Earth's Mightiest Capos?

So, when I first read New Avengers #6, I thought the end discussion between Captain America and Iron Man was lame.

To begin, my problems with the scene already were as follows:

1. I am not a fan of Bendis' outside writing on this title. He will have events occur in the comic to satisfy one of his concepts for the title whether the concept works in the setting or not. For instance, before he took over Avengers, he would talk about Avengers Disassembled and say things like "The Avengers are lucky this has not ALREADY happened!" Then, in the actual comic, an almost random character (Falcon, Hawkeye, whichever) would all of a sudden give that exact same speech.

Weird.

In any event, Bendis has decided that Wolverine is the "Captain America" (i.e. the member who joins the team later but makes the team truly complete...sorta like that scene in Jerry Maguire) of the New Avengers (note that Wolverine, like Cap, first appeared in #4, wocka wocka wocka), so he writes Iron Man as telling Captain America that Wolverine is the "Captain America" of the New Avengers.

Never mind that it makes no sense (for one, the original Avengers were together for a couple of months before Cap joined, this team has been together for a long weekend - if that), Bendis wants him to be the "Captain America" of the New Avengers, so that is what is going to happen in the comic.

But whatever, it is annoying, but I am used to this kind of thing from writers, so it did not really bother me. I do not think it is good writing, but I do not think it was unusually bad.

2. Bendis put HIS reason for Wolverine joining the team over a much more logical reason that also would have connected the book to the events in Millar's Wolverine (events that are fairly major in scope).

In that title, Wolverine is working with SHIELD to atone for all the people he killed while brainwashed by the Hand. Meanwhile, he is at odds with the X-Men over the fact that he, well, killed a bunch of students and one of his teammates (as an aside, remember Millar's "I couldn't believe they let me kill this character!" tease for who the character Wolverine killed was? How did he say that stuff without laughing, knowing that he was talking about Northstar, who was featured in about ONE of the last 25 issues of X-Men - and was not even a MEMBER of the team until a couple of years ago!).

So wouldn't it make sense for him to work with the Avengers along the same lines? Atoning for all the murders he committed as a member of the Hand?

But, no, Bendis wants Wolverine to be the "Captain America" of New Avengers, and that doesn't fit with the other approach, so it was scrapped.

Silly.

However, silly is not that big of a deal either. I'm used to silly as well.

In fact, I would not even say this is poor writing - more like disappointing writing.

So I basically had just written off the issue and moved on when I saw this examination of the Cap/Iron Man scene by a fella named Den here. It was at this point that I realized that I was actually being too kind to the scene. I was not paying enough attention, and the scene was a good deal worse than I first thought.

Here are the lines from the comic:

Iron Man: Cap, you said this team came together by... fate. Your word. Just like the original Avengers... Right? Yes.

IM: Well, the original Avengers didn't truly come together... until that one last ingredient came into the mix. We needed one last ingredient.

And then when we found you......you were that one thing.

But for this team, for this situation, in this world...

IM: He is you. He is our missing ingredient.

Captain America: Tony, he's a murderer.

IM: He's a Samurai Warrior. After what happened to us with Wanda, after what we know happened here today-- We can't afford not to have him.

IM: We're going to need someone to go to that place that we can't. And you know exactly what I mean.

CA: I wish that wasn't true.

Then it goes into a discussion about how he's an X-Men, etc.

When I first read the scene, I thought Iron Man was saying to Cap that in today's world, the Avengers need a guy who is willing to kill if he has to (which also does not make much sense, as Cap would kill if he has to, as he has shown in the past, but whatever).

But as Den points out, and I now notice, that ISN'T what Iron Man is saying. What he is saying is that the Avengers need someone who can kill FOR them!!!!

"We're going to need someone to go to that place that we can't."

He is saying that Wolverine is going to be their hitman!!! They can't get their hands dirty, so they will let Wolverine do it.

What the hell is up with THAT?!?!

What a stupid idea!

Cap and Iron Man are hanging out, and Iron Man decides that they need someone to kill people for them!?!?!

And Cap AGREES!!

Wow.

That is some poor writing there.

I already wasn't a fan of the scene, but looking at it more carefully, that is a bad, bad scene.

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