Pre-criticizing the Avengers.

The only thing that bugs me about the Avengers movie (especially for a Joss Whedon joint) is that Black Widow's the only female character. Okay, Maria Hill, SHIELD's 2nd-in-command, will get like five lines in two hours. But I get that having the Wasp either means having Giant-Man also, and two characters with similar powers/themes doesn't help streamline a movie, or combining the two characters into Giant-Girl or something like that one "young readers" line of Marvel comics. Scarlet Witch is also a bust because she's a mutant and Fox owns those, plus she's got crazy, potentially hard-to-explain powers. So I've been drawing up a list of other lady Avengers through the years who could pop up as new recruits or whatever in Thor 2, Iron Man 3, etc. Automatically crossed off are She-Hulk, Valkyrie, both Spider-Women, and Mockingbird who's basically just American Black Widow, because derivative characters would make for a boring Avengers sequel. Here's what I came up with, any takers?


Sausage party.

Jessica Jones, aka Jewel- Ordinary New York girl gets super-strength and endurance from a car crash involving radioactive chemicals. Pretty straightforward Marvel origin.

Monica Rambeau, aka Captain Marvel II or Photon- New Orleans cargo ship captain gets exposed to extradimensional energy (Cosmic Cube, perhaps?) and gains the ability to transform into any type of electromagnetic energy. Also, all the Avengers except Nick Fury so far are white, so having an Avenger of color would be another step towards diversity, not counting alien hybrids, bringing us to...

Carol Danvers, aka Miss Marvel or Warbird- Air Force officer wounded in an alien encounter, revived with Kree technology, gains super-strength, -speed, and -endurance, flight and energy powers. With Jewel and Photon's powers she's two birds with one stone, but Photon and Jewel are cool too.

A little more outlandish, though ready-made to tie into the franchise if it turns out Thanos shows up at the end of Avengers 1 like the rumors say, are...

Sersi- One of the Eternals of Earth (Thanos is an Eternal of Titan), Sersi is basically immortal and depending on the comic, either has illusion powers, teleportation and telepathy, or (best option) molecular transmutation. Lead to gold! Wood to glass! Airplane to dragon! Who the fuck knows! I feel like Joss would have a fun time writing her if he came back for the sequel. Read Neil Gaiman's Eternals,

Heather Douglas, aka Moondragon- Her family killed in an attack by Thanos, young Heather is pitied by other Eternals who aren't dicks like Thanos, and trained to be a crazy psychic monk on Titan. Yes, the moon of Saturn. It's hella complicated and dumb, but hey, sexy bald arrogant telepathic martial-arts monk! Another character Whedon would probably swoon over if he hasn't at some point already.

Then, just to round things out with a newer character...

Daisy Johnson, aka Quake- The daughter of supervillain Mr. Hyde, Daisy naturally has the power to induce and control localized earthquakes, but somehow she isn't a mutant. I dunno. But Bendis likes her so she may even have a SHIELD cameo in Avengers 1.

Also considered were Hellcat (boring powers), Silverclaw (ridiculous powers), Firebird (too Phoenix-y), Echo (too close to Black Widow), Lionheart (involves weird magical bullshit), and Moonstone (too evil). Any thoughts, nerds?
--T.

P.S. Don't type "avengers women" into Google Image Search with SafeSearch turned off. Bad idea.

P.P.S. I'd be okay with including Hank Pym and Jan Van Dyne, I really would. I love those characters. I just doubt it's in the cards for this version of the Avengers. (That's me saying: "Please disagree with me in the comments section and come up with a way to put "size-changing people with marital troubles" into a media-friendly package.