AVENGERS POLL: JOCASTA

[Doctor Bong]

How do you rate Jocasta as an avenger, on a scale from 1 to 8 points...?
How well does she work for you within the dynamics of the team?
How much do you like/dislike her as a character?

[scottharris]

I gave her a two. She always seemed to have some potential, but the way the team was made up while she was there, she was pretty superfluous. She really got the shaft from the team while she was with them. Normally I'd say "not really an Avenger" but in this case I think she was and the team just didn't recognize it.

[dlw66]

I also polled a 2. While I thought she was interesting in the Bride of Ultron storyline, with the Vision around as an artificial being she seemed redundant. After, no one seemed too interested in bringing her back in and attempting to make her interesting.

[Dr. Hank Pym]

Count me in as another person to giver her a two. After the Bride of Ultron storyline was finally all finished, she became useless. I think even Jarvis did more superhero things than she did during her time on The Avengers!

[woodside]

I never really understood this character, as I believe she was waaaay before my time. She was the pregnant android in "Avengers Forever," right?

[Van Plexico]

It's true that she was redundant with the Vision around... but by that time, we'd seen the Vision's storyline done to death. It would have been interesting to give Vizh something different to do, and to allow his stepmother (Jocasta) to live out the Vision's old problems in a new and different way, as a synthetic person adjusting to life in a Human world...

[starfoxxx]

I gave 'Jocasta a six. Hey, i'm a fan. I always wanted to see a romance with Vizh. she worked well with the team, IMO, but she's not a top shelf member by any means. Like Vizh and Wondy, her story is directly connected to the Avengers.

[Doctor Bong]

I gave her a three. I liked how she was more recently used as a supporting character on IM.
However I see her more as reservist material.

[dlw66]

Jul 18, 2008 9:36:08 GMT -5 Doctor Bong said:

I see her more as reservist material.

As Shiryu has been compiling synopses of all of these polls, and as the Avengers tend to have a line-up of seven members, I think it will be interesting once we're all done (saving up my "zeroes" for the Bendis era, baby!!) to see who the top 7 vote-getters are, but perhaps more importantly to open discussions on reservists/part-timers/guest-stars. Favorite moments, "what if?'s", those types of things.

Thanks for getting these going again, Bong!!

[dlw66]

Doh! Zero isn't an option in the poll! Hmmm... I don't want to abstain from voting down on Luke Cage, because silence is acceptance. I'll have to take this under advisement until we get to him, Wolverine, Echo, etc.

[Shiryu]

Jul 18, 2008 9:36:08 GMT -5 Doctor Bong said:

I gave her a three. I liked how she was more recently used as a supporting character on IM.
However I see her more as reservist material.

I was thinking about 2, but this post reminded me of her role in IM under Busiek, and that raised my mark to 3. Like many, I like her origin but not much more afterwards. I think they should have put a bit more emphasis on the fact that she had Wasp's mental patterns, but unlike Vision and Wonder-Man they were totally different.
Then again, perhaps it was good to see a less known trait of Wasp. Uhm...

[Tana Nile]

I would give her 3. I like her personality (what we saw of it) but she's not a character I consider to have much importance in the team's history.

[sharkar]

Even given her limited role, she was a very poignant character with a great visual design. She really was a stunning creation- -Byrne, Perez and others couldn't draw a bad picture of her. She was like a more sublime, less earthy version of Tina, the Platinum Girl (Metal Men).

But I agree with those who've said she was never used properly; she could have served as a great counterpoint to the Vision. And Vizh's treatment of her was inexcusable.

Potentially a great character but that potential was never explored. She was not an integral part of the team but because of her touching plight and personality, I will give her a "4."

[spiderwasp]

I gave her a 3. I think she had a lot of potential but was just left in the background as they seemed to be figuring out what to do with her. Eventually, they couldn't so they just dropped her. I find that the Avengers have a tendency to let members who haven't been been around long just disappear with their problems go "Oh well, don't worry about them. As long as we have a full line up who cares?" It especially seemed weird to me that Vision treated Jocasta as just a robot even though her run was around the same time he was developing his human side and getting romantic with Wanda.

[Bored Yesterday]

A 3 -- it's fun to see the differences in how different characters respond to the same dilemma (Vision and her on being artificial). Vision was pretty cool with it at the time, but Jocasta was a cry baby. She was cool as a child of the team in some conceptual way tied to the family trees of Jan and Hank and the Vision -- but her powers were superfluous at the time.

[Shiryu]

Jul 29, 2008 9:35:16 GMT -5 spiderwasp said:

I find that the Avengers have a tendency to let members who haven't been been around long just disappear with their problems go "Oh well, don't worry about them. As long as we have a full line up who cares?"

That's pretty true. They do ignore their rule about private life of the members much more when the involved members are old friends, like Cap and Wasp for Tony, but if it's somebody new they seem somewhat less interested. Then again, I suppose it's the difference between having friends and having colleagues...