Where Are the Avengers?

This post was originally born out of the fact that Avengers: Endgame kind of left the MCU in kind of a weird situation, which has now persisted to some degree through most of Phase 4, and it’s something I don’t actually see getting brought up all that much (despite it being a central plot point of Spider-Man: Far From Home): I don’t think there’s very many actual Avengers kicking around in the MCU anymore.

And that seems like it should just be categorically, hilariously false. We all saw Endgame. We saw how many people were there when Cap said “Avengers! Assemble!” And yeah, there’s certainly a lot of heroes, and lots of people who were around for that battle.

But actual, official, active duty Avengers?

I don’t think so. Not unless we’re going to pretend every sorcerer Wong has the contact info for and the entire Wakandan military are Avengers now. And I don’t think we are.

So, who do we actually have?

Current Standings

Where do things currently stand? As far I can tell, there are four official, confirmed, active duty Avengers protecting Earth and one of them doesn’t even do it full time and nobody actually has his contact info anymore. Those four are:

Captain America (Sam Wilson), War Machine, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man.

Per Far From Home, Spider-Man is a publicly recognized Avenger, making public appearances for Blip-relief fundraisers, getting calls from “Nick Fury,” and stopping supervillains. As of No Way Home, nobody knows who Peter Parker is, but everyone still remembers Spider-Man, so presumably his Avengers membership is still intact, but nobody has his cell number anymore, if they ever did. Dialogue in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness indirectly confirms that Ant-Man is considered an Avenger (which we did not have hard confirmation on when I first wrote this post). Captain America and War Machine were both already Avengers, and neither of them have given any indication of having stopped being one.

And that’s it. Those four. As for everyone else:

Not Avengers

• Doctor Strange

• Wong

• Black Panther

• Shuri

• M’Baku

• Okoye

• Pepper Potts

• Mantis

• Gamora

• Starlord

• Groot

• Steve Rogers

• Valkyrie

• Korg

• Meek

• Monica Rambeau

• Yelena

• Scarlet Witch

• America Chavez

• Ms. Marvel

Doctor Strange and the rest of the sorcerers repeatedly and explicitly position themselves as separate from the Avengers with their own stuff to deal with (though as of Shang-Chi, it seems like everyone’s much more willing to talk, coordinate, and share info). T’Challa is a bit busy being running the most powerful nation on the MCU’s Earth, along with the rest of the Wakanda crew. And Valkyrie is similarly the queen of Asgard now, so her plate’s probably full (though still willing to throw down with a fool who threatens Asgard).

Korg and Meek are just vibin’, and Pepper suiting up being more than a one time, emergency thing would be completely out of character.

The Snapped Guardians of the Galaxy went back to space and never really had more than a passing alliance with the Avengers anyway (was nice of them to attend the funeral, given that). Steve Rogers, per Falcon and the Winter Soldier, is gone.

And finally, there’s Monica, who has powers and is going to be getting in on the hero gig in some capacity, but… not the Avengers, it seems. And again, there isn’t really much of an Avengers to join anymore. Just three dudes and a teenager.

Granted, at the start of Wandavision, where Monica debuted, there was also Wanda on the official Avengers list. But then the rest of Wandavision happened.

Yelena was specifically tee-d up to become the new Black Widow with her being arguably the best part of that whole movie, but she’s not actually on the team yet, and she’s so disconnected from them she can still be tricked into thinking one of them killed Nat. So yeah, as of now, not an Avenger. But probably will be sometime soon, especially since she’s bff's with New Hawkeye KateBeeshop.

As of Multiverse of Madness, Wanda is probably dead. For now. Maybe. We’ll see. She definitely committed a whole bunch of murders though, so that’s probably grounds for removal from the team.

Also as of Multiverse of Madness, America Chavez is in the MCU! And she is not an Avenger. She is a child training to be a sorcerer and to go find her moms with her Star Punch powers.

Ms. Marvel is also a child, and unlike back during Civil War, there’s no actual Avenger irresponsible enough to bring a child to a Space War Zone.

Absentee Avengers

• Vision

• Nebula

• Rocket

• Thor

• Captain Marvel

Some version of Vision is alive again, but AWOL since the end of Wandavision. Really would have thought we’d see him in Multiverse of Madness, but I guess he was still pontificating on whether or not he’s a boat.

Thor is a founding member of the Avengers, and Rocket and Nebula were members of both the Let’s Go Get This Son of a Bitch Squad and the Time Heist Avengers, but they’ve all chuffed off to do space things and in Thor’s case, be a dad.

And speaking of chuffing off to space, there’s Captain Marvel, who, similar to Valkyrie and Black Panther, apparently has more important things to do that sit around on Earth being an Avenger. I put her on the absentee list instead of the outright Not Avengers list only because she’s been on at least one team line up (the Let’s Go Get This Son of a Bitch Squad, as I like to call it), however short lived that line up was. Additionally, as of Shang-Chi, it seems like she does (sort of) keep in touch with the other heroes on Earth, even if she does still chuff off into space or constantly has better things to do, and still hasn’t actually given anyone her number.

Seriously, how does she even make it to the Space Zoom meetings?

Still, it seems like maybe she might be back on Earth at least for a moment due to Ms. Marvel shenanigans. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Maybe Avengers

• Bucky Barnes

• Wasp

• Bruce Banner

• Hawkeye (Clint Barton)

• Shang-Chi

• Hawkeye (Kate Bishop)

Finally, we have the maybe Avengers. These people could potentially be on an Avengers line-up, and in fact might already be on one, but we haven’t gotten hard confirmation on it yet. Bucky is probably on Captain America’s speed dial, but at the start of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while Sam is out doing hero stuff, he’s just chilling on his floor mattress and going to therapy. He has his little apology hit list which Sam calls “Avenging” but that just seemed like more therapy. Now maybe the show was the kick in the pants he needed to go back to full, active duty, but so far what I’m seeing is more of the on-call guy that Clint was post-Age of Ultron. Not on the roster, but there when you need him.

The Wasp is the closest to confirmed of the Maybe Avengers in my opinion, since Ant-Man is confirmed and there’s basically no way in hell Hope would let Scott be an Avenger without her (again).

If the Russo’s are to be believed (and his appearance in Shang-Chi seems to back this up) Bruce’s injuries from the Infinity Gauntlet are permanent, which might sideline him, but then again, he was fighting alongside everyone else in the finally battle, so maybe he’ll keep avenging and just have a gimp arm. OR MAYBE Marvel with overrule the Russos and just have him be healed up and Hulk-ing around, which is what the trailers for She-Hulk seem to indicate.

Then there’s Hawkeye, who has been the soft-retired on-call guy who keeps getting called in for a while now. It definitely seems like the public still thinks of him as an Avenger, but between his constant “done with this shit” energy, his desperate desire to just spend time with his family, and the fact that Kate Bishop is being tee-d up to take the Hawkeye name, he might finally be done-done now. Or maybe he just wants a name change. We’ll see I guess.
That’s why he’s in the maybe.

Speaking of Hawkeye, other Hawkeye. Kate has all but said outloud that she’s Hawkeye now, and seems to have the blessing of Clint, but has not interacted with any other Avengers. Given their dynamic, I assume she thinks she’s an Avenger and is waiting any day now for Clint to introduce her to the gang, maybe invite her to the next Space Zoom meeting, and meanwhile Clint is thinking he’ll do it in five years or so when he can be bothered and she’s got more experience.

Which brings us to Shang-Chi, master of kung fu and wielder of the Ten Rings. He officially has an invite to all the block parties and barbecues and has at least the contact info for Bruce and Wong, which puts him several steps more connected to the collective effort than Monica is at the moment, but it doesn’t seem like he’s actually been invited onto the Avengers themselves? We’ll see where things lie when Kang shows up.

So What?

The basic premise of this how listicle is that at time of writing, within the MCU the Avengers are a name with basically no one behind it, which, funnily enough, was sort of the state of things at the start of Infinity War, assuming we only count Legal Avengers. And we all saw how well that turned out.

Avengers-level problems are still happening in the MCU. A lunatic showman is trying to stage an alien invasion for clout. A deeply disturbed and upset witch is enslaving an entire town to avoid confronting her grief. Rogue super soldiers are attempting to hijack global politics. And so far, the world’s gotten by with just a handful of heroes to respond to that. But sooner or later, it’s not going to be enough.

But… maybe that doesn’t matter? As standalone as Shang-Chi was as a movie, one little scene right at its ending has had huge ramifications for the very premise of this whole enterprise. Despite there being like, four active duty Avengers by my count, one of whom is a part-timer in college, it almost feels like the MCU has progressed beyond the need for the Avengers at this point. Even without being on a centralized team, the heroes are talking. They’re sharing information, checking in on each other, staying connected.

I saw one person say that within the MCU’s world, “Avenger” might just be another word for “superhero” at this point, the word falling down the same path as Band-Aid and Kleenex.

And maybe that’ll be enough.

. . . or maybe they’re all fucked the second Kang shows up. We’ll see!

Just to give myself something to do, I’ll be updating this list as new shows and movies release that shake things up or introduce new players, probably changing the thesis and purpose of the whole enterprise at some point. But for right now, consider this your “Hey wait a second” of the day.