she divorced him soon after and took a very brief break from the team. When Janet returned to the Avengers, she proposed that the team is in need of new leadership and nominated herself for the role of Chairperson. Janet took to the role naturally, proving to be an efficient and smart leader who was praised by Captain America for her leadership skills. She makes it a point to increase the number of women on the team and recruited She-Hulk and Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau). At the same time as taking on leadership of the team, Janet began to work in earnest as a professional fashion designer. She also renewed her social life, engaging in a whirlwind romance with Tony Stark before learning that he was her colleague from the Avengers, Iron Man. 
Janet briefly handed leadership of the team off to the Vision, though he soon left the team and returned the position to her. The new team line-up proves difficult, and Janet clashed with Hercules who took issue with acknowledge a woman as leader. During the Under Siege storyline, Janet led the team during a time where they were attacked from all sides and nearly overwhelmed. She defeated Titania and the Absorbing Man, then led a team against Baron Zemo’s forces to rescue Captain America, the Black Knight, and other team members who had been captured. Shortly after the resolution of this story, she stepped down from leadership once more, succeeded by Monica Rambeau in that position. After leaving the team, she battled the threat of Red Ronin by herself, then later joined the West Coast Avengers. Initially, acted as though the team leader, to the chagrin of the team’s actual leader, Hawkeye. During this time, she resumeds a romantic relationship with Hank. Although he was elected as a regular member of the Avengers West, Janet chose to become a reserve member. Several years later, Janet returned to the Avengers main team, first as reserve status, and later as a full member. During the Destiny War, the Janet of the present became the leader of a team of Avengers assembled from different time periods, cited as being chosen due to her “inner strength and flexibility to give the team direction without exerting too much control”. After the Destiny War, Janet returned to work with the Avengers once more, taking up leadership of the team and commanding the team through a number of conflicts, including Kang the Conqueror’s invasion of Earth. Janet continued to make sure there was a strong female presence on the team, and the number of women on the team outnumbered the number of men for the first time in Avengers history. Though her relationship with Hank Pym remained strong for some time, she turned down his proposal of remarrying. During the Lionheart of Avalon storyline, Janet was shown fighting the Wrecking Crew while at giant size, a power she had rarely, if ever, used prior. She was shown to be powerful enough at this size to take down a jet. She also had a brief fling with fellow team member Hawkeye.
Janet continued to serve with the Avengers intermittently over the next several years, until the Secret Invasion storyline where the Skrulls infiltrate Earth. After Queen Veranke was thought to be dead, the Skrull imposter pressed a button that made Janet increase in size rapidly and out of control. Janet realized that the “new” particles Pym had given her had turned her into a bio-bomb, and she tried to flee the battlefield and take as many Skrulls with her as possible when she explodes. To save both the city and heroes, Thor used his enchanted hammer Mjolnir to create a spatial warp that seemingly dispersed Janet into nothingness. Thor was devastated by the act and vows to avenge her. Upon accepting Janet’s death, Hank Pym took up his ex-wife’s role as the Wasp. Eventually it was revealed that Janet had not died after all, but had been shunted into a Microverse by Thor’s spatial warp in the same spot that she appeared to have died. Using her Avengers communication card she was able to send a signal with help from a local being called Cru-Sani. Giant-Man, Captain America, Thor and Iron Man went into the Microverse to rescue her and found her alive and fighting against an evil despot, Lord Gouzar. After liberating the Microverse from Lord Gouzar’s tyranny, Janet and her fellow Avengers returned to their normal universe.
After a side adventure where Janet aided the all-new Wolverine (X-23), she returned once more to the Avengers for a battle with Ultron, who had physically merged with Hank Pym. The team defeated the mad robot, but they lost Hank in the process. A short time later, the Avengers butler, Jarvis, brought to Janet’s attention Nadia Pym, Hank’s daughter from his first marriage. Nadia was acting as a new Wasp, using her father’s Pym particles, as well as her extensive training as an assassin by the same Soviet covert group that had trained the Black Widow. Janet took Nadia under her wing as both a mentor, and a financial supporter of Nadia’s desire to create a place where teen girls could explore their scientific endeavors. Nadia even took Janet’s last name in her honor. Lately Janet had joined Black Panther’s Agents of Wakanda.
#7 – Moondragon (Heather Douglas)
his home world, Titan, to be raised by the monks of Shao-Lom.
Later, when Adam Warlock sought companions to help him safeguard the Infinity Gems, he choses Moondragon to keep the Mind Gem—but only after erecting safeguards so she could not exploit the gem’s full power. Still, she agreed to join his team, the Infinity Watch. She eventually lost the gem when it was stolen by Rune. Moondragon later became an associate of Genis-Vell (the third Captain Marvel), determined to help him control his cosmic awareness. During this time, she found herself falling in love with Marlo Chandler, the wife of Rick Jones (whom Captain Marvel was bonded to). When Marlo and Rick begin having marital problems, she turns to Moondragon for solace, and the two are drawn together into a relationship, but it doesn’t last for Marlo, and she decides to reconcile with Rick. Moondragon tells Marlo that she must have unknowingly influenced Marlo’s behavior telepathically causing her to think she was romantically interested in her, but this was a lie to make the break-up easier on Marlo. In truth, Moondragon was heartbroken; she left shortly after with Genis’ sister, Phyla-Vell.
Moondragon and Phyla-Vell become in embroiled in the two Annihilation events, first becoming in entangled in Thanos’ dealing with Annihilus, who was hell-bent on destroying our universe. Once the threat of Annihilus was resolved, Moondragon and Phyla-Vell (then called Quasar) realized that they have fallen in love and they began an intense relationship. When the techno-organic race, the Phalanx took over the Kree Empire, Quasar and Heather try to find the ‘savior’ that is revealed to Quasar in a vision. During the adventure, 
the Dragon of the Moon returned and changed Heather into a draconic form, intending to take full control of her body. Moondragon was able to resist the mind-parasite, and despite the fact that Heather would never be able to return to human form, Phyla remained by her lover’s side. Their time together was ultimately cut short as Ultron, who was leading the Phalanx, killed Heather in battle. Heather died in Phyla’s arms and her soul was sent to oblivion inside the Dragon of the Moon. Sometime later, Phyla and Drax were alerted by a prophet that Moondragon was attempting to return. They sought out Mentor for aid, and he determined to only course was to kill the two of them so that they were able to journey into the realm of the dead to retrieve Heather. Their plan was successful, and Moondragon was returned to life in her human form. 
Heather returned to Knowhere with Phyla and became a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. She assisted Cosmo and Mantis as part of the telepathic support team. Her resurrection left her mind more open than it had been before her death, so she was able to detect things before either Mantis or Cosmo could, but it also made her more susceptible to psychic manipulation. With Phyla’s death at the hands of Adam Magus, Moondragon took it upon herself to become a field agent for the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, she ends up becoming host to an alien parasite originating in a parallel universe across the Fault, a time-space tear created by Black Bolt’s Terrigen Bomb. Members of the Church of Universal Truth kidnap Moondragon, seeing the parasite as a god, whom they intend to worship at birth. Luckily, the Guardians mount a successful rescue mission. With the help of Knowhere’s medical staff, they were able to remove the organism from Moondragon. During these experiences, Moondragon had visions of a cocoon and Phyla being alive, and the two were reunited. Tragically, Phyla was killed yet again by a resurrected Thanos, which caused Heather to lash out at him before Star-Lord subdued the Mad Titan with a Cosmic Cube. Despite wanting Thanos dead, Moondragon assisted Mantis in keeping the Mad Titan in check while probing his mind to find out why he had returned to the world of the living. After Adam Magus detonated the Church converted worlds to open the Fault further, Thanos managed to escape captivity and attacked the Guardians, but was eventually subdued, but it cost them the lives of Drax, Star-Lord, and Nova.
For a time, Moondragon left the Guardians of the Galaxy and wandered space on her own, missing her beloved. Upon learning that an alternate, more heroic version of herself from another reality had joined the Guardians, Moondragon was susceptible once again to the Dragon of the Moon. Moondragon was jealous of her counterpart, who seemed to be perfect in every way, without having to struggle, and with her still living Phyla by her side. The Dragon fanned Heather’s desire to destroy her counterpart our of jealousy. Heather joined Gamora’s new splinter Guardians group and manipulated events so that her team would eventually confront the original Guardians, giving her the opportunity to confront and destroy the alternate Moondragon. Unbeknownst to her, the alternate Moondragon had also been manipulating events so that the two would meet, but she intended to save her counterpart from the Dragon’s darkness. Their confrontation ended with the alternate Moondragon victorious, and, since she was willing to share everything that she had, the two merged into a single being. The new Moondragon seemed at peace, but they were unaware that the Dragon of the Moon was still buried in their subconscious, and planning their downfall.
Captain America is clearly the Avenger who was not a founding member, who is most associated with the team, and has the biggest impact on it. He throughly represents that Avengers spirit, the guiding force that makes the team what it is. For Captain American to be that figurehead; that guiding spirit, there clearly needs to be success stories of members for whom he has made a difference, and for whom the Avengers have shaped into a better person… a better hero as a result. In my eyes, Hawkeye is that Avenger. After getting started as an Iron Man villain alongside the Black Widow, he, along with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, were the first new members to join after Captain America, and they did so in the wake of all the founding members departing. Dubbed Cap’s Kooky Quartet, the trio were all reformed villains, making a go at a heroic lifestyle, and while each had their challenges, Hawkeye was the brash rebel who viewed Cap as the establishment… the old guard to constantly challenge and provoke. Clint never became a straight-laced, by the books “Captain America,” but he does owe much of his eventual successful career as a leader, first of the West Coast Avengers, and then of the Thunderbolts, to his former mentor. 
After a long stint with the Avengers, butting heads with Cap, slowly learning the ropes of becoming an effective team player, taking a stint as the size-changing hero Goliath with the help of Hank Pym’s growth serum, and coming to terms with his criminal past under the mentorship of The Swordsman, and the conflicted relationship with his brother Barney, Hawkeye eventually left the team to prove himself on his own. Ironically, he immediately hooked up with the Defenders for a short period, even battling against his former teammates in the Avengers/Defenders Clash. Clint spent some time trapped in the year 1870, where he became partners with the old-time Western hero, Two-Gun Kid, even going so far as to bring him back to the present when rescued by Thor and Moondragon. Later, after helping the Avengers battle the Collector and Korvac, Hawkeye was ready to rejoin the team, only to be forced out by the U.S. Government, who, under the guise of Affirmative Action, replaced him with The Falcon.
After further adventures with the Avengers, Hawkeye ended up leading the newly formed Thunderbolts, a team of reformed villains who had been tricked by Baron Zemo and needed guidance. Hawkeye proved to be a strong positive influence for the team who had a successful run as a force for good. During Brian Michael Bendis’ wretched Avengers Disassembled storyline, Hawkeye was killed by the Scarlet Witch. During a series of ridiculous stories, Clint was resurrected and killed again, only to be resurrected finally when Wanda rewrote reality again. Remaining hidden, Clint sought out Wanda, who he discovered living a quiet life in Eastern Europe with no memory of her past. He decided to leave her be and forgave her for his murder. He ultimately returned to the Avengers borrowing Echo’s identity of Ronin to operate in secret. During this time the world was nearly taken over by Skrulls and their Secret Invasion. When a Skrull ship filled with humans who had been replaced by the shape-changing aliens at various points over the past couple of years, is discovered Mockingbird is among the newly released. Hawkeye helped his long-missing wife adjust to life again and the two shared a series of adventures, both alone, and with the Avengers. Unfortunately, too time apart had passed and the pair realized that their romantic relationship was over.
Since then, Hawkeye has served with various incarnations of the Avengers, and embarked on a series of adventures on his own as well, or with past partners like Black Widow, Falcon, Winter Soldier, or Kate Bishop, the new Hawkeye. Kate and Clint shared a special relationship, and even briefly started a new West Coast Avengers together. 
Hawkeye used to be the type of character I couldn’t stand. The “bad-boy” always causing trouble, giving people a hard-time. But Clint’s evolution over the yours has really turned him into a very appealing hero. He’s incredibly skilled, and worthy of a pretty good-sized ego, but he’s been taken down a peg enough times that it keeps him from getting too full of himself. He’s a huge champion of the underdog, whether that means a ragtag team of reformed villains, or his low-income neighbors in the apartment building he owns. He’s a real ladies man, with a string of failed romances behind him, including Black Widow, Mockingbird, Spider-Woman, the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and even Kate Bishop. Clearly there’s something about this guy that the ladies love, and his appeal has only gotten stronger in recent years under the pens of the likes of Matt Fraction, Jeff Lemire, Jim McCann, Matthew Rosenberg, and Ethan Sacks. He’s absolutely the type of guy you would get involved with even as you told yourself you know better. Anytime, Clint.
#14 – Black Widow – Natasha Romanoff
Natasha was raised from very early childhood by the U.S.S.R.’s “Black Widow Ops” program. She had been taken to Department X, with other young female orphans, where she was brainwashed and trained in combat and espionage at the covert “Red Room” facility. There, she was biotechnologically and psycho-technologically enhanced—which provided a rationale for her unusually long and youthful lifespan. During that time she also had some training under the Winter Soldier (Captain America’s former teen sidekick, Bucky ‘Barnes), who had also been brainwashed, and the pair had a short romance. Each Black Widow was deployed with false memories to help ensure her loyalty. Romanova eventually discovered this after her defection.
After that, Black Widow spent several years mainly as a solo operative, living the dangerous spy’s life, working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and other shady organizations. She has recurring encounters with her old flame, Matt Murdock (Daredevil), once to prevent the Hand from resurrecting Elektra, again to protect an infant that Daredevil believes to be the Anti-Christ. While the romantic tension simmers between the two, they know it’s better to remain platonic friends and professional partners. At a certain point, Black Widow returns to the Avengers, co-leading the team with the Black Knight. When most of the team is believed dead, but in fact, shunted to an alternative reality created by Franklin Richards, Natasha tries to assemble a new team and fails. For some time, Natasha blames herself for the dissolution of the Avengers. 
Natasha was challenged by Yelena Belova, a graduate from the “Red Room” training program, who was the first to ever surpass Natasha’s marks and considered herself the rightful successor to the “Black Widow” mantle. Natasha encouraged her to discover her individuality rather than live in blind service, asking her “why be Black Widow, when you can be Yelena Belova?” After several confrontations, Natasha subjected Yelena to intense psychological manipulations and suffering in order to teach her the reality of the espionage business, and an angry but disillusioned Yelena eventually returned home and temporarily quit being a spy. Although Matt Murdock is appalled by the cruelty of Natasha’s treatment of Yelena, Nick Fury described the action as Natasha’s attempt at saving Yelena’s life. Yelena has returned to aid Natasha on numerous occasions since then.
Black Widow has been enhanced by biotechnology that makes her body resistant to aging and disease and heals above the human rate; this also enhances her strength, speed, durability, reflexes, and stamina. The white blood cells in her body are efficient enough to fight off any microbe, or foreign element from her body, keeping her healthy and immune to most, if not all infections, diseases and disorders. Romanova has a gifted intellect. She displays an uncanny affinity for psychological manipulation and can mask her real emotions perfectly. She possesses the ability to quickly process multiple information streams and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations. Black Widow is a world-class athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist capable of numerous complex maneuvers and feats, expert martial artist, marksman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. Black Widow uses a variety of equipment invented by Soviet scientists and technicians, with later improvements by S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists. She usually wears distinctively shaped bracelets which fire the “Widow’s Bite”, electro-static energy blasts that can deliver charges up to 30,000 volts, as well as “Widow’s Line” grappling hooks, tear gas pellets, and an aerosol instant knock-out gas called the “Widow’s Kiss.”
#13 – She-Hulk – Jennifer Walters
Eventually, Jennifer decided to remain in her She-Hulk form permanently—preferring the freedom, confidence, and assertiveness that it gave her compared to her more timorous and fragile “normal” form. After her brief solo career, where among other things, she befriended Patsy Walker, Hellcat; she joined the Avengers where she quickly became fast-friends with Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, and formed a somewhat aggressive and flirtatious rivalry with Hawkeye. Her stint with the Avengers didn’t last that long though, as she was transported by the Beyonder to Battleworld with the rest of the team, and when they returned, she had taken the Thing’s place on the Fantastic Four and began dating Wyatt Wingfoot. She was granted detached membership status by the Avengers for this period. After her stint with the FF, Jen did rejoin the Avengers, shortly after the Masters of Evil’s attack on the mansion. During this tenure with the team, She-Hulk and the other members were influenced by Dr. Druid and his lover, Nebula to make him leader of the team. 
During this time, She-Hulk joined the staff of District Attorney Blake Tower, where she met Louise “Weezi” Mason, formerly the Golden Age superheroine called the Blonde Phantom; but she discovered that Mason had manipulated Towers into hiring She-Hulk so that Mason could again star in a comic book and thus avoid dying of old age. Mason’s husband, also a former comic book character, had passed away three years ago, but other, more popular characters from the era, such as Captain America and The Sub Mariner. She also served a brief stint with the team, Fantastic Force, and also with Heroes for Hire while she was dating Luke Cage. Eventually, Jen returned to the Avengers and remained with the team for some time. On one adventure, the She-Hulk was exposed to fellow Avenger Jack of Hearts’ radiation powers, causing her to lose control of the savage side of her personality. She injured several Avengers and went berserk in Bone, Idaho, virtually destroying the whole town. With Jen’s fear and rage at an all-time high the assembled Avengers couldn’t stop her. Only the Hulk himself was able to slow her down until Jack of Hearts was able to use his powers to balance her gamma levels and she regained control over her savage side.
time with the Future Foundation while the Fantastic Four was lost in space/time, she returned to the Avengers again, helping them during their conflict with the X-Men, and working with the Might Avengers as both legal counsel as well as field agent. 
formidable hand-to-hand combatant, having been trained by Captain America and Gamora. She is also a skilled and experienced attorney who attended the UCLA Shool of Law, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif, a national merit society for top legal scholars.
#12 – Hellcat – Patricia “Patsy” Walker
After growing up in suburban Centerville, and marrying high-school sweetheart Robert “Buzz” Baxter, Patsy Walker became an assistant to scientist Hank McCoy, the mutant superhero the Beast. Estranged from her husband, now a U.S. Air Force colonel, Walker befriended McCoy, and, desiring to become a superhero, accompanied him on a quest with the Avengers where she adopted an ability-enhancing costume that formerly belonged to Greer Grant Nelson, the former masked adventuress the Cat, and took on the identity of Hellcat. After assisting the Avengers on a mission, she is offered membership on the team, but the cosmic adventurer Moondragon, persuades Hellcat to decline and instead accompany her to Titan for training in psychic ability and advanced martial arts. Walker’s training is soon interrupted when she returns to Earth to assist the supernatural hero Doctor Strange, joining the Defenders in the process.
Hellcat is in possession of a magic cloak that enables her to sense mystical phenomena or deflect mystical attacks. She is able to summon her costume at will. She possesses retractable claws and grappling hooks on her wrists. Patsy is a well-trained martial artist and gymnast, having trained with the Avengers and Moondragon. Through her work with Moondragon and her time in Hell, Patsy also retains low-level psychic abilities. 
#11 – Tigra – Greer Grant Nelson
When the Avengers found themselves shorthanded, Moondragon used her mental powers to compel a dozen unaffiliated heroes (apparently selected at random) to travel to Avengers Mansion and audition for the vacant position. Though he disapproved of Moondragon’s methods, Captain America offered Tigra a spot on the team. Although Tigra’s first tenure with the Avengers was brief, she served well. Her time with the Avengers was highlighted by her saving the world from destruction by the Molecule Man single-handed. Alone among the Avengers, she was able to get close enough to him to talk him out of his plan. She convinced him to seek help from a therapist and the Molecule Man has ceased to be a threat to this day. The Avengers also fought the Ghost Rider, who blasted the team with his terror-inducing hellfire. The nature of Tigra’s powers caused her to be affected by the exposure on a far deeper level than her teammates. She was left with great self-doubts about her qualifications as a member of Earth’s premier superhero team, particularly alongside such heavy-hitters as Thor an Iron Man. Ultimately she resigned her membership, leaving the team on good terms.
Tigra’s powers are the result of a combination of science, magic, and mental energy. Her physical appearance is distinctly cat-like. A thick, sleek coat of orange fur with black stripes covers her entire body. She has pointed ears, sharper-than-normal teeth with pronounced upper and lower canines, eyes with enlarged irises and vertically slitted pupils, and retractable claws on her feet and hands instead of nails. Her claws and teeth are sufficiently strong to puncture sheet steel, such as that found in a car body. Tigra also has a long semi-prehensile tail, and can willfully contact (but not grasp and lift) objects with it. Tigra’s feline physiology grants her various superhuman attributes including superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and resistance to physical injury. If she is injured, her physiology enables her to heal much faster and more extensively than an ordinary human. 
While she does not serve as an active-duty police officer, she retains legal authority under both her civilian and super-powered identities and unofficial ties to the police community. Tigra possesses mystical abilities that have largely gone unexplored. When Dr. Strange abdicated his position as Sorcerer Supreme, the Eye of Agamotto created a vision showing the many mystic beings who were potentially worthy and/or capable of assuming the title. An image of Tigra was included in this vision.
Many of Quasar’s subsequent adventures revolved around cosmic threats the the potential for the the destruction of the Universe. Quasar joined the Avengers during one such adventure, which led to his membership, and eventually to the team’s involvement in a developing war between two galactic empire, the Kree and the Shi’ar. As the conflict escalated, a powerful bomb was created that threatened to destroy the Sun, and hence all -life on earth. Quasar’s quantum powered bands enabled two teams of Avengers to jump to the respective homeworlds of the warring empires. Convinced by the Avengers, Empress Lilandra of the Shi’ar decided not to use the bomb and attempted a diplomatic settlement with the Kree. However, the Skrulls, ancient enemies of the Kree, stole the bomb and successfully detonated it in the Kree Empire, killing over 90% of the populations of thousands of worlds. Upon reaching Hala, the Kree homeworld, the Avengers discovered that the decimation of the Kree Empire had been planned from the beginning by the Kree leader, the Supreme Intelligence. Divided on how to deal with him, a group of Avengers led by Iron Man went to kill him. The other group led by Captain America, and including Quasar, could not condone the murder. This caused Quasar to leave the team.
Quasar has worked with the Avengers subsequently, notably when Morgan Le Fay transformed reality to a medieval kingdom that she ruled. Quasar was one of the the handful of Avengers who heard the Scarlet Witch’s call, a call heard only those who possessed the ‘Avengers spirit.’ Quasar later joined the Avengers Infinity team, made up of Thor, Photon, Tigra, Starfox, and Moondragon, once again saving all life in the universe from a cosmic threat. After so many cosmic threats threatened to destroy the earth, the Avengers set up a base in the Asteroid Belt, as something of an early warning signal against potential threats. Quasar was stationed at this base and shared his guard duties with various Avengers. Quasar has also become increasingly involved in other cosmic adventures through the Annihilation series of stories linking most of Marvel’s cosmic characters. 
Some readers found Wendell’s clean-cut, midwestern boy attitude somewhat boring, but i found it refreshing in a time where heroes began to develop attitudes during the 90’s and early 2000’s. Wendell always looked up to Captain America, and had a strong moral core. His wide-eyed, slight naïveté was offset by this powerful sense of duty and incredible cosmic power. Quasar has died more than once, and his body now made entirely of quantum energy, making him essentially immortal. As a being of pure quantum energy, he can shape his “body” into any shape he can imagine, explosively disperse his form, though he can tire if he overuses his powers. His quantum bands can draw upon quantum energy for a number of effects such as creating various kinds of constructs, shields, interstellar flight and a form of teleportation he calls quantum jumping. The bands are able to control energies of the electromagnetic spectrum to a high degree. He is able to project and absorb any variety from radio waves to light to gamma radiation. Quasar will often attempt to contain an enemy or potential threat before resorting to combat.
Everyone knows who Captain America is… especially since Marvel took over the movies. Young kid volunteers to take part in a government experiment, allowing himself to be inject with a super-soldier serum, giving him the peak strength and endurance of a human male. He becomes the nation’s symbol in the battle against the Nazi’s in World War II until he disappears for decades. Believed to be dead, Captain American is actually frozen in a glacier in the Arctic, and is found by the Sub Mariner, from the City of Atlantis, and rescued by the incipient Avengers, only recently formed, comprised of Thor, Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp (the Hulk had already left the team by this point). From that point on, Captain American becomes synonymous with the Avengers, becoming a mainstay on the team for almost all of the iterations to follow.
As a paragon of moral and ethical guidance, Captain America brings so much more to the team than his combat skills. From his inspiring motivational presence, to his tactical skills, there is no better leader for a team of super-powered, strong-willed individual. Much of Cap’s time with the team is spent as a leader, but he’s a great coach and mentor as well, and when he has been on the team, but not acting as leader, he is eminently supportive, as in the case of The Wasp or Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau). He is courageous, but careful in his planning. He doesn’t back down from anything, but he is mindful of the members of his team. And while it sounds like he’s the perfect man, there are plenty of times when he messes up, and he just gets back up and keeps going. He earns the respect of his peers more than any other character I can think of and the relationships he develops are complex and powerful. 
Some of the best and most interesting relationships Steve has developed over time include Hawkeye, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch (although not during that very brief time where they dated), Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), The Wasp, Sersi (loved how she tried to get under his skin with her flirting). In fact, some of the best relationships are the ones that push him and test him. I never enjoyed Captain America more than when he was dating Diamondback (Rachel Leighton) a reformed jewel thief and former-member of the Serpent Society.. Steve truly cared for Rachel, and she got him to lighten up a bit, and working with him made her a better person. I’ve also often likened the Invisible Woman to Captain America. It’s no surprise that in the first Civil War which pit Cap against Iron Man around superhero registration, Susan Richards took Cap’s side against her own husband, Reed. She, like Cap, has a strong moral sense of what is right and wrong, and I always wanted to see the two of them to interact more as they seem so simpatico. I was pleased to see Susan included as a member of the Daughters of Liberty, a team of women led by Agent 13, Sharon Carter, to help Captain America clear his name.
Quicksilver has been around a long time, and is intertwined with so much of the Marvel Universe. Twin to the Scarlet Witch, son to Magneto, husband to Crystal, half-brother to Polaris, he was created as a villain for the X-Men, he has been a long-term Avenger, he married into the Inhumans, which got him caught up with the Fantastic Four. He has been a member of X-Factor. He has been a hero, a madman, a villain, a mutant, a human, and an Inhuman. He’s quite the complex character. Never warm and fuzzy, often arrogant and prejudiced, occasionally insane and evil. He’s also a father. Consequently, he has one of the most convoluted, ever-evolving backgrounds in comics.
Pietro Maximoff. and his twin sister, Wanda, were raised by Django and Marya Maximoff, a Roma couple. As adolescents, Pietro and his sister Wanda discovered that they had peculiar talents. When Django began to steal food to feed his starving family, enraged villagers attacked the Roma camp. Using his phenomenal speed, Pietro fled from the camp with his sister. Over the next few years, Wanda and Pietro wandered Central Europe, living off the land before being found by Magneto and inducted into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, coming into conflict with the X-Men. They believed themselves to be mutants and felt they owed Magneto for helping them, but after a small series of misadventures with that band, they decided to reform, the opportunity which came about when the Avengers put out a call for new members, and they were successfully accepted onto the team.
As a result of his rather strong personality, writers tend to drive him to extremes. At one point, after being injured during a battle between the Avengers and the Sentinels, he is found dying in the rubble by Crystal, of the Royal Family of the Inhumans and her teleporting dog, Lockjaw. She brought him back to her homeland of Attilan, and nursed him back to health, where the two fell in love and eventually wed. During his time with the Inhumans, two significant events occurred. Wanda had fallen in love and married her fellow Avengers, the android, Vision. Through magic, she was able to create a pregnancy that yielded twin boys. While Pietro and Crystal were visiting Wanda and his new nephews, they also received a visit from Magneto, who revealed to them that he had learned that the twins here his children with the mysterious woman Magda, who had fled to Mt. Wundagore, delivered by Bova, a evolved cow and colleague to the High Evolutionary, and given to the Maximoff’s to raise as their own. Shortly after that, Black Bolt’s bother Maximus the Mad used technology to cause Quicksilver to become psychotic. This put him into conflict with both the Avengers, and the West coast Avengers, before the Inhumans managed to rescue him and cure him. He didn’t remain with his adopted family as his relationship with his wife had become quite strained over the years, and after helping the Avengers rescue his sister from a traumatic mental breakdown, he joined the the U.S. government-sponsored superhero team X-Factor.
Quicksilver played a pivotal role in the limited series, House of M, convincing his then mentally unstable sister Wanda to use her abilities to warp reality and create a world where mutants are in a majority and humans are the minority. Things went horribly wrong and after Magneto crushed Pietro, killing him in battle, Wanda snapped completely, and used her reality-warping powers to reset the world, resurrect Quicksilver, and remove the powers of 98% of the mutant population, including, inadvertently, her brothers. This set Pietro off on the next disastrous chapter in his life, where, in a desperate move to regain his powers, he stole the sacred Terrigen Crystals that granted abilities to Inhumans, in the hopes that it would also restore the abilities of mutants. He did indeed gain new “time jumping” powers and kidnapped his daughter Luna. Quicksilver discovered the crystals can restore mutant abilities but they had an extreme effect on non-Inhuman physiology, causing several deaths. When the Inhumans apprehended him, and Crystal saw how the crystals had affected him, she had their marriage annulled according to Inhuman law. In the book X-Factor, Rictor was able to remove the shards of Terrigen crystals from Pietro’s body, leaving him powerless again, and subsequently jailed and destitute. During his lowest point, he inexplicably regained his powers, and in saving an innocent, rededicated his life to the heroic.
Quicksilver then found himself with the Avengers once more, in a desperate attempt to find his sister who had been missing since the events during House of M. During this time he lied to the press that he had been one of several heroes abducted by shape-shifting Skrulls and held captive for several years, in order to explain his villainous actions. While a handful of Avengers were aware of this deception, they let it lie in order for Pietro to try to redeem himself. His daughter Luna was less forgiving and cut ties with her father. The Avengers were fortunate enough to reconnect with a mentally restored Wanda and the siblings were reunited. In the most recent twist in their already confusing origins, Wanda and Pietro found themselves in conflict with Magneto. Wanda cast a curse that would affect all blood-relations, and only Pietro was affected, revealing that in fact, Magneto was not the twins father. They learned from the High Evolutionary that they were actually the long thought deceased children of Django and Marya Maximoff. He also told them that they were not mutants at all, but had been experimented on by the High Evolutionary, which caused them to manifest their powers. Despite one more major disagreement that saw Wanda and Pietro part ways again, the two have since reconciled, and Quicksilver retains his Avengers membership.
My two favorites types of characters in superhero comics, and the morally and ethically pure characters, like Quasar, Captain America, and the Invisible Woman, followed very closely by those characters who struggle with character flaws, constantly trying to overcome them to do good. It is this character that Quicksilver falls under. As already mentioned, Pietro is over-protective, arrogant, irritable, impatient, and all-around unpleasant. but at his heart, he wants to do good; he wants to be a hero. His association with the Avengers is never boring, and is always lively. Honestly, I also love to see him as a member of X-Factor, where he has undergone so much positive character development. It’s only when writers get lazy and start writing him as a type rather than a person, that he becomes less interesting. Most of all, I hope to see his new, matured relationship with Wanda get some exploration, but something tells me that things will slip back to the old habits pretty soon.
Crystal, like her former husband, Quicksilver, is a very well-connected character. She made her first appearance (alongside her fellow Inhumans) in the Fantastic Four, as a love interest for the Human Torch. Their tragic romance found some semblance of happiness when Crystal joined the team to fill in while The Invisible Woman was pregnant with her first child, Franklin. Shortly after Sue’s return, however, Crystal became quite ill and it was discovered that her system could not handle the pollutants of modern-day society after growing up in the Inhuman’s homeland of Atillan. After leaving Johnny using her teleporting dog, Lockjaw, she stumbled across Quicksilver, who was dying from injuries sustained in a battle with a Sentinel. She brought him to her home with the Inhumans, and while nursing him back to health, she fell in love with him, much to the chagrin of the Human Torch. Crystal and Quicksilver eventually marry, and have a daughter named Luna. During their time as a couple, Crystal begins spending time with her sister-in-law, Wanda, who had recently married the android Avenger known as the Vision. Wanda and Vision tried to live a normal life in the suburbs of New Jersey, and during that time, Crystal embarked on a romantic affair with one of their neighbors, Norm Webster. At the time this behavior was explained as a result of her mistreatment at Quicksilver’s hands, but it was later revealed to be the result of Maximus the Mad’s mental tampering of the couple’s minds. While Quicksilver spent time with the mutant team, X-Factor, Crystal returned for a time to the Fantastic Four.
After returning to Atillan, the Inhumans were attacked by an alien race, The Brethren. Crystal reached out to the Avengers for assistance, and shortly thereafter, she joined the team. Crystal acquitted herself quite well on the team, becoming a valuable member in combat during some major storylines such as Operation: Galactic Storm, The Gatherers Storyline, and a Bloodties cross-over with the X-Men. During her tenure with the Avengers, she developed an attraction with teammate Dane Whitman, the Black Knight. This relationship was complicated by a contrite Pietro trying to fix their marriage, and the available and aggressive Sersi pursuing Dane at the same time. Crystal recommitted to Pietro when he returned to the Avengers and Dane and Sersi were soon transported to another universe, ending their thoughts of an affair. After the disastrous outcome of the battle with Onslaught, Crystal was among the Avengers who disappeared for a year to an alternate reality created by Franklin Richards. Upon their return, she helped the Avengers reassemble then returned to Attilan, where she remained beside the Royal Family, raising Luna. During that time she once again became estranged from Quicksilver.
Since that time, Crystal has spent most of her time involved with Inhuman affairs. They became embroiled in a major War involving their creators, the Kree that found Crystal participating in a political marriage with Ronan the Accuser. Returning to Earth, the Inhumans’ Terrigen mists, the source of their Inhuman powers, were released into Earth’s atmosphere as a huge cloud that moved across the Globe. Crystal became a diplomat, leading a small team of Inhumans to the places affected by the cloud, aiding the Inhumans that emerged in those locations due to its appearance. Recently, the Inhumans were taken out of rotation in Marvel, and I am waiting for them to return sometime in the future.
Crystal has a great power set that adds a lot to any team she appears on. Crystal possesses the ability to mentally manipulate the four classical elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Her psionic powers are a result of exposure to the Terrigen Mists, which coupled with genetic engineering of the Inhumans by the Kree in the distant past, grant Inhumans abilities beyond the capabilities of an ordinary Inhuman that are unique to each individual. Crystal can control oxygen atoms and oxygen-containing molecules to create atmospheric disturbances of various kinds. By intermingling air with earth she can cause a dust storm, air with water a typhoon, and air with fire a firestorm. She is able to create a wind of tornado intensity, approximately 115 miles per hour. Crystal can control the various substances that make up common bedrock (earth: iron, granite, shale, limestone, etc.), creating seismic tremors by causing a sudden shifting of the earth. Crystal possesses the psionic ability to manipulate fire, cause it to grow in size and intensity, and take any form that she desires. She can also douse any oxidizing flame by altering the ionization potential of the outer electron shells of oxygen atoms. By accelerating oxygen molecules in the air, she is able to cause fire to spontaneously ignite. Further, Crystal can control the movement of water divining water from the ground, and causing it to flow in designated directions. She is able to instantly freeze water to create ice blasts. She can also cause hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the air to recombine and form water molecules. This allows her to spontaneously create water, even in a dry environment, provided oxygen and hydrogen are present.
The Vision was tough to place on my list. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, I’d have to say Vision was one of my favorite Avengers and probably would have at minimum made the Top 10 back then. Then John Byrne came along in 1989 and completely destroyed the character (literally) and he has never been able to capture my attention again, except for one exemplary 12-issue-limited series in 2016 by Tom King. More work like that on the character, and he will probably be able to get back into my Top 10.
Roy Thomas wanted to develop a long-term storyline of the Vision’s quest to become human, and as part of the quest, he developed a slow-burning romance between the android-Avenger and the Scarlet Witch. This fan-favorite storyline simmered for years, reaching a number of pinnacles, most notably during the Kree-Skrull War when the Vision loses his cool nearly killing a Skrull as he tries to find the kidnapped Wanda, and then a breakthrough moment, when Vision offers Wanda his love after she is distraught over her brother Quicksilver’s disappearance. The two then embarked on a tempestuous romance, largely from external forces: bigoted humanity’s opposition to the love between a synthetic man and a mutant — an opposition that included Wanda’s twin brother Pietro — and the romantic attentions of fellow Avenger, Mantis who became interested in the Vision. Yet the two persevered, married, and even eventually bore twin children, created by magic. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, the Vision/Wanda romance was a highlight of Avengers life.
Then John Byrne took over the Avengers West Coast, and in an effort to shake things up he basically tore Vision and Wanda apart in the most horrific way, and the two characters are still feeling the ramifications of these actions today; and sadly their characters have never fully recovered. Focusing on the Vision (Wanda will get her own entry further up the list), a rogue government group, being influenced by the time-traveling Immortus, captured and completely dismantled the Vision to his component parts, traumatizing Wanda. To make matters worse, although Hank Pym was able to reconstruct Vision’s body, Simon Williams now a member of the team, and himself in love with Wanda, would not allow his brain patterns to be used again to provide a matrix for the Vision’s emotions, as he felt the original process had “ripped out his soul” and been done without his consent. Although his love for Wanda led him to feel guilt, he attempted to justify his actions by claiming that the Vision was never anything more than a copy of him. This, along with damage to the Vision’s synthetic skin when he was dismantled, resulted in his resurrection as a colorless, emotionless synthezoid. For years after that, Wanda tried to reconnect with the Vision, to little or no effect, and ultimately, after her own traumatic breakdowns, the two tried to move on. Occasionally writers will show small glimmers of their love still in evidence, but little has come of it. Still they share a bond, even as they both try to move on with their lives.
The Vision is one of the most powerful Avengers due to the abilities given him by Ultron. Vision is described as being “every inch a human being—except that all of his bodily organs are constructed of synthetic materials.” (This seems to be proven wrong with Byrne’s visual depiction of his dismantled form). The Solar Jewel on Vision’s forehead absorbs ambient solar energy to provide the power needed for him to function, and he is also capable of discharging this energy as optic beams; with this, he can fire beams of infrared and microwave radiation. By interfacing with an unknown dimension to which he can shunt and from which he can accrue mass, thus becoming either intangible or extraordinarily massive, Vision can change his density, which at its lowest allows flight and a ghostly, phasing intangibility, and at its heaviest, a density ten times greater than that of depleted uranium, which gives him superhuman strength, immovability, and a diamond-hard near invulnerability. One of his signature attacks finds him thrusting an intangible hand into an appointment, then partially solidifying it, a process he describes as “physical disruption.” This effect typically causes great pain and results in incapacitation. Being an artificial life-form/android of sorts, Vision has superhuman senses, superhuman stamina, reflexes, speed, agility, strength (even without being at high density), superhuman analytical capabilities, and the ability to process information and make calculations with superhuman speed and accuracy. Due to recent upgrades, the Vision’s body is now formed from millions of nanobots that allow him to split himself into smaller parts and change shape.
I feel Vision truly suffered from his initial dismantling by John Byrne. Once he was seen, reduced to his component, mechanical parts, strewn out across a few laboratory tables in a stark two-page spread drawn by Byrne, it was difficult to ever think of him again as a man. In addition his lengthy emotionless period drove him further into a robotic arena and his subsequent destructions just kept underscoring his artificial nature. While Roy Thomas carefully and slowly developed a riveting, years-long storyline about a synthetic man trying to become human, Byrne and many of those who followed, decided to focus on his inhumanity. Thankfully, Tom King did some healing work to set him on the right track again. Hopefully that track will continue in the future.