Great Lakes Initiative (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Great Lakes Initiative

Gallery

Official Name

Great Lakes Initiative

Team Aliases

Great Lakes Champions, Great Lakes Avengers, GLI, GLA, Great Lakes X-Men, GLX, Great Lakes Defenders, Lightning Rods

Status

Status

Active

Team Identity

Public

Alignment

Good

Universe

Earth-616

Base Of Operations

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Organization

Team Leader(s)

Mister Immortal;
formerly Hawkeye, Mockingbird

Current Members

Mister Immortal, Big Bertha, Doorman, Flatman, Squirrel Girl, Tippy Toe

Former Members

Dinah Soar, Deadpool( reserve member in deadpool/ GLI summer special),Grasshopper, Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Monkey Joe, Leather Boy

Place of Formation

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

First appearance

(Great Lakes Avengers) West Coast Avengers #46

(Lightning Rods) Deadpool #10

(Great Lakes X-Men) Great Lakes Avengers #4

History

Seeing a distinct lack of superhero action in the Midwest region of the United States, Mister Immortal organised GLA as a sister team to both the Avengers West Coast and Avengers. The only problem was that he failed to tell either of the other teams about this, and so, after their first mission Hawkeye wanted to know who these "impostor" Avengers were, and set out with his wife, Mockingbird, to find out. After determining they were just a group of (if somewhat oddball) heroes, Hawkeye and Mock took it upon themselves to train the team.

The GLA stayed mostly out of the spotlight, although they did help their sister teams on a few occasions, such as when "That Which Endures" took control of some of the Avengers members.

Lightning Rods: After the Avengers were seemingly killed during Onslaught, the Thunderbolts took over heroing responsibilities in New York. Attempting to "cash in" on the popularity of the T-Bolts, Mister I re-branded the team as the Lightning Rods. They would fight with/against Deadpool, and would later fight against the Bolts when it was discovered they were secretly the Masters of Evil.

Misassembled: GLA stayed completely under the radar until a 4 issue limited series was released in 2005. Parodying the recent dark comic events such as Identity Crisis and Avengers Disassembled, GLA Misassembled advertised that a Great Lakes Avenger would die in each issue. The series also saw new recruits to the GLA - Squirrel Girl and her pet squirrel Monkey Joe, as well as the new character Grasshopper, who set a new record dying only 5.8 seconds after joining. Such as there was a plot, in the wake of the real Avengers disbanding, the GLA were faced with stopping Maelstrom accelerating the end of the universe in the hope of discovering its great secrets. Threatened with legal action by the Maria Stark Foundation if the team continued to use the Avengers name, and discovering they are all mutants, the GLA renamed itself the GLX, Great Lakes X-Men, at the series' conclusion.

Great Lakes Defenders? Great Lakes Champions? The team attendedThing (Ben Grimm)'s superhero poker tournament in The Thing #8, also written by Dan Slott, scribe of GLA: Misassembled. Upon hearing they were using the X-Men's name, Marvel Girl (Rachel Summers) used her telepathy on Mister Immortal, who ventured the "Great Lakes Defenders", before being similarly rebuffed by Doctor Strange. When they all reached the final table, with Flatman beating the Thing, they plumped for Great Lakes Champions, despite Hercules (Heracles)'s protests.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: the "Quinjetta"
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• No special notes.
  

Trivia

• No trivia.

See Also

• Appearances of Great Lakes Initiative (Earth-616)
• Team Gallery: Great Lakes Initiative (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Great Lakes Initiative (Earth-616)

Links and References

• Unofficial GLA fansite
• Wikipedia entry
• Marvel.com entry