History YMMV / TheAvengers

** The team in the immediate aftermath of Operation Galactic Storm. Bob Harras wrote ''The Gatherers'' story well but the roster was horrible to the point where Black Knight, Black Widow and Vision were the only popular characters on the team since Captain America and Iron Man both decided to focus on solo adventures and Thor left soon afterwards while Wasp and Hank Pym both decided it would be a good time to go MIA. The West Coast Team fared slightly better with War Machine, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch but the franchise was overrun with C-list heroes until Captain America rejoined the vanilla team at the same time that Deathcry joined who many consider to be the worst Avenger of all time. This led into the widely reviled (although well drawn) ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' series which made Iron Man evil then killed him and replaced him with his teenage self. It was a change so unpopular that it took killing the nearly entire roster of Avengers in the Onslaught crossover (exceptions being War Machine, Quicksilver, Spider-Man and partially the Hulk) to reboot them in the alternate ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe which proved so unpopular that Marvel performed a second reboot after only 12 issues. Thankfully Creator/KurtBusiek's reboot worked and restored the franchise to its former glory.
** After the widely loved Creator/KurtBusiek run and mixed-at-best Creator/GeoffJohns run, Creator/ChuckAusten took over which was every bit as terrible as ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' to the point where Creator/BrianMichaelBendis had to reboot the team yet again with ''ComicBook/AvengersDisassembled''.

** Mantis for Steve Englehart, so much so he'd later try to transplant her wholesale into the DC universe as well.
** Some characters in [[Creator/BrianMichaelBendis Brian Michael Bendis']] Avengers comics - Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Ares - are accused of being this. There is some balance though, because Bendis has a tendency to showing his affection by [[BreakTheCutie heartlessly breaking them]], so all five went through some serious crap under his care. But for many fans it's still not enough to equal all the attention he gives them. And that's not counting Bendis' "love" for Hawkeye, who has become nothing more than a vehicle from which Bendis [[TakeThatCritics attacks his critics]] (and to spite fans whose overwhelming hatred for Bendis' attempt to permanently kill Clint off led to Bendis being forced against his will to bring him back to life, at which point he turned him into a ninja to further spite fans).

** After poor writing for issue #200 made it seem like [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Ms. Marvel]] was brainwashed and raped, and we were supposed to see it as romantic, the following year saw her give a blistering WhatTheHellHero speech to the team for not realizing she was ''still'' brainwashed when she agreed to go off with the guy. It also gave Marcus a KarmicDeath, saying that his experiments caused him to become badly out of temporal synch with Limbo, resulting in him aging into dust within the span of a week after they'd returned.

** [[Characters/MarvelComicsMariaHill Maria Hill]] may be the biggest example of one in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. Even her actress in the films happily referred to her as 'the biggest bitch in the Marvel Universe'. She's the woman who tried to arrest ''Captain America'' for reasons she wouldn't be able to arrest him for, going out of her way to sabotage others to get ahead, and generally being a jerk to everyone she meets while her competence as a SHIELD director leaving much to be desired. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Her actions in]] ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' [[WhatTheHellHero do not]] [[KickTheDog help with this]]. ''However'', a good number of fans ''do'' sympathise with her, especially thanks to her CharacterDevelopment under Fraction's pen in ''Iron Man'' and the handling by Creator/MarkWaid in his ''Hulk'' work, and a number point out that Nick Fury is generally given a free pass for similar stunts while she gets derided [[note]]which, again, her actress acknowledges, pointing out the DoubleStandard of how when a guy does something cruel and morally questionable, he's a badass, but when a woman does it, she's just a bitch[[/note]]; not to mention, her clear guilt during ''Secret Avengers'' helps to at least humanize her and make it clear she's not OK betraying Mockingbird or Hulk (but not Daisy; she's happy screwing over Daisy).

** The West Coast team was split up shortly after Mockingbird's death, with Steve citing the team's problems and changing roster as a problem--hardly surprising when one member had been killed two issues ago, and Hawkeye had left because he couldn't stand to go back to the compound due to it being their first home as a married couple. Outside the West Coast Avengers, no one even seemed to remember she existed, let alone that she'd been killed. Even Hawkeye eventually recovered and returned to being the siilly jokster of the team who had multiple romantic interests, at least until Mockingbird came back.

** ComicBook/MariaHill may be the biggest example of one in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. Even her actress in the films happily referred to her as 'the biggest bitch in the Marvel Universe'. She's the woman who tried to arrest ''Captain America'' for reasons she wouldn't be able to arrest him for, going out of her way to sabotage others to get ahead, and generally being a jerk to everyone she meets while her competence as a SHIELD director leaving much to be desired. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Her actions in]] ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' [[WhatTheHellHero do not]] [[KickTheDog help with this]]. ''However'', a good number of fans ''do'' sympathise with her, especially thanks to her CharacterDevelopment under Fraction's pen in ''Iron Man'' and the handling by Creator/MarkWaid in his ''Hulk'' work, and a number point out that Nick Fury is generally given a free pass for similar stunts while she gets derided [[note]]which, again, her actress acknowledges, pointing out the DoubleStandard of how when a guy does something cruel and morally questionable, he's a badass, but when a woman does it, she's just a bitch[[/note]]; not to mention, her clear guilt during ''Secret Avengers'' helps to at least humanize her and make it clear she's not OK betraying Mockingbird or Hulk (but not Daisy; she's happy screwing over Daisy).

** The team in the immediate aftermath of Operation Galactic Storm. Bob Harras wrote ''The Gatherers'' story well but the roster was horrible to the point where Black Knight, ComicBook/BlackWidow and Vision were the only popular characters on the team since ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ComicBook/IronMan both decided to focus on solo adventures and Thor left soon afterwards while Wasp and Hank Pym both decided it would be a good time to go MIA. The West Coast Team fared slightly better with ComicBook/WarMachine, Hawkeye and ComicBook/ScarletWitch but the franchise was overrun with C-list heroes until Captain America rejoined the vanilla team at the same time that Deathcry joined who many consider to be the worst Avenger of all time. This led into the widely reviled (although well drawn) ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' series which made ComicBook/IronMan evil then killed him and replaced him with his teenage self. It was a change so unpopular that it took killing the nearly entire roster of Avengers in the Onslaught crossover (exceptions being War Machine, Quicksilver, ComicBook/SpiderMan and partially the Hulk) to reboot them in the alternate ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe which proved so unpopular that Marvel performed a second reboot after only 12 issues. Thankfully Creator/KurtBusiek's reboot worked and restored the franchise to its former glory.

** ''Avengers Annual'' #10 in 1981 included a cover blurb that announced, "A Shocking Mystery Guest!" The guest was ComicBook/CarolDanvers, who had been absent for some time before this. But the issue happened to include a one-time extra named [[NamesTheSame "Maddy Pryor"]], who some readers decades later sometimes confuse with [[ComicBook/MadelynePryor the other one]] because the ComicBook/XMen were guest characters in the ''Annual'', it was written by Creator/ChrisClaremont, and the cover blurb.

* IconicSequelOutfit: Tigra originally wore a yellow and blue costume in her alias as The Cat. Following her transformation into a tiger humanoid, she started wearing a black bikini. Her original costume is now known for being worn by ComicBook/{{Hellcat}}.

* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Scarlet Witch has been the target of a ''lot'' of character's affections, including Angel, Toad, Mastermind, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, Hawkeye, The Vision, Wonder Man, Nightcrawler, Doctor Doom, Comicbook/DoctorStrange, Arkon, Iron Man, Doctor Voodoo and some more. And those are only the canon ones.

** For ComicBook/IronMan, both his alcoholism and ComicBook/CivilWar.
** For [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]], the creation of Ultron and [[DomesticAbuse smacking Jan]] during a drug-addled FreakOut.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Since her return, ComicBook/ScarletWitch has been attacked by several of her teammates for the events of ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'', even though ''Comicbook/TheChildrensCrusade'' established that she was possessed and manipulated by Doctor Doom. Her critics (namely ComicBook/TheVision and Rogue) are made to look like massive [[JerkAss Jerkasses]] for attacking her, but ''House of M'' wasn't the ''first'' time Wanda lost control of her powers. There is definitely some logic behind the idea that having her on the Comicbook/UncannyAvengers might be dangerous and counterproductive to the team's mission statement.

** One of the members of the Lethal Legion was Zyklon, who was actually the nazi Heinrich Himmler, resurrected and [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade receiving superpowers]] from the demon Satanish. He lost those powers (and his super-villain costume, returning to his nazi uniform) during the fight of Satanish and Mephisto. ComicBook/WarMachine took the chance and, [[AndThisIsFor in the name of all non-Aryan peoples of the world]], he broke his arm.

** A group of scientists who call themselves "The Enclave", those who first created ComicBook/AdamWarlock, had a mistery cargo in a plane, and crashed into the water. There is a rescue and cleanup, but there's a cocoon down there with some serious PowerIncontinence. It turns out that the Enclave were just a RedHerring: the being inside the cocoon was a resurrected Jean Grey, who had died years before during ComicBook/TheDarkPhoenixSaga.
** Depending on the era of the team, the Avengers can consist of nothing but Marvel's biggest guns or an entire roster of C-List fodder. Whenever it's at either of those two extremes, the way a writer may try to shake things up is by adding characters from the opposite end of the hierarchy. For example, the unknown Black Panther replacing Captain America in the 60s was considered a surprise, while Captain America re-joining the team in the 90s was equally a shock. And it's always a surprise when characters associated with other teams or "franchises" join (Justice and Firestar from ''Comicbook/NewWarriors'', Beast and Wolverine from the ''Comicbook/XMen'', or Comicbook/SpiderMan).

** The second Wasp, Nadia Pym, starts out with a deep dislike for Spider-Man, unable to go a single issue without insulting him in some way. It's hard to let this slide, because not only is she sweet and kind to everyone else (even ''ComicBook/DoctorDoom''), but we're never given a solid reason as to why she seems to [[IrrationalHatred hate him]] so much.

* {{Wangst}}: Wonder Man has been known to wallow in it from time to time. Such as his appearance in Bendis' ''Dark Avengers'', where he goes on TV solely to moan about how everyone loves Norman Osborn.
* WhatAnIdiot:
** Avengers 317. Iron Man informs the Avengers that an orb in the ship has been booby-trapped to explode if it is touched by anyone except Nebula. The Avengers split up and search for it, aware that they must touch it. Spider-Man finds it first.\\

** Wanda going to Comicbook/DoctorDoom for help in recovering her children. It ended up with her being possessed by the all-powerful Life Force and Doom (somehow) manipulating her into decimating mutantkind. However desperate, no variation of Doctor Doom's help has ever really helped anyone but Doctor Doom (and even then...).
** During Bendis' ''Avengers'' run, Wonder Man has issues with the Avengers operating. Does he raise his objections in a calm, sensible matter, or does he repeatedly and violently attack his former friends and colleagues while screaming incoherently at them? Yes, it's the later.

** 1960s, there is a special comic book character. A black superhero, named "ComicBook/BlackPanther". What do you mean that it is not a veiled reference to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party Black Panthers]]? No, really, it is not: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the character first. There was even a brief attempt to rename the character as "Black Leopard", to escape from the confusion, but it was short lived. Until the late Eighties, the character was almost always referred to as either 'Panther', 'the Panther' or T'Challa (his name), in order to avoid the implications of the name. According to "Comics Should Be Good", it's [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/11/27/comic-book-legends-revealed-183/ actually just a coincidence]] that the two have the same name and became prominent at the same time.

* WTHCostumingDepartment:
** The infamous "belly dancer" outfit George Perez gave Scarlet Witch in ''Avengers'' vol. 3. The character claims it's to "get in touch with my gypsy roots" ([[ValuesDissonance Yeah...]]) but really, and let's not kid here, it's for {{Fanservice}}, plain and simple. Problem is, it makes Wanda (who is your typical comic book babe anyhow) look like a belly dancer.
** Wonder Man is one of those superheroes who has not been blessed by the costume gods, more often than not. Turns out even Jack Kirby can have off days, as seen with Simon's starting outfit, with its green shirt and goggled cowl.

** [[ComicBook/MsMarvel Carol Danvers]]. First she got powers during the explosion of a Kree machine, became a super-hero, and joined the Avengers. Everything was fine... and from there, down she goes. First, she is abducted, drugged and raped by the son of Immortus, who left her pregnant to be "born" on Earth ([[AllThereInTheManual long story...]]). She returned, and then Rogue stole her powers and memories. Charles Xavier helped her to recover her memories, but not her emotional link to them. Then she was abducted by aliens, who unleashed great power in her, and she became Binary, but she lost this power as well. Once more with just the power of Ms. Marvel ("Warbird" by then), she joined the Avengers. But her refusal to point her loss of power (which almost led to disaster in battle), and her alcoholism, got her court-martialed and expelled from the Avengers. The Scarlet Witch created an alternate reality where she was the greatest super-hero... but things got back to normal, and she's just another super-hero of the lot. She returned to the Avengers, only to witness their breakup during Civil War. She took the side of Tony Stark, and had to hunt her old friends... and then, Stark was replaced by Norman Osborn, and she had to join those Avengers she was hunting. Even worse, Osborn included Ms. Marvel in his team... who was actually Moonstone using her first costume. But she's endured long enough to become the new Captain Marvel so she is very much an IronWoobie.

* WhatAnIdiot: Avengers 317. Iron Man informs the Avengers that an orb in the ship has been booby-trapped to explode if it is touched by anyone except Nebula. The Avengers split up and search for it, aware that they must touch it. Spider-Man finds it first.\\

* WTHCostumingDepartment: The infamous "belly dancer" outfit George Perez gave her in ''Avengers'' vol. 3. The character claims it's to "get in touch with my gypsy roots" ([[ValuesDissonance Yeah...]]) but really, and let's not kid here, it's for {{Fanservice}}, plain and simple. Problem is, it makes Wanda (who is your typical comic book babe anyhow) look like a belly dancer.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: ComicBook/MariaHill may be the biggest example of one in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. Even her actress in the films happily referred to her as 'the biggest bitch in the Marvel Universe'. She's the woman who tried to arrest ''Captain America'' for reasons she wouldn't be able to arrest him for, going out of her way to sabotage others to get ahead, and generally being a jerk to everyone she meets while her competence as a SHIELD director leaving much to be desired. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Her actions in]] ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' [[WhatTheHellHero do not]] [[KickTheDog help with this]]. ''However'', a good number of fans ''do'' sympathise with her, especially thanks to her CharacterDevelopment under Fraction's pen in ''Iron Man'' and the handling by Creator/MarkWaid in his ''Hulk'' work, and a number point out that Nick Fury is generally given a free pass for similar stunts while she gets derided [[note]]which, again, her actress acknowledges, pointing out the DoubleStandard of how when a guy does something cruel and morally questionable, he's a badass, but when a woman does it, she's just a bitch[[/note]]; not to mention, her clear guilt during ''Secret Avengers'' helps to at least humanize her and make it clear she's not OK betraying Mockingbird or Hulk (but not Daisy; she's happy screwing over Daisy).

* HarsherInHindsight: Avengers 111, 1973. Magneto had captured the X-Men and several Avengers, turning them into PeoplePuppets. Only 3 Avengers were still in the team, Thor, Vision and Black Panther (Magneto was not aware that they were recruiting allies). So sure about his [[IAmLegion strength in numbers]] over the Avengers, and with the Scarlet Witch dancing under his control, he said [[http://www.collectededitions.com/marvel/mm/xmen/images/AVEN111002_col.jpg "But they are decimated, Piper - '''Decimated!'''"]] (bolded in the original). [[ComicBook/HouseOfM He would surely come to regret those words]].

* Tigra of originally wore a yellow and blue costume in her alias as The Cat. Following her transformation into a tiger humanoid, she started wearing a black bikini. Her original costume is now known for being worn by ComicBook/{{Hellcat}}.

** The infamous story from "The Avengers #200", where Carol Danvers is [[MedicalRapeAndImpregnate forcibly impregnated with a clone-avatar]] by Marcus, a PsychopathicManChild from Limbo with super-science gadgets. Despite the obvious MedicalHorror elements of this story, none of the Avengers other than Ms. Marvel herself are at all upset about matters, instead chipperly talking about Danvers' impending motherhood -- then, when it turns out that her "son" is actually Marcus, who used that method to enter Earth's dimension to take Carol as his wife, she blithely returns to Limbo with him and the Avengers give them both their blessing. It turns out that Carol was, rather literally, {{Mind Rape}}d - which should have been obvious given her statements directly after the clone-Marcus' birth that she did not view this thing as her son. The rest of the Avengers had no such excuse for not finding this whole scenario absurd and horrific. The result was so backwards that Creator/ChrisClaremont undid it a year later in "The Avengers Annual #10", and Marvel has done their best to pretend the whole thing never happened ever since.

** You can suspect that [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks the nineties]] were not a good time, when you get so many of those in a row. First, you had the team with the RomanticPlotTumor between the Black Knight, Crystal and Sersi. The AuthorsSavingThrow was ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'', but it was incredibly snarled, and filled of nonsensical stuff (such as Tony Stark being evil since day one, the Wasp turned into a mutated monster, teen Tony, etc.). The AuthorsSavingThrow of the AuthorsSavingThrow was ''ComicBook/HeroesReborn'', when the Avengers were killed and moved to a UltimateUniverse for their own, and redesigned by Rob Liefeld. It was ''so'' bad, Liefeld was fired in the middle of the mere 12-issues deal. The AuthorsSavingThrow of ''that'' was ''ComicBook/HeroesReturn'', by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, and fortunately this time it worked.

** From Jonathan Hickman's run, there's Smasher, who's very well-liked despite her small role.

** Keeping in with the spirit of the Marvel/DC rivalry, the Avengers has one with the ComicBook/JusticeLeague. Both sides do however agree that the ''ComicBook/JLAAvengers'' crossover was pure unmitigated awesomeness.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Anything that Chuck Austen was involved in, no matter how small. The sole exception to this is Lionheart, and even then, she only became genuinely liked after she dropped the Captain Britain title and [[MyRealDaddy was written by Chris Claremont]] in ''New Excalibur''.

** ''Avengers Annual'' #10 in 1981 included a cover blurb that announced, "A Shocking Mystery Guest!" The guest was [[ComicBook/CaptainMarvel Carol Danvers]], who had been absent for some time before this. But the issue happened to include a one-time extra named [[NamesTheSame "Maddy Pryor"]], who some readers decades later sometimes confuse with [[ComicBook/MadelynePryor the other one]] because the ComicBook/XMen were guest characters in the ''Annual'', it was written by Creator/ChrisClaremont, and the cover blurb.

** The team in the immediate aftermath of Operation Galactic Storm. Bob Harras wrote ''The Gatherers'' story well but the roster was horrible to the point where Black Knight, ComicBook/BlackWidow and Vision were the only popular characters on the team since ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and IronMan both decided to focus on solo adventures and Thor left soon afterwards while Wasp and Hank Pym both decided it would be a good time to go MIA. The West Coast Team fared slightly better with ComicBook/WarMachine, Hawkeye and ComicBook/ScarletWitch but the franchise was overrun with C-list heroes until Captain America rejoined the vanilla team at the same time that Deathcry joined who many consider to be the worst Avenger of all time. This led into the widely reviled (although well drawn) ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' series which made IronMan evil then killed him and replaced him with his teenage self. It was a change so unpopular that it took killing the nearly entire roster of Avengers in the Onslaught crossover (exceptions being War Machine, Quicksilver, ComicBook/SpiderMan and partially the Hulk) to reboot them in the alternate ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe which proved so unpopular that Marvel performed a second reboot after only 12 issues. Thankfully Creator/KurtBusiek's reboot worked and restored the franchise to its former glory.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: The first "Lady Liberators" in Avengers #83 (in the 1970s). All the movement for women rights, turned into a bad joke. The moral of the story: women should StayInTheKitchen, and all the stuff about "liberation" is pure nonsense. It's even more jarring if you consider that, some few issues before, Roy Thomas mentioned the racial conflicts in the US, and the moral of ''that'' story about the rights of minorities was completely different.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Most people think that Spider-man only joined up in 2004, when Bendis took over the franchise and radically changed the direction of the series. The truth is that Spidey's been a member been since 1991, and while he may have initially joined only as a reservist, he wasn't the first. Black Knight and Black Widow followed much the same path, starting out as reservists before joining full time decades later, and Spidey followed suit. But when most people think of when Spidey joined the Avengers, 2004's New Avengers is what they tend to point to.

** The ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers. Pretty minor characters who have only had one book of their own so far, but loved by fans and considered one of the best things to come out of John Bryne's ''West Coast Avengers'' run.

** The team in the immediate aftermath of Operation Galactic Storm. Bob Harras wrote ''The Gatherers'' story well but the roster was horrible to the point where Black Knight, ComicBook/BlackWidow and Vision were the only popular characters on the team since ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and IronMan both decided to focus on solo adventures and Thor left soon afterwards while Wasp and HankPym both decided it would be a good time to go MIA. The West Coast Team fared slightly better with ComicBook/WarMachine, Hawkeye and ComicBook/ScarletWitch but the franchise was overrun with C-list heroes until Captain America rejoined the vanilla team at the same time that Deathcry joined who many consider to be the worst Avenger of all time. This led into the widely reviled (although well drawn) ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' series which made IronMan evil then killed him and replaced him with his teenage self. It was a change so unpopular that it took killing the nearly entire roster of Avengers in the Onslaught crossover (exceptions being War Machine, Quicksilver, ComicBook/SpiderMan and partially the Hulk) to reboot them in the alternate ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe which proved so unpopular that Marvel performed a second reboot after only 12 issues. Thankfully Creator/KurtBusiek's reboot worked and restored the franchise to its former glory.

** The entire story of how Janet and Hank got married, not to mention much of their early relationship. [[ValuesDissonance Granted, it was UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} but even by Silver Age standards that is all kinds of unintentionally creepy. Their relationship itself starts with Hank taking Janet, fresh from the trauma of her father's death, as his superhero companion and girlfriend largely because she reminds him of his late wife, and then spends the next several years regularly being an InsufferableGenius and casual misogynist towards her, which she put up with because she was infatuated with him and wanted to marry him. Then the Yellow Jacket debacle happened, where Hank attacked her and the Avengers in a new costumed identity, telling them he had killed Hank Pym, before choking Janet out and kidnapping her, where he proceeds to force a kiss on her. After they get married and the Avengers find out it was Hank all along, none of them say anything about Janet marrying a clearly unhinged Hank Pym; the fact she's potentially taking advantage of his unstable behaviour, or that she's putting herself in serious danger marrying someone who's dangerously unwell. Things do ''not'' go well, but the infamous slap that follows years later was really something everyone should have seen coming.

* WinBackTheCrowd: In the 60s and 70s, the Avengers were decently popular, but in later years they were completely overshadowed by Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. The run by Kurt Busiek and George Perez was a welcomed improvement over the previous runs, but it was still just an obscure CultClassic. In fact, while they were conceiving the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel line, the executives had no faith whatsoever in the Avengers fitting with the new universe, with Mark Millar having to fight tooth and nail to get the project greenlit (and even then, he still had to change the team's name). The success of ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'' and mainstream Marvel stories like ''ComicBook/AvengersDisassembled'' and other events restored the team's popularity, and the MCU fully cemented it.

* WinBackTheCrowd: In the sixties and seventies, the Avengers were quite popular, but their popularity decreased in later years, and they were completely overshadowed by the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises. The run by Kurt Busiek and George Perez was a welcomed improvement over the previous runs, but it was still just an obscure CultClassic. ComicBook/TheUltimates by Mark Millar (a reimagination set in the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel universe) and all the stuff that came after ''ComicBook/AvengersDisassembled'' restored the team's popularity, and the MCU and the film finally cemented it.

* BrokenBase:
** The fanbase is pretty much irreversibly split on {{Creator/Brian Michael Bendis}}' contributions to the franchise, let alone the Creator/JohnByrne Avengers West Coast run.
** Jonathan Hickman's run. Either it's a grand space-epic, or really dull and filled with needless PurpleProse.

** Janet Van Dyne/The Wasp is confronted by her boyfriend, Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, posing as a someone else known as Yellow-Jacket, who claims to have murdered Pym and demands that Jan marry him. She does... and once Yellow-Jacket calms down and we learn that he's actually Hank, Jan reveals that she knew it was him all along but went with it anyway because she'd been trying to get him to marry her for years, so she took advantage of the chance to finally become his wife (second wife, technically). And none of the other Avengers seem to be bothered by the fact that Jan basically took advantage of Hank when he had clearly suffered some kind of psychotic break down just because she wanted to be Mrs. Pym. Granted, it was UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} but even by Silver Age standards that is all kinds of unintentionally creepy. Of course, it blew up in Jan's face years later...

* BaseBreakingCharacter: ComicBook/MariaHill may be the biggest example of one in the MarvelUniverse. Even her actress in the films happily referred to her as 'the biggest bitch in the Marvel Universe'. She's the woman who tried to arrest ''Captain America'' for reasons she wouldn't be able to arrest him for, going out of her way to sabotage others to get ahead, and generally being a jerk to everyone she meets while her competence as a SHIELD director leaving much to be desired. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Her actions in]] ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' [[WhatTheHellHero do not]] [[KickTheDog help with this]]. ''However'', a good number of fans ''do'' sympathise with her, especially thanks to her CharacterDevelopment under Fraction's pen in ''Iron Man'' and the handling by Creator/MarkWaid in his ''Hulk'' work, and a number point out that Nick Fury is generally given a free pass for similar stunts while she gets derided [[note]]which, again, her actress acknowledges, pointing out the DoubleStandard of how when a guy does something cruel and morally questionable, he's a badass, but when a woman does it, she's just a bitch[[/note]]; not to mention, her clear guilt during ''Secret Avengers'' helps to at least humanize her and make it clear she's not OK betraying Mockingbird or Hulk (but not Daisy; she's happy screwing over Daisy).

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The second Wasp, Nadia Pym, starts out with a deep dislike for Spider-Man, unable to go a single issue without insulting him in some way. It's hard to let this slide, because not only is she sweet and kind to everyone else (even ''ComicBook/DoctorDoom''), but we're never given a solid reason as to why she seems to [[IrrationalHatred hate him]] so much.

** Keeping in with the spirit of the Marvel/DC rivalry, the Avengers has one with the ComicBook/JusticeLeague.
** Within the Marvel fandom, fans of the ComicBook/FantasticFour and the ComicBook/XMen have become increasingly resentful of the Avengers after the massive success of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse helped propel several of the characters on its lineup to the same kind of mainstream recognition the two aforementioned teams enjoyed in the past, leading to some fans accusing Marvel Comics of undercutting the two teams in favor of promoting characters more closely affiliated with the Avengers (and to a lesser extent, those affiliated with the Guardians of the Galaxy). The rivalry died down somewhat after Marvel reacquired the film rights to both franchises and announced plans to integrate them into the MCU.

** Wasp, though she crosses into IronWoobie: Her dad died, to kick things off, but she didn't let that get her down too much. Then she joined a superhero team only to be regulated to DistressedDamsel roles and ignored due to being the weakest member of the team (she eventually TookALevelInBadass but it too a long time for her to get there). Then her personal chauffeur starts making advances on her until eventually trying to kill her and Hank or to get her money; the chauffeur, it turns out, is Whirlwind, a villain that constantly kicks her ass when they battle, who's since developed an obsessive crush on her. Then she marries Hank, only for him to be in the middle of a psychotic break down that is partially her own fault, eventually resulting in a painful string of events that involve her almost being mind-raped and killed by Ultron, the crazy robot Hank built, when Ultron tries to make himself a wife, Jocasta, based on Jan's brainwaves (complete with Jan being forced to endure some very NightmareFuel ShamefulStrip FanDisservice), getting slapped across the face and knocked to the floor, forever turning her into a poster child for domestic abuse in comics. THEN, she spends the next bit of time recuperating from that and dealing with a messy divorce and, when her and Hank start to patch things up, she's attacked and almost raped by Whirlwind, who's crush has turned him into an obsessed psychopath. Then, after not being allowed to do anything for a while, she's used as a [[spoiler:SacrificialLion]] during ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion''. [[spoiler:During which, she's secretly lost in the Microverse, fighting for her life]].

** The infamous story from "The Avengers #200", where Carol Danvers is [[MedicalRapeAndImpregnate forcibly impregnated with a clone-avatar]] by Marcus, a PsychopathicManChild from Limbo with super-science gadgets. Despite the obvious MedicalHorror elements of this story, none of the Avengers other than Ms. Marvel herself are at all upset about matters, instead chipperly talking about Danvers' impending motherhood -- then, when it turns out that her "son" is actually Marcus, who used that method to enter Earth's dimension to take Carol as his wife, she blithely returns to Limbo with him and the Avengers give them both their blessing. It turns out that Caron was, rather literally, {{Mind Rape}}d - which should have been obvious given her statements directly after the clone-Marcus' birth that she did not view this thing as her son. The rest of the Avengers had no such excuse for not finding this whole scenario absurd and horrific. The result was so backwards that Creator/ChrisClaremont undid it a year later in "The Avengers Annual #10", and Marvel has done their best to pretend the whole thing never happened ever since.

** The infamous story from "The Avengers #200", where Carol Danvers is [[MedicalRapeAndImpregnate forcibly impregnated with a clone-avatar]] by Marcus, a PsychopathicManChild from Limbo with super-science gadgets. Despite the obvious MedicalHorror elements of this story, none of the Avengers other than Ms. Marvel herself are at all upset about matters, instead chipperly talking about Danvers' impending motherhood -- then, when it turns out that her "son" is actually Marcus, who used that method to enter Earth's dimension to take Carol as his wife, she blithely returns to Limbo with him and the Avengers give them both their blessing. It turns out that Caron was, rather literally, {{Mind Rape}}d - which should have been obvious given her statements directly after the clone-Marcus' that she did not view this thing as her son. The rest of the Avengers had no such excuse. The result was so backwards that Creator/ChrisClaremont undid it a year later in "The Avengers Annual #10", and Marvel has done their best to pretend the whole thing never happened ever since.