With Wednesday’s release of the Wolverine and the X-Men set, the core roster of the not-so-mighty GLA is complete.

• Mr. Immortal: 46 points of undying frequently dying tie-up;
• Doorman: 45-point taxi extraordinaire with 11 Speed and the ability to open a wall or blocking terrain for a round;
• Dinah Soar: The other taxi. Not quite as fast but makes it up in quantity by carrying 3 GLA teammates for 20 points less;
• Flatman: A conditional Outwitter of 100-points-or-less figures;
• and Big Bertha: Just 4 clicks long for 56 points but with Charge and Plasticity and a DV power that only takes one click at a time. Strong, too.

= oh, look! They’re exactly 200 points! …withOUT their tailor-made Additional Team Ability.

This team has great mobility options in Dinah and Doorman, and Mr. I and Bertha are good tie-up. But it’s sorely lacking in damage output. None of the characters have greater than 2 printed damage and most have ONES almost the entire dial! Outside of Bertha’s brawn, the GLA will often NEED Flatman’s limited Outwit SP to be able to deal with even the lightest armor.

Or they can get a little help from other keyworded friends:

• Squirrel Girl: With a good run of Exploit Weakness and then Incap and BCF, she gives the group a little oomph. Unfortunately, her 59 point cost is awkward.
• Hawkeye (Avengers 056): Finally a bit of actual 3 damage for the team. His 9 AV is suspect, since he’ll need to use Running Shot instead of sitting still for the +2 AV standing still version. At 56 points is also tough to tack on to the rest of the team’s 200.
• Then there’s Hawkeye (Chaos War), a nearly perfect fit to make the team 300 points. The trouble with him is he still prevents use of the ATA and his natural Spider-Man Ally TA is completely wasted on this team. Same goes for…
• Deadpool (Web of Spider-Man): Way expensive at 158 points, but worth every one as he gives the GLA what it sorely needs to help its fighting strength: Perplex. Though he’s such a good fig that he threatens to steal the show…like Deadpool NEVER, EVER does in the comics. 😉
• What about Hawkeye (Fear Itself)? 135 points allows another pal such as Squirrel Girl to get in on the action in a 400 point game. His Revert click works well with CW Hawkeye. The only drawback is that the GLA ATA is STILL crowded out.

But IS that ATA even worth using?

“During an attack made by a character using this team ability, opposing characters cannot use Probability Control unless a friendly character has already used Probability Control during this attack. Uncopyable.”

3 points just to stop enemies from forcing rerolls on your attacks seems overcosted.

Anyway, the Great Lakes Avengers are only supposed to be a F.U.N. team: certainly Friendly, kinda Nifty….barely Useful.