History ComicBook / AvengersTheInitiative

** Among the recruits, Hardball stands out

* MagneticHero: [[spoiler:Butterball]] who at the end of his arc had won over formerly antagonistic teammates and instructors to the point [[spoiler: Taskmaster and the Constrictor actually posed for picture with Butterball, making it look like they lost a fight just to make up for his being kicked out of Camp Hammond.]]

** The decision to cover up [[spoiler:MVP's death]] comes back to bite the entire Initiative in the ass when Norman Osborn uses the cover-up as a pretense to overhaul the Initiative so that he can stuff it full of supervillains.

* EmpathicWeapon: The Tactigon has enough of a mind of its own that Trauma can mimic its fear [[spoiler:which actually screws him when he faces off against KIA, who has no idea what it is or why he should fear it, enabling him to take Trauma out]].

** Henry Peter Gyrich spends the first thirteen issues in top form. He covers up MVP's death, has the recruit dissected, cloned, then hands a clone over to the guy's father and lies about his son's death, has Armory, the one who (accidentally) killed him kicked out, institutionalized and constantly monitored by a plant.

** Trauma initially feels this way about his powers. He has the ability to become whatever another person fears, which also means that he has some degree of empathetic ability. He has very limited control over this, however, and thus not only did the manifestation of his powers tear his family apart, it also causes his own teammates to panic when they're around him. Worse, even though the government has the power to remove his abilities, they refuse, on the grounds that his powers make him too attractive an asset. He later manages to gain control of his powers and starts using them as a therapeutic tool, by controlling how much of his f

** Trauma initially feels this way about his powers. He has the ability to become whatever another person fears, which also means that he has some degree of empathetic ability. He has very limited control over this, however, and thus not only did the manifestation of his powers tear his family apart, it also causes his own teammates to panic when they're around him. Worse, even though the government has the power to remove his abilities, they refuse, on the grounds that his powers make him too attractive an asset. This leads to considerable frustration when the Hood becomes the new director of training and expects Trauma to use his powers to keep the trainees in line.

* BreakTheCutie: Cloud 9 during the first thirteen issues. She goes from a sweet, innocent kid, who by the time of ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion'' has become a remorseless ColdSniper.

** The Initiative decides to send untrained kids after Spider-Man, who is in a ferociously bad mood after his Aunt May was fatally injured.

* FiveManBand: The initial recruits.
** TheHero: MVP.
** TheLancer: Hardball.
** TheBigGuy: Komodo and Armory.
** TheSmartGuy: Trauma.
** TheChick: Cloud 9.
** [[spoiler:MVP is accidentally killed by Armory in the first issue; Armory is then sent to a psychiatric hospital after having the source of her powers removed. When the remaining cadets graduate,]] they're all sent to different teams. Future issues follow a rotating ensemble cast in addition to these kids.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: How do we recognize Gauntlet's wife when we see her? With that big word in her clothes that says "wife"

** TheHero: MVP
** TheLancer: Hardball
** TheBigGuy: Komodo and Armory
** TheSmartGuy: Trauma

Following the events of the Civil War, ComicBook/IronMan opens "Camp Hammond", a military base where heroes old and young are put into boot camp to train them to be "proper" heroes. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The boot camp has many secrets behind it, with many agendas working not to make better heroes at all. Each state is stocked with its own super hero team, but that itself ends up being a villainous plan as part of the Skrull's ComicBook/SecretInvasion -- placing a Super Skrull in every state. Once the lies, deaths and many of the agendas are revealed, [[Comicbook/DarkReign Norman Osborn takes control]] and stocks the camp and states with super villains, leaving the old graduates and teachers to fight against them as the very thing they aspired not to be -- renegade heroes.

With the events of ComicBook/{{Siege}} over, Camp Hammond was shut down along with the [[SuperRegistrationAct Super Human Registration Act]]. In its wake, the most troubled of young heroes were brought in for study in ComicBook/AvengersAcademy.

A {{Spinoff}} from ComicBook/TheAvengers, initially based around SuperHero Bootcamp, the series would soon began to serve as a look at the wider Post-Civil War Marvel Universe from [[LowerDeckEpisode the perspective of C and D list characters]]. Some new, some classic, but only a few normally major leading characters.

The series lasted for 35 issues (June, 2007-June, 2010). Many of the characters in its re-appear in the ComicBook/FearItself tie in "Youth In Revolt".

--> '''Grynch''' ''(completely straightfaced): Of course, Gauntlet, my apologies.

* TheRealHeroes. Gyrich said in an outburst that he wanted to "turn heroes into soldiers, and soldiers into heroes". Gaunlet told him that soldiers '''''are''''' heroes, and if he ever says a similar thing again, he will take his [[SymbolSwearing #"@&%$!º/=]] and stuff it into his [[SymbolSwearing &/)=?,:%]].

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Avengers-Initiative_4780.gif]]

* BullyingADragon: The Initiative decides to send untrained kids after Spider-Man, who is in a ferociously bad mood after his Aunt May was fatally injured.

* CListFodder: Explored and invoked.

* SuperSoldier: Technically what the camp tries to turn the 'recruits' into through various training regimes.

* CursedWithAwesome:
** Trauma initially feels this way about his powers. He has the ability to become whatever another person fears, which also means that he has some degree of empathetic ability. He has very limited control over this, however, and thus not only did the manifestation of his powers tear his family apart, it also causes his own teammates to panic when they're around him. Worse, even though the government has the power to remove his abilities, they refuse, on the grounds that his powers make him too attractive an asset. This leads to considerable frustration when the Hood becomes the new director of training and expects Trauma to use his powers to keep the trainees in line.
** Emery Schaub, AKA Butterball, is cursed with [[ComicallyInvincibleHero literal invincibility]]. His body is unaffected by everything from death rays to dieting and exercise, meaning he's forever stuck as an untouchable, unkillable overweight weakling. His invincibility also prevents him from feeling physical pleasure (which led to discomfort when Sunstreak tried to come on to him).
** Hardball's brother arranged to receive heightened strength and endurance from the Power Broker in hopes of pursuing a career in the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. Unfortunately for him, the League was already full of people who were stronger and more durable, and thus he ended up paralyzed but incapable of being killed by any normal means, thus bankrupting his family.

** Emery Schaub, AKA Butterball, is cursed with [[ComicallyInvincibleHero literal invincibility]]. His body is unaffected by everything from death rays to dieting and exercise, meaning he's forever stuck as an untouchable, unkillable overweight weakling. His invincibility also prevents him from feeling physical pleasure.

* MagneticHero: [[spoiler:Butterball]] who at the end of his arc had won over formally antagonistic teammates and instructors to the point [[spoiler: Taskmaster and the Constrictor actually posed for picture with Butterball, making it look like they lost a fight just to make up for his being kicked out of Camp Hammond.]]

* StevenUlyssesPerhero / FunWithAcronyms: MVP stands for Michael Van Patrick. [[spoiler:Each of his clones take one name for themselves.]]

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Moonstone grumbles about Ms. Marvel's old costume, which she happens to be wearing at the time.

* WildTeenParty: Just replace "teen" with "supervillain", and it's the same. All the villains are having a wild party, and the Supervisor (who was also taking part in it) answers to Norman Osbourne in the phone. Those noises in the background? No, sir, that's not music, those are explosions! We are training here, training like hell! Norman shows up the next day. The supervisor had managed to clean up all the mess and make it seem as if it was a serious military base... but Norman realized that it was all a set-up anyway.

* AscendedFanboy: Emery Schaub aka [[strike:Boulder]] Butterball
* BadPowersGoodPeople: Terrence Ward aka Trauma, has the ability to take the form of the opponent's greatest fear, which is typically a power or ability that villains enjoy to employ. Trauma has instead tried to re-channel it into a therapeutic tool.

* CharlesAtlasSuperPower: MVP, great-grandson of one of the scientists working on Captain America's SuperSoldier serum, achieved his powers by following a strict diet and training regiment since birth.

* CloningBlues: [[spoiler: MVP and the Scarlet Spiders]]

* ComicBookDeath: Trauma is killed by KIA. He wakes up in his coffin (mercifully, before he was actually buried, though not before being embalmed).

* ADayInTheSpotLight: The series in general. Special mention goes to #27, the short story "Even the Losers" focusing on a one-off ComicBook/{{Dazzler}} villain named Johnny Guitar, and manages to make it one of the most poignant [[spoiler:[[HeroicSacrifice character deaths]] for a C-Lister within the Millennial decade]].

* [[spoiler:CloningBlues: MVP and the Scarlet Spiders]]

* DrillSergeantNasty: Gauntlet, always insulting the recruits to turn them into good soldiers, who specifically uses "New Warrior" as his worst insult. A flashback shows he was like this before he became a drill sergeant. Eventually [[spoiler:Slapstick gets fed up with the man insulting his dead friends, and subjects him to a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown]].

* EmpathicWeapon: The Tactigon has enough of a mind of its own that Trauma can mimic its fear [[spoiler:which actually screws him when he faces off against KIA, who has no idea what it was or why he should fear it hence enabling him to take Trauma out]].

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Hardball, one of the first recruits in the series becomes a high ranking member of Hydra. [[HeelFaceTurn He gets better]].]]

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: [[spoiler:3D Man, after killing Crusader at the end of the ComicBook/SecretInvasion arc.]]

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:[[ComicBook/TheAwesomeSlapstick Slapstick]] is never implicated for his attack on Gauntlet nor for taking a device that contained the villain's K.I.A's personality at the end of the K.I.A. arc. ]]

* PercussivePrevention: [[spoiler:Johnny Guitar uses his guitar to shatter the bones in Doctor Sax's hand and destroy his sax, which causes him to be retired from the Shadow Initiative just before a SuicideMission.]]

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Violet Lightner a.k.a. Armory's entire story in the series, nearly DrivenToSuicide by her crappy life, is saved by the Tactigon which she uses to try to be a hero and on her first day kills a fellow cadet, is driven out of the program, has the Tactigon surgically removed and stashed in a mental hospital so she can't tell anyone about what happened with little hope to be released, on account of her shrink working directly for Gyrich.]]
* StarCrossedLovers: [[spoiler:Osborn supporter [[PunchClockVillain Constrictor]] and [[DatingCatwoman Diamondback, who was a double agent working to bring Osborn down]]. ]]

* CoversAlwaysLie: That image up there? Half the heroes in that shot never appeared in the comic during its run. Many of them were never part of the Initiative in the first place. Iron Man, who's front and center, only appeared a handful of times, and almost never interacted with the rest of the cast.

* EarlyInstallmeantWeirdness: Young Avengers Wiccan and Hulkling are seen in early issues as part of the Initiative. Later issues in other titles would quite emphatically state that they were ''not'', and never were, part of the Initiative, and they quickly disappeared from the title. A rather tongue-in-cheek issue of She-Hulk tried to establish that the Wiccan and Hulkling in ''Avengers Initiative'' were actually inter-dimensional tourists out for a lark.

* HeroicLegacy: Trauma is [[spoiler:Nightmare's son.]]

** Henry Peter Gyrich spends the first thirteen issues in top form. He covers up MVP's death, has the recruit dissected, cloned, then hands a clone over to the guy's father and lies about his son's death, has Armory, the one who (accidentally) killed him kicked out, institutionalised and constantly monitored by a plant.

* KilledOffForReal: Quite a few. [[spoiler: the original MVP and two of his four active clones, Johnny Guitar, Whiz Kid, Proton and possibly Spinner and Crusader]]. Despite this, none really feels like a waste of the character nor done for cheap drama.

* LogicalWeakness: Trauma's power is impressive, he turns into a living embodiment of someone's fears, but (obviously) it does not work with robots. [[spoiler:It also doesn't work on someone who has overcome their fears, as the Hulk quite emphatically demonstrates.]]

** In the first issue, Gyrich grumbles about [[ComicBook/HouseOfM M-Day]] shifting the super-human balance of power back into America's favor.
* CrazyPrepared: When Norman Osborn took the reins of government and the original members became fugitive outlaws, Gauntlet's wife said in TV that that's not the man she got married with, that she does not want to have anything with him anymore. The others told him that surely she did not meant that. And Gauntlet? Did you expect him to be NotSoStoic? Keep waiting: it was him who told her to say that, in case he was ever in such a scenario, so that she does not become a fugitive as well.

** Emery Schaub, AKA Butterball, is cursed with [[ComicallyInvincibleHero literal invincibility]]. His body is unaffected by everything from laser blasts to the face to dieting and exercise, meaning he's forever stuck as an untouchable, unkillable overweight weakling. His invincibility also prevents him from feeling physical pleasure.

* MagneticHero: [[spoiler:Butterball]] who at the end of his arc had won over formally antagonistic teammates and instructors to the point [[spoiler:Taskmaster and the Constrictor actually posed for picture with Butterball, making it look like they lost a fight just to make up for his being kicked out of Camp Hammond.]]

* SupermanStaysOutOfGotham: During ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', the recruits escaped and fought Hulk on their own. They were defeated and captured. To prevent the political scandal, Gyrich sent the shadow team to infiltrate Hulk's base, liberate them and return. And Bengal pointed out: if they are there, shouldn't they liberate the other captured heroes as well? No, they have a very limited time (and, besides, that would completely change the story)

* SwissArmyWeapon: The Tactigon, adapts itself to fit the situation or the opponent's weaknesses.

* LogicalWeakness: Trauma's power is impressive, he turns into a living embodiment of someone's fears, but (obviously) it does not work with robots. [[spoiler:It doesn't work with Hulk either, as he's too angry to feel fear.]]

* KilledOffForReal: Quite a few. [[spoiler: the original MVP and two of his four active clones, Johnny Guitar, Whiz Kid, Proton and possibly Spinner and Freedom Ring]]. Despite this, none really feels like a waste of the character nor done for cheap drama.

** Emery Schaub, AKA Butterball, is cursed with [[ComicallyInvincibleHero literal invincibility]]. His body is completely unaffected by everything from lazer blasts to the face to dieting and exercise, meaning he's forever stuck as an untouchable, unkillable overweight weakling. His invincibility also prevents him from feeling physical pleasure.

* Hardball's brother arranged to receive heightened strength and endurance from the Power Broker in hopes of pursuing a career in the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. Unfortunately for him, the League was already full of people who were stronger and more durable, and thus he ended up paralyzed but incapable of being killed by any normal means, thus bankrupting his family.

* CursedWithAwesome: Several characters initially feel this way about their powers:
** Trauma has the ability to become whatever another person fears, which also means that he has some degree of empathetic ability. He has very limited control over this, however, and thus not only did the manifestation of his powers tear his family apart, it also causes his own teammates to panic when they're around him. Worse, even though the government has the power to remove his abilities, they refuse, on the grounds that his powers make him too attractive an asset. This leads to considerable frustration when the Hood becomes the new director of training and expects Trauma to use his powers to keep the trainees in line.
** Emery Schaub is cursed with [[ComicallyInvincibleHero literal invincibility]] because at the time he got his powers he was out of shape, he can't develop muscle, making it that while he can work out for years, his shape and strength will stay below average making him ill suited for most super hero duties. His invincibility also prevents him from feeling physical pleasure.