PREMISE
It has been seven years since the new age of heroes began. Starting with the likes of the Spider-Man of New York, the monstrous Hulk, and the return of Captain America, the world has been irrevocably changed. The realization that mutants, aliens, and gods exist has changed the way the people of Earth view each other. Some worshipped these powered individuals, while others despised them, viewing them as monsters. What can agreed upon is that the world is a much more dangerous place now. To deal with this the heroes of the world have joined together to form teams like the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and the Avengers.
While these hero teams were clearly making the world a better place, evil festered very close to them. SHIELD, a UN sanctioned intelligence agency, was tasked with maintaining global peace. However, they were secretly run by a terrorist group called HYDRA. Whenever someone would discover this they would be killed. That was until the Avengers discovered the conspiracy. Being unable to silence the Avengers, HYDRA instead sped up their plans, revealing themselves to the world and launching coordinated attacks on governments around the world. The Avengers stepped in and were able to repel the attacks and capture most of the leaders of HYDRA.
In the wake of this disaster, many nations called for the dissolution of SHIELD. Reluctantly the UN Security Council agreed, disbanding SHIELD. Without a dedicated force policing the world, many criminal and terrorist groups became more bold in their actions. With many leaders questioning what to do next, Nick Fury, former director of SHIELD, approached Captain America, leader of the Avengers. Fury offered the Captain a solution to the current dilemma: have the Avengers protect the world. Captain America agreed, the two of them launching the NEO Initiative.
Over the course of the next few months the Avengers grew massively in size, gaining many support staff, and having many former and reserve members join the team. Another part of the NEO Initiative was gaining new team members. Current members of the Avengers were encouraged to sponsor potential new members of the team. These probationary members would be gathered at the Avengers Mansion in New York, a former Avengers headquarters. There they would be tested to see if they could become actual Avengers.
OTHER INFO
So it’s the start of the New Year and I figure it is a good time to do something I haven’t done in a while, run a roleplay. So anyway the tl;dr is that HYDRA was controlling SHIELD, when it was revealed SHIELD disbanded, so the Avengers are stepping up to defend the world, with the players being potential new Avengers that are a part of the NEO Initiative. All player characters will be OCs with any background that would seem in place in the Marvel Universe, as long as they are not crazy overpowered and are at least mostly heroic. Also each character needs a sponsor member of the Avengers. I’m pretty loose with who the current Avengers are, so I’ll say any character who’s ever been an Avenger in the comics can count as a sponsor for the roleplay. And lastly we would be starting with one character per player at the start, though that could change. Anyways, that’s my idea and I would some of you are interested in it.