Video Game / Marvel: Avengers Academy

Marvel Avengers Academy was a free-to-play mobile game by TinyCo, the developers of Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff. The game ran from February 2016 to February 2019.

In response to rising terrorist actions by Hydra and AIM, Nick Fury has established a new training program where the most promising young heroes can band together, form bonds with one another, and hone their skills.

...Of course, this is Fury we're talking about. He never does anything without an ulterior motive. So why has he brought the heroes together like this? And what's with the strange "timefog" mist that covers most of the campus?

Not to be confused with the Marvel Comic of the same name.

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Avengers Academy provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: As mentioned below, the game contains several references to certain characters who were deemed off-limits due to legal issues at the time. However, an especially notable one came in the Get Nick Fury! event, which had Pepper mention that she heard a mysterious voice in her head telling her "[We're] ready to go public." This, coupled with the allusion to Magneto mentioned in the Writing Around Trademarks section, makes it seem like the writers were setting the stage for the X-Men to possibly join the game once the rights issues were no longer a problem (as Disney entered talks to purchase Fox in late 2017). However, thanks to Avengers Academy shutting down at the beginning of 2019, this never occurred.
• Academy of Adventure: Where supervillain attacks on campus are just part and parcel of everyday life.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • In the comics, Taskmaster is played as strictly mercenary and will work for whoever will hire him. Here, he's just plain Ax-Crazy.
  • Ant-Man (Scott Lang) is a career thief here, where most other versions are good men who only turn to thievery when desperate.
• Adapted Out: Sure, it's the Avengers' name on the title, but considering the wide range of characters featured, the omission of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four (even though members of both teams have been in the Avengers in the past, such as Beast, Wolverine and Thing) stands out.
• Age Lift: Most characters are dialed back from adults to college students; the exceptions are Nick Fury, Odin, Hank Pym, Madame Hydra, and the Scientist Supreme (who remain authority figures) and Ms. Marvel, Quake, most Spider-heroes, Squirrel Girl, Ghost Rider, Nico Minoru, Singularity, and Ms. America (who are already around that age to begin with).
• Allegedly Free Game: Par for the course with a free-to-play game. The premium currency is primarily used to speed up the game's timers, though there are also extra heroes and a couple alternate costumes that can be bought with it.
• Always Someone Better: Anything Tony can do, T'Challa can do better. And Tony can't even bring himself to be that annoyed by it, because T'Challa is just that cool.
• Ascended Meme: The game seems to be quite aware memes surrounding the Avengers fandom and the game itself.
  • During Red Hulk's quests, Tony refers to himself and Bruce Banner as "science bros", a Fan Nickname that got started after they bonded in The Avengers movie. He's since extended it to include other scientist heroes, like Spider-Man and the Black Knight.
  • There are a lot of cutscenes poking fun at how Loki seems to be constantly dancing by himself for hours on end.
  • The "Where's Hawkeye?" meme got so out of hand that they had to answer it in the FAQ and state that he'll be available further on in the game.
• Badass in Distress: Most of the heroes introduced through events are either being held captive, or have become Brainwashed and Crazy by a villainous force.
• Beach Episode: The "Surf, Sun, and Mischief" limited-time event involves Loki building a beach on campus, several beach-themed decorations, and beach outfits for Loki, Tony, and Janet. All of these items also require a new quest item, Beach Balls, in order to unlock them.
• Beta Outfit: The various heroes start out with what can be considered Alpha Outfits; civilian clothing with elements of their hero identity. Upgrading them a few times will change them to Beta Outfits with more elaborate gear, and upgrading them all the way will give them their full superhero outfit.
  • A few characters, however, don't play this straight. Some get their main appearances as their first upgrade and then the next one takes things a step further (as an example, War Machine goes through his usual look before getting a Hulkbuster-like suit), while others start out relatively comic-accurate and diverge from there. A couple characters get two comic outfits (for instance, Jessica Jones gets her "Jewel" costume, then the last one is her Netflix look). There are even one or two (like Gamora, Tigra, and Nico Minoru) who don't quite have a defined "look" in the comics or movies, so their Academy outfits are in the vein of what they do wear but aren't exact matches.
• Black Comedy: There's a lot of creepy jokes in this game, ranging from things like Enchantress wanting to drive the boys literally crazy, to just about everything that comes out of Hank Pym's mouth, particularly regards things like cheerfully destroying the world with experiments or electrocuting students to improve their creativity.
• Boot Camp Episode: Episode 3 of the Civil War event, which sees Team Cap and Team Iron Man train to fight against Crossbones. Team Cap's training grounds are a killer obstacle course complete with flame jets and moving lasers, while Team Iron Man has DanceDanceRevolution machines and a VR set.
• Boxed Crook: Loki; the other villains you recruit are usually there for their own reasons (Madam Hydra and Baron Zemo defected or were usurped, Taskmaster and Crossbones are mercenaries who were recruited). At the end of most big events, you can also literally put the main villains in a box.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • While it doesn't apply to the base game, the frequent special events are limited-time and spending the premium currency on resource generators and special characters can make things easier (and in most cases are practically required to get the top event prizes).
  • The 2.0 update made things far worse in this regard. The new mechanics require far more grinding and rely more on Timefog Capsules (the game's version of loot boxes). It's harder for players to earn content without buying shortcuts, and even those who do buy tend to only get a chance at what they want and can't just flat-out buy it. And to make things worse, the easier rewards are usually returning from earlier events, so longtime players get redundant materials instead of anything new.
• Broken Aesop: The Guardians event stresses the importance of friendship and teamwork throughout. In the end, Rocket blows up the Cosmic Conservatory and defeats Thanos on his own.
  • To be fair, Rocket built the bomb with Tony's help. Also, he was assigned to do so while Drax and Gamora took on Ronan and the Chitauri.
• The Bus Came Back: The first event of 2017 has Baron Zemo unleashing all the villains that were fought throughout the previous year, allowing players the chance to get their prison cubes if they couldn't before. It also allows players to recruit characters they missed from those events.
• Butt-Monkey: Baron Zemo becomes this after defecting from Hydra School to the Avengers Academy. No one at the Academy takes him seriously, he is tolerated only because he could potentially provide information about Hydra, and he is constantly put upon by the other students, even the nice ones.
• Catchphrase:
  • Hank Pym: "That's science!"
  • Zemo's is "Hail Hydra!" Everyone else quickly gets sick and tired of it.
  • Joked about during Red Hulk's quest line:
    Red Hulk: Fury's hiding something...
    Black Widow: I don't want a catchphrase, but if I had one, that would be it.
  • Tony has two separate voice clips that start with "Let's get serious!" Both get subverted by ending with "...Is what people tell me allll the time." or "Or not!"
  • "I am Groot" comes from Groot.
• Christmas Episode: The A-Force event was released around December 2016, just in time for the holidays.
• Civvie Spandex: All the characters start off wearing street clothes, though designed to keep their colors and motifs.
• Character Shilling: In-Universe, both AIM and the Academy are both determined to recruit Kamala into their ranks and once she's with the Academy, both Pepper and Fury gush about how she's the most powerful of them all and they're so glad to have her on their team. There's some implication that they got her mixed up with Carol Danvers — then again, AIM made a weapon that has fanboy trivia as a weakness, which is Kamala's specialty and explains why both schools would want her so badly.
• Colony Drop: The Guardians of the Galaxy event is kicked off when the head-shaped space station Knowhere crashes just outside of Academy Grounds.
• Composite Character: Quite a lot of the characters act as mixtures of their comic and film versions (as well as animated versions of the character), and characters who have legacies often have elements of different versions of those added to them. Particular examples include:
  • Tony retains his comic book sarcasm, playboy tendencies, and friendship with Janet Van Dyne, but his youth and the fact his father is still alive feel somewhat akin to Tony from Iron Man: Armored Adventures. His love/hate relationship with Steve is also more akin to their dynamic in the films rather than their comic selves, too.
  • Clint is said to be a former SHIELD agent like the films and Ultimate imprint, but his personality is much closer to Clint as he was during the Matt Fraction run on his comic.
  • Sam at first seems to be primarily a younger version of his film counterpart, being a 'normal guy' who is given jetpack and develops a particularly close relationship to Steve and Natasha. However, during the Ultron event its revealed he retains his comic book counterpart's telepathic connection to his pet falcon Redwing, something currently ommitted from the films.
  • The Ghost Rider of the game is Robbie Reyes, and for the most part retains most of his comic book characteristics (appearance wise, as well as the status of being possessed by his uncle Eli Morrow rather than an actual spirit of vengeance). However, he's briefly recruited to work with SHIELD and develops a friendship with Quake, much like the character does in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ghost Rider.
  • Daisy herself, who's costumes and connection to Fury are much like her comic counterpart, along with her difficulties with Maria Hill, however her hairstyle and initial personality are identical to how she was during the second season of Agents of SHIELD. Some dialogue also indicate she's closer to Coulson than Fury, much like her TV counterpart.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Odin threatens to send Loki to a dungeon decorated in pictures of Thor as punishment.
• Courtroom Episode: The Hell's Kitchen event involves Kingpin taking Nick Fury to court over his secrets, with Fury requesting Matt Murdock to defend him and Kingpin recruiting Loki as the prosecution. (Humorously, Loki initially wonders what place a known liar like him has in a system devoted to truth and justice; Kingpin replies that he's clearly not familiar with Midgardian lawyers.)
• Crawl: Appears during the news segments, often teasing future events.
• Crack Pairing: Both in story and in gameplay. Initially one of the promised features was the ability to set characters up on dates, which could lead to these situations, and while its yet to be added, a similar feature called 'Hangouts' was added briefly during the Halloween event (and promised to be brought into the full game later) where characters would basically go on joint activities to build a friendship (with the story actually requiring players to create some truly odd pairings). The story itself does present several canon relationships, though, and some of these are incredibly jarring for fans of the comics (Janet and Scott for instance could be acceptable by seeing Scott as a possible composite of himself and Hank in this instance, but Sam and Kamala would be utter squick in canon).
• Cultural Posturing: Loki and Enchantress love lording their Asgardian superiority over the others. In more than one minor quest, Odin tries to tell them that they're giving Asgardians a bad name.
• Dangerous Workplace: Besides repeated attacks from aliens and villains, the Academy also lacks failsafes in many of its facilities. The most egregious offender is Pym's Lab, where students handle explosive chemicals and are often electrocuted. Pepper even calls Hank out on this, and has a task to 'Improve Lab Safety', not that it helps much. Thankfully, the student population is mostly superpowered.
• Defog of War: You expand the campus with story quests that eliminate some of the timefog.
• Demoted to Extra: Several key Avengers members, if they appear, are reduced to cameos, cut scene appearances or paid content. Notable examples include Vision, War Machine and Spider-Woman. Hawkeye is a major example as he's yet to be in the main game, save for being a potential early access unlock for the Ultron event, despite being promised for some time (he's set to join the game's story properly in a future update, though).
• Distracted by the Sexy: Enchantress has an activity called Mesmerize the Mortals, which has her in a hot tub.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Some heroes that aren't yet unlocked will occasionally appear during cutscenes to talk with the heroes who have.
  • Ms. Marvel stops by for one of Tony's parties in an early mission, and mentions Ant-Man and Hawkeye offscreen.
  • During Wasp's beach missions, the first glimpses of Ant-Man and Hawkeye are shown.
  • Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) gets name-dropped occasionally; both in the regular questline and during the Guardians event.
  • Hawkeye puts in another appearance during British Invasion, and Spider-Man Act I has some of the characters borrow his sky-cycles. He can also be seen walking through up and down through the portals in the Doctor Strange event.
  • Peggy Carter was given a statue during the Civil War event before being confirmed as a playable character.
• Friendly Rivalry: The Civil War event. Tony believes that the best way to defend the Academy is through robots, while Steve believes in training more recruits. However, both of them otherwise have the same goal of defeating HYDRA.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Characters will always be available for quest cutscenes, even if you've sent them off-campus for an entirely different quest. The same applies to NPC Nick Fury when he's reported missing. A later quest justifies this, as Kamala says Fury leaves behind a holographic projection to fill in for him when he's away on business - but then again, the real Fury showed up when Kamala thought he was out. Fury lies.
  • Hulk begins the game trapped in the Timefog. However, there's an option to pay with shards and obtain Hulk much earlier than normal. This means that at times Hulk can be both walking around the campus and glimpsed in the Timefog. It gets worse for those who were also able to unlock A-Bomb and/or Red Hulk during the "Gamma Attack" event, as their story quests involve them trying to track down the Hulk. The result is either one desperately searching for a way to get to the Hulk - who is a few feet away from him.
  • Peter Parker regularly tries to hide the fact that he's Spider-Man, and partially succeeds - even after you rank him up and he starts wearing the Spider-Man costume. To the game's credit though, he'll still switch back to his Peter Parker look for cutscenes.
• Glassy Prison: After major villains are defeated in their respective events, you can stick him in these and arrange them like any other campus decoration.
• Global Currency Exception: There is special currency for every special event in order to keep the decorations and characters obtainable there separate from the mainline characters.
• Good-Guy Bar: Club A. Also Club Galaxy from the Guardians event.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Like in the MCU, it appears to be Thanos. Ronan works for him, and it's implied that Nick Fury is also aware of his presence and is training the heroes precisely to fight him.
• Halloween Costume Characterization: Some of the costumes in the Halloween events reflect the wearer's personality. Iron Man displays both his ego and irreverence by wearing a cardboard-box Cheap Costume version of his regular armor. Loki dresses as his brother Thor, in an attempt to mock him (and a thinly-veiled display of jealousy). Hulk riffs on his alter-ego Dr. Banner by dressing as a Mad Scientist — as he puts it, he's mad and a scientist, so the costume was a no-brainer. The Comically Serious Maria Hill gets stuck in a ridiculous banana costume. And Black Widow is cynical and sarcastic as always, with a "This Is My Costume" Fun T-Shirt.
• Halloween Episode: The Halloween arc which has Mephisto invading the Academy.
• High School AU: Or rather, College AU, but it's pretty much the same thing.
• Insistent Terminology: The Vision is a Synthezoid, not a robot.
• Lampshade Hanging: The characters occasionally point out some of the absurdities that come from being in a city-builder style video game. If they're not commenting on locations that only one person can use at a time, they're probably snarking on Loki and Cap dancing all the time.
• Lighter and Softer: The Civil War event, compared with the comic and MCU versions. Here, it's more of a friendly competition between Tony and Steve on how to defend the Academy, complete with ludicrous headquarter buildings (a giant pool party area for Tony, and a Capitol replica for Steve), an arm-wrestling showdown and team hashtags. Most of the other heroes, even those who have 'picked' a side (like Janet and T'Challa), don't take the whole affair as seriously as Tony or Steve do. Some of the girls clearly think that all the macho posturing is a case of Testosterone Poisoning.
• Love Triangle: The Falcon gets caught in one between Black Widow and Ms. Marvel. Black Widow didn't make a big deal about it, though. Maybe. It could be that Widow was just being passive-aggressive. Either way, their relationship just sort of ended. Then Ms. Marvel dumped Falcon, because she felt he was trying too hard to impress his ex. Falcon apologizes and they reconcile.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Robo Dojo pits the students against some Ultron-like robots, the same as the bartender at Club A. A brief dialogue after Tony and Pepper talk about the benefits of not having to worry about destroying robots, since they can just be rebuilt again, hints that the robots aren't that happy about their current situation. Tony also builds the Iron Legion during the Civil War event.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Often appear in a news crawl that appears in occasional cutscenes:
  "Law student exposes superhuman rights violations."
  "Historian attributes time oddities to fabled "conqueror"."
  "Archeologists uncover legendary Ebony Blade".
  "Lt. Carol Danvers returns to Earth, press conference footage after the break."
  "What happened to Isaiah Bradley? Exclusive Report on Project: Rebirth at 11."
  "Bishop Publishing Magnate under investigation, inside source reveals."
  • Loki confides to Baron Zemo that he plans to turn the heroes against each other. Zemo mutters "Civil War"... and then comments that he's not sure why he said that. (Note that this came a while before the game's actual Civil War event.)
  • After Hank helps Tony get inspired to invent new tech (by electrocuting him), Tony says he's invented a new line of robots that he plans on calling Ultron. Hank comments that he wishes he had thought of that himself.
  • During one of the beach event quests, Loki mentions bilgesnipes, which were also brought up in The Avengers (2012). Referring to the same movie, you can build a shawarma stand on campus and it gets mentioned in dialogue occasionally.
  • As part of Ms. Marvel's warrior training, Odin decides to Teach Her Anger. Kamala's response is to borrow a classic Marvel catchphrase and say "I don't really like me when I'm angry..."
    • A-Bomb uses it as well. "If I don't eat, I get grumpy. You wouldn't like me when I'm grumpy..."
  • During the Rescue event, Pepper and the team are creating a list of as many unsigned powered teens as they can and visiting them to determine whether they're a good fit for the academy. Pepper mentions that one recruit is a literal dinosaur (likely Devil Dinosaur), and Steve complains that he had to visit a student that rambled about magic and science and attacked them with robots.
  • When Tony and Pepper flirt during her questline, Tony repeatedly offers to make her his secretary and put her in charge at Stark Industries, which is her job in the comics and movies.
  • In her missions, Quake mentions having met Sif before; undoubtedly a reference to Sif's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. guest spots.
  • The Winter Soldier makes repeated references to "I'm with you to the end of the line" in the emo songs he writes; the line was a set of Arc Words in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He also requires Captain America trading cards to unlock, which were in The Avengers as something Coulson wanted Cap to sign.
  • On meeting British Bulldog, Hawkeye mentions his pizza-loving dog Lucky and the need to train another Hawkeye.
  • A Spider-Mech decoration appears during the Spider-Man event, referencing Leopardon from Spider-Man (Japan).
  • Squirrel Girl's Defeated Villain Souvenirs decoration includes trophies taken from Whirlwind, Madame Masque, Kang the Conqueror, a classic-style AIM soldier, and a Dark Elf. Squirrel Girl herself also mentions that she was formerly part of the Great Lakes Avengers.
  • When Kamala asks Robbie if the flaming motorcycle on campus is his, he says it actually belongs to a guy he knows.
  • Upon learning that Valkyrie has a winged horse named Aragorn, Black Knight excitedly says that he has a winged horse with the same name. This is because in the comics, Aragorn originally belonged to Black Knight, but ended up becoming Valkyrie's steed after Black Knight was turned to stone in an issue of The Defenders.
• Nightmare Fetishist:
  • When Enchantress says she wants all the boys to go crazy for her, Wasp responds that they already are. Enchantress then explains that she won't be happy until they are literally crazy and start making her gifts out of hair and fingernails.
  • Hank Pym seems way too cheerful and happy about the horrible things that might come about due to his and Tony's experiments.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Loki manages to get along well with the Vision, the two bonding over their love of parties (and the fact that Vision isn't human also seems to work in his favor). He later strikes one up with Tony, impressed with how he's a self-admitted Troll. He also manages to feel sympathy for what the Winter Soldier went through.
  • Crossbones takes a liking to Wasp, as he considers her crazy (if too nice for her own good).
• Ominous Fog: The timefog. It might be a Fog of Doom, as nobody's really willing to go enter it.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. In the game, there are two Tonys (Iron Man and Taskmaster, although only Iron Man is actually referred to as 'Tony'), two Jameses (War Machine and Winter Soldier, although both are more notably known by their nicknames 'Rhodey' and 'Bucky' instead), three Peters (Star-Lord, Spider-Man, and Spider-Ham), two Brians (Union Jack and Captain Britain), two Jessicas (Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones), and two Steves (Captain America and Doctor Strange).
• The Reveal: Fury finally explains the origin of the Academy in the Infinity War event. In another universe, Thanos had two Infinity Gauntlets and slaughtered everyone. In desperation, Fury used an alternate Reality Gem he'd acquired and crossed dimensions; he doesn't know if he merely arrived in the new universe or created it. Either way, Odin and some other gods knew what happened in the previous universe; and when familiar — but younger — faces started emerging, Fury, Odin, and Pym started the Academy to stockpile every hero, villain, and object of power to use against Thanos.
• Robot War: The Ultron event is this big time.
• Running Gag: Several have developed over time.
  • Loki give everyone he meets a Malicious Misnaming nickname.
  • Loki is always dancing, and challenges every new student to a dance-off.
  • Pepper welcoming each new student to the Academy, and their odd answers when she asks "What can I get you?"
  • Tony Stark's cheese fridge.
  • Gratuitous penguins showing up.
• Ship Tease: Quite often, considering all the heroes are at an age where hormones are flying around.
  • Tony and Pepper, especially during Pepper's storyline. He also makes an effort to court Black Widow.
  • Amora with both Loki and Taskmaster. Amora herself seems to still have a thing for Thor.
  • Falcon, as stated above, was in a Love Triangle between Black Widow and Ms. Marvel. Widow also has some teases with Loki, though Daredevil calls her out on how she doesn't really seem to reciprocate his interest.
    • Resident Shipper on Deck Wasp, however, seems to think otherwise. She browbeat Natasha into telling Loki she liked him (Natasha said nothing of the sort, but the two started hanging out more anyway). And when Jan grew afraid that Loki would lose his mind and possibly hurt Natasha, she tried to set Nat up with Mordo instead, indicating that talented, arrogant sorcerers with a penchant for dark magic and the color green might just be Natasha's type.
  • Every girl on campus has somewhat of a crush on Steve. One of the main storyline quests even has Amora outright try to seduce him, supposedly because Steve reminded her of Thor. Of course, once Peggy shows up they pick up their relationship where they left off.
  • Wasp has flirted with several guys. She specifically feels a connection with Ant-Man, but they theorize that might be a side-effect of their shared powers.
  • In a conversation with Madame Hydra, Winter Soldier flat out states that he likes Black Widow. And he wrote a song for her, "A Buck For a Widow".
  • Spider-Man gets flustered in front of both Black Cat and Mary Jane. And possibly Spider-Gwen, though that one ends up being more platonic seeing as she's a doppelganger for the dead Gwen of Peter's universe, and vice-versa.
  • MODOK has a one-sided crush on Wasp, and as he has No Social Skills he's mistaken her being his friend with being his girlfriend. She tries to let him down gently.
  • During Hell's Kitchen, Daredevil and Elektra have a self-destructive romance going on, but Matt also flirts with Pepper and Tony, to no surprise, hits on Elektra. On the other hand, we finally get an Official Couple past the "tease" stage in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, and Danny also says he's going steady with Misty Knight.
  • While not as blatant as the other couples presented, there have been one or two hints suggesting Loki/Union Jack.
• Space Episode: The Guardians of the Galaxy event, which sees Knowhere crash onto the Avengers Academy's front lawn. Tony builds a new outfit to travel into space, and Guardians characters including Nebula, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord have storylines where they go into space using a reconstructed Milano.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Events often put the focus on characters unlocked early on in the game, since even new players can unlock the first five (Iron Man, Wasp, Loki, Black Widow, and Falcon) within a day or two. Tony, Jan, and Loki take the cake however, since they're the earliest. In addition to getting more interaction with event characters, they also get more actions and alternate costumes based off of the event.
• Stealth Pun: In the Defenders event, Jan (who looks something like a pixie in full Wasp form) got to cosplay as a mob boss. Which means that she's officially everyone's Fairy Godmother.
• The Stinger: After defeating the final boss of each event once, the news report gives hints for what the next event will be.
• Stop Poking Me!: A number of the students have a voice clip saying something to this effect when you tap on them.
• Superhero School: The basic concept. The rival Hydra Academy and AIM Institute are Academies of Evil. A Space Cadet Academy called the Cosmic Conservatory is also mentioned; during the Guardians of the Galaxy event Gamora describes it as a Boarding School of Horrors — it was the Collector's, well, collection of powerful people up until Thanos attacked and the various "students" escaped. Another one is introduced during the Hell's Kitchen event; an inner-city reform school that Kingpin wrestled control of.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Bucky tells Jan that his guyliner is actually natural, they have a long pause before she tells him that they should dance so things don't get awkward. This prompt's a three-hour long quest called "It's Not Awkward!"
• Take Your Time:
  • HYDRA might be unleashing mind-control gas on the populace, or drilling into the ground to create Earthquakes, but there's no rush if you need your characters to spend two hours dancing at the club.
  • Taken to ridiculous heights during the "Gamma Attack!" event, where The Leader arrives at the Academy and proceeds to torch the head office. The characters don't even mention it, and Spider-Woman will still glide to the top of the building as if everything was fine.
  • Several events involve minions released onto the school grounds who spend their time stalking the campus, snarling at students, and firing their blasters (if they have them) in the air. Most characters just walk past them without batting an eye.
• Teen Superspy: Various SHIELD agents due to the Age Lift, including Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Maria Hill, Quake, Agent 13, Union Jack, Phil Coulson, Peggy Carter and Mockingbird.
• Temporary Online Content: There are always (no, really, ALWAYS) special events going on with exclusive characters, costumes, campus buildings, etc. Luckily, most of it eventually comes back around when it fits the theme of a newer event.
• Tempting Fate: Fury, of all people, does this at the end of the Guardians event as a jail cell is being prepared for Ronan, and Tony asks about the possibility of a breakout:
  Fury: Who ever heard of a Super Villain breaking out of prison?
• Time Crash: The Timefog surrounding the academy seems to be some manner of this, with debris from different events leaking through it and the layout of it constantly rearranging.
• Token Evil Teammate: Several villains can be recruited to the Academy alongside the heroes.
• Two-Teacher School: Nick Fury is the Director, Pepper Potts is his assistant, Hank Pym is a teacher, Ares is the combat instructor, and Odin is around in some vague position of authority. Other than that Tony builds some suspiciously Ultron-like robots to do grunt work but that's it. But then again, it's not like there are hundreds of students attending either (yet). Over at the enemy schools, Madame Hydra, the Scientist Supreme, and the Collector are the only known administrators.
  • Madame Hydra later jumps ship to the Academy during Civil War, and J Jonah Jameson joins the staff during the Spider-Man event, bringing the Academy staff up to seven total members.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Version 2.0, which made combat strategy a major part of the gameplay where previously it was non-existent, battles only happening in events and being RNG reliant.
• The Unreveal: During the "British Invasion!" event, Fury and Loki reveal their deepest secrets... offscreen, and to the British Bulldog.
• Weirdness Magnet: The Academy is always at the center of a supervillain attack or some other crisis. This is even the rationale Fury used when he made the decision to have everyone graduate and disband when the game closed.
• Writing Around Trademarks: As mentioned above, the X-Men and Fantastic Four could not be used due to the embargo placed on characters whose movie rights were owned by 20th Century Fox. However, the writers were able to slip in a few references:
  • In the Nova Corps event, Viv tells Nova she's saving the last spot on her team for "a guy who shoots lasers from his face."
  • In the Trick or Treat event, Green Goblin mentions having kidnapped many redheads over the years, and then asks Mary Jane "Are you a telepath?"
  • In Nicholas Fury's Day Off, it's mentioned that the S.H.I.E.L.D. techs are having trouble repairing one of the vaults because the unnamed prisoner inside is somehow causing the tools to fly out of their hands. When Coulson asks what material could possibly be better than solid vibranium, Fury responds by saying "Anything that isn't metal."
  • In Super Recruits, it's mentioned that Captain America tried and failed to recruit a brilliant young man who has an army of robots and his own country, and who is apparently fond of referring to himself in the third person.
• You, Get Me Coffee: In one questline Falcon decides to ask Wasp to help him figure out how to get more recruits to the Academy. She decides to make him her assistant, then immediately orders him to fetch her a cappuccino.
• Younger and Hipper: Almost all of the adult heroes have been de-aged so that they're at more or less the average college student age. One "hipper" update that stands out is that Vision is apparently a great DJ.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Both Loki and Enchantress aren't exactly fans of Midgardians, so any compliments they have are like this.

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