FINALLY- a bracket we can actually care about, right? An all hands on deck throwdown between everyone we could think of associated with the X-Men and the Avengers, in celebration of both Marvel’s AvX crossover event, which already sold out its first printing of their Issue #0, and the May 4th premiere of Joss Whedon’s Avengers. Between then and now, we will whittle down our list to an elite 8, final 4, and eventually crown a grand champion.
But first, how did we get here? Well, I and several of the other bots threw every Avenger, X-man, villain, and even a couple of civillians, into a spreadsheet, where we voted on them in a completely random and subjective manner, scoring them between 0 and 10 (or, in the case of Proletariatron, several people were above 10.) I then asked several random facebook friends and hobos down at the bus station to do their own rankings (their opinions seemed pretty equally valid).
Then I took the median score and ranked them to come up with some power-rankings (and to eliminate a half dozen people from the list). In case of a tie, I took the overall score someone got and whoever was higher got the higher ranking.
After doing all of that, I came up with a list of 72 who had a median score of 5 or above. Now because a traditional bracket only has 64 slots, the bottom 16 will have to win a “Play-In” round, which will occur on Monday, April 2nd. 8 matchups, most of whom are relatively obscure heroes and villains, all of whom will likely be slaughtered in the first round by A-list names like Captain America and Wolverine.
We’ll then go forward with 2-4 matchups every day from now until the end of April, with the week of the Avengers film opening we will be down to the final four, then a final round to crown the winner.
But, unfortunately, there were some of these heroes who didn’t make it to The Big Dance. Here they are: characters you will not see competing because they got too low of a score:
Darwin – Median score: 5 (43 points overall). Sorry to one of my favorite X-men. Yes, the black guy did die first, just like in X-Men: First Class. He couldn’t evolve himself into a better rank. : (
Maria Hill – 4 (35) People obviously don’t find her administrative skills for SHIELD to be a formidable superpower.
Black Knight – 4 (35) What? This character was too obscure? Not relatable since as an Avenger pretty much all he does is wear a suit of armor and swing a sword? Touche.
Mockingbird – 4 (31) I know a certain Mr. Hawkeye is going to be pissed his girlfriend didn’t make the list, especially when (spoiler alert!) both Cap and Luke Cage get to bring their love interests. I blame all of you. You didn’t vote hard enough.
Mr. Sinister – 4 (19) I don’t know whether Sinister is one of the balls-out scariest villains of all time, or the absolute lamest, but the voting seems to indicate the latter. Cyclops’ DNA will not be in jeopardy during our tournament.
Jubilee – 3 (44) Bwahahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Her “super” power. . . .hahahahaha. . . is. . . .she shoots fireworks. And she’s a mallrat. One of the few who really deserves to be in this dungheap. The only nice thing I can say? She once saved Wolverine from getting crucified by the Reavers and left in the Australian outback. But, srsly, ok? You’re lame.
Daken (Dark Wolverine) – 2 (21) WOW. Biggest surprise to me was just. how. much. people really hate Daken. Since I used medians rather than averages, let’s put this in perspective. A score of 2 means that of everyone who voted, at least half voted to rate him as a 2,1, or 0. This score would be even lower, except Swankmotron was the only person who rated him above a 5. People hate Daken. And he won’t be competing. Hooray.
And now a few words about who we will not be seeing in the tournament:
The Fantastic Four. All of them have been Avengers at one time or another, but really? They’re more of their own people. And while there’s certainly crossover for other characters (Wolverine is best identified as an X-Man, Spiderman as a solo act) it just seemed tough to include them. So I didn’t. Want to flame me for the decision? Flame on. It’s clobberin’ time.
A lot of villains: MODOK, Red Skull, Apocalypse for starters. I just didn’t have room for them all. And so I tried to stick to the most iconic, the most powerful, the ones most associated with some sort of major crossover event that involved both X-men and Avengers. So, people involved in Seige, Fear Itself, Secret Invasion, Civil War, House of M, and oldies like Secret Wars, the Kree-Skrull War and the Infinity Gauntlet saga.
So get ready– Monday I’ll announce the play-in rounds and on Tuesday I’ll unveil the full brackets to everyone, to coincide with the release of Avengers vs X-Men #1. So you can, you know, fill out your brackets at your local comic book store while waiting for the midnight release and all.
Here are two big hints: the names of the brackets and your #1 seeds for each:
#1 overall: in the Civil War bracket, Captain America, with a 9.5 median score and 130 points overall.
#2, in the House of M bracket, Thanos, also with a 9.5 but only 90 points.
#3, in the Seige bracket, Thor – 9 (134)
#4, in Schism, Wolverine – 9 (130)
So, let’s break this down: Thor got the most aggregate points through voting of anyone, but Cap still got a higher median score. Wolverine is right there with him, but Thanos is the real puzzler. People who knew him ranked him super-highly. But a lot of people in our survey left him blank. Sounds like a strong possibility for an upset, especially since Thanos will have to knock off a #2 seed of Smilin’ Stan Lee. Wolverine will be pestered by our friendly neighborhood Spiderman as his #2 (I smell a team-up book!). Thor could get mind-wiped by Professor X, as long as Thor doesn’t fly up a flight of stairs in a non-ADA compliant building. And I kid you not, Captain America will likely face off against Iron Man, the #2 seed in Civil War. Seriously, I didn’t plan that– I’ll show you the spreadsheet and you can check my math. But that’s going to be epic.
See you Monday for the play-in round, featuring the following heroes, villains, and mooks:
Agent 13 (Sharon Carter)
Agent Colson
Ant Man (Scottie Lang)
Banshee
Brian Michael Bendis
Cyclops
Emma Frost
Gambit
Iceman
Nova
Quicksilver
Red Hulk
Rick Jones
Sabretooth
The Wasp
Warlock