The Avengers' Weirdest Mission Was Anger Management Therapy

[ad_1]

Every comic book fan knows the hero vs hero trope is a proud tradition of the superhero genre. The Hulk and The Thing regularly trade blows. Superman’s matched his Kryptonian might against Batman’s gadgets. And The Avengers once built an entire movie around a superhero battle for Captain America: Civil War.

Unfortunately, heroes don’t always take responsibility for the fallout from their battles – or seek help for their tendency to solve all of their problems by punching people in the nose. Which is why it was refreshing to see all of the Avengers try out some anger-management therapy in one of their comics.

Related: The Avengers Killed A Baby To End Marvel’s Weirdest Event

The story happened in Marvel Adventures: Avengers #24, which saw the superhero team – consisting of Captain America, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Giant-Girl (Janet Van Dyne), Storm, and Wolverine – inexplicably get into a major fist fight while deciding what to order for lunch (with Giant-Girl prepared to crush her teammates under a bus for not letting her order Pho).

Reprimanded by the mayor for their reckless behavior, the Avengers agree to do some public service assignments in restitution for the fight. However, during their lunch break, Captain America inexplicably throws an ear of corn at Ant-Man, who incurs the wrath of Giant-Girl after he falls into her pudding. Another fight breaks out, and this time the Avengers decide they need help – of the psychiatric kind.

Remarkably, the one Avenger who isn’t affected by all the bad vibes is Doctor Bruce Banner (aka The Hulk) who’s been spending the day shopping for a new (purple) suit. Bruce does recommend the services of his psychiatrist Leonard Samson, however, prompting the heroes to participate in several sessions of psychological counseling.

During their sessions, Doc Samson ends up finding multiple mental issues with several heroes including Ant-Man (“Reverse Napoleon complex”), Spider-Man (“Emotionally stunted, immature, needs a life”), and Storm (“Superiority complex”). He also gets Captain America to do some word association exercises and even gets Wolverine to take a Rorschach test.

Samson’s prescription? Get into a fight. Believing the Avengers are so hard-wired for action that they’ll start engineering their own conflicts without a proper supervillain to take out, Samson encourages them to seek out some bad guys who actually need to be punished. Taking his advice to heart, the Avengers find a Hydra base and start beating up multiple goons. Unfortunately, the Avengers soon start fighting amongst themselves over which villains they get to beat up, causing the real villain of the adventure to show up – Hate Monger.

Originally the Marvel Comics supervillain identity of Adolf Hitler (yes, really), Hate Monger is a villain with the ability to stir up feelings of anger, hate, and conflict in anyone with his “Hate Ray.” The Hate Monger the Avengers encounter, however, is a former AIM and Hydra goon named “Karl” who decided to become the new Hate Monger to help the Avengers… become a better team.

Yes, that’s right – having belonged to so many evil organizations that used hate as a way to unify their teams, Karl believed he could improve the Avengers’ sense of unity by broadcasting waves of hate into their brains. Naturally, this only endangered the Avengers teamwork and they tied Karl up, telling him what a stupid idea he had. Despite his failure, Karl agrees to help the Avengers prevent other evil groups from controlling them that way – adding that Wolverine was the only Avenger not affected by the ray, thanks to his healing factor. As Wolverine was acting just as aggressively and irrationally as the other Avengers throughout the adventure, it just went to prove that Wolverine… is always a jerk.

Next: Marvel’s THOR Helped Hitler Kill Stalin (Yes, Really)   

[ad_2]