Leave The Villain Alone, Kids

The students at Avengers Academy didn't seem very impressed with the argument that you don't use the villain's tactics because it makes you no better than them. I think in the case of what the students did (attacking the Hood not to recapture him, but simply to beat and humiliate him), it's an accurate assessment*. Still, it's not one the offenders were very impressed by.

It could have been argued that it was Tigra's right to deal with Mr. Robbins, and they should have told her what they found and let her decide how to handle it. That might have gained more traction, but it probably sends the wrong message, since the Striker and Hazmat (and maybe Veil) would have seen it as settling a grudge (even if Tigra just recaptured him), and it's probably unwise to encourage that in them.

The best argument I can think of to present to them is that what they did accomplishes nothing. Beyond the fact they made no attempt to arrest The Hood, so he's still free to grab the Infinity Gauntlet or whatever, the video they posted isn't going to help. There are certain criminals, the idea of threatening loved ones wouldn't even occur to them. The Black Fox, for example, is a thief, so it wouldn't be his style. He needed no deterrent. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have someone like Dr. Doom, who wouldn't bother threatening loved ones because his idea of sending a hero a message would be to have said hero killed.

For all the other villains, it's throwing down a gauntlet. Telling them if they try what the Hood did, they'll be the next to get trounced. Well so what? We're talking career super-villains here. Threats of violence don't impress them, because they've been beaten up by super-heroes and thrown in prison who knows how many times. Would the Wrecking Crew really be impressed by that video? I doubt it. More likely, the villains will feel some sense of solidarity with Parker, maybe even annoyance that the heroes ain't playing fair (taking some of the bad guys tricks for their own), and lash out.

It's like if a friend of yours was attacked by a dog once, and you see a different dog one day, and decide to kick it before it can attack you. If it wasn't going to attack you, you've gained nothing. You may even make things worse, because now the dog may decide - having been kicked - it does want to attack. If the dog was planning to attack (because it's vicious, or been trained that way, or you came in its territory too abruptly), kicking it won't make it less likely to do so.

I get the feeling this is something Gage has been working with on the book, these kids not stopping to consider the consequences of their actions. Striker outing the existence of the Academy because he's fame hungry, Veil potentially bringing Janet back after Hank decided to wait (we don't know if she did it or not), now this. In this case, we've already seen that The Hood took the attack personally. He wants to beat all the Avengers because they stand in the way, but the three cadets that attacked, them he wants to hurt. They've made it more likely Parker will seek out their families and kill them, whereas, if they'd just arrested him, they'd be lumped in with all the other heroes Parker sees as standing in his way.

* I don't think "you'll be no better than them!" holds up as well when applied to killing, because there are situations where killing the villain may be the best option.