Awful?   I the two I'm thinking of were both pretty good.. one where he went with the Avengers to space and freaked out, and the other where he broke into the mansion to prove he was talented and Cap sent him packing.

Yeah, he was at least part of the official secondary team back around the time that Sandman also joined.

The Sandman thing was for one story... that's probably best forgotten.  Both Spidey stories I'm thinking of were WAY after that... I think around Acts of Vengeance.

I always though of 'Reserve Avenger' as 'person who we give our number to', or 'past member who quit', more than an actual Avenger.

Why do you think you like those lines?

To be upfront, I dislike them and I'm curious whether the reason for my negative reaction is the same as that for your positive one.

Berk, theyre classic comicbook bravado, the Hollywood lines id spout if i stood, barrel chested, legs planted, ready to do battle for truth, justice, and the...kiwi way.
They are the lines that make our little hobby worthwhile, the lines that have you giggling like a kid, that make you love the guilty pleasure of geekdom, that keep us coming back.
Without quotables like these they would just be another New52 book (that may cause a few hate letters) .
Hickmans Fantastic Four was the best version since Stan and Jack, filled with family, adventure, and awe. The first time in decades they were truly Marvels First Family, Byrne came close, and others may have tried, but you need the killer ideas, the shit Kirby would have been cramming into every panel, and Hickman is the only person that ever came close to making me think Jack would be sitting there applauding.

I cant imagine Stan writing THOSE lines either, but remember this isnt the same Johnny they had, he's had more miles under the belt, he's seen stuff no-one would believe, and he wouldn't be the shallow jerk still, that was one of the great things Hickman did, he grew John up. Yet those lines still fit within the established parameters of our FF, they were never so over-awed that they couldn't get it done, they proved to themselves long ago that they deserved to stand tall...with giants, and that's the confidence, the arrogance, that comes out in statements like that.

I loved that he survives and beats Annihilus, I loved Spidey being his replacement(regardless of the stupidity of his being an Avenger at the same time) because thats THE only natural thing for them to do, I loved what they faced in that time and how Hickman had me cheering like the 13 year old me who discovered them 40 years ago, and lines like those were a huge part of that.

To each his own brother, hope you get it, but if you dont we can always find another title to love together man.

I think I get it in terms of why a lot of readers like it and why Hickman wrote it, but that kind of thing has never been a big part of what I look for in superhero comics, and as it's become emphasised more and more through the years it's become more and more distasteful to me.

I agree that the FF were never over-awed - but awed enough to get the sense of wonder across to the reader - the sense that there are things beyond us, that reality is bigger than us. That there's something to to strive for, new levels of understanding - and yes, sometimes, power - to reach for. That we aren't the be-all and end-all.

That sense of wonder has been misinterpreted by some readers as the kind of over-awed reaction you mention: so lost in wonder and awe that one can't act, but just bows down before it. But there's another, more important, sense of wonder that's found in some of the best science fiction and that I think is often behind the impulse to understand reality and how it works - science and philosophy.

I think that's been lost as the stories have become more concerned with exalting the heroes to ever higher levels - ironically at the same time as they're trying to make them more realistic and fallible in other ways.

Too many superhero comics, in an effort to represent human potential in the symbolic form of superheroes, end up sending the message that we are already, right now, the be-all and end-all - that our intelligence and technology makes us masters of reality. Even one of my favourite writers, Grant Morrison, falls into this trap at times, in my view.

History and every day's news tells us that we are far from being masters of reality, of nature, or even of ourselves. We still have a long way to go to see if we can even survive our own limitations as a species. That's one of the reasons I think we should be wary of jettisoning that sense of wonder in favour of the power fantasy in our stories.

But anyway, as always, I'm just expressing my own feelings about these things, not trying to imply that this is how everyone else has to feel as well. I wouldn't be happy if my negative comments spoiled anyone's enjoyment of their favourite stories - though of course I hope they might make them consider that there's another way (far from the only way) to think about those stories.