When episode 200 was first published we push the wrong audio (audio for episode 199). It has now been fixed. Apologies for the error (Thursday, April 27, 2023)
In this episode:
Mike and Ed continue to dive into the shocking changes to the Avengers line-up. It has now been announced that in addition to Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will be joining the team, and all of the founding members will be leaving. Is it still the Avengers is none of the founding members are on the team? Are we concerned that 75% of the team is made up of former villains. Are they really FORMER? And even if morality was not an issue, can we expect these new members to replace the missing firepower of Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man and the Wasp?
Behind the issue:
There was so much to discuss in this issue we broke it into two. And we still never covered the death of Baron Zemo given it was unclear if it was ever made public. Surprisingly for the comics Baron Zemo, the archenemy of Captain America at this point in the continuity, remains dead until the present day. However his son takes on the title and continues to battle Captain America and the Avengers on an ongoing basis.
In this issue:
(This is a repeat of the last episode) The issue opens with the Avengers once again emerging victorious over the Masters of Evil in New York, with Captain America defeating Baron Zemo in South America. It continues with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp in New York having a team meeting and deciding to take a break from being on the team. At the same time they are having the meeting, Hawkeye breaks into their headquarters and asks to join the Avengers. His beloved Black Widow has been murdered by her employers behind the iron curtain, and he has had a change of heart on his line of work. The team decide to take him up on the offer, and on top of that, seek out new potential teammates, with the papers reporting this initiative. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decide to apply to join the team, and they are admitted to the ranks as well. By the time Captain America returns, the team has been completed reconstituted, with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp out, and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch in as their replacements.
This episode takes place:
After Cap’s kooky quartet has been announced.
Full transcript:
Edward: Mike, never believe the rumors. Never believe the rumors. The rumors are total bs. Can't trust those people,
Micheal: even if we're the ones that are spreading the rumors in.
Edward: Even that we need to stop, stop with the speculation, I think last we heard captain America and Thor were off the team. Hawkeye and someone else were on the team and now that's all been thrown for Loop. Thor is off the team, but now Iron Man and Wasp and Giant man are off the team as well. Captain America is back. It's just nothing makes sense anymore.
Micheal: Well, not really, no. So our speculation before was that we found it suspicious that Hawkeye, a former villain, was on the team when the remaining three Avengers were people with power suits, basically, who could be swapped in and out, but now it's Hawkeye's off. Two more villains. Rick Silver and the Scarlet Witch are on the team. And Captain America's in charge. I mean is it really the Avengers? You know what I mean? They said isn't.
Edward: There's no original ventures left. What's that? That's it. Thesis' ship You're talking about Thesis' ship. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. They've replaced every board and brought on new boards. Is it still the same ship when none of the boards are left.
Micheal: Well, what's funny is like, I think about law firms where law firms start out with a name of like, Smith and Jones, and then, eventually there's no Smith and there's no Jones. It's just a name and
Edward: It's an overhand,
Micheal: people treated as I think that it has the risk of being Smith and Jones in name only. And being not the same as it used to be. And maybe that's what the Avengers are. Is that
Edward: the Avengers innate only?
Micheal: That's Well, they are until they do something right. It does strike me. So leaving aside the fact that now it's Captain America and three former villains and going through the whole discussion of. We can skip the discussion now cause we had it last time. We spoke about, well, how do those, how does a villain get on the team? But they did apparently.
Edward: Yeah. No, remember last, so last time we speculated. Okay, well maybe the other hero they're gonna bring on is a former villain we talked about Radioactive man or the Wizard, or, yeah. Mr. Hyde. It can never occurred to us that they bring on. The former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, people like, well, I guess we talked about that before too, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants so they're all kind of they're all dead now or captive or whatever, except for two of retired, well, they didn't stay in retirement very long.
Micheal: No. And they thought, you know what? Like, uh, we're good now. And, uh, and that was good enough, I guess for the federal security agency. Good enough for Captain America.
Edward: Yeah. Like, they're like, we were never immoral. We were just amoral. We're joiners, we're joiners.
Micheal: We just, you know, if you've got a good pitch, we'll listen. But, uh, it does seem as, it does seem quite odd and I guess, I think the best way to look at it. So leaving aside the points that we've discussed about how it's challenging to bring on villains, um, maybe give 'em a chance, but they do seem severely underpowered compared to the original Avengers team, right? Correct. Or the former Avengers team.
Edward: Yeah. In terms of Ross Strength, Thor, giant man. Iron man, all three super strong. Yeah. And now like their strongest members, captain America, who is the weakling on the old team.
Micheal: I know. And then, Hawkeye, good aim. Okay. And, um, I don't, we don't know much about Scarlet Witch, her powers. They seem to be kind of just,
Edward: I think they're very witchy. They're like witch powers,
Micheal: witchy. I don't, I mean, I don't really know. And then Chris Silver Fast.
Edward: It's in the name Mike. It's in the name.
Micheal: Yeah. They're both in the name, but I wonder, so with quick silver, I wonder
Edward: Red, red Magic, I think she has a lot of red magic.
Micheal: Well, red Magic. Oh, that's the best kind. But you think so Quicksilver, I mean, the only qualification I have is that I think being able to move at super speed could have enormous power of potential.
Edward: I think that's the best power.
Micheal: Yeah. If like,
Edward: oh, except, except for if, you know, it's a better power. Flying fast. Running fast. Really, really good. Better flying fast. Because if there was The Thing in Europe, can, he runs so fast, he runs on water. I don't think he runs that fast.
Micheal: I don't know. I don't know. But, you're the physicist. And so how does it work if Quicksilver can run, say as fast as a plane, right? Sure. Just say that. Sure. Would his body not to be super durable and super strong to withstand that pressure, like say he's running, like if I'm running really fast, fast for me, or I'm in a car going very fast and I put my hand out the window and I hit a mailbox, like think my arm will fly off, right? It's just, I'll break my arm.
Edward: But don't do that, Michael. Don't do that.
Micheal: Don't do that. All the listeners at home don't do that. But so quick.
Edward: I teach, I teach our kids not do that. Like, don't put your arm outside the window. Just don't, it's not a thing.
Micheal: Not a good idea. So if you are Quicksilver and you're running very fast, presumably he's running so fast, he's running into bugs or pounding off his face and it's probably next to impossible not to hit things. Is his body super durable result?
Edward: If it is durable, it must, must have some, it must, like if nothing else, his eyes are super D, durable. The guy's not wearing goggles, right? Like he's running along and if a bug gets in his eye at 400 miles an hour, that's like, that's his eye's gone.
It's a dead eye, dead eye. He's a pirate.
Micheal: Yeah, he's a pirate, like in both eyes. He's not, he's probably outta the pieing business too, unless, um, well, I guess he could find a way to accommodate that, I guess. But I guess that sounds more insensitive than, I mean, but like, anyways, hopefully he doesn't lose both his eyes, but, um,
Edward: he's not losing his eyes. He has some sort of super eyes. He has better eyes than Hawkeye.
Micheal: Okay, so he must, so he must be powerful and if his body's durable, then I'd imagine that you're the physicist. If he hits something with that amount of speed, he just obliterates somebody, wouldn't he? Through a wall?
Edward: Yeah. Yeah. This is a mathematical equation for this. It's very simple equation. It's just mass times velocity. And so the amount of damage you're gonna do is mass times velocity. And so if you go twice as fast, you can weigh half as much and still do the same amount of damage. Right. The faster he goes. So if he's, yeah, so if I charge into you and like, I dunno was making up a number, I weigh 200 pounds and I charge into you. I don't even know how fast one runs. Like I run 10 miles an hour into you. That's gonna do 10 times 200 or like 400 pounds per second image or something. But if he runs at 200 miles an hour, he can be. Much smaller than me, it would still do a lot more damage. But your point, your point, he's probably heavier than that. He's probably, he's durable and strong to begin with. Cause if he runs into something, the damage that he receives is the same damage as The Thing receives it's equal and parallel. Yeah. And usually what happens is The, Thing that's moving really fast is much bigger and stronger and runs into the other thing. So he must be like, he must have some sort of like super durability if he runs into anything otherwise he's squished.
Micheal: Exactly. So, he must have super durability and therefore with the super durability and the strength, it means he's super strong basically.
Edward: Do we know that he's strong? Oh, he's, his legs must be strong to move it fast.
Micheal: They would be, but like again, like if he's going, if he's super durable and he's like running in it to you with his fist and his fist hits you, that would effectively be super strong.
It would cause serious damage. Not to his fist if it's durable. Yeah, fair enough. The. Thing, he said it,
Edward: it would do. Damn. But it doesn't mean he can lift things. He's not strong. Strong. He can't lift a car.
Micheal: Well, no, you're right. He's powerful. Yeah.
Edward: Powerful. Not strong.
Micheal: I like that we're getting to these distinctions.
Like this is strength. Strength is not so great. Power powers lots of charts.
It's like, anyway,
Edward: Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee can punch really strong, but he's not necessarily strong, but he can like, he's powerful.
Micheal: He's powerful. He's not necessarily strong. He couldn't lift somebody, if they fell off a building, he grabs his hand. I could pull you up, you know, or something. He'd be like, uh, no. But I could punch, punch. I could punch you. So he won't feel it when you hit the ground. No, I think that it's a challenge, a challenge to suggest that he's, that's not a challenge. Sorry, I, that's a totally wrong point that I was trying to make there.
Let me rewind that. I think that if we're getting back to the original point, I think that the closest that you get to replacing Thor. Or Giant man or Iron. Man in the function would have to be quicksilver. That's the only way,
Edward: and I guess you could argue that most of the time, what does Thor and Iron Man and Giant Man use their strength for? They use it for punching people. Mm-hmm. They use it for damaging villains and like they don't spend a lot of their time like lifting villains up in the air.
Micheal: No. And so that they effectively, they're doing their job. Yeah. So that's
Edward: Okay. All right. So maybe quick silver's, the replacement. I still think it's a sketchy team.
I think they're in for, in for a wake up call.
Micheal: Yeah. And we'll be there to chronicle it. Yes.
Edward: But you talked about, Hawkeye replacing Captain America, and so that's not true. So we, if we do like a one-to-one comparisons here, Hawkeye did not replace Captain America.
Hawkeye I think replaced Iron Man. My original argument. Mm-hmm. They're both technologically people and they do all sorts crazy things. So that's the replacement. And then I think you're saying Quicksilver is basically replacing Thor, Thor taking out the strength ring, which I guess, hey, it's a different versatile power and he's powerful, maybe, seems weak. And that leaves Scarlet Witch who basically takes on the role of Giant Man and the WASP and takes on two of them at the same time. And, I don't know. That seems also there's a gap. There's a gap
Micheal: maybe, but maybe I'm kind of stretching a bit. But maybe the Scarlet Witch,
Edward: there's, well, we, Richard not on the team, so there's, there's no stretching involved, Michael.
Micheal: No, but like this is Trace, but The Scarlet Witch. The Scarlet Witch, she's got an unpredictability to her power and in a way like, This is a bit of stretch, but chime in and, and was, have always been unpredictable. It's just sort of weird, the idea that super small, it's counterintuitive like that being super small leads to some benefit to the team, but it clearly did. So maybe that's to some degree she kind of functions in that capacity.
Edward: She's the surprise, the, you know, surprise factor, like giant man in the wasp can surprise you because they're little small things and they pop up in the really big. Yeah. And so now she's using her magic to be like surprising her red magic. Cause you never know what it's gonna do.
Micheal: Alright, let, we figured it out. Good luck to the new Captain America LED team. Uh, there you go.
Edward: Well, hey, there's more to it than that though, because they're talking about, about potentially bringing Hulk onto the team. That's the new rumor. Although, Hey, can we, can we listen to any rumors? Can we listen to any rumors at this point?
Micheal: No, even though we are a show that speculates. I like, we have to be careful about spreading rumors because, maybe it wouldn't be fair at this moment to speculate about other people joining the team because Cap did come out and introduce his three teammates as being this is our team so before we start saying, yeah, but maybe you should get. Like a crazy green monster in your team. We should probably just give 'em a chance at showing us how this is gonna work.
Edward: Yeah, just do working with what they have. I think the one other point I think we need to get in before we wrap this up is that Tony Stark is clearly back involved. We talked before about how maybe this is a more of a government organization now the FSA is taking charge of things and approving all these people and letting them on the team. We thought maybe it's shifted a little bit from being part of Stark Corp to being part of the federal government. But when Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were flown into the country, it wasn't someone from the Pentagon that met with them. It was Tony Stark who was there at the airport greeting them and bringing them on, taking them to the Avengers Mansion.
Micheal: That's what you're saying is that it's the military industrial complex.
Edward: It's the military industrial complex. It's all connected, Michael, it's all connected.
Micheal: It's all the same apparently.
E200: (fixed audio!) Avengers in Name Only? (Avengers #16, Part 2) -- May 1965