Old Hollywood Avengers
(because Tony throwing Gatsby-like parties is perfect)
no but imagine this for a fucking minute
its 1924 and the jazz era is in full swing. the newly formed league of nations has put together a war crimes agency to ensure security against individuals and groups that would use and misuse the technology of the great war; that’s Shield. (It’s not an acronym; it’s just Shield.)
tony stark owned an american company that makes guns and artillery that was sold to the british and french during the great war, and he’s absurdly rich and famous as usual. when he was captured by german troops in 1917 after being subject to a gas attack, he built himself a mechanical filter he could install in his chest to assist his breathing, and uses its power source, the element plutonium, to drive a suit of powered armour. he’s renounced arms dealing now and has built new marks of his iron man suits and he tries to use it to diffuse situations that could lead to war.
steve rogers was the son of an irish immigrant in 1860 who was a three-month volunteer when the civil war began. struck ill in camp before ever seeing the battlefield, he is subject to the radical personal experimentation of a chemist that leaves him at the peak of human potential, and he takes up the propaganda role as Captain Yankee and ends up leading the union against the confederates and their sinister, cultish engineering department… hydra. while batting in the deep winter against an experimental ironclad gunship armed with endothermic rockets that can destroy washington dc, cap gets frozen for decades and washed out to sea, eventually being recovered by a scientific dive.
bruce banner, chemist, attempting to recreate his grandfather’s serum that cured steve rogers of fatal malaria, was experimenting on a formula himself when overseas in 1918. exposure to chlorine gas has an unexpected consequence, transforming him into a massive, monstrous grey creature fueled by his anger
natasha romanoff was a relative of the tsar who joined the russian revolution but was subsequently targeted for liquidation due to her origins. clint barton, the man who got her out of russia and straight into the espionage game in the balkans. now shes in new york, working anti-gang organizations, while clint has fallen in with a much rougher crowd.
and finally, thor, the asguardian prince, banished to earth by his father for his reckless impulses. it didn’t take him long to become fast friends with none other than nikola tesla, using his power over storms to assist the scientist (and his partner in high-energy electrical science, jane foster) in the creation of a free energy net for new york city. through his selfless actions he managed to regain the ability to wield his hammer, but he has chosen to remain on earth to do as much good as possible.
and maybe keep tabs on his brother, who seems far to interested in leveraging the despondence and frustration of the losing sides of the great war…
*opens GM notebook and begins scribbling furiously*
