Disclaimer: I own the right to be afraid of SOPA, Marvel/Disney owns the rest. Don't sue me and/or put me in jail for five years.
A/N: I'm alive! Thank you (anonymous reviewer that didn't sign), Ghost in the Machine, Menny Man, inkykenrd, malefan, JasonTKD, L-Dog Z, justbin, jonza, krista12, jordylilly777, Sideswipe Mechanic, S058, and Maycie for the reviews and favorites. And a very big and special thank you to Ghost in the Machine for agreeing to beta for me and teaching me how to edit chapters that have already been uploaded…in retrospect I really should have worked that out earlier.
Teams
When you just can't seem to get your team up fill, teaming up with others every day is just the thing. Joining a team can bring you a great sense of team work, cooperation, and all that other stuff they put on motivational posters. But the making the decision to join a team is a lot like making the decision to become a hero: you need to know what you're getting yourself into.
There are two types of teams: the "organized unit" and the "glorified club". The members of an organized unit likely live under the same roof, wear matching costumes, and look like (holy redundancy Batman!) an organized unit. They're in sync with each other in either a very militant way or like a family unit where each member knows the others better than themselves. These types of teams don't regularly have members that are responsible for their own patrols, although there's no rule against it; it's just not that common. The best known examples of a team of this type are The X Men and the FF.
The Avengers on the other hand, are a glorified club. There's no cohesion to uniforms, the roster changes all the time, and each member likely has their own adventures. Sure, breaking the pattern here, traditionally the Avengers live under one roof, but in recent years that is not true of everyone. That's not to say teams of this type don't work well together or aren't a united front, but they're a different kind of united front. If you run into a team of the glorified club variety you see a lot of individuals together that look like they're going to get some bad guys, if you run into an organized unit, you see one single but very threatening entity that's going to get the bad guys. Simple enough?
Before deciding which type of team is for you, you're going to have figured out if teams are even for you first. First and foremost, you have to being willing to work with other people and take directions. If you want to go sulk in a corner and do things your way, go get some therapy and stay clear of teams. (Unless you're Wolverine, then you get to be this way and be on every team…seriously, how does that even work?)
Make sure you're joining a team for the right reasons. I mentioned before that when I was younger I just wanted to be on a team to get paid for it. I had good intentions for that money mind you, but that wasn't quite the right thing to do…and attempting to beat up my elders was bad. What the rights reason are exactly is something you need to decide for yourself, but it should have more to do with peace, justice etc. than prestige.
Which team you join is all about which dynamic you fit in best with. The X-Men are all mutants. A non-mutant could theoretically join them because of equal opportunity employment laws in the fine state of New York, but they probably wouldn't gel with your teammates well. Joining a team that has had roughly the same roster since it was founded probably isn't the best for you and team dynamics either, I wouldn't advise it unless you and said team have a pre-established kinship of some kind. Some teams like the FF deal primarily with cosmic level threats. I knowing I'm a glaring exception to the rule here, but if you're more comfortable with street level crime, you should be joining a team that's more comfortable with street level crime.
Once you're on a team, squabbles with teammates are likely to occur. Try to take the high road and don't, for example throw them through a supposedly unbreakable window several stories up because they jokingly said something insulting about someone you care about. Not that I've ever done that…look the joke was ill timed and really insulting and the person I threw had a healing factor, alright?
As for starting a new team…yeah, I really don't have much experience in this area unless you count one time squad thingies. But I can tell you based off that experience it's probably best to be strategic about it. You want people that are similar in that they are fighting for the same goal, but different in the expertise they bring. Look for candidates with varied powers and abilities as well as expertise in areas like street smarts or tech savvy-ness. Also follow the rules of good publicity I laid out for you earlier. I'll be over here continuing to screw up my own advice.