It’s apparent that the initial reactions to Marvel’s Avengers or Avengers A-Day have been pretty rough. But keeping aside the character designs for the moment, fans have started noticing a few familiar plot points in the E3 trailer for the game and it seems like it is reminiscent of some less-than-iconic comic stories.

While the Avengers A-Day appear to be an original story, Square-Enix might have drawn from these fairly infamous comic stories when crafting the game. So let’s see which storylines they could possibly have drawn from:

Avengers: Disassembled

For the uninitiated, Avengers: Disassembled was one of the first five stories Brian Michael Bendis did for the Avengers, and it pissed a lot of people off.

In the storyline, Vision crashes into the Avengers Mansion, and he’s later ripped in half by a possessed She-Hulk. Ant-man is presumed dead after being sent through time, while Hawkeye is killed with his own arrows. Along with this, Asgard and Thor are destroyed as well. As one can imagine from this little snippet, it’s not a happy picture.

At the end, this results in the decimation of the Avengers. The culprit behind all is revealed to be the Scarlet Witch, who was driven mad after learning that the children she thought she had produced with Vision were actually just an illusion. This series is criticized a lot for the wildly out-of-character behavior and several deaths which were done just for their shock value.

Also Read: Mr. Fantastic now looks like John Kransanki in Marvel’s War of Realms #3

Marvel’s Avengers seems to follow a similar story, atleast early on it seems. The game trailer features Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who fail to stop a disaster and this results in the team being broken apart. If they do go this route then one can expect Avengers to be more coherent than the sprawling story of the Disassembled, but the end result is the same in both- the team is broken apart.

Civil War

Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Civil War sees a great disaster take place which fractures the Avengers into two teams and pits them against one another.

While the trailer for Avengers A-Day did focus on them working together, there are hints that after the disaster the team gets fractured. This is because we do see Tony getting angry and the public calls them “murderers.” This is quite reminiscent of Civil War. Along with this there is also the fact that Captain America’s epitaph is taken right from the event.

This comic is also really controversial as Iron Man and Reed Richards are both portrayed as borderline sociopaths. Steve Rogers doesn’t fare better as well. While people do generally agree that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s adaptation of the storylines does solve a lot of the comic’s problems, but there are reasons enough to be concerned with how this game could hope to address a team turning on itself.

Earth X

How would you feel about a post apocalyptic adventure for the Avengers? The E3 presentation mentioned a Terrigan reactor, which could indicate that the Inhumans will play a role in the game as well. With this, there’s one incredibly infamous story which Square-Enix might have drawn from and that is Earth X.

Earth X is an alternate world mini series which Marvel put out in 1999. It is based on notes by legendary artist Alex Ross and is written by Jim Keueger and drawn by John Paul Leon. Earth X explores an alternate version of Earth after Black Bolt floods the planet with Terrigan Mist. However, despite becoming mutated, most of humanity doesn’t realize they’ve breathed in any Terrigan Mist, because Reed Richards, in an attempt to create a network of vibranium-based renewable energy, blows up half of the planet. The resulting story is a dystopian land where just about every noteworthy character in Marvel is playing a role in the world’s end.

This sort of bleak future is what appears to be a major source for inspiration for Avengers A-Day. But Earth X is controversial material as well because it is just weird. Thor here gets turned into a woman, Loki leads an army of undead Asgardians against the Celestial, Norman Osborn becomes President, Black Bolt blinds Uatu the Watcher, Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers end the concept of Death, Galactus turns out to have been Franklin Richards the whole time and Captain America kills Red Skull only for a new Skull to energy.

Earth X is like an acid trip and so it’s probably in every one’s best interests if Avengers A-Day only tries to be half as bizzare.

(Source: cbr.com and forbes.com)