George R. R. Martin Had A Valid Criticism Of Marvel's First Avengers Movie

"A Song of Ice and Fire" author George R. R. Martin was a big Marvel Comics reader growing up. Martin even wrote in and had some of his letters published in the back pages of Marvel comic issues. A young Martin was especially wowed by "Avengers" #9, by Stan Lee and artist Don Heck, wherein Wonder Man sacrifices his life to save the Avengers. It's easy to track Martin's love for Wonder Man to how he writes about morally conflicted characters.

While Martin is a lifelong Marvel fan, he has sometimes criticized the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that bring his childhood reading material to live-action. In his contemporary review of 2015's "Ant-Man," Martin lambasted Marvel movie villains as often lazily constructed characters. He also had some complaints about the heroes in 2012's "The Avengers."

Martin's full review of the movie (found on GeekTyrant) is positive, but he deemed Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) wasted compared to the other Avengers.

"Hawkeye is actually one of my favorite Avengers. [...] I missed the dynamic from the comics, where it's Hawkeye who is the cynical smartass (not Iron Man), always in conflict with the super straight guy Captain America. I guess, having capitalized on the undeniable talents of Robert Downey Jr. to create a terrific character in movie Iron Man, they did not feel there was room for a second wise-cracking iconoclast. Fine, but it left Hawkeye without a personality. Or much to do."

Indeed, Hawkeye is a brainwashed puppet of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) for most of the movie. He only joins the team in the action-packed third act, leaving little room to build out his character. Even "Saturday Night Live" mocked Hawkeye, pictured in the image above.

Martin had another Hawkeye and Black Widow-related criticism of "The Avengers": that they usurped the roles of Ant-Man and the Wasp, who were founding Avengers in the comics. This isn't just Martin being a stickler for Marvel tradition, either. After seeing and loving the 2015 "Ant-Man" movie, he wrote a blog post discussing how he always had a "soft spot" for both Ant-Man/Hank Pym and the Wasp/Janet Van Dyne.

"Ant-Man was the ultimate underdog, after all, the little guy in a very literal sense who somehow held his own with gods and monsters whose powers dwarfed his own. The ants were cool too [...] and I loved his partnership with the Wasp."

Martin described Ant-Man and Wasp's relationship as one of the ways Stan Lee revolutionized superhero comics. This superhero didn't hide his secret identity from his girlfriend; they fought crime together.

I must agree with Martin, because my childhood Avengers were in the 2010 cartoon "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes," which gave Ant-Man and Wasp great roles. Janet (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) was the perky, fashionable heart of the show. Hank (Wally Wingert), a man of science, was always looking for pacifistic ways to deal with super-villains — which made the sting of him accidentally creating the genocidal robot Ultron (Tom Kane) even worse.

"The Avengers" was a culmination of heroes from previous movies teaming up. When it hit theaters, "Ant-Man" hadn't come out yet; director Edgar Wright had been working on the movie for years before leaving in 2014. "Avengers" writer-director Joss Whedon considered putting the Wasp in his movie (with an eye for casting Zooey Deschanel) if Black Widow was unavailable. But Janet was ultimately left out — to George R.R. Martin's lasting ire.