The current roster of the Avengers is supposed to be one of their strongest lineups in decades but it is actually one of the weakest. The team's members are all very powerful individually, but they lack some of the key elements that make the Avengers the Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

The current Avengers roster was built after Loki's plots brought to Earth the Final Host of the Dark Celestials, which forced Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, and the Ghost Rider to work together to defeat an unbeatable foe. This was notable because the "big three" had all been sidelined in the previous years for different reasons: Steve Rogers had been replaced by an evil duplicate created by Hydra, Tony Stark had been put into a coma by Carol Danvers during Civil War II, and Thor was dealing with the loss of Mjolnir and the War of the Realms. Finally, the three heroes who represented the heart and soul of the Avengers were back together, and they decided to assemble the best possible team, using the vast resources of Wakanda and the body of the Celestial called the Progenitor as their new base.

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This team, which features in the current Avengers series written by Jason Aaron, is not short on powerhouses. Thor is the All-Father of Asgard and also recently inherited the Odinforce from his father. Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful energy manipulators in the universe. Robbie Reyes is the strongest Ghost Rider to appear in a very long time, thanks to his Multiversal abilities as the All-Rider. Maya Lopex, aka Echo, is the current host of the Phoenix Force, one of the most powerful beings in all of creation. The Avengers also accepted in their ranks Brandy Shelby, the current owner of the Star Brand, a cosmic weapon of a potentially infinite scale. Iron Man, Namor, and the Valkyrie (Jane Foster) are all really powerful heroes on their own, who would stand out in any other team. However, this apparently impressive lineup is actually one of the weakest in Avengers' history.

The team is, in fact, riled by internal conflict, distrust, and a general lack of camaraderie and coordination. Iron Man and Captain Marvel tried to kill each other not too long ago. Jane Foster is Thor's former girlfriend, who picked up the mantle of the God of Thunder, and Mjolnir, when the Odinson was "unworthy". Even if she found a new identity as Valkyrie, it has been recently teased that she still dreams of holding Mjolnir, which could cause conflict with Thor. Namor is just Namor: arrogant, pompous, and generally not a team player. Brandy Shelby was, until a few months ago, a baby, who was unnaturally aged by the power of the Starbrand, which she is unable to control. Finally, Echo has been the least impressive Phoenix host ever until now: she was even unable to defeat Power Princess during the Heroes Reborn event. Not being of the Grey family line, her control over the cosmic force is tenuous at best. If that wasn't enough, Thor hates her after finding out that the Phoenix could be his mother, causing even more conflict in the team.

The current status of the Avengers is actually the signal of a larger issue. It seems that Jason Aaron's run has abandoned the secret ingredient of the best Avengers stories: meaningful interactions between the members. This series, instead, has been mostly about the Avengers jumping from one crisis to the other, meaning that there are a lot of unresolved issues plaguing the team. Without the strong ties that can be developed only by focusing the story more on the characters and less on the action, the Avengers will never build that level of trust and teamwork that made them the Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

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