TONY STARK, “IRON MAN”: Look, I like all these people. I think relationships are important and there’s nothing wrong with being chummy with the people you work with. But as long as I’m providing the lion’s share of the funding, this is a business, and it’s going to be run like a business. I didn’t get to be #3 on the Forbes 500 with shitty record-keeping.
THOR: At first, mightily did I support Tony’s dedication to bringing proper human resource management to the Avengers. As an immortal son of Asgard, I stood to clean up on long-term stock options, and I could really get a break on my taxes by vesting the frost giants’ gold in a low-yield 401(k) or a Roth IRA. Unfortunately, Margaret — for such is the name of the Ultron he put in charge of payroll — could not process any of my paperwork until I could produce a birth certificate. I strove to explain that was born in Valhalla before the advent of the written word, but she just gave me the number of the local Social Security office.
HANK PYM: I thought this was going to be a real drag, what with OSHA sniffing around every few months. To tell you the God’s honest truth, a lot of the chemicals I use to shrink and grow and fly and what have you aren’t exactly up to EPA standards; the MSDS for my Ant-Man gas alone is like 1,400 pages long. But it turns out I was worried over nothing, because Tony told me about interns.
JANET VAN DYNE, “THE WASP”: Really, I can’t complain too much because I have this Vietnamese girl who does most of the paperwork for a college credit, but some of these new initiatives are just ridiculous. The incident reports we have to fill out after every battle — excuse me, ‘powers-involved conflict resolution action’ — are just ridiculous and I have three Papillons who aren’t going to walk themselves. Well, I mean, the Vietnamese girl walks them, as well, but there’s only so many hours in the day.
DR. BRUCE BANNER, “THE HULK”: HULK NOT KNOW WHAT IS BILLABLE HOURS
STEVE ROGERS, “CAPTAIN AMERICA”: Oh, I don’t mind it. I was in the service. Half of your job is paperwork, especially if you’re a commanding officer. People always remember how I punched Hitler in the face, and believe me, I enjoyed it. But I didn’t really enjoy filling out U.S. Army Form CF-1311, Status of Enemy Dictator Physical Confrontation quite as much, or the sixteen hours of mandatory counseling I had to go through, either.
CLINT BARTON, “HAWKEYE”: Hey, are you the person I’m supposed to talk to about getting paid? I been in this thing for four years I ain’t got paid yet. They give me this ‘direct deposit authorization thing, I just threw it in the trash dump. What the fuck is direct deposit? I keep my money in a hay pile, or in the account I opened at Raheem’s Hollywood Flash brand fancy arrow outlet. They owe me like eighteen million at this point. I can’t even get free lemonade at the cafeteria, the Ellen who runs the place hates me.
PIETRO MAXIMOFF, “QUICKSILVER”: Whatever, dude. I already get health care through Wanda because we’re lovers.
WANDA MAXIMOFF: “THE SCARLET WITCH”: Psst! ‘Siblings’! Not ‘lovers’!
PIETRO MAXIMOFF: What? That’s what I said.
JACQUES DUQUENSE, “THE SWORDSMAN”: I died and came back to life. You would not believe the amount of paperwork that’s involved in that little fiasco. I’ve been wading through permissions and waivers for years now. That’s how come I wasn’t in the movie.
T’CHALLA, “THE BLACK PANTHER”: Sure, Jacques, that’s the reason. Anyway, none of this really applies to me because I’m not a U.S. citizen, so initially what we worked out is that I would work as an independent contractor instead of being on the Avengers payroll. Eventually I figured out that Tony just did that so he wouldn’t have to pay me a decent salary, and also to alleviate his guilt at making me always go out to get coffee and wash the Quinjet, which I’m sure wasn’t a racial thing at all. Dick.
VISION: You think you’ve got it bad? As an android, I don’t technically even exist as a person, so Tony has me categorized as office equipment. I only have to fill out one piece of paperwork every year, but it’s a document that notes how much I have depreciated since the previous fiscal year.
DANE WHITMAN, “THE BLACK KNIGHT”: I routinely am microwaved, blasted, poisoned, set on fire, punched in the scrotum by deranged lunatics who have a hard-on for costumes. This is why I find it slightly curious that we are only afforded five days of sick time with pay. I need more than that after just walking through a room Hulk has been sitting in eating pork rinds.
DR. HANK McCOY, “THE BEAST”: It’s not really such a bad idea, except for how the automatic voice mail system is always mistaking me for Hank Pym. I get at least one phone call a day asking me if I’ve climbed into my wife’s cooter recently. I never know how to respond to that question.
CAROL DANVERS, “MS. MARVEL”: My attorneys have advised me not to make any comment on this issue until my 3,248 separate lawsuits against the Avengers for sexual misconduct are settled. 3,009 of them are against Tony Stark, and that’s before we hired Starfox.
MANTIS: I am the Celestial Madonna, long-prophesied mother of a being so cosmically pure and perfect that he will cleanse the souls of all that live in the cosmos and usher in a golden era of peace, prosperity, and eternal positive consciousness. I do not have time for Secret Santa.
SAM “SNAP” WILSON, “THE FALCON”: Someone keeps signing me up for the softball game. I mean, they put my name in for all nine positions.
NATASHA ROMANOVA, “THE BLACK WIDOW”: In Soviet Russia, paperwork fills out you! Wait, no, I’m sorry, come back!