History ComicBook / AvengersTheInitiative

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Gauntlet's wife states that as a drill sergeant, he's supposed to be mean to his students to toughen them up. That said, [[spoiler:Slapstick wasn't wrong to react with outrage at Gauntlet repeatedly using the dead New Warriors, people he knew and was friends with, as an insult. Even if beating him into a coma was DisproportionateRetribution, Gauntlet was being cruel for no reason.]]

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

* AbortedArc: Earlier issues had dark hints that Slapstick -- a jokey character with ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''-like powers -- was slowly going insane, like when he [[spoiler:beat Gauntlet into a coma]], or kept a device with the brain patterns of the murderous KIA for some purpose. He actually tries several times to talk about this, almost confessing to [[spoiler:nearly killing the Gauntlet]] to his teammates and mentioning at one point that he can't go back to his SecretIdentity as Steve Harmon anymore -- but every time he does, he either gets interrupted or dismissed as more of his wacky antics. It was an interesting subplot -- that ends up going nowhere, thanks to the events of ComicBook/SecretInvasion and ComicBook/DarkReign completely changing the plot of the whole series. We never find out what he does with the brain pattern device, either.

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

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: [[spoiler:3D Man, after killing Crusader at the end of the Secret Invasion arc.]]

It often crossed over with other big events going on at the time, such as ComicBook/WorldWarHulk, ComicBook/SecretInvasion and ComicBook/DarkReign, the later two of which enormously altered its status quo. It was succeeded by ComicBook/AvengersAcademy, and many of its characters re-appeared in the ComicBook/FearItself tie in "Youth In Revolt."

* AbortedArc: Earlier issues had dark hints that Slapstick -- a jokey character with ''Looney Tunes''-like powers -- was slowly going insane, like when he [[spoiler:beat Gauntlet into a coma]], or kept a device with the brain patterns of the murderous KIA for some purpose. He actually tries several times to talk about this, almost confessing to [[spoiler:nearly killing the Gauntlet]] to his teammates and mentioning at one point that he can't go back to his SecretIdentity as Steve Harmon anymore -- but every time he does, he either gets interrupted or dismissed as more of his wacky antics. It was an interesting subplot -- that ends up going nowhere, thanks to the events of ComicBook/SecretInvasion and ComicBook/DarkReign completely changing the plot of the whole series. We never find out what he does with the brain pattern device, either.

Following the events of the ComicBook/CivilWar, ComicBook/IronMan opens "Camp Hammond," a military base where heroes old and new are trained to be "proper" heroes. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions -- and Camp Hammond has many secrets behind it, with many agendas working not to make better heroes at all...

* BerserkButton: Eric O'Grady insults Scott Lang... [[WhatAnIdiot within earshot of the guy's daughter]].

* UselessSuperpowers: Gorilla Girl's power is that she can transform into a gorilla. Which, while not completely useless, as she points out is not terribly helpful when fighting off an army of Skrulls. She never actually wanted to be a hero in the first place, like many of its members she was dragooned into joining the Initiative or spend the rest of her life behind bars. After the events of ''Secret Invasion'' she quit the Initiative and moved to Europe.

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

* AdultFear: When Gauntlet goes on the run, he's got to deal with the fact that while his wife has distanced herself from him to save herself, he's still got to live with the fact he's abandoned his wife and two kids.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: 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. ]]

Following the events of the Civil War, ComicBook/IronMan opens "Camp Hammond," a military base where heroes old and new are trained to be "proper" heroes. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions -- and Camp Hammond has many secrets behind it, with many agendas working not to make better heroes at all...

** 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[[note]]herself a recipient of BlessedWithSuck as, unlike with Butterball, her powers made it so she couldn't touch anyone without burning them[[/note]] tried to come on to him).

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

* AbortedArc: Earlier issues had dark hints that Slapstick -- a jokey character with Loony Tunes-like powers -- was slowly going insane, like when he [[spoiler:beat the Gantlet into a coma]], or kept a device with the brain patterns of the murderous KIA for some purpose. He actually tries several times to talk about this, almost confessing to [[spoiler:nearly killing the Gauntlet]] to his teammates and mentioning at one point that he can't go back to his SecretIdentity as Steve Harmon anymore -- but every time he does, he either gets interrupted or dismissed as more of his wacky antics. It was an interesting subplot -- that ends up going nowhere, thanks to the events of ComicBook/SecretInvasion and ComicBook/DarkReign completely changing the plot of the whole series. We never find out what he does with the brain pattern device, either.
* 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: character deaths for a C-Lister within the Millennial decade]].

* AccidentallyBrokeTheMacGuffin: [[spoiler:Crusader]] reverses the affect of the newly-appointed 3D Man's glasses [[spoiler:making him think all of the humans at Camp Hammond were Skrulls save Crusader]] and leading him to try to find assistance against the Skrull invasion elsewhere.

** 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).

* SequelHook: When last seen, the not-quite dead Crusader uses his ring to warp himself away to parts unknown... as of 2019, there's been no sign of him.

* CaptainPatriotic: The Liberteens play their Americana-ness to the hilt. Well, with a name like that, they'd kind of have to...

* CluelessBoss: War Machine, the leader of the Hammond base... at least on paper. MVP dies in training, all those who see it are sworn to secrecy, and he dosn't know anything about that. Gyrich organizes a "shadow team" for secret operations, and again, War Machine has no clue of the things gong on at ''his'' base.

** 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 brutal, bloody beatdown]].

** 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, then has Armory, the one who (accidentally) killed him kicked out, institutionalized and constantly monitored by a plant.

** [[spoiler:Hardball steals a set of super-powered nanites from Iron Man, which the very next day turn out to be the ones Tony planned to use on the Hulk during the opening issue of World War Hulk.]]

* TheReveal: Mutant Zero is [[spoiler:Typhoid Mary, she of ''Daredevil'' fame.]]

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Violet Lightner a.k.a. Armory's entire story in the series. She attempts to jump off a bridge, but is saved by the Tactigon which she uses to try to be a hero. On her first day she kills a fellow cadet, is driven out of the program, has the Tactigon surgically removed and is 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.]]

!Tropes used in ''Avengers: The Initiative'' include:

** 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 -- the Tactigon may fear it, but it it's ''wielder'' doesn't, enabling him to take Trauma out]].

* AnArmAndALeg: Constrictor's arms are sliced off with razor wire by KIA. Somehow, he avoids bleeding out.

** The Initiative decides to send Kimodo, a still-green recruit, after Spider-Man, who is in a ferociously bad mood after his Aunt May was fatally injured. Even with War Machine backing her up, it doesn't end well.

* CluelessBoss: War Machine, the leader of the Hammond base... at least on paper. MVP died in training, all those who saw it were sworn to secrecy, and he did not know anything about that. Gyrich organizes a "shadow team" for secret operations, and again, War Machine had no clue of the things gong on at ''his'' base.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: [[spoiler:Hardball]] was blackmailed by an agent of HYDRA to obtain a sample of the SPIN technology. He did so in the night, infiltrated into the secret labs, took it, saw the agent outside and returned to the barracks, for some sleep. And then Gauntlet show up to wake them for more training... and praised [[spoiler:Hardball]] for having his clothes and bed already done. It seems he will become a super soldier, and not a silly New Warrior!

* CrazyPrepared: When Norman Osborn took the reins of government and the original members became fugitive outlaws, Gauntlet's wife said on TV that he's not the man she married, and doesn't want anything to do with him anymore. The others tell Gauntlet that she surely didn't mean that -- and Gauntlet reveals that he ''told'' her to say that if he was ever in such a scenario, so she doesn't become a fugitive as well.

* 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 brutal, bloody beatdown]].

* 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 -- the Tactigon may fear it, but it it's ''wielder'' doesn't, enabling him to take Trauma out]].

* 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.]]

* PetTheDog: Gauntlet's daughter asked him to make a child's trick of a "bunny" before leaving to work. And, for a fraction of a second, Gauntlet stopped acting like a hardened badass and was nice and a good parent with his small daughter.

* TheRealHeroes. Gyrich said in an outburst that he wanted to "turn heroes into soldiers, and soldiers into heroes". Gaunlet then politely informs 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 &/)=?,:%]].

* ShooOutTheNewGuy: MVP dies in the first issue.

* 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).

* TyrantTakesTheHelm: During the ComicBook/DarkReign era, Norman Osborn appoints the Hood as the new director of the Initiative. Things quickly go downhill.

* 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 Osborn 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.