The Avengers Reimagined

Have you ever thought about how superheroes are so often inspired by members of the animal, bird and insect kingdom? Black Panther, Spiderman, Batman, Black Widow, AntMan, Wasp, I could keep going.

Awesomeness notwithstanding, they are rather commonplace creatures, no? The other day I was bored at work and was watching a video about octopus reproduction (that is a seriously cool process, link below!) and I realized, there are some very badass earthly inhabitants living in our oceans. And instead of characters inspired from animals we all know well, I gave these often overlooked creatures some much needed glamor. Behold, our very own underwater Avengers.

 

Thor
The mighty hammerhead shark. This one is a no-brainer. Thor is the only person/god who’s worthy of wielding the Mjolnir. Is there any underwater animal more capable of wielding the Mjolnir than the one who is born with it and dies with it? And here’s something even more interesting. In Hawaiian culture, sharks are considered to be the gods of the sea. And the hammerhead shark, also known as the mano kihikihi, is considered the most respected of them all. Maui natives believe that a hammerhead shark swimming by is a sign that the gods are watching over the families. Definitely strikes a parallel with our son of Odin, who is also a god in his own right, eh?

 

Hulk

He’s going to be a pufferfish. Have you ever seen a picture of one? They look adorable, so small and innocuous and cuddly. Kind of like Mark Ruffalo playing the mild mannered scientist, Bruce Banner. But just like Banner who turns green, huge and dangerous when angry, the pufferfish, if provoked, balloons into a round poisonous ball with spikes on its skin, making it a very unpleasant prey and also one of the most toxic vertebrates in the world.

Just look at Banner and the pufferfish, the sweethearts. 

But give them a poke, and you get that. 

 

Hawkeye

The mysterious Archerfish bears a striking similarity to Hawkeye’s archery skills. It has perfect aim, while spitting. Yes, you read that right. The archerfish hunts by shooting water out of its mouth at land based insects with precise aim and power. Once their prey is stunned, they fall into the water and make for some presumably tasty snacks. Imagine Hawkeye killing space aliens, by spitting at them. Except his spit has metal tips and can kill. So attractive.

 

Spiderman

I almost went with a sea spider for Spiderman. But Spiderman’s most spider-like power is his ability to shoot webs. Unlike a real spider, he doesn’t actually have eight legs and eight eyes. And so, as a testament to my incredible ability to find strange things on the internet, I give you, dramatic pause, the Ribbon Worm. A truly disgusting creature, it is weird, slimy and looks nothing like a superhero. But, it has a very interesting ability; it can emit a web like sticky toxic secretion to capture its prey. Although not very often seen, they have always managed to freak out the internet with their alien skills. You have to admit; the resemblance is uncanny.

 

Black Widow

Silent, slinky and clad in black leather, I give you the Ninja Lanternshark. Discovered in 2015 and named Etmopterus Benchleyi after the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, this shark is super cool. Not only is it jet black, sleek and hard to find, it fricking glows in the dark! It also has really big eyes. Just like Scarlett Johansson.

Look at the guy. You know he works out with Johansson’s trainer.

 

Captain America

The Shield Shrimp. A strange crustacean found worldwide in shallow pools and lakes, they have a broad shield like exoskeleton covering their head, a long segmented tail and 60 or so legs. Apart from the Cap and the shrimp bonding over their respective shields, the shield shrimp is often called a living fossil, since they haven’t changed the way they look in 70 million years. Which is a long time. Just like Captain America, who was frozen for a long time before being brought back to life, looking exactly the same as he did, 66 years ago.

 

Ironman

A sea cucumber.  Hear me out, I have good reason for this somewhat strange choice. The sea cucumber looks nothing like Iron Man, to be sure, but it’s vital to cleaning up trash from the ocean floor and keeping the water healthy. Which in a way is what Iron Man does, except his kind of trash resembles space aliens and Thanos.

Let’s compare their defensive mechanisms. Some sea cucumbers, when threatened, can shoot their lungs out of their buttholes and wave them around, because they’re covered in a sticky toxic chemical. I’m sure it also seriously grosses the predator out, because ‘Ew, did that just come out of your butt, wtf cucumber?’

So, when Iron Man uses the blue arc reactor repulsor to keep the bad guys away, that is quite similar to the sea cucumber farting its lungs out.

And finally, the sea cucumber has one last super power, it’s armor. If the predators aren’t grossed out enough, it can go rigid, building itself an armor with the consistency of hard plastic. Without going into too much detail, a sea cucumber can use collagen to create a dermal chain mail. All of a sudden, I have so much more respect for a sea cucumber.

So I’m going to stop now, in part because the Marvel universe is vast and I can go on forever and in part because I’ve seen too many videos of gross underwater animals to last me a lifetime. Let me know if you know of any other marine or land based creature that makes a perfect character from the Marvel universe. And if you know of any creatures with weird creepy abilities, definitely let me know!

 

As usual, links to all the cool stuff:

If you don’t know what Avengers are and in that case I’m not sure how you reached the end of this post.

Romantic video of octopus reproduction

Hammerhead sharks, Ninja Lanternshark, Pufferfishes, Sea Cucumbers, Shield Shrimps and Archerfishes

Uber cool snail that actually has a metal armor.

Another snail that uses a harpoon to hunt

List of terrifying sea creatures to give you nightmares…

Until next week.