Look, we all know that the Avengers are in big trouble. After a series of crushing defeats, their popularity is in freefall, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. desperate for answers. With villains gaining more and more support, I think it’s worth taking a note from the personality who dominates the modern bad guy media landscape—publisher-turned-podcaster J. Jonah Jameson.
“The J. Jonah Jameson Ordeal” has become an influential empire by appealing to his listener’s emotions. Jameson works them into a frenzy with half-truths and misinformation, appealing to the suspicions of their baser natures. Fundamentally, they want to hear that Spider-Man isn’t better than them, that common knowledge espoused by perceived “elites” is a lie, and that there is actually a secret truth only privy to those special and smart enough to hear it—themselves. What the Avengers need is someone who can do all of that and then say, “Spider-Man is good, actually.”
Our version of Jameson needs to be a heterodox thinker, just like him. His listeners appreciate that he will interview anyone with even a crumb of notoriety, nodding slack-jawed as they spew whatever nonsense pops into their troubled minds. Imagine a pro-Avengers podcaster who welcomed villains onto his show, allowing him to connect directly to the hard-to-reach henchman demographic. We can’t afford to be afraid of discourse any longer.
There’s a few obvious picks. Kraven the Hunter has a physique that compares Jameson’s oddly-jacked physique for his age, which will appeal to disaffected young men. That’s a demographic that has shifted hard to evil-doing over the last decade, probably because they didn’t have a podcast telling them about all the good things that the Avengers do. Venom is a great pick to appeal to villainous-drifting Gen-Xers, and he brings a built-in co-host/producer with him.
Whoever they get to fill this role, it needs to be someone with common sense—someone who understands that the Avengers need to end their support of the X-Men. Sure, the Avengers have never publicly expressed approval of the vigilante group, and most of their actual deeds have ultimately proven hostile to mutants. Still, many of their supporters are also fans of the X-Men, especially radical webheads. The Avengers need someone who can speak hard truths to them by explaining that they must abandon their core values and throw a vulnerable group to the wolves in a hopeless attempt to win the favor of a hateful bunch of cranks who despise them.
A Spidey-friendly J. Jonah Jameson might not solve all of the Avengers’ problems, but it would be a significant first step. It may even convince Tony Stark to open up his wallet and donate to them. They’ll need that help to close the significant funding gap heroes are currently experiencing compared to villains, who have received generous help from several billionaires, including Justin Hammer, Norman Osborne, and Tony Stark.
