The Avengers Roster: F
By Sean McQuaid

Complete descriptions of each individual's affiliation with the Avengers are detailed below.

Falcon [II] (Samuel Wilson):
Inactive member of the Avengers (eighteenth recruit); former partner of Captain America; former mentor to the SHIELD Super-Agents; one-time member of the Defenders. An ally of the Avengers due to his long crimefighting partnership with team member Captain America, the high-flying, Harlem-based Falcon was drafted into Avengers membership by the federal government to fill an equal opportunity quota. He served effectively thereafter but was uncomfortable with the circumstances of his joining and resigned from active membership at the earliest available opportunity. He has continued to associate with the group on an irregular basis since then, though, sometimes serving as a reservist, and has volunteered to serve whenever the group truly needs him. Though he participated in the post-Onslaught reorganization of the team, he has twice declined to rejoin the active roster; however, he has assisted the group against menaces such as Morgan Le Fay and Whirlwind.

Firebird (Bonita Juarez):
Detached service member of the Avengers (thirty-fourth recruit); former founding member of the Rangers. A devoutly religious Catholic social worker who gained miraculous powers over heat and flame after a fiery meteor impacted near her in the desert, Firebird formed an ongoing alliance with the Avengers West during their mutual conflict with Master Pandemonium, serving as a provisional or probationary member of sorts. When the Thing was chosen over her to fill a vacancy in the active roster, Firebird left the group altogether.
     Bonita later returned in a new guise as Espirita (crafted to reflect her belief that her powers were a gift from God), and she aided the Avengers in their ongoing struggle with Dominus (during which she helped dissuade Henry Pym from suicide and prompted him to resume his Avengers membership). She then declined full membership, preferring solo activity as she came to terms with her powers and their spiritual implications; not long after leaving the Avengers, she resumed her Firebird alias and learned that the meteoric source of her powers was actually waste material from a failed alien experiment. This revelation shocked and disturbed her at first, but she soon made peace with it since she reasoned that her powers were still a gift from God, just not so directly given as she had previously imagined. Her faith in her religion was unshaken, and she continued to use her powers as a force for good.
     Firebird eventually made her Avengers membership official when she joined most of the other Avengers in agreeing to serve as part of a large body of on-call Avengers organized by Captain America. She occasionally served as an Avengers West reservist thereafter, but never joined the western roster full-time before it was disbanded by the Avengers. The New Mexico-based Firebird has kept in touch with the New York-based Avengers since then, though, participating in the post-Onslaught reorganization of the group and aiding the team against menaces such as Morgan Le Fay and Dominex.
     More recently, Firebird accepted a detached service Avengers assignment at a monitoring station outside Slorenia, where she and the Black Knight have worked to study and possibly cure the imprisoned Bloodwraith. That assignment was interrupted when she and the Knight helped the active Avengers battle The Presence, and Firebird has since volunteered to stay on with the active roster during their ongoing struggle with Kang, partly to offer counselling to disillusioned Avengers veteran Thor. She and Thor have begun to develop a bond of sorts since Bonita has learned that mysterious side-effects of her superhuman transformation may have made her immortal, seemingly impossible to kill. While she learns to cope with the knowledge that she may never die, she is trying to help Thor cope with the futility and anxiety he feels regarding the mortality of his human friends and comrades.

Firebird [II] (Bea, last name unrevealed, presumably Grey or DaCosta):
Judgment League Avengers member, resigned; member of JLX. An amalgam of X-Men member Phoenix [II] and DC Comics character Fire, Firebird [II] was a member of the Judgment League Avengers (a combination of DC's Justice League and Marvel's Avengers) in the alternate universe of Amalgam Comics (a temporary merger of DC and Marvel Comics). The character's abilities, appearance and personality seemed to be a fairly even mixture of the two source characters. Firebird [II] and several other mutant Judgment League members formed a renegade team called JLX (a sort of Justice League/X-Men combination) to advance the cause of mutants.

Firestar (Angelica Jones):
Inactive member of the Avengers (forty-ninth recruit), unofficially serving as a detached service member of the Avengers on a covert mission; inactive founding member of the New Warriors; former student of the Massachusetts Academy; former ally to the Hellions; declined X-Men membership. The microwave-generating mutant adventurer Firestar first learned to control her incredibly dangerous natural powers at the Massachusetts Academy, whose headmistress, Emma Frost (alias the White Queen), emotionally manipulated her in hopes of training her to become an assassin. When Jones discovered the corrupt nature of Frost and the Academy, she angrily departed and tried to resume the life of a normal teenager, refusing an offer of membership from the X-Men; however, she reluctantly returned to adventuring when she was persuaded to become a founding member of the suer-hero youth team known as the New Warriors. Firestar gradually became a more confident and formidable fighter during her time with the Warriors, and she also began a loving, lasting romance with teammate Vance Astrovik (now known as Justice), a relationship that survived a long separation when Vance was jailed for accidentally killing his abusive father.
     When Firestar learned that her microwave powers posed risks to her own health (including possibly rendering her sterile), she and Justice began to spend less time on superheroics, and Firestar became a very reluctant adventurer again. Despite this, they continued to assist in New Warriors cases on an irregular basis, and were eventually drawn into a conflict between Morgan Le Fay and the Avengers that led to the post-Onslaught reorganization of the Avengers. Justice played a key role in the Le Fay case, and then convinced Firestar to help him subdue Whirlwind, a super-criminal who had previously escaped the Avengers. This prompted Avengers veteran Hawkeye to recommend the young couple for Avengers membership. Justice, a lifelong admirer of the Avengers, agreed elatedly, and an unenthusiastic Firestar accepted the offer as well. The couple were designated reservists at first, but soon upgraded to active membership, filling vacancies in the active roster and moving into Avengers Mansion.
     Before long, Firestar and Justice found their feelings regarding the Avengers reversing. Justice was so anxious about trying to live up to the Avengers' standards that he made himself a miserable and often awkward nervous wreck, while Firestar grew to like and admire the Avengers, becoming enthusiastic about her membership and losing her reluctance altogether when Hank Pym cured the dangerous side-effects of her microwave powers. Firestar became one of the team's most formidable assets, and with her support and reassurance Justice eventually settled in, too, as he learned to regard his fellow Avengers as people rather than icons. More recently, the couple took an indefinite leave of absence, supposedly to concentrate on their romantic relationship; however, the duo have actually secretly infiltrated the suspicious Triune Understanding organization at the behest of Avengers member Iron Man, and have since been feeding the Avengers information regarding Triune activities.

Flatman (Dr. Ventura, full name unrevealed):
Member of unofficial "Great Lakes Avengers" expansion team. Little is known about Flatman, a founding member of the Great Lakes Avengers, an unofficial, self-proclaimed midwestern expansion team of the Avengers. He is apparently a scientist and serves as the level-headed brains of the group, though the more take-charge Mister Immortal generally serves as the team's field leader. Flatman has the ability to flatten and elongate his body at will. When most of the real Avengers were mistakenly presumed dead following the Onslaught disaster and the Avengers organization disbanded, the GLA rechristened their group the Lightning Rods in imitation of what was then the leading super-team, the Thunderbolts. Since then, the real Avengers have regrouped and the Thunderbolts turned out to be wanted criminals, so whether the Lightning Rods will reclaim their old Great Lakes Avengers name remains to be seen.

Foster, Bill (Doctor William Barrett "Bill" Foster):
Longtime ally and occasional employee of the Avengers; one-time member of the Defenders; former member of the Project: Pegasus security team. A brilliant biochemist in the employ of Avengers benefactor Tony Stark, Foster was assigned to work with Avengers member Hank Pym on a cure for the latter's gigantic stature (Pym had been temporarily trapped at an abnormally large physical size). They eventually succeeded in this, but Foster stayed on as Pym's research partner and Avengers Mansion's resident scientist. Foster eventually left this position during one of Pym's leaves of absence from the team, and later used a facsimile of Pym's growth serum to become the super-hero Black Goliath. Still later, he assumed one of Pym's old aliases as the new Giant-Man, though he was eventually forced to retire from adventuring when health problems curtailed his size-changing power (he briefly regained his powers for a time with the aid of the Avengers, but recently lost his powers again). He has remained an ally and associate of the Avengers over the years, supervising the purchase, reconstruction and outfitting of their western headquarters in Palos Verdes. For a time, he renewed his research partnership with Henry Pym, and with it his occasional association with the Avengers (for instance, assisting Pym in saving the life of the second Swordsman, an honorary Avenger); however, he is active primarily as a lone research scientist of late.

Foster, Jane (Doctor Jane Foster):
Physician to the Avengers. Formerly employed as a nurse by the Avengers' first on-call physician, Don Blake (the mortal alter ego of Avengers founder Thor), Jane Foster pursued further education and eventually became a medical doctor in her own right, recently agreeing to serve as the Avengers' team physician, on-call for medical emergencies. Her husband, Doctor Keith Kincaid, has previously served as an Avengers physician as well.

Frank, Robert Jr. (a.k.a. Nuklo):
Former groundskeeper, Avengers Crew. Robert Frank, nick-named Nuklo, was the superhuman mutant son of The Whizzer, an honorary member of the Avengers. Trapped in suspended animation by the government for most of his early life, Nuklo emerged from his stasis with the mind of a child. The Avengers helped Whizzer quell Nuklo's subsequent super-powered rampages, and he was eventually properly educated and released as a normal member of society. The Avengers employed him as their groundskeeper until he was among the many staff members laid off after the sinking of Avengers Island. More recently, Frank has become involved with the covert organization known as the V-Battallion, and has participated in many of their missions as Nuklo, missions that have sometimes brought the Battallion into conflict with heroes such as the Thunderbolts.

Freeman, Duane Jerome:
U.S. Government liaison to the Avengers; agent of the National Security Council; member of the Triune Understanding. When the Avengers began to regroup following their post-Onslaught diabanding, Freeman was assigned to serve as the team's new federal government security liaison. He soon proved to be one of the team's most friendly and coooperative government liaisons to date, but his relationship with the group was damaged when they learned that he is a member of the pseudo-religious pop psychology movement known as the Triune Understanding. While the true nature and exact motivations of the Understanding's leader, Jonathan Tremont, remain unclear, Tremont had led the Understanding's leaders in conspiring against the Avengers--secretly sending superhuman agents to attack the team, framing the Avengers for the destruction of Triune property, and covertly conducting a media campaign to undermine the Avengers' reputation. Whether Duane is party to the Triune Understanding's conspiracy against the Avengers remains to be seen, since he claims to be unaware of any such conspiracy and loyal to the Avengers; however, he remains vocally loyal to the Understanding as well, and his Triune affiliation is a source of ongoing tension with the Avengers.

Last updated by Sean McQuaid on October 13, 2001.

Avengers and all related characters copyright 2001 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All text in this document copyright Sean McQuaid, 2001.