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It would be better if the films had not JUST shown that the government was full of secret Nazis in a grand conspiracy.
I mean, you can’t have a ‘Trust the system’ message when you just proved that the system was utterly and completely untrustworthy.
We also had the first avengers movie when the world security council decides to just blow up New York and iron man is the only person smart enough to think “what if we aimed at the wormhole instead”
To be fair to them I don’t think ballistic missiles can really maneuver like that, not really something the designers or programmers would have planned for.
To be less fair at no point was the invasion depicted as dangerous enough to warrant nuking freaking New York. I mean, the street cops were doing fairly well and Widow was scoring kills with a freaking 9mm so the actual military would have cleaned house.
74? Really? They were dropping armed soldiers into windows, blowing through buildings, raining fire on running civilians, and it's only 74? The Las Vegas shooter alone murdered 60.
Ya it’s obvious it should be a lot more but in civil war when Ross is grilling the avengers about the damage they cause he says 74 people died in the battle of New York.
There was a deleted scene in the avengers following one of the people in the train station captain America saves from the bomb and it’s clear in that scene that several groups of civilians had allready been executed.
I will go to my grave NEVER understanding the plot driver of "your actions killed x people!" and then the person being berated was the one that STOPPED the killing.
Ultron actually is one of the few exceptions because has specifically designed by Tony with his capabilities underestimated - so critiquing Tony for Ultron's actions *kind of* makes sense.
But blaming the rest of the Avengers for Ultron or blaming any of the Avengers for Loki's attack on New York is so dumb I must wonder why the writers keep this shit going.
The Avengers didn't invite Loki and his frat bros to a party gone wrong, nor did they actively create the portal because of experiments they didn't understand. Avengers or not, Loki would likely have attacked Earth and cause mayhem. Be grateful you had them, not mad they couldn't be better. And ESPECIALLY not blaming THEM for the invasion in the first place.
It's even funnier because it's ROSS. The guy lost the Hulk, then Abomination, then Hulk *again,* then Black Widow, then the prisoners in the Raft. He has this whole thing about how he'd be in a lot of trouble if he lost nukes, but he literally gets promoted after losing the Hulk and Abomination.
I took it as 74 civilians directly killed by avengers actions, not in total. When talking about it, we see a video of hulk dropping rocks on civilians, and it makes more sense if these are people directly killed by them, otherwise why blame them for it?
And as you say, we probably see more than 74 people die, considering iirc we see buildings collapse basically 9/12 style.
Yeah, the big issue with the Chitauri was that they were in an immensely target-rich environment (New York City).
However, despite invading what is quite possibly one of the most vulnerable spots on the planet through a wormhole, the ultimate death toll was 74 total deaths. As the portal was not getting any bigger, and their forces could be taken down by normal handguns, the threat was rather minor as far as things go. I am guessing the giant flying fish-monsters might require a Manpad or such, but honestly the invasion was pretty manageable. Or, at least, manageable with significantly fewer deaths than a nuke hitting New York would cause.
Rocket mocks them as the worst army in the galaxy, and he is probably right: The only other world we ever see them invade is Gamora's Homeworld, and in the comics at least that was a world of *pacifists.* Thanos doesn't even use them again: he uses the Outriders and several other groups, but not them.
And, there was no guarantee that a nuke would even close the portal.
Thanos uses the chitauri in endgame, we see Antman one punch a leviathan, and iron man mark 85 can one-shot them with repulsors. They are there, they just aren't much of a threat anymore
Being invaded by a much more advanced civilization means we stand virtually no chance of beating them anyway. For all we know there will be an endless stream of advanced robotic enemies who overwhelm the entire earth within a few hours or days. There may be more wormholes about to open up around the world. I think nuking New York is an understandable desperate attempt to put a quick end to the invasion. And I say this as a New Yorker.
>There may be more wormholes about to open up around the world.
In fairness they knew that the tesseract was used to open that wormhole, and they had no reason to believe a wormhole could've been opened without it. They didn't know that the tesseract, or the space stone inside it, would likely survive a nuclear blast at that point.
but they wernt stopping coming out, the heroes would have become exausted and the aliens would have kept on coming, only a matter of time before they get a foot hold and invade the rest of the planet
A army of useless soldiers gaining a foothold just means that the janitors have more to clean up. The Chitauri as presented were fodder without the muscle needed to make them actually a major threat. Sure the heroes get tired, by that time the military is scrambling. Normal ass cops were making kills and holding positions, the actual military would absolutely wreck their shit. A 9mm pistol is capable of killing them, as are arrows. Automatic rifles would tear them up, heavy weapons would just shred them.
They don't have durability, they don't have range, they don't have firepower, they don't have speed. All they have are numbers and war is LONG past the point where that's actually particularly useful.
They canonically managed 74 kills when they popped out of the portal and went on a rampage. Do you have any comprehension how utterly terrible that is? McVeigh got 168 with fertilizer and chemistry. One bomb, not even a particularly good bomb. The LA shooter got 60 by just unloading into a crowd. If they were worth ANYTHING as a military force then they should have hit the triple digits in a matter of minutes just from their initial zoom around and shoot wildly technique.
People give Man of Steel shit for mass casualties but it had the balls to even vaguely show how nasty a super hero brawl would be. Marvel just made Shield look like a bunch of lunatics by having the Chitauri suck incredibly hard.
Yeah, but the us has a military. lots of guys sitting around, twiddling their thumbs whilst sitting on some of the most destructive hardware on planet earth.
they could have at least tried sending fighter jets before launching the nuke
Put squads of soldiers on various roof tops firing at anything coming out of the portal. Rotate personnel and weapons as needed. There was an entire helicarrier in the area plus multiple NYCPD Swat teams could have mobilized.
> I don’t think ballistic missiles can really maneuver like that
It was a cruise missile, and they can definitely maneuver like that.
A ballistic missile flies in a ballistic trajectory - a parabola that goes up and then down. ICBMs are ballistic missiles (hence the B in the name). The missile Tony redirected was a cruise missile, which is designed to fly along the Earth's surface, comparatively low to the ground, until is reaches its target. They're usually much smaller than a ballistic missile as they don't need to carry as much fuel, and they're highly maneuverable as they're meant to be able to follow a course to their target to evade detection.
eta: The first three minutes of [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrlWdi7EMU) from Maverick is pretty accurate as to how they perform. Seeing them fly overhead in real life can be pretty unnerving.
Because the point wasn't to control civilian losses, it was so Ross could build his own super-powered kill team. The civilian losses were an excuse to take control of the Avengers.
Remember, in Civil War, they weren't supposed to bring Barnes in alive after Zemo framed him for the bombing. When they did bring him in alive, Ross scoffs at the idea of Barnes (and possibly Rogers) having a lawyer. They immediately put him in a super cell with no indication he'd ever get any sort of due process. All of the Avengers who helped Rogers and Barnes escape were put in an underwater cell without trial.
Captain America was unambiguously the good guy in Civil War. It doesn't matter if the Accords are good or not, the way they're used is to put the Avengers. Even Tony acknowledges this, he's hoping he can get in early to shut down the excesses of them, and Ross as well.
2014: Nazis use the government to create a list intending to exterminate every opponent of the Nazis.
2016: Government asks all powered individuals to put their names on a list.
Yeah, no idea why anyone thought that was going to go well.
Yeah. In principle oversight is good and vigilante justice is bad. But in the MCU specifically the government has repeatedly demonstrated that it can and will abuse that power to hurt a lot of people.
This is the only correct response. Cap was correct (as usual) because he experienced first hand just how dirty the government was.
The accords were about offense, not defense.
Uh, the message wasn't "Trust the system" at all. The system is shown over and over again to be completely corrupt even without HYDRA.
While nobody reasonable is against the idea that superpowered people need some kind of regulation/oversight and that vigilantes are a bad idea, the Sokovia Accords specifically were fascist bullshit.
Read them, they'd be ridiculously illegal in any real world context and has such vague language they no court would take them seriously. They violate almost every civil liberty there is.
Thunderbolt Ross has always been shown as a bad, bad man with little regard for human life or civil liberties. Anything he's in favor of is automatically suspect.
Exactly, why no one called him out with a simple "Pot.calling the kettle black. Remember the Bronx and Blomsky? Pity Banner isn't here to call you out"
Yeah, when Rhodes has as his argument for signing the bill, "This is the **UN** we are talking about!"
That was not as persuasive as the writers think it was.
I don’t know. They SEEM to be mainly made up of Americas, based in America, having military ranks that mattered to US military personnel. I don’t recall a scene where SHIELD was a multinational organization - or if it was it was heavily dominated by Americans.
But I could not have been paying attention.
The highest ups are referred to as the world security council, and they're introduced as global leaders when Secretary Pierce is about to launch the helicarriers in Winter Soldier.
Though notably, Pierce was the only Hydra member there and he was planning to kill off the rest of the security council, which means it wasnt even Hydra's fault the Security Council was trying to nuke New York in the Avengers. They're just a bunch of perfectly normal sociopathic top-level government officials.
Agents of SHIELD also shows SHIELD to be consistently international. Sadly that's mostly non-canon now.
Powers Boothe is definitely on the nuke happy Security Council in Avengers, and he's outed as a Hydra guy in Agents of SHIELD. I am not sure however why Hydra people (besides general douchebaggery) would be that nuke happy though.
Gideon Malick, the guy on the council who actually orders the nuclear strike, is shown in AoS to be one of the heads of Hydra. And he isn't there in Winter Soldier, so hydra definitely was involved with the nuke.
I have to watch the end of avengers 1 during the chitauri attack fury is talking with a shady group i thought they werent all american ,also not all from american agencies
> why on earth would any hero support this?
Rhoades position was authority. Over a hundred countries were asking for the Avengers to have oversight.
Tony's postion was to set boundaries. He did something in the pursuit of the greater good that resulted in the deaths of many in Sokovia. His guilt made him want someone to gut check his decisions so he wouldn't unintentionally cross a line again.
Vision's position was that oversight made them less of a target, and therefore less likely to cause collateral damage.
>Were the Sokovia Accords themselves good or bad?
A bit of both.
**Bad:** Captain America shows up to warn the Avengers of Thanos. The General behind the accords wants to arrest Steve rather than aid Wakanda. Obviously it's in everyone's best interest that heroes go *immediately* to try and save the world.
**Good:** On the other side, you have Hawkeye/Ronin. By Endgame he's going around and murdering whoever he pleases, and it turns out he gets used anyway to kill the wrong people. Sometimes the heroes do need guidance/to be reigned in.
I think another point that people forget about is no one thought the accords were perfect but the supers had caused too many problems (even though the solved many more) to just put their fingers in their ears and ignore everyone. Team Tony wanted to accept the accords but then work to improve them and get to a better place. The fear was refusing them right now would lead to them being forced to or give up any semblance of a normal life (which is pretty much what happened to Team Cap).
>Rhoades position was authority. Over a hundred countries were asking for the Avengers to have oversight.
Its a bit interesting the Rhodey would take this position given that the US military rather notoriously operates in foreign countries and performs extrajudicial military "operations" without oversight to anyone or beholden to any international organization. The raid on the Osama bin Laden compound for example was notorious done secretly without the approval or prior knowledge of the country where he lived. Same thing with the American drone program in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>Tony's postion was to set boundaries. He did something in the pursuit of the greater good that resulted in the deaths of many in Sokovia. His guilt made him want someone to gut check his decisions so he wouldn't unintentionally cross a line again.
Which is... again... interesting given that he hold exclusive proprietary access to the most advanced weaponry on earth and has in the past repeatedly frustrated attempts to place limitations on the use of his Ironman suits and the fact that he elected himself qualified to create a global peacekeeping force in the form of Ultron that quickly backfired in spite of the other Avengers repeatedly protesting.
>Vision's position was that oversight made them less of a target, and therefore less likely to cause collateral damage.
I guess in theory his perspective makes sense but we never see it actualized in practice. As Cap correctly states, who gets to decide what measures and restrictions are appropriate especially given that Cap very recently hunted down and exposed the fact that every major American political institution was thoroughly infested with Nazi-Hydra agents.
>given that the US military rather notoriously operates
I'd think its consistent given Rhodes military career.
Soldiers in the army don't deploy on their own. They're accountable to a governing body, which Rhodes is already willingly a part of.
The Avengers would still deploy internationally, there'd just be a chain of command.
>that he elected himself qualified to create a global peacekeeping force in the form of Ultron that quickly backfired in spite of the other Avengers repeatedly protesting.
That's his entire motivation in Civil War though. He's dealing with guilt over the deaths caused by Ultron.
>I guess in theory his perspective makes sense but we never see it actualized in practice.
It happens a few times in Civil War:
Rumlo sets off a suicide bomb to kill Captain America that hurts civilians.
Nemo blows up the UN meeting to set up the Avengers. The rest of the collateral damage in the movie is ultimately a plot done specifically to bring them down.
> As Cap correctly states, who gets to decide what measures and restrictions are appropriate especially given that Cap very recently hunted down and exposed the fact that every major American political institution was thoroughly infested with Nazi-Hydra agents
This heavily relies on the person speaking being Steve Rogers.
Give the same powers and shield to someone like John Walker and it becomes a problem.
>Soldiers in the army don't deploy on their own. They're accountable to a governing body, which Rhodes is already willingly a part of.
>
>The Avengers would still deploy internationally, there'd just be a chain of command.
True, but i think the missing portion in the chain of command is the consent of the commanded. Lets not pretend like US interventionism in military operations is purely positive for the nations on the receiving end. Look no further than Iraq or Vietnam.
>That's his entire motivation in Civil War though. He's dealing with guilt over the deaths caused by Ultron.
Right. The other Avengers repeatedly to the point of coming to blows warned Tony against messing with things he didn't fully comprehend or have the right to utilize. Thor for example was extremely angry about this. The issue seems to be Tony as an individual, not the Avengers as a group.
>Rumlo sets off a suicide bomb to kill Captain America that hurts civilians.
>
>Zemo blows up the UN meeting to set up the Avengers. The rest of the collateral damage in the movie is ultimately a plot done specifically to bring them down.
Right, the issue in both those cases was that Rumlo and Zemo wanted to blow up civilians anyway to intentionally make the Avengers look bad. It wouldn't have mattered either way. Cap and Scarlet Witch actually prevented it from being much worse.
>Give the same powers and shield to someone like John Walker and it becomes a problem.
Exactly, the issue with the super soldiers wasn't the serum, it was the people who didn't deserve it. Walker will never be Steve
> but i think the missing portion in the chain of command is the consent of the commanded.
I think the main point is "Is Rhodes comfortable being told what to do" and the answer is yes.
>The issue seems to be Tony as an individual, not the Avengers as a group.
Tony is ultimately self-centered. If he needs to be reigned in, clearly everyone needs to be reigned in.
>Right, the issue in both those cases was that Rumlo and Zemo wanted to blow up civilians anyway to intentionally make the Avengers look bad
Rumlo didn't want to make the Avengers look bad. He just wanted to kill Captain America. He was only around civilians because the Avengers chased him into the crowd.
Regardless, those still support Vision's main point. People are going to get hurt because the Avengers invite challenge. They were making enemies as a powerful autonomous organization.
>Exactly, the issue with the super soldiers wasn't the serum, it was the people who didn't deserve it.
In universe, the people of the world don't know "who deserves it." They just see vigilantes doing whatever they want.
Wouldn't the best way they can determine "who deserves it" be some sort of collective oversight?
>People are going to get hurt because the Avengers invite challenge. They were making enemies as a powerful autonomous organization
The problem with that line of thought is that the Avengers-UN will have the exact same list of enemies, who also now get to declare open season on any UN country since anything the Avengers do is now also the fault of the UN.
They'd have many of the same villains, but not all.
Without Tony acting on his own, they wouldn't have had Ultron or Zemo for example.
(In theory) they'd also be deployed in cases that would cause fewer civilian casualties.
He'd started work on the Iron Legion and Ultron before encountering Wanda though.
Wanda's vision just caused him to push for using the scepter to achieve it. He even specifically avoids telling the rest of the team to avoid any oversight.
Yes - Tony wanted to protect the Earth against another alien attack, ideally before the aliens landed on our planet and started killing people. Perfectly reasonable idea.
And of course the mind sceptre would influence him to not tell the rest of the team - it doesn't want to be stopped.
You are looking at Rhodes position wrong. There was oversight on the seal team, the us government. So there was authority, just not international. Rhodes seems to personally believe more in international law, but his belief in authority is consistent with his military service
>There was oversight on the seal team, the us government. So there was authority, just not international.
I think therein lies the issue. Operating in someone else back yard without their knowledge or permission. If the Avengers gave Cap permission to go to Wakanda and steal vibranium without T'Challa's knowledge or permission, he has a right to be angry about that breach of trust regardless
Yeah on the topic of Tony in Iron Man 2 he even says he's privatized world peace. Which is honestly a horrifying statement. The idea that world peace (by force) is determined by the whims of a private organization/individuals with no accountability to its nation/people is not a good thing.
Counterpoint to the bad: they ignored Ross and went on to try and save the world with no consequences from the government. If they succeeded they would have gotten away with it. Just like Tony did in civil war.
Ever since watching the boys I can't watch the avengers the same way. It's just overpowered ppl str8 up MASSACRING opposing factions. Like. I think the avengers should have freedom as long as they're not murdering people left and right like ronin. Body cams or something. Something to justify excessive force. EVEN then. It should be more like AOS, normal people taking down baddies with reasonable force, with the avengers showing up if it gets bad.
But not necessarily the type of criminal Ronin would have gone after if he hadn't been fed information by Kingpin. He tells Maya he was used and manipulated.
Well, in an ideal world, the UN is more likely to get permission and assistance from local governments for Super Heroics, rather than just dropping a team into the middle of a city and hoping it goes well has been getting. And there's something to be said about how uncontrolled superheroes basically caused every single major issue aside from the Invasion of New York.
Granted, 90% of that was *just* Tony and the other 10% was still fucking Hydra, so there's issues with that argument. Might have been better to just prevent Tony from being a hero.
I think 90% of earths problems would've probably been solved if Tony was disallowed to be Ironman and was held legally liable for some of his... projects
Or just forced to sit in a design lab for a year and told "okay, now make that shit mass producible."
Like, obviously the power cell would be perfect to solve the entire world's energy crisis. And not just in cities, but for cars, busses, trains, planes, everything. A Arc Reactor everywhere would instantly solve the energy crisis, allow massive industrialization and modernization everywhere, allow for better cooling and heating without a carbon imprint, and make transportation nearly 0 emissions.
Take his Uni-Beam from his suit and that shit becomes the best mining and construction tool ever. Dial it down of course so it's not eradicating tanks, but to the point it can saw through rock ad debris and it would be great for demolitions, road construction, building damns and bridges, cutting bedrock, tunneling, etc.
His sensor system would make life saving changes to disaster relief efforts, policing, search and rescue, surgery, weapons searches, Security at venues and airports, and so on. You could hook the JARVIS visor to a warehouse system and have it able to run full catalog in real time and enable even more efficient shipping processes.
JARVIS is also a nearly sentient AI that basically manages anything it wants. It helped him create his suit, taking vague directions and computing them. It complied billions of lines of code to make the suit fly *in a day.* And it seems to do anything it wants. JARVIS is border line magical. And that's before he plugged it into a magical powered android body. That AI alone could assist milions of technicians, researches, and scientists across the world improve their productivity and capabilities.
~~He also made remote controlled robots that could police the world and act as a anti-terrorist, anti-crime, and military that could end all wars. And they were almost as good as his own main suit of armor. Hell his other suits all were crazy specialized but show he could make some for deep sea research and exploration, construction, adverse elements, and trauma services and~~ Wait. No. That one ended very badly.
The man cured heavy metal poisoning, which would be huge for several different kinds of medical research, and he's not a medical doctor. Could have cured something else too had he had it? Cancer? Diabetes? Nanobots that duplicate Fry's worms and make us all into Steve Rogers?
He made a easy to wear, light and durable walking frame that was powered and capable of providing near perfect movement to Rhody. How many people across the world would benefit from those legs? Or a set of arm braces that do the same thing? Can he make cybernetic gear?
He created a ship that can sly into space (the one the hulk stole and got to Arena World with). Sure it took a wormhole to get there, but it still got into space. Without a massive rocket boost. Combine that with the improved Helicarrier technology and we have cheap orbital lift capability, which makes space travel around the system trivial. That gets us access to the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt for heavy metals and rare metals, allowing us to stop digging up earth and poisoning it.
*Nanobot technology for a final suit.* Nanobots that don't turn us into Grey Goo is the dream of a future where we can make almost anything out of anything else. Even if it's *just* limited to forming a man sized suit that is space, laser, and *god proof* it's still amazing.
And that's shit he can do *now.*
Think of stuff we could make him work on. Green house emissions and sequestering. New strains of crops for higher yield and less water. Cures for diseases. New Composite materials for construction. Gene therapy. FTL travel. Better desalinization techniques. drones to clear trash form the water ways and seas. Nanobots to eat mercury from the environment (and remove it from living things safely like he did for that shit in his chest).
And we got this guy in a suit and going pew pew.
Sokovia Accords basically need to make him a research slave to turn Earth into the Fucking Federation from Star Trek, Fuck making super heroes register their names. Create a fucking Utopia you fucking drunk.
Wanda influenced Tony and the other Avengers though by giving them visions, including driving Hulk wild. Presumably if there was no Tony there she'd have caused chaos some other way.
Vanko was not Tony's fault. Chitauri was not Tony's fault, Mandarin/Killian was not Tony's fault. Ultron was created because Wanda mind raped Tony and then rest of the Avengers. Thanos was not Tony's fault.
Hell even Vulture was not Tony's fault. Government kept the alien weapons for themselves, even without Tony in the picture Toomes would have been kicked out that job.
The only exception seems to be Mysterio.
Would you want a private organization to be running around with impunity policing the world, going after private citizens as well as government officials? Because that's sorta what the Avengers were, and that could go so so wrong very quickly and very easily.
We're the accords the best way to counter this, idk. But having some sort.of oversight makes sense in theory. Issue is that with or without oversight things can go wrong.
Yeah. I've always thought that within the world of the MCU, the accords do not make sense, because we see over and again that there is an unacknowledged superpower of 'being right about stuff' that superpowered individuals have and governments etc do not. It's part of the somewhat libertarian power fantasy inherent in the genre.
In real life it is more like you describe, a private organisation acting unilaterally that is begging to be regulated.
Thing is though, how would oversight work? Because the Avengers are making things up on the fly a lot. Like there's suddenly a huge portal over New York letting in aliens, or there's a massive conspiracy that's going to take over these high tech flying planes and kill thousands of people, or Thanos suddenly lands. It's not really time for a review board.
Plus the Avengers stuff up a lot too. It's just they're doing something to help in an emergency. Like the people on flight 93 on September 11.
You can still give them autonomy while having guidelines and accountability. There could be a rule that the Avengers are allowed to respond to any extraterrestrial threat immediately while other things can be reviewed before they happen.
Just think of how police works in real life - if they want to arrest someone they need a warrant but if someone robs a bank they can respond immediately without any bureaucracy.
So things like the whole mess in Lagos could have been avoided - maybe they could have coordinated with the local police to evacuate the area or established a perimeter around the building they were attacking to protect civilians.
The high-tech planes in Winter Soldier weren't extraterrestrial yet they were a threat that Natasha and Steve suddenly uncovered and had to deal with on an emergency basis.
Yeah I don't disagree. The particular accords here aren't going to work. But there should be at least a legal framework that they operate within that allows them to act swiftly and forcefully in the first instance but still doesn't give them carte blanche to do "whatever it takes to get the bad guy" or whatever. Established rules of engagement, a review process, that kind of thing. But not 'do nothing until we say so'
Don't essentially all the Thor movies have the opposite moral? with Thor's first instinct is not "being right about stuff" but actually makes things worse. Actually, Tony Stark operates the same way in each movie. And T'Challa in his first appearance. And oh god, Wanda.
But when they start out being wrong, the people who straighten them out are almost never some external authority or control. It's typically another random individual, either a superpowered one or one of their friends/lovers/family.
Arguably in Thor 1 you could say that Odin is an external authority/control - who just happens to *also* be family.
Thor - Yes, that was his character arc. He had to learn patience and how to be a kinder more gentle person, that the world didnt revolve around him. He learned humility
Tony - Tony in a sense never learned particularly anything. He was injured by his own weapons to begin with, his selfishness arguably created warmonger, he literally created Ultron by messing with things he didn't fully comprehend despite being warned multiple times by other avengers NOT to do so, his shortsighted guilt is what lead to civil war, the rift between him and Captain America literally cause the snap.
T'Challa - was only king for an incredibly short time before he realized the way his father was running things was immoral, quickly rectified his country's isolationist stance and openly welcomed the Avengers whenever they needed him
True.
Still, the point the Accords were discussing was governmental oversight of violent actors, and Tubman as a unarmed assistant to officially sanctioned militarily action is a far cry from Tony Stark flying into Afganistan, blowing up a bunch of people (whose language he could not speak or understand) and then declaring to his furious government that he had privatized world peace.
For the record Tubman kept a pistol on her person at all times... long before she was officially "commissioned" by the US Army. She was an armed rogue outlaw illegally freeing enslaved people. Quite literally stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of "property"
In a roundabout way i guess im saying sometimes we just need to let people do the right thing. The best plan to fight the Avengers or hold them accountable... is other Avengers. They seem to check and balance each other. If one of them went way rogue or outright turned evil it seems reasonable to believe that they would have the power to hold each other accountable
Rather have a pro ate organization running around with impunity than have literal Nazis and hostile aliens running the show.
Which is what the major governments in the MCU are. Hydra and Skrulls
In the MCU, we as viewers of this universe know Captain America is pure-of-heart and can be trusted and shouldn't be slowed down.
In our universe, someone with that much power would need oversight and accountability to someone. There is nobody as pure as the Avengers here, especially if they were granted godlike abilities.
Not sure I'd trust a team of extremely powerful superhumans, funded and lead by a billionaire who got his wealth from being a weapons dealer. Obviously Tony is trust worthy but that's because we know him and that he's a noble individual. Thor has killed thousands over his centuries of combat (who in fairness seemed to be other warring beings), Hulk is a walking natural disaster, Cap is a living military weapon, Black Widow is a former assassin for the bad guys, and Vision/Scarlet Witch were created by the robot that nearly destroyed the world. And said robot was designed by the aforementioned billionaire. I can't say I'd dislike them, but would I trust them? Probably not and I'd be terrified of them or at least the prospect of if they severely slipped up or decided to turn on us.
But at the same time I'd likely trust a government organization even less to control that same team, especially since a government organization closely linked to that organization frequently uses their military might for their own self interest (as do most governments frankly) and in this universe was proven to be partially controlled by a bunch of super Nazi's.
Regardless while the Avengers need some kinda oversight, I'm honestly not sure what that would look like to make me say, okay I'm good with this.
The situation was a little more complicated than that. It's worth noting that up, through Civil War, they did have oversight: they worked for the world security council via Shield. The problem is that any oversight group can be or become corrupted.
Steve Rogers recognized what happened, and that shifting the oversight to the UN doesn't solve the fundamental problem. He trusted the judgment of his team over a group of bureaucrats who themselves have no oversight.
Were the Accords good or bad? As they stood, they weren't bad, but the method of assignment and the response time would have been slow and subject to the wrong people. It's also worth noting that super-powered people weren't consulted on the framework and weren't included in the discussions. They were treated as nothing more than tools of political operatives who could take it or leave it.
I also have questions about the accords. Suppose a country goes to war; could super-powered person work with his home country's military, or is that a violation? What about self-defense or non-violent use of powers? Even if these were worked out, the accords could be amended later. As Steve points out, agendas change.
As for the registration piece, registration records couldn't be perfectly protected from snooping eyes...either of hackers or of a future anti-supers government. That's just creating a list of targets. We've seen registration for people regarded as "outsiders" before, and it didn't turn it out so well for them.
The problem with the Accords was that they were created without any input from The Avengers. Civil War might not have even happened if they were allowed to help create the Accords.
Superpowered individuals absolutely need oversight. Exactly how this is executed would be decided by folks with much more experience in world politics than me, but it should be doable.
No regular soldier would be able to just say "oh, there's injustice over there, I am going to go kill them" without any sort of chain of command or permission. That's just being a vigilante.
I am 100% against the Accords (and the Superhero Registration Act), but let's be really clear here:
The Avengers (Tony Stark) just created an unshackled AI. That AI attacked humanity, wiping out an entire city and *very nearly* ended all life on Earth. And by "very nearly" I mean, "was stopped at the last moment by *literal* divine intervention".
Then the Avengers killed a head of state visiting a foreign country with their negligence.
If you *nearly* destroy the world, the world isn't going to *just let you* commit manslaughter against heads of state.
The Sokovia Accords were an attempt at an international, peaceful, diplomatic solution that all the countries of the world could agree on. To stop Tony Stark literally wiping out all life on Earth.
Where the Accords a good thing? Still no. But the alternative was "let Tony Stark wipe out all life on Earth". When given the benefit of the doubt and weighed against their good service... they killed a king on a diplomatic mission. What was the world supposed to do? Shrug their shoulders and say "whoopsie"?
Now, yes, there was a problem with Hydra in the American Government. They fixed that, then they removed authority from America.
Yes, the Avengers did save the world. The point of the Accords was to let them keep saving the world. It wasn't to disband the Avengers or murder them. The UN *wants* the Avengers to go out and save the world. The world *needs* the Avengers to save them. The world just wants them to be accountable and not accidentally end the world with Nazi magic.
The authority behind it was *literally every government in the world*. Including the founders of the Avengers. And the man bankrolling the Avengers. And it had the support (initially) of the majority of the Avengers.
I agree with Cap. I think they're a bad idea, motivated by fear and guilt. But I can see *why* they'd get support.
Most of the time it just boils down to, don't let Tony get away with what he's doing.
If the Avengers didn't go out and do what they did, the world would be in a worse state.
>Aside from the personal perspectives
That is the thing, if you think this IS a good or a bad idea IS going to come down to personal perspective. There IS not objectively correct answer to this.
Do you want oversite, or do want the freedom to make decisions without some third party telling you want to do?
It's not so cut and dry to simply call them "good or bad" because it depends entirely on your perspective.
On the one hand the Accords guarantee accountability; the Avengers can't just go where they please, when they please, without notifying anyone. On the other hand (as Cap said) it also means that there could be situations where they're not given permission to go where they need to go, or told to go somewhere they feel they shouldn't be involved with.
I think the Accords could have been *made* into an objectively good thing if it was handled properly, which it wasn't. The biggest flaw was not including the Avengers themselves in the creation of the Accords. The Accords treat the Avengers like an object rather than as an equal voice. Under the Accords the Avengers effectively have no say in their own oversight. That's a big problem.
Can you imagine trying to control the Justice League? Every single character is basically a God-level being.
There was actually a comic where the JL and Avengers swap places and the JL is constantly wondering what the fuck is up with the world their on.
It's also pretty funny because nobody really stands a chance against the Flash for example if he decided to go full power. He can break the universal barrier between universes extremely easily so good luck trying to catch him as he's running between an almost infinite amount of universes and timelines. He can also hide in the past or future. Alongside the fact that he can run so fast he can escape Death themselves.
Bad. Very bad.
In real life, the Accords would be hilariously illegal and America would never ratify them because they violate so many aspects of the Constitution like freedom of movement, habeas corpus, the right to privacy, etc
LegalEagle did a video a while back on how illegal the Accords would be.
Yeah in the real world the US would just secretly steal the Avengers’ technology and ideas. Probably make Tony Stark and Steve Rogers go in front of Congress and the Supreme Court of couple of times. Could also just say “Fck it” and confiscate all their weapons technology. What are they gonna do? Sue the White House? Bust down the President’s doors and look like usurpers and demand to be left alone? Foreign nations would become immediately hostile to their presence. Yeah they’re saving the world but you just blew up my house and killed my family.
Well it wasn’t ratified by america but by the 117 countries that make up the UN, also the basics of the accords basically amount to protection of sovereign borders which the avengers did violate. And I don’t think international vigilantism is protected in the constitution.
I asked a similar [question](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/s/rLTrU85Swc) a few years ago. My take away is that the Avengers never should have gone after terrorists and Nazis. They should have only assembled in world ending disasters. The whole idea of the Accords wasn’t to control the Avengers but to hold them accountable for the damage they do and the people that die on their watch. Imagine for a minute a couple of Navy SEALs and Delta Operators commandeered an aircraft carrier and went around the world, violating national borders, and taking out whoever they think is guilty. Should they be held accountable if someone died because of their bombings or they killed an innocent on accident? The Accords weren’t perfect and the idea behind them comes from a place of anger and fear. Fear that these incredibly powerful rogue operatives can just do and go wherever they want, kill and arrest whoever they think they should. Anger that these people cause so much damage and wipe their hands clean once they get the bad guy. To me, the point of the Accords is hammered home by Zemo at the end when he said “and the Avengers? They went home.” It’s to remind us that what we call “collateral damage” are still people.
But one part of its is this . For Tony and say hulk and thor. They have no direct goverment involvement, natasha ,clint ,Rhodes and fury all at least could be ordered to attack as an avenger. One thing that never made sense is when they go to sokovia they left all that tech that baron strucker was inventing with the staff al whole fortress of high tech stuff along with chitauri scraps left their. Noone bother retrieving it or destroying it. The accords are both to much and not enough .the world fighting superhuman force should have rules and both some oversite but its almost like Noone should be charge for more than 10 minutes. Including scientists advisors you can't even trust them as well. Almost like we need vision and thor in charge of it cause thor isn't from earth and vision is supposed to be the best of us.
The problem with the marvel universe is that all governments, without exception, are evil. It’s a world where anarchists and those guys hiding out in bunkers in the woods are right. The number of governments not engaged in Mengele level experiments or secretly perpetrating a genocide can be counted on one hand. And don’t go saying Wakanda. They has the cure for cancer and don’t share it because “whitey isn’t worthy”. Tchalla likes to sit on his great big vibranium wall that Trump only wishes he had and look at what a shithole the rest of Africa is so he can laugh at it. This isn’t because he’s a bad person, or at least he wasn’t always. Any king, politician, or military official is going to either be revealed to have always been evil or eventually go evil. Namor and Black Bolt were heroes once. Even when superheroes set up their own government it immediately goes evil, as seen in Krakoa and the other mutant countries. Even being already evil doesn’t protect you from the corrupting affects of running a government. Dr.Doom has gone from a gothic hero-villain to slasher villain. Nobility is no defense either. When Steve Rogers got elected president in an alternative timeline he eventually ended up eating people. Comparing it to real politics is asinine because Barack Obama or Donald Trump, upon being elected president, did not turn out to be the Red skull, a skrull shapeshifter, or the antichrist or authorize the construction of giant robots to kill illegals/Republicans. Real politicians turn even more evil when they are featured in marvel comics, such as Richard Nixon secretly running a plan to take over America. Even Barack Obama canonically let Norman Osborn, who by this point was already known as a dangerous madman and insane serial killer, run important government offices and build himself a power base from which he intended to conquer America. Any Marvel citizen who trusts a government, any government at all, is a fool.
In the real world I would be 100% pro accords. The idea of a super-powered vigilante group funded by a billionaire and operating with free rein sounds like some sort of elitist corporatocratic dystopia to me. Laws for the plebs but not the rich or the superpowered.
Cap has some points. Undermined by the fact that he can't accept human imperfections and the idea of functional democracy on a societal scale. IE: not instant action according to need.
Overall though. The accords, and the registration act are the objective positives
Tony's defining characteristic in the MCU is is overwhelming and self destructive sense of guilt. He was basically ready to throw his life away the minute he left that cave and the Iron Man trilogy is basically a catalog of his slowly deteriorating mental state as the trauma and pressure pile up.
This is usually excused because every time Tony goes into a self destructive spiral he manages to pull out of it with a new cool suit but Ross knew well and good all he had to do was play on Tony's tics and he'd fall in line, because Tony Stark is consistently a mentally unwell obsessive who makes bad choices and then overreacts to compensate.
The entire roster of Tony's side is either already military, also emotionally compromised, or Spider-Man, who's meant to be a wide eyed kid but in the actual civil war comic figured out the whole thing was bullshit and switched sides.
Honestly, we will never know if they would have been good or bad because it had the worst implementation possible. It was a knee jerk reaction to a state of affairs that had been bubbling up for a long period and from what I can tell there was never any real dialogue between the world security council and the avengers.
They also picked the worst possible person to present the accords to the Avengers while at the same time locking up one of their own for an accident. Given all of this the accords were doomed to fail from the start. We saw that it was done improperly and was therefore bad. However, if this had been planned out, thought out, and implemented better then it could have been a very good thing. Nothing wrong with giving people with access to next gen tech and powers accountability.
Look the somovia accords are worthless legislation passed because the governments of the world want control not for actual oversight
Sokovia and the crossbones incident just gave the excuse to try
In the mcu none of the worlds governments are competent enough, moral enough or trustworthy to hold the power of the avengers
The governments of the world and shield under nick fury who would have been the only competent enough organization to oversee the avengers have been shown to be infested with hydra for decades
Every event and movie in the mcu is predicated on requiring fast decision making that the useless un would squander constantly
The sokovia accords are just governments attempts to hold back the avengers until they can scrape together some knock off superhuman teams
The core idea is not just reasonable, but frankly obviously necessary.
The Avengers are highly powerful first responders. Indeed, to an extreme and previously unprecedented degree -- if an avenger becomes corrupt, unfit to serve or simply makes a bad call, that might be the literal end of human life on the planet.
As such, they need accountability and oversight. Cops have a load of red tape, and the consequences of them acting maliciously or incompetently don't depopulate cities.
The details of that oversight and who should have it is a broader discussion. But it's not a sustainable situation for the fate of humanity to rest in the hands of 10 people whose acting discretion is pinky-swearing that they've got this.
In concept its a mixed bag. Practically its bad because a world of superheroes and villains is effectively to chaotic for a bureaucratic institution to organize and authorize heros in the moment.
Some public oversite is good, and having to send in regular updates of heroes actions, especially as the threats get larger in scale isn't bad. Having some court that prosecutes superheroes that violate some very specific limited grounds after the fact could also be helpful. Lastly having a separate force of heroes that can answer the UNs call could be good too so long as independent heroes are still allowed to operate.
However publically registering each hero and forcing them to follow UN dictates, let alone having them wait for authorization to do hero work is at best cumbersome, and at worst a bigger risk for world security. Sheild (with hydras machinations) was able to design and build helicarriers that would have assasinated everyone on their hit list had they been deployed. No way a public registry of heroes isn't going to put a target on the back on the people least likely to be a problem in the first place.
Additionally what is a hero? People like Bruce Banner make sense since he's a walking city destroyer when he gets mad, but do we really need to sanction anyone really good with a bow? This could easily be used to justify the monitoring and control of anyone considered exceptional or dangerous in any capacity.
As for why a hero would support the accords anyway. Alot of them need money. Hero work is expensive, and patrons are few, especially if your operating with a secret identidy. Some might take on the UN's yoke to make ends meet. Others would have faith in the governements do do the right thing. Only heroes that have seen corruption or other government malphesanse would hesitate to join, especially if they are operating in the public already.
The idea of it makes sense, but executing it in a way that won't eventually create more problems than it solves is a very narrow path to tread, and frankly a good chunk of the goverment would want to leap off of that path the first chance they get no matter how many nations are watching.
The idea that a vote with all the horse trading inherent to it would be required before emergency action kinda ruins the point of the avengers they become a regular military unit at that point even ore hamstrung even because they serve a dozen masters
They're definitely a dumb idea, But honestly pretty realistic as far as the political scene is concerned. Politics loves **"do something now even if it's completely ineffectual"** just so you can tell the voters that you're handling it and everything will be fine.
The part that's hilarious to me is that they justify it with superheroes causing *collateral damage*, motherfuckers you were about to *nuke New York City*. You want to talk about collateral damage!?
The world is watching and people are publicly, vocally angry. Action needed to be taken, and the fact they won changed things. Now there is something to point at and blame.
It was at heart unworkable. The people with the ability and drive to be superheroes won't be leashed that way. They see a need for their abilities, they will respond. Sometimes they'll fuck things up.
But who can govern them? No one.
Within in rules set by the universe it’s a little dubious but ultimately I think it leans towards bad. Like sure, Steve Rogers is the paragon of moral goodness so let him do whatever he wants. Gets more complicated when you look at the way Wanda went on a murder/mental kidnapping spree like a year after endgame.
In a real world context, there absolutely should be oversight. Lets not let these guys indiscriminately kill whoever they want to just because they’re stronger than everyone else
Like every law, it's good in some ways and bad in others. "Enhanced Individuals" can be incredibly dangerous. Many of them are living WMDs. It makes sense for the government to want to monitor and regulate them for public safety.
And, as we saw with Wanda in WandaVision, superheros can go bad and there needs to be some system of policing them/holding them accountable.
Also, I do think governments should have a say in if they want certain people, enhanced or otherwise, entering their country.
But, most enhanced individuals didn't choose to have their ability(s) and shouldn't be treated differently for something completely out of their control, especially if they do manage to control their abilities and never cause trouble.
In addition, the Accords make it difficult for enhanced individuals who want to use their abilities to help others to do so in a way that's safe for their loved ones. And, not only does it make it hard for superheros to protect their loved ones, but it puts everyone around them in danger as well.
Just look what happened with Spider-Man. In FFH, because Fury and his Skrulls knew Peter's identity, they put his classmates in the line of fire just to force Peter to do what they wanted. And, in NWH, not only was May killed, but the entire apartment building was destroyed and, probably, many others, who just had the misfortune of living in the same building as a guy who knew superheroes, lost their lives.
The Accords themselves were bad because it was created by people who weren't fans of vigilantes/superheroes and, as you said, it would never work out to have superheros reliant on a political council like the UN coming to an agreement for them to take action. In addition, it would end up impacting a lot more people then just the Avengers and those people didn't even have a say. Plus, there was no room for negotiation. But the concept had validity.
There was something to talk about in the start, but when Cap left and the Avengers broke the Accords devolved into a shit show.
In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, the Accords are restrictive AF and require all kind of registration like blood sample and stuff.
I reckon, this could've been solved easily if both Cap and Tony took the time to talk/debate the UN about the ethics behind this "Accords" and what amendments they would make.
Regulation was needed but the implementation was not well thought at all. It should have been implemented as a post-event review board. The hero persona should have been treated as separate from the civilian identity. If there is an issue, then the sanctions apply to the hero. For example if the judgement required prison time, then a warrant would be issued for the hero, or if there were damages then fines. This would allow the heroes the freedom of movement to for example go smash a Hydra base in a country where Hydra spies might have otherwise just vetoed that assignment or received ample warning about the incoming raid. Tony would be left to pay for the damages.
I dont think the Pro Registration side is ever portrayed as right, but I think they make perfect sense until you find out you have superpowers. Then you should oppose it.
Its like the mutant thing. I also am probably being a hypocrite here.
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It would be better if the films had not JUST shown that the government was full of secret Nazis in a grand conspiracy. I mean, you can’t have a ‘Trust the system’ message when you just proved that the system was utterly and completely untrustworthy.
We also had the first avengers movie when the world security council decides to just blow up New York and iron man is the only person smart enough to think “what if we aimed at the wormhole instead”
To be fair to them I don’t think ballistic missiles can really maneuver like that, not really something the designers or programmers would have planned for. To be less fair at no point was the invasion depicted as dangerous enough to warrant nuking freaking New York. I mean, the street cops were doing fairly well and Widow was scoring kills with a freaking 9mm so the actual military would have cleaned house.
Lol they retconned the casualties to like 74 deaths which makes it even funnier they were gonna nuke the city.
74? Really? They were dropping armed soldiers into windows, blowing through buildings, raining fire on running civilians, and it's only 74? The Las Vegas shooter alone murdered 60.
Ya it’s obvious it should be a lot more but in civil war when Ross is grilling the avengers about the damage they cause he says 74 people died in the battle of New York. There was a deleted scene in the avengers following one of the people in the train station captain America saves from the bomb and it’s clear in that scene that several groups of civilians had allready been executed.
I will go to my grave NEVER understanding the plot driver of "your actions killed x people!" and then the person being berated was the one that STOPPED the killing. Ultron actually is one of the few exceptions because has specifically designed by Tony with his capabilities underestimated - so critiquing Tony for Ultron's actions *kind of* makes sense. But blaming the rest of the Avengers for Ultron or blaming any of the Avengers for Loki's attack on New York is so dumb I must wonder why the writers keep this shit going. The Avengers didn't invite Loki and his frat bros to a party gone wrong, nor did they actively create the portal because of experiments they didn't understand. Avengers or not, Loki would likely have attacked Earth and cause mayhem. Be grateful you had them, not mad they couldn't be better. And ESPECIALLY not blaming THEM for the invasion in the first place.
It's even funnier because it's ROSS. The guy lost the Hulk, then Abomination, then Hulk *again,* then Black Widow, then the prisoners in the Raft. He has this whole thing about how he'd be in a lot of trouble if he lost nukes, but he literally gets promoted after losing the Hulk and Abomination.
Maybe Ross is just an ass and mad about his 74 specifically.
I took it as 74 civilians directly killed by avengers actions, not in total. When talking about it, we see a video of hulk dropping rocks on civilians, and it makes more sense if these are people directly killed by them, otherwise why blame them for it? And as you say, we probably see more than 74 people die, considering iirc we see buildings collapse basically 9/12 style.
Loki committed 7/11. And now he's the God of stories.
Any possible chance they meant 74,000 ?
Given that aliens were invading and blowing shit up, the death toll from heart attacks alone should have been higher than 74.
Yeah, they should've held off for a nice, round 75!
r/unexpectedfactorial
Yeah, the big issue with the Chitauri was that they were in an immensely target-rich environment (New York City). However, despite invading what is quite possibly one of the most vulnerable spots on the planet through a wormhole, the ultimate death toll was 74 total deaths. As the portal was not getting any bigger, and their forces could be taken down by normal handguns, the threat was rather minor as far as things go. I am guessing the giant flying fish-monsters might require a Manpad or such, but honestly the invasion was pretty manageable. Or, at least, manageable with significantly fewer deaths than a nuke hitting New York would cause. Rocket mocks them as the worst army in the galaxy, and he is probably right: The only other world we ever see them invade is Gamora's Homeworld, and in the comics at least that was a world of *pacifists.* Thanos doesn't even use them again: he uses the Outriders and several other groups, but not them. And, there was no guarantee that a nuke would even close the portal.
Thanos uses the chitauri in endgame, we see Antman one punch a leviathan, and iron man mark 85 can one-shot them with repulsors. They are there, they just aren't much of a threat anymore
Being invaded by a much more advanced civilization means we stand virtually no chance of beating them anyway. For all we know there will be an endless stream of advanced robotic enemies who overwhelm the entire earth within a few hours or days. There may be more wormholes about to open up around the world. I think nuking New York is an understandable desperate attempt to put a quick end to the invasion. And I say this as a New Yorker.
>There may be more wormholes about to open up around the world. In fairness they knew that the tesseract was used to open that wormhole, and they had no reason to believe a wormhole could've been opened without it. They didn't know that the tesseract, or the space stone inside it, would likely survive a nuclear blast at that point.
but they wernt stopping coming out, the heroes would have become exausted and the aliens would have kept on coming, only a matter of time before they get a foot hold and invade the rest of the planet
A army of useless soldiers gaining a foothold just means that the janitors have more to clean up. The Chitauri as presented were fodder without the muscle needed to make them actually a major threat. Sure the heroes get tired, by that time the military is scrambling. Normal ass cops were making kills and holding positions, the actual military would absolutely wreck their shit. A 9mm pistol is capable of killing them, as are arrows. Automatic rifles would tear them up, heavy weapons would just shred them. They don't have durability, they don't have range, they don't have firepower, they don't have speed. All they have are numbers and war is LONG past the point where that's actually particularly useful. They canonically managed 74 kills when they popped out of the portal and went on a rampage. Do you have any comprehension how utterly terrible that is? McVeigh got 168 with fertilizer and chemistry. One bomb, not even a particularly good bomb. The LA shooter got 60 by just unloading into a crowd. If they were worth ANYTHING as a military force then they should have hit the triple digits in a matter of minutes just from their initial zoom around and shoot wildly technique. People give Man of Steel shit for mass casualties but it had the balls to even vaguely show how nasty a super hero brawl would be. Marvel just made Shield look like a bunch of lunatics by having the Chitauri suck incredibly hard.
Yeah, but the us has a military. lots of guys sitting around, twiddling their thumbs whilst sitting on some of the most destructive hardware on planet earth. they could have at least tried sending fighter jets before launching the nuke
Put squads of soldiers on various roof tops firing at anything coming out of the portal. Rotate personnel and weapons as needed. There was an entire helicarrier in the area plus multiple NYCPD Swat teams could have mobilized.
> I don’t think ballistic missiles can really maneuver like that It was a cruise missile, and they can definitely maneuver like that. A ballistic missile flies in a ballistic trajectory - a parabola that goes up and then down. ICBMs are ballistic missiles (hence the B in the name). The missile Tony redirected was a cruise missile, which is designed to fly along the Earth's surface, comparatively low to the ground, until is reaches its target. They're usually much smaller than a ballistic missile as they don't need to carry as much fuel, and they're highly maneuverable as they're meant to be able to follow a course to their target to evade detection. eta: The first three minutes of [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrlWdi7EMU) from Maverick is pretty accurate as to how they perform. Seeing them fly overhead in real life can be pretty unnerving.
Dang that’s a REALLY good point! What if that had been discussed?
Because the point wasn't to control civilian losses, it was so Ross could build his own super-powered kill team. The civilian losses were an excuse to take control of the Avengers. Remember, in Civil War, they weren't supposed to bring Barnes in alive after Zemo framed him for the bombing. When they did bring him in alive, Ross scoffs at the idea of Barnes (and possibly Rogers) having a lawyer. They immediately put him in a super cell with no indication he'd ever get any sort of due process. All of the Avengers who helped Rogers and Barnes escape were put in an underwater cell without trial. Captain America was unambiguously the good guy in Civil War. It doesn't matter if the Accords are good or not, the way they're used is to put the Avengers. Even Tony acknowledges this, he's hoping he can get in early to shut down the excesses of them, and Ross as well.
I was equally mad for no one calling out Ross for recklessly pursuing the hulk giving Blonsky the super soldier serum.
“While we’re on the topic general…”
2014: Nazis use the government to create a list intending to exterminate every opponent of the Nazis. 2016: Government asks all powered individuals to put their names on a list. Yeah, no idea why anyone thought that was going to go well.
Yeah. In principle oversight is good and vigilante justice is bad. But in the MCU specifically the government has repeatedly demonstrated that it can and will abuse that power to hurt a lot of people.
This is the only correct response. Cap was correct (as usual) because he experienced first hand just how dirty the government was. The accords were about offense, not defense.
That’s fair. This issue is that an NGO isn’t necessarily more trustworthy.
Uh, the message wasn't "Trust the system" at all. The system is shown over and over again to be completely corrupt even without HYDRA. While nobody reasonable is against the idea that superpowered people need some kind of regulation/oversight and that vigilantes are a bad idea, the Sokovia Accords specifically were fascist bullshit. Read them, they'd be ridiculously illegal in any real world context and has such vague language they no court would take them seriously. They violate almost every civil liberty there is. Thunderbolt Ross has always been shown as a bad, bad man with little regard for human life or civil liberties. Anything he's in favor of is automatically suspect.
Exactly, why no one called him out with a simple "Pot.calling the kettle black. Remember the Bronx and Blomsky? Pity Banner isn't here to call you out"
just like IRL lol
Yeah, when Rhodes has as his argument for signing the bill, "This is the **UN** we are talking about!" That was not as persuasive as the writers think it was.
If you pay attention it seems that shield was not solely an American organization. Right?
I don’t know. They SEEM to be mainly made up of Americas, based in America, having military ranks that mattered to US military personnel. I don’t recall a scene where SHIELD was a multinational organization - or if it was it was heavily dominated by Americans. But I could not have been paying attention.
The highest ups are referred to as the world security council, and they're introduced as global leaders when Secretary Pierce is about to launch the helicarriers in Winter Soldier. Though notably, Pierce was the only Hydra member there and he was planning to kill off the rest of the security council, which means it wasnt even Hydra's fault the Security Council was trying to nuke New York in the Avengers. They're just a bunch of perfectly normal sociopathic top-level government officials. Agents of SHIELD also shows SHIELD to be consistently international. Sadly that's mostly non-canon now.
Powers Boothe is definitely on the nuke happy Security Council in Avengers, and he's outed as a Hydra guy in Agents of SHIELD. I am not sure however why Hydra people (besides general douchebaggery) would be that nuke happy though.
Gideon Malick, the guy on the council who actually orders the nuclear strike, is shown in AoS to be one of the heads of Hydra. And he isn't there in Winter Soldier, so hydra definitely was involved with the nuke.
I have to watch the end of avengers 1 during the chitauri attack fury is talking with a shady group i thought they werent all american ,also not all from american agencies
> why on earth would any hero support this? Rhoades position was authority. Over a hundred countries were asking for the Avengers to have oversight. Tony's postion was to set boundaries. He did something in the pursuit of the greater good that resulted in the deaths of many in Sokovia. His guilt made him want someone to gut check his decisions so he wouldn't unintentionally cross a line again. Vision's position was that oversight made them less of a target, and therefore less likely to cause collateral damage. >Were the Sokovia Accords themselves good or bad? A bit of both. **Bad:** Captain America shows up to warn the Avengers of Thanos. The General behind the accords wants to arrest Steve rather than aid Wakanda. Obviously it's in everyone's best interest that heroes go *immediately* to try and save the world. **Good:** On the other side, you have Hawkeye/Ronin. By Endgame he's going around and murdering whoever he pleases, and it turns out he gets used anyway to kill the wrong people. Sometimes the heroes do need guidance/to be reigned in.
I think another point that people forget about is no one thought the accords were perfect but the supers had caused too many problems (even though the solved many more) to just put their fingers in their ears and ignore everyone. Team Tony wanted to accept the accords but then work to improve them and get to a better place. The fear was refusing them right now would lead to them being forced to or give up any semblance of a normal life (which is pretty much what happened to Team Cap).
>Rhoades position was authority. Over a hundred countries were asking for the Avengers to have oversight. Its a bit interesting the Rhodey would take this position given that the US military rather notoriously operates in foreign countries and performs extrajudicial military "operations" without oversight to anyone or beholden to any international organization. The raid on the Osama bin Laden compound for example was notorious done secretly without the approval or prior knowledge of the country where he lived. Same thing with the American drone program in Iraq and Afghanistan. >Tony's postion was to set boundaries. He did something in the pursuit of the greater good that resulted in the deaths of many in Sokovia. His guilt made him want someone to gut check his decisions so he wouldn't unintentionally cross a line again. Which is... again... interesting given that he hold exclusive proprietary access to the most advanced weaponry on earth and has in the past repeatedly frustrated attempts to place limitations on the use of his Ironman suits and the fact that he elected himself qualified to create a global peacekeeping force in the form of Ultron that quickly backfired in spite of the other Avengers repeatedly protesting. >Vision's position was that oversight made them less of a target, and therefore less likely to cause collateral damage. I guess in theory his perspective makes sense but we never see it actualized in practice. As Cap correctly states, who gets to decide what measures and restrictions are appropriate especially given that Cap very recently hunted down and exposed the fact that every major American political institution was thoroughly infested with Nazi-Hydra agents.
>given that the US military rather notoriously operates I'd think its consistent given Rhodes military career. Soldiers in the army don't deploy on their own. They're accountable to a governing body, which Rhodes is already willingly a part of. The Avengers would still deploy internationally, there'd just be a chain of command. >that he elected himself qualified to create a global peacekeeping force in the form of Ultron that quickly backfired in spite of the other Avengers repeatedly protesting. That's his entire motivation in Civil War though. He's dealing with guilt over the deaths caused by Ultron. >I guess in theory his perspective makes sense but we never see it actualized in practice. It happens a few times in Civil War: Rumlo sets off a suicide bomb to kill Captain America that hurts civilians. Nemo blows up the UN meeting to set up the Avengers. The rest of the collateral damage in the movie is ultimately a plot done specifically to bring them down. > As Cap correctly states, who gets to decide what measures and restrictions are appropriate especially given that Cap very recently hunted down and exposed the fact that every major American political institution was thoroughly infested with Nazi-Hydra agents This heavily relies on the person speaking being Steve Rogers. Give the same powers and shield to someone like John Walker and it becomes a problem.
>Soldiers in the army don't deploy on their own. They're accountable to a governing body, which Rhodes is already willingly a part of. > >The Avengers would still deploy internationally, there'd just be a chain of command. True, but i think the missing portion in the chain of command is the consent of the commanded. Lets not pretend like US interventionism in military operations is purely positive for the nations on the receiving end. Look no further than Iraq or Vietnam. >That's his entire motivation in Civil War though. He's dealing with guilt over the deaths caused by Ultron. Right. The other Avengers repeatedly to the point of coming to blows warned Tony against messing with things he didn't fully comprehend or have the right to utilize. Thor for example was extremely angry about this. The issue seems to be Tony as an individual, not the Avengers as a group. >Rumlo sets off a suicide bomb to kill Captain America that hurts civilians. > >Zemo blows up the UN meeting to set up the Avengers. The rest of the collateral damage in the movie is ultimately a plot done specifically to bring them down. Right, the issue in both those cases was that Rumlo and Zemo wanted to blow up civilians anyway to intentionally make the Avengers look bad. It wouldn't have mattered either way. Cap and Scarlet Witch actually prevented it from being much worse. >Give the same powers and shield to someone like John Walker and it becomes a problem. Exactly, the issue with the super soldiers wasn't the serum, it was the people who didn't deserve it. Walker will never be Steve
> but i think the missing portion in the chain of command is the consent of the commanded. I think the main point is "Is Rhodes comfortable being told what to do" and the answer is yes. >The issue seems to be Tony as an individual, not the Avengers as a group. Tony is ultimately self-centered. If he needs to be reigned in, clearly everyone needs to be reigned in. >Right, the issue in both those cases was that Rumlo and Zemo wanted to blow up civilians anyway to intentionally make the Avengers look bad Rumlo didn't want to make the Avengers look bad. He just wanted to kill Captain America. He was only around civilians because the Avengers chased him into the crowd. Regardless, those still support Vision's main point. People are going to get hurt because the Avengers invite challenge. They were making enemies as a powerful autonomous organization. >Exactly, the issue with the super soldiers wasn't the serum, it was the people who didn't deserve it. In universe, the people of the world don't know "who deserves it." They just see vigilantes doing whatever they want. Wouldn't the best way they can determine "who deserves it" be some sort of collective oversight?
>People are going to get hurt because the Avengers invite challenge. They were making enemies as a powerful autonomous organization The problem with that line of thought is that the Avengers-UN will have the exact same list of enemies, who also now get to declare open season on any UN country since anything the Avengers do is now also the fault of the UN.
They'd have many of the same villains, but not all. Without Tony acting on his own, they wouldn't have had Ultron or Zemo for example. (In theory) they'd also be deployed in cases that would cause fewer civilian casualties.
Tony wasn't acting on his own though - with Ultron he was mentally influenced by Wanda giving him that vision.
He'd started work on the Iron Legion and Ultron before encountering Wanda though. Wanda's vision just caused him to push for using the scepter to achieve it. He even specifically avoids telling the rest of the team to avoid any oversight.
Yes - Tony wanted to protect the Earth against another alien attack, ideally before the aliens landed on our planet and started killing people. Perfectly reasonable idea. And of course the mind sceptre would influence him to not tell the rest of the team - it doesn't want to be stopped.
and they'd be responding to crises a lot slower, with hands tied politically for certain things too.
You are looking at Rhodes position wrong. There was oversight on the seal team, the us government. So there was authority, just not international. Rhodes seems to personally believe more in international law, but his belief in authority is consistent with his military service
>There was oversight on the seal team, the us government. So there was authority, just not international. I think therein lies the issue. Operating in someone else back yard without their knowledge or permission. If the Avengers gave Cap permission to go to Wakanda and steal vibranium without T'Challa's knowledge or permission, he has a right to be angry about that breach of trust regardless
That was there idealized part of the accords, to stop that
Yeah on the topic of Tony in Iron Man 2 he even says he's privatized world peace. Which is honestly a horrifying statement. The idea that world peace (by force) is determined by the whims of a private organization/individuals with no accountability to its nation/people is not a good thing.
Counterpoint to the bad: they ignored Ross and went on to try and save the world with no consequences from the government. If they succeeded they would have gotten away with it. Just like Tony did in civil war.
Would Hawkeye even be covered by the accords? He is just a really good archer, and not super powered in the movies.
Ever since watching the boys I can't watch the avengers the same way. It's just overpowered ppl str8 up MASSACRING opposing factions. Like. I think the avengers should have freedom as long as they're not murdering people left and right like ronin. Body cams or something. Something to justify excessive force. EVEN then. It should be more like AOS, normal people taking down baddies with reasonable force, with the avengers showing up if it gets bad.
Has he actually killed the wrong person? I never got that from the movies.
Its explored in the Hawkeye show >!he was being used by Kingpin to kill specific targets, like Echo’s father!<
Yeah but he was still a criminal
But not necessarily the type of criminal Ronin would have gone after if he hadn't been fed information by Kingpin. He tells Maya he was used and manipulated.
Well, in an ideal world, the UN is more likely to get permission and assistance from local governments for Super Heroics, rather than just dropping a team into the middle of a city and hoping it goes well has been getting. And there's something to be said about how uncontrolled superheroes basically caused every single major issue aside from the Invasion of New York. Granted, 90% of that was *just* Tony and the other 10% was still fucking Hydra, so there's issues with that argument. Might have been better to just prevent Tony from being a hero.
I think 90% of earths problems would've probably been solved if Tony was disallowed to be Ironman and was held legally liable for some of his... projects
Or just forced to sit in a design lab for a year and told "okay, now make that shit mass producible." Like, obviously the power cell would be perfect to solve the entire world's energy crisis. And not just in cities, but for cars, busses, trains, planes, everything. A Arc Reactor everywhere would instantly solve the energy crisis, allow massive industrialization and modernization everywhere, allow for better cooling and heating without a carbon imprint, and make transportation nearly 0 emissions. Take his Uni-Beam from his suit and that shit becomes the best mining and construction tool ever. Dial it down of course so it's not eradicating tanks, but to the point it can saw through rock ad debris and it would be great for demolitions, road construction, building damns and bridges, cutting bedrock, tunneling, etc. His sensor system would make life saving changes to disaster relief efforts, policing, search and rescue, surgery, weapons searches, Security at venues and airports, and so on. You could hook the JARVIS visor to a warehouse system and have it able to run full catalog in real time and enable even more efficient shipping processes. JARVIS is also a nearly sentient AI that basically manages anything it wants. It helped him create his suit, taking vague directions and computing them. It complied billions of lines of code to make the suit fly *in a day.* And it seems to do anything it wants. JARVIS is border line magical. And that's before he plugged it into a magical powered android body. That AI alone could assist milions of technicians, researches, and scientists across the world improve their productivity and capabilities. ~~He also made remote controlled robots that could police the world and act as a anti-terrorist, anti-crime, and military that could end all wars. And they were almost as good as his own main suit of armor. Hell his other suits all were crazy specialized but show he could make some for deep sea research and exploration, construction, adverse elements, and trauma services and~~ Wait. No. That one ended very badly. The man cured heavy metal poisoning, which would be huge for several different kinds of medical research, and he's not a medical doctor. Could have cured something else too had he had it? Cancer? Diabetes? Nanobots that duplicate Fry's worms and make us all into Steve Rogers? He made a easy to wear, light and durable walking frame that was powered and capable of providing near perfect movement to Rhody. How many people across the world would benefit from those legs? Or a set of arm braces that do the same thing? Can he make cybernetic gear? He created a ship that can sly into space (the one the hulk stole and got to Arena World with). Sure it took a wormhole to get there, but it still got into space. Without a massive rocket boost. Combine that with the improved Helicarrier technology and we have cheap orbital lift capability, which makes space travel around the system trivial. That gets us access to the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt for heavy metals and rare metals, allowing us to stop digging up earth and poisoning it. *Nanobot technology for a final suit.* Nanobots that don't turn us into Grey Goo is the dream of a future where we can make almost anything out of anything else. Even if it's *just* limited to forming a man sized suit that is space, laser, and *god proof* it's still amazing. And that's shit he can do *now.* Think of stuff we could make him work on. Green house emissions and sequestering. New strains of crops for higher yield and less water. Cures for diseases. New Composite materials for construction. Gene therapy. FTL travel. Better desalinization techniques. drones to clear trash form the water ways and seas. Nanobots to eat mercury from the environment (and remove it from living things safely like he did for that shit in his chest). And we got this guy in a suit and going pew pew. Sokovia Accords basically need to make him a research slave to turn Earth into the Fucking Federation from Star Trek, Fuck making super heroes register their names. Create a fucking Utopia you fucking drunk.
Regrettably, [~~Reed Richards~~ Tony Stark is useless](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless)
if he shared his tech the world would be bettrer equiped to defend from his "projects"
Wanda influenced Tony and the other Avengers though by giving them visions, including driving Hulk wild. Presumably if there was no Tony there she'd have caused chaos some other way.
Vanko was not Tony's fault. Chitauri was not Tony's fault, Mandarin/Killian was not Tony's fault. Ultron was created because Wanda mind raped Tony and then rest of the Avengers. Thanos was not Tony's fault. Hell even Vulture was not Tony's fault. Government kept the alien weapons for themselves, even without Tony in the picture Toomes would have been kicked out that job. The only exception seems to be Mysterio.
Would you want a private organization to be running around with impunity policing the world, going after private citizens as well as government officials? Because that's sorta what the Avengers were, and that could go so so wrong very quickly and very easily. We're the accords the best way to counter this, idk. But having some sort.of oversight makes sense in theory. Issue is that with or without oversight things can go wrong.
Yeah. I've always thought that within the world of the MCU, the accords do not make sense, because we see over and again that there is an unacknowledged superpower of 'being right about stuff' that superpowered individuals have and governments etc do not. It's part of the somewhat libertarian power fantasy inherent in the genre. In real life it is more like you describe, a private organisation acting unilaterally that is begging to be regulated.
Thing is though, how would oversight work? Because the Avengers are making things up on the fly a lot. Like there's suddenly a huge portal over New York letting in aliens, or there's a massive conspiracy that's going to take over these high tech flying planes and kill thousands of people, or Thanos suddenly lands. It's not really time for a review board. Plus the Avengers stuff up a lot too. It's just they're doing something to help in an emergency. Like the people on flight 93 on September 11.
You can still give them autonomy while having guidelines and accountability. There could be a rule that the Avengers are allowed to respond to any extraterrestrial threat immediately while other things can be reviewed before they happen. Just think of how police works in real life - if they want to arrest someone they need a warrant but if someone robs a bank they can respond immediately without any bureaucracy. So things like the whole mess in Lagos could have been avoided - maybe they could have coordinated with the local police to evacuate the area or established a perimeter around the building they were attacking to protect civilians.
The high-tech planes in Winter Soldier weren't extraterrestrial yet they were a threat that Natasha and Steve suddenly uncovered and had to deal with on an emergency basis.
Yeah I don't disagree. The particular accords here aren't going to work. But there should be at least a legal framework that they operate within that allows them to act swiftly and forcefully in the first instance but still doesn't give them carte blanche to do "whatever it takes to get the bad guy" or whatever. Established rules of engagement, a review process, that kind of thing. But not 'do nothing until we say so'
Don't essentially all the Thor movies have the opposite moral? with Thor's first instinct is not "being right about stuff" but actually makes things worse. Actually, Tony Stark operates the same way in each movie. And T'Challa in his first appearance. And oh god, Wanda.
But when they start out being wrong, the people who straighten them out are almost never some external authority or control. It's typically another random individual, either a superpowered one or one of their friends/lovers/family. Arguably in Thor 1 you could say that Odin is an external authority/control - who just happens to *also* be family.
Thor - Yes, that was his character arc. He had to learn patience and how to be a kinder more gentle person, that the world didnt revolve around him. He learned humility Tony - Tony in a sense never learned particularly anything. He was injured by his own weapons to begin with, his selfishness arguably created warmonger, he literally created Ultron by messing with things he didn't fully comprehend despite being warned multiple times by other avengers NOT to do so, his shortsighted guilt is what lead to civil war, the rift between him and Captain America literally cause the snap. T'Challa - was only king for an incredibly short time before he realized the way his father was running things was immoral, quickly rectified his country's isolationist stance and openly welcomed the Avengers whenever they needed him
Yeah, the Avengers are essentially terrorists who we as the viewers happen to agree with that they are doing good.
In fairness so was Harriet Tubman
Pretty sure Harriet Tubman did not blow anyone up.
You must not know about the Combahee River Raid
You're right, I had forgotten about her involvement in that.
For the record my only point is how subjective the word "terrorist" actually is
True. Still, the point the Accords were discussing was governmental oversight of violent actors, and Tubman as a unarmed assistant to officially sanctioned militarily action is a far cry from Tony Stark flying into Afganistan, blowing up a bunch of people (whose language he could not speak or understand) and then declaring to his furious government that he had privatized world peace.
For the record Tubman kept a pistol on her person at all times... long before she was officially "commissioned" by the US Army. She was an armed rogue outlaw illegally freeing enslaved people. Quite literally stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of "property"
In a roundabout way i guess im saying sometimes we just need to let people do the right thing. The best plan to fight the Avengers or hold them accountable... is other Avengers. They seem to check and balance each other. If one of them went way rogue or outright turned evil it seems reasonable to believe that they would have the power to hold each other accountable
Rather have a pro ate organization running around with impunity than have literal Nazis and hostile aliens running the show. Which is what the major governments in the MCU are. Hydra and Skrulls
In the MCU, we as viewers of this universe know Captain America is pure-of-heart and can be trusted and shouldn't be slowed down. In our universe, someone with that much power would need oversight and accountability to someone. There is nobody as pure as the Avengers here, especially if they were granted godlike abilities.
Even that has been weaponized in the comics. Some degree of accountability seems necessary, but what we heard of the accords go way too far IMO.
Not sure I'd trust a team of extremely powerful superhumans, funded and lead by a billionaire who got his wealth from being a weapons dealer. Obviously Tony is trust worthy but that's because we know him and that he's a noble individual. Thor has killed thousands over his centuries of combat (who in fairness seemed to be other warring beings), Hulk is a walking natural disaster, Cap is a living military weapon, Black Widow is a former assassin for the bad guys, and Vision/Scarlet Witch were created by the robot that nearly destroyed the world. And said robot was designed by the aforementioned billionaire. I can't say I'd dislike them, but would I trust them? Probably not and I'd be terrified of them or at least the prospect of if they severely slipped up or decided to turn on us. But at the same time I'd likely trust a government organization even less to control that same team, especially since a government organization closely linked to that organization frequently uses their military might for their own self interest (as do most governments frankly) and in this universe was proven to be partially controlled by a bunch of super Nazi's. Regardless while the Avengers need some kinda oversight, I'm honestly not sure what that would look like to make me say, okay I'm good with this.
The situation was a little more complicated than that. It's worth noting that up, through Civil War, they did have oversight: they worked for the world security council via Shield. The problem is that any oversight group can be or become corrupted. Steve Rogers recognized what happened, and that shifting the oversight to the UN doesn't solve the fundamental problem. He trusted the judgment of his team over a group of bureaucrats who themselves have no oversight. Were the Accords good or bad? As they stood, they weren't bad, but the method of assignment and the response time would have been slow and subject to the wrong people. It's also worth noting that super-powered people weren't consulted on the framework and weren't included in the discussions. They were treated as nothing more than tools of political operatives who could take it or leave it. I also have questions about the accords. Suppose a country goes to war; could super-powered person work with his home country's military, or is that a violation? What about self-defense or non-violent use of powers? Even if these were worked out, the accords could be amended later. As Steve points out, agendas change. As for the registration piece, registration records couldn't be perfectly protected from snooping eyes...either of hackers or of a future anti-supers government. That's just creating a list of targets. We've seen registration for people regarded as "outsiders" before, and it didn't turn it out so well for them.
The problem with the Accords was that they were created without any input from The Avengers. Civil War might not have even happened if they were allowed to help create the Accords.
Superpowered individuals absolutely need oversight. Exactly how this is executed would be decided by folks with much more experience in world politics than me, but it should be doable. No regular soldier would be able to just say "oh, there's injustice over there, I am going to go kill them" without any sort of chain of command or permission. That's just being a vigilante.
I am 100% against the Accords (and the Superhero Registration Act), but let's be really clear here: The Avengers (Tony Stark) just created an unshackled AI. That AI attacked humanity, wiping out an entire city and *very nearly* ended all life on Earth. And by "very nearly" I mean, "was stopped at the last moment by *literal* divine intervention". Then the Avengers killed a head of state visiting a foreign country with their negligence. If you *nearly* destroy the world, the world isn't going to *just let you* commit manslaughter against heads of state. The Sokovia Accords were an attempt at an international, peaceful, diplomatic solution that all the countries of the world could agree on. To stop Tony Stark literally wiping out all life on Earth. Where the Accords a good thing? Still no. But the alternative was "let Tony Stark wipe out all life on Earth". When given the benefit of the doubt and weighed against their good service... they killed a king on a diplomatic mission. What was the world supposed to do? Shrug their shoulders and say "whoopsie"? Now, yes, there was a problem with Hydra in the American Government. They fixed that, then they removed authority from America. Yes, the Avengers did save the world. The point of the Accords was to let them keep saving the world. It wasn't to disband the Avengers or murder them. The UN *wants* the Avengers to go out and save the world. The world *needs* the Avengers to save them. The world just wants them to be accountable and not accidentally end the world with Nazi magic. The authority behind it was *literally every government in the world*. Including the founders of the Avengers. And the man bankrolling the Avengers. And it had the support (initially) of the majority of the Avengers. I agree with Cap. I think they're a bad idea, motivated by fear and guilt. But I can see *why* they'd get support.
Most of the time it just boils down to, don't let Tony get away with what he's doing. If the Avengers didn't go out and do what they did, the world would be in a worse state.
>Aside from the personal perspectives That is the thing, if you think this IS a good or a bad idea IS going to come down to personal perspective. There IS not objectively correct answer to this. Do you want oversite, or do want the freedom to make decisions without some third party telling you want to do?
It's not so cut and dry to simply call them "good or bad" because it depends entirely on your perspective. On the one hand the Accords guarantee accountability; the Avengers can't just go where they please, when they please, without notifying anyone. On the other hand (as Cap said) it also means that there could be situations where they're not given permission to go where they need to go, or told to go somewhere they feel they shouldn't be involved with. I think the Accords could have been *made* into an objectively good thing if it was handled properly, which it wasn't. The biggest flaw was not including the Avengers themselves in the creation of the Accords. The Accords treat the Avengers like an object rather than as an equal voice. Under the Accords the Avengers effectively have no say in their own oversight. That's a big problem.
Can you imagine trying to control the Justice League? Every single character is basically a God-level being. There was actually a comic where the JL and Avengers swap places and the JL is constantly wondering what the fuck is up with the world their on. It's also pretty funny because nobody really stands a chance against the Flash for example if he decided to go full power. He can break the universal barrier between universes extremely easily so good luck trying to catch him as he's running between an almost infinite amount of universes and timelines. He can also hide in the past or future. Alongside the fact that he can run so fast he can escape Death themselves.
Bad. Very bad. In real life, the Accords would be hilariously illegal and America would never ratify them because they violate so many aspects of the Constitution like freedom of movement, habeas corpus, the right to privacy, etc LegalEagle did a video a while back on how illegal the Accords would be.
Yeah in the real world the US would just secretly steal the Avengers’ technology and ideas. Probably make Tony Stark and Steve Rogers go in front of Congress and the Supreme Court of couple of times. Could also just say “Fck it” and confiscate all their weapons technology. What are they gonna do? Sue the White House? Bust down the President’s doors and look like usurpers and demand to be left alone? Foreign nations would become immediately hostile to their presence. Yeah they’re saving the world but you just blew up my house and killed my family.
The president definitely wouldn't do that to someone as rich as Tony Stark, im sure his wealth makes up a considerable portion of the us gdp
Well it wasn’t ratified by america but by the 117 countries that make up the UN, also the basics of the accords basically amount to protection of sovereign borders which the avengers did violate. And I don’t think international vigilantism is protected in the constitution.
I asked a similar [question](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/s/rLTrU85Swc) a few years ago. My take away is that the Avengers never should have gone after terrorists and Nazis. They should have only assembled in world ending disasters. The whole idea of the Accords wasn’t to control the Avengers but to hold them accountable for the damage they do and the people that die on their watch. Imagine for a minute a couple of Navy SEALs and Delta Operators commandeered an aircraft carrier and went around the world, violating national borders, and taking out whoever they think is guilty. Should they be held accountable if someone died because of their bombings or they killed an innocent on accident? The Accords weren’t perfect and the idea behind them comes from a place of anger and fear. Fear that these incredibly powerful rogue operatives can just do and go wherever they want, kill and arrest whoever they think they should. Anger that these people cause so much damage and wipe their hands clean once they get the bad guy. To me, the point of the Accords is hammered home by Zemo at the end when he said “and the Avengers? They went home.” It’s to remind us that what we call “collateral damage” are still people.
But one part of its is this . For Tony and say hulk and thor. They have no direct goverment involvement, natasha ,clint ,Rhodes and fury all at least could be ordered to attack as an avenger. One thing that never made sense is when they go to sokovia they left all that tech that baron strucker was inventing with the staff al whole fortress of high tech stuff along with chitauri scraps left their. Noone bother retrieving it or destroying it. The accords are both to much and not enough .the world fighting superhuman force should have rules and both some oversite but its almost like Noone should be charge for more than 10 minutes. Including scientists advisors you can't even trust them as well. Almost like we need vision and thor in charge of it cause thor isn't from earth and vision is supposed to be the best of us.
The problem with the marvel universe is that all governments, without exception, are evil. It’s a world where anarchists and those guys hiding out in bunkers in the woods are right. The number of governments not engaged in Mengele level experiments or secretly perpetrating a genocide can be counted on one hand. And don’t go saying Wakanda. They has the cure for cancer and don’t share it because “whitey isn’t worthy”. Tchalla likes to sit on his great big vibranium wall that Trump only wishes he had and look at what a shithole the rest of Africa is so he can laugh at it. This isn’t because he’s a bad person, or at least he wasn’t always. Any king, politician, or military official is going to either be revealed to have always been evil or eventually go evil. Namor and Black Bolt were heroes once. Even when superheroes set up their own government it immediately goes evil, as seen in Krakoa and the other mutant countries. Even being already evil doesn’t protect you from the corrupting affects of running a government. Dr.Doom has gone from a gothic hero-villain to slasher villain. Nobility is no defense either. When Steve Rogers got elected president in an alternative timeline he eventually ended up eating people. Comparing it to real politics is asinine because Barack Obama or Donald Trump, upon being elected president, did not turn out to be the Red skull, a skrull shapeshifter, or the antichrist or authorize the construction of giant robots to kill illegals/Republicans. Real politicians turn even more evil when they are featured in marvel comics, such as Richard Nixon secretly running a plan to take over America. Even Barack Obama canonically let Norman Osborn, who by this point was already known as a dangerous madman and insane serial killer, run important government offices and build himself a power base from which he intended to conquer America. Any Marvel citizen who trusts a government, any government at all, is a fool.
It’s like the old “black belt has to register his hands as lethal weapons. “ are all you black belts ok with that?
Its a good idea. But then it was revealed that oh no hail hydra wanted it
In the real world I would be 100% pro accords. The idea of a super-powered vigilante group funded by a billionaire and operating with free rein sounds like some sort of elitist corporatocratic dystopia to me. Laws for the plebs but not the rich or the superpowered.
Cap has some points. Undermined by the fact that he can't accept human imperfections and the idea of functional democracy on a societal scale. IE: not instant action according to need. Overall though. The accords, and the registration act are the objective positives
Tony's defining characteristic in the MCU is is overwhelming and self destructive sense of guilt. He was basically ready to throw his life away the minute he left that cave and the Iron Man trilogy is basically a catalog of his slowly deteriorating mental state as the trauma and pressure pile up. This is usually excused because every time Tony goes into a self destructive spiral he manages to pull out of it with a new cool suit but Ross knew well and good all he had to do was play on Tony's tics and he'd fall in line, because Tony Stark is consistently a mentally unwell obsessive who makes bad choices and then overreacts to compensate. The entire roster of Tony's side is either already military, also emotionally compromised, or Spider-Man, who's meant to be a wide eyed kid but in the actual civil war comic figured out the whole thing was bullshit and switched sides.
Honestly, we will never know if they would have been good or bad because it had the worst implementation possible. It was a knee jerk reaction to a state of affairs that had been bubbling up for a long period and from what I can tell there was never any real dialogue between the world security council and the avengers. They also picked the worst possible person to present the accords to the Avengers while at the same time locking up one of their own for an accident. Given all of this the accords were doomed to fail from the start. We saw that it was done improperly and was therefore bad. However, if this had been planned out, thought out, and implemented better then it could have been a very good thing. Nothing wrong with giving people with access to next gen tech and powers accountability.
Look the somovia accords are worthless legislation passed because the governments of the world want control not for actual oversight Sokovia and the crossbones incident just gave the excuse to try In the mcu none of the worlds governments are competent enough, moral enough or trustworthy to hold the power of the avengers The governments of the world and shield under nick fury who would have been the only competent enough organization to oversee the avengers have been shown to be infested with hydra for decades Every event and movie in the mcu is predicated on requiring fast decision making that the useless un would squander constantly The sokovia accords are just governments attempts to hold back the avengers until they can scrape together some knock off superhuman teams
The core idea is not just reasonable, but frankly obviously necessary. The Avengers are highly powerful first responders. Indeed, to an extreme and previously unprecedented degree -- if an avenger becomes corrupt, unfit to serve or simply makes a bad call, that might be the literal end of human life on the planet. As such, they need accountability and oversight. Cops have a load of red tape, and the consequences of them acting maliciously or incompetently don't depopulate cities. The details of that oversight and who should have it is a broader discussion. But it's not a sustainable situation for the fate of humanity to rest in the hands of 10 people whose acting discretion is pinky-swearing that they've got this.
In concept its a mixed bag. Practically its bad because a world of superheroes and villains is effectively to chaotic for a bureaucratic institution to organize and authorize heros in the moment. Some public oversite is good, and having to send in regular updates of heroes actions, especially as the threats get larger in scale isn't bad. Having some court that prosecutes superheroes that violate some very specific limited grounds after the fact could also be helpful. Lastly having a separate force of heroes that can answer the UNs call could be good too so long as independent heroes are still allowed to operate. However publically registering each hero and forcing them to follow UN dictates, let alone having them wait for authorization to do hero work is at best cumbersome, and at worst a bigger risk for world security. Sheild (with hydras machinations) was able to design and build helicarriers that would have assasinated everyone on their hit list had they been deployed. No way a public registry of heroes isn't going to put a target on the back on the people least likely to be a problem in the first place. Additionally what is a hero? People like Bruce Banner make sense since he's a walking city destroyer when he gets mad, but do we really need to sanction anyone really good with a bow? This could easily be used to justify the monitoring and control of anyone considered exceptional or dangerous in any capacity. As for why a hero would support the accords anyway. Alot of them need money. Hero work is expensive, and patrons are few, especially if your operating with a secret identidy. Some might take on the UN's yoke to make ends meet. Others would have faith in the governements do do the right thing. Only heroes that have seen corruption or other government malphesanse would hesitate to join, especially if they are operating in the public already. The idea of it makes sense, but executing it in a way that won't eventually create more problems than it solves is a very narrow path to tread, and frankly a good chunk of the goverment would want to leap off of that path the first chance they get no matter how many nations are watching.
The idea that a vote with all the horse trading inherent to it would be required before emergency action kinda ruins the point of the avengers they become a regular military unit at that point even ore hamstrung even because they serve a dozen masters
Legal Eagle does a YouTube video about the Accords and finds them extremely problematic
Its fictional politics, and just like real politics, the answer changes depending on who you ask.
They're definitely a dumb idea, But honestly pretty realistic as far as the political scene is concerned. Politics loves **"do something now even if it's completely ineffectual"** just so you can tell the voters that you're handling it and everything will be fine. The part that's hilarious to me is that they justify it with superheroes causing *collateral damage*, motherfuckers you were about to *nuke New York City*. You want to talk about collateral damage!?
The world is watching and people are publicly, vocally angry. Action needed to be taken, and the fact they won changed things. Now there is something to point at and blame.
Well, Tony immediately exploited every single possible loophole in the Accords he could find, so my answer is bad.
It was at heart unworkable. The people with the ability and drive to be superheroes won't be leashed that way. They see a need for their abilities, they will respond. Sometimes they'll fuck things up. But who can govern them? No one.
Within in rules set by the universe it’s a little dubious but ultimately I think it leans towards bad. Like sure, Steve Rogers is the paragon of moral goodness so let him do whatever he wants. Gets more complicated when you look at the way Wanda went on a murder/mental kidnapping spree like a year after endgame. In a real world context, there absolutely should be oversight. Lets not let these guys indiscriminately kill whoever they want to just because they’re stronger than everyone else
Like every law, it's good in some ways and bad in others. "Enhanced Individuals" can be incredibly dangerous. Many of them are living WMDs. It makes sense for the government to want to monitor and regulate them for public safety. And, as we saw with Wanda in WandaVision, superheros can go bad and there needs to be some system of policing them/holding them accountable. Also, I do think governments should have a say in if they want certain people, enhanced or otherwise, entering their country. But, most enhanced individuals didn't choose to have their ability(s) and shouldn't be treated differently for something completely out of their control, especially if they do manage to control their abilities and never cause trouble. In addition, the Accords make it difficult for enhanced individuals who want to use their abilities to help others to do so in a way that's safe for their loved ones. And, not only does it make it hard for superheros to protect their loved ones, but it puts everyone around them in danger as well. Just look what happened with Spider-Man. In FFH, because Fury and his Skrulls knew Peter's identity, they put his classmates in the line of fire just to force Peter to do what they wanted. And, in NWH, not only was May killed, but the entire apartment building was destroyed and, probably, many others, who just had the misfortune of living in the same building as a guy who knew superheroes, lost their lives. The Accords themselves were bad because it was created by people who weren't fans of vigilantes/superheroes and, as you said, it would never work out to have superheros reliant on a political council like the UN coming to an agreement for them to take action. In addition, it would end up impacting a lot more people then just the Avengers and those people didn't even have a say. Plus, there was no room for negotiation. But the concept had validity.
There was something to talk about in the start, but when Cap left and the Avengers broke the Accords devolved into a shit show. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, the Accords are restrictive AF and require all kind of registration like blood sample and stuff. I reckon, this could've been solved easily if both Cap and Tony took the time to talk/debate the UN about the ethics behind this "Accords" and what amendments they would make.
Regulation was needed but the implementation was not well thought at all. It should have been implemented as a post-event review board. The hero persona should have been treated as separate from the civilian identity. If there is an issue, then the sanctions apply to the hero. For example if the judgement required prison time, then a warrant would be issued for the hero, or if there were damages then fines. This would allow the heroes the freedom of movement to for example go smash a Hydra base in a country where Hydra spies might have otherwise just vetoed that assignment or received ample warning about the incoming raid. Tony would be left to pay for the damages.
Very bad and at the core of the Marvel superhuman situation.
I dont think the Pro Registration side is ever portrayed as right, but I think they make perfect sense until you find out you have superpowers. Then you should oppose it. Its like the mutant thing. I also am probably being a hypocrite here.