Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The All Avengers Thread

Unfortunately, both of my feet are planted firmly in the past, as far as the Avengers are concerned. I haven't bought an issue since # 19 of Busiek's run (when was that -- 2000?). Although I read a few isses of YOUNG AVENGERS that a friend loaned me, I have no interest in following the title or any of its permutations at present.

There was a time, though, when AVENGERS was second only to LEGION as my favorite comic book. In fact, AVENGERS was the one title I followed consistently for more than 20 years (1973-94). But things change, I've changed, and life moves on. Blame (or credit) Busiek for that: even when he gave us a "classic" Avengers run, it just felt wrong. Sometimes, you really can't go back.

I still think there is the possibility of the book renewing itself, like it has in the past. Between the end of the Englehart era and the beginning of the Stern/Buscema/Palmer era, there are over one hundred issues which I think are mostly fair-to-middling (and sometimes awful.) If it takes that long for Bendis and Brevoort and Quesada to leave, I'll still be waiting for the day when that happens and looking forward to the possibility of renewal.

"over one hundred issues which I think are mostly fair-to-middling (and sometimes awful.)"

And to think, that was when I was buying and reading the book the most consistently. (It's amazing what you'll put up with sometimes.)

"Fair-to-middling"-- that's what Yosemite Sam saids he was with a pencil! "Alright, pardner-- DRAW!"

I agree the peroid between Engleheart and Stern to be not consistent.

It was writer by committee. Micheline, Steven Grant, Stern, Grunewald even methinks? And Shooter ofcourse.

But for some reasons I have fond memories. To tell the truth it was very generic superhero stories yet I liked the generic feel it had. Perez art didn't hurt. I'm also it seems the only fan of Shooter's Avengers work.

I also feel that the Avengers book is salvagable and it isn't that far gone.

I have some comments on the recent series:

(1) New Avengers - by far the worst of the lot, New Avengers suffers from the fact that Brian Bendis simply doesn't have a handle on how to write a super-hero team comic. Its forcefully 'new' and 'hip' and that might work on a pre-teen (and if it does--good for Marvel!), but it doesn't work on me. Spider-Man does not belong to the point that it hurts. Luke Cage simply is not what they've melded him into here, and I just can't get over it. The fact that this isn't really an Avengers comic, and more of a 'Defenders comic with the Avengers name to maintain sales' is blatant, and I don't mind that per se. It kind of makes it easier to accept Wolverine and Spider-Woman, and Iron Fist joining Luke again is somewhat enjoyable. But essentially, the comic remains flat. The 'anti-registration heroes' are soooo obviously and blatantly 'in the right' in Bendis' eyes that you can't help but feel editorial trickery. Dr. Strange is so out of place it hurts, as he could essentially defeat anything that the entire team together might have trouble with. The return of Hawkeye, and how its being accomplished, however, is somewhat welcome and fun. Ninjas and Electra are not. Echo is interesting to me, now that this is obviously 'New Defenders'. I want to like this book. I do. But I can't justify it with the level of quality. And I don't hate Bendis--I think he's a truly gifted writer. But he's a poor *Avengers* writer. Yu's art is not my favorite, but I recognize he has his own style and that is very refreshing sometimes.

(2) Mighty Avengers - to be honest Stealth, you've summed it up quite good for me. Iron Man is being written as overly arrogant and semi-facist, the Wasp is being written as her character at its worst to the 10th degree which essentially means (to me) that its 100% out of character, and so far there is no real reason Ares is there other than 'he looks cool and it might shock fans'. Black Widow is an obvious spy for Nick Fury (if you didn't see that one coming, well, oops!). Everything Paul Jenkins does to make the Sentry interesting, Bendis undoes with every panel he features the character. In my opinion, Bendis (when writing Avengers) takes the absolutel worst periods of the characters pasts, when the writers simply just were pissing on fans, and uses that to define the characters. As for Cho's art, I like attractive people as much as the rest, but that isn't enough to make me keep buying a comic book.

(3) Avengers: the Iniative - despite Dan Slott, I'm still not convinced. There is a cool and interesting notion of 'super-hero GI Joe' going on, but the execution is poor in that you have guys like Guantlet and a contiuation of Marvel saying that the pro-registration heroes have their own 'good side', when editorial clearly believes they don't. But I trust Slott and feel he has a plan, so I'm glad that at least Justice, Hank and Rhodey are in his hands. Art isn't exactly my favorite. I'm here for Slott and the heroes he's picked up. We'll see what happens...

(4) Young Avengers - though I do recognize that this was a great comic, I just can't subscribe to the notion that it was 'one of the industry's best' like so many others. Heinberg's schedule is so inconsistent I'm left with a feeling that I really just don't care. The first six issues were really great, but the second six were merely so-so. Maybe if I reread them all in a row I'll get a better sense of the drama and tension, but the long wait between issues made me lose that. Jim Chueng's art is nothing short of phenominal though, and I've been a huge fan since Psion at Crossgen. Again, I want to love this--but I can't, until I get the sense that Marvel really cares enough to deliver a product with both quality and consistency. Hey, Jack Kirby could do it, and do it brillantly. I see no reason that any artist or writer in comics today cannot.

I think George Perez had a mitigating effect on Shooter's writing, in the same way his work with Marv Wolfman on TITANS was light years ahead of virtually everything else Wolfman ever did with anyone else. Back then, I kept wishing George would have just focused on ONE book-- and it seemed to me, the book he was born to draw was THE AVENGERS. All those incessant fill-ins and blown deadlines really didn't help. (Of course, he was on board for the rape of Ms. Marvel-- I wonder how much of that, if any, was his fault?)

profh011, the way I remember it Michelline wanted the father of the baby be the Supreme Intelligence. Who wanted to a kree-human hybrid.

Shooter did not go for it and plugged in Immortus.

yeah one of the worst issues ever. Nice art though.

Three points to reply to Cob's post:

1) Glanced at the Bendis and Slutt books, didn't like them, didn't expect to, although I'm still flicking through Mighty Avengers and wishing Cho would get back to Liberty Meadows

2) Young Avengers - Heinberg's now announced he'll only co-plot v2/"Season 2". His co-plotter/scripter hasn't been announced yet, but it's been heavily noted that he shares a studio with The Lobe. Oh dear.

3) If you're not reading Marvel Adventures Avengers, you're missing out. I know it's the "kiddie"/non-continuity book, but it's Crazy in a good way, and Just Plain Fun. Like Silver Age without the stuff I find annoying, with a hint of Livewires mixed in. I started with #9 (Everybody Is MODOC) and also especially recommend #11 (The Power of Motivational Speaking When Combined With Snakes on a Quinjet) and #12 (Ego the Loving Planet). Which isn't to say that #10 (Black Knight) and #13 (Giant-Girl (Jan)'s origin, guest-starring Ant-Man) aren't good, just Good rather than Great

"In my opinion, Bendis (when writing Avengers) takes the absolutel worst periods of the characters pasts, when the writers simply just were pissing on fans, and uses that to define the characters."

Oh, like Jim Shooter!


"the way I remember it Michelline wanted the father of the baby be the Supreme Intelligence. Who wanted to a kree-human hybrid. Shooter did not go for it and plugged in Immortus."

Oh, great. Michelinie had a horrible idea, then Shooter made it 10 times worse! Way to go, Shooter.


"wishing Cho would get back to Liberty Meadows"

I put up with SHANNA, but that was my limit. Some people are "too good" to be working for Marvel, in my opinion. They're doing work for Marvel somehow makes the company seem legitimate these days, instead of the dark, sleezy trash-monger they really are.

Meanwhile, I'm SO glad Mike Allred is FINALLY back doing MADMAN-- and Steve Rude is FINALLY back doing NEXUS!

Actually, the reason for the switcheroo was that What If had done a baby-Intelligence Supreme just beforehand. The redone version with Marcus Immortus was, by all accounts, a VERY last minute rewrite.

...And I thought slavegirl Leia had it bad with Jabba the Hutt...!

Cobie, I would be interested to know what you think of Ultimates. Myself, I think it's beautifully drawn but horribly written.

Thanks for the recommendation, Reboot. I'll browse through it next time I'm at the comic shop.

(1) Agreed about Liberty Meadows

(2) Interesting. A co-plotter would be great in theory, but like you say, the idea of Loeb coming on board...oh dear.

(3) Thanks for the reccomendation! I've seen this 100 times and been interested but never gave it a chance. I think I'll take a look--I can always use a fun Avengers book, and I've always thought Storm on the Avengers would be cool (I'm pretty sure I saw her on the covers).

Re: the Ms. Marvel atrocity. If it was never mentioned again (by Marvel, not us) I'd be thankful.

She sorta was very briefly: in the first few pages of Roger Stern's Kang storyarc, we see an alternate-timeline Avengers where Storm and Colossus are members.

"The redone version with Marcus Immortus was, by all accounts, a VERY last minute rewrite."

Hasn't anybody figured out yet that "last-minute rewrites" are DEATH for any series???

I'm sure we can come up with a list of examples... starting with the infamous ARMAGEDDON 2001.

Of course, this also happens in movies... I understand this sort of thing to some degree hurt such films as X-MEN 3, SPIDER-MAN 3 and the infamous HALLOWEEN 6. (As my pal Kevin calls it, "A bastardization of an abortion." It was horribly bad to begin with-- then, after-the-fact, the director made it 10 times worse! HOW could somebody DO a thing like that???)

I'm actually enjoying Mighty Avengers. It's not perfect but I love the art. Bendis gives me enough character moments and lots of action.

All right, this thread has been inactive for way too long. Once again, I ask West Coast Avengers fans to please post your thoughts on the series, because we STILL haven't had an in-depth WCA discussion. Here are all of my opinions on WCA, copied and pasted from earlier posts in this thread (and slightly edited as well.) Do you agree or disagree? I'd like to know.

During his brief time as Avengers chairman, the Vision created a second branch of Avengers, the West Coast Avengers, assigning Hawkeye as leader. The 4-part West Coast Avengers limited series is IMO one of the highlights of the Roger Stern era's first half. Except for Tigra, whom I dislike intensely, the lineup (Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Iron Man, Wonder Man) had good chemistry, Graviton worked as a villain because the team used strategy and smarts to take him down, and I'm of the opinion that Stern wrote Mockingbird better than Steve Englehart would in the ongoing WCA book. In fact, I think Stern's WCA mini-series is better written than anything from any of the writers on the WCA ongoing (Englehart, Byrne, Mr. & Mrs. Thomas) And the art on the WCA mini-series, by Bob Hall and Brett Breeding, is IMO better than any of the art I've seen from the WCA ongoing issues that I've read.

I don't think Englehart's WCA is his best work by any stretch of the imagination, but even Englehart's lesser work has a certain integrity that's lacking in a lot of superhero writing. But even so, it's appropriate that this team nicknamed themselves Whackos, because this was one weird book, balancing the easy-going camaraderie of the team members with a campy, almost retro, tone and the frequent hints at things far more sinister (and often, more than hints). The quirkiness showed in Englehart's later issues of Avengers frequently goes off the scale in WCA. It does gets off to a good start with a storyarc that culminates in the (temporary but still powerful) death of longtime villain the Grim Reaper. But then it goes way off course with all the demons and monsters and cat people and the focus on Tigra...UGH! The stories don't get back on track until the time-travel adventure starting in # 17, but even then I have my reservations, which I'll get into next week. One thing I'll add is that Firebird was an admirable attempt (especially for a mainstream 1980s comic) at developing a character who was both a non-stereotypical Christian and a non-stereotypical Latina.

The only positive things I can say about the WCA art of Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott is that after the first few issues, Milgrom's pencils went from grotesque to merely mediocre, and that every once in a while Sinnott's inking was up to the standards he had set during the Silver Age and the Bronze Age.

With WCA #17, Steve Englehart finally put an end to the monster mish-mash and sent the team on an eight-issue time travel adventure. This is the best-known story of Englehart's WCA run, and it encapsulates the best and worst of this run. The basic plot mechanics are undeniably clever and diverting, and Joe Sinnott's inking temporarily got better (although he left the book before the storyarc was finished). What on Earth, then, could have possessed Englehart to write in a subplot about Mockingbird being kidnapped, drugged, and raped? It completely ruins the story!

Post-time travel, the book returned to the usual low-key weirdness -- the Zodiac storyarc and the Iron Curtain/Hank's-first-wife-is-alive storyarc were okay-ish (which, for a non-fan of Zodiac like me, is something of an achievement), but not good enough to rise above the art. Sinnott's replacement, Mike Machlan, had done nice work for DC, particularly the early issues of Infinity Inc. But his inking on WCA makes Milgrom's pencils even more mediocre than they already are. Englehart seemed to be gearing up for big changes, dividing the team and bringing in Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Vision...and Mantis! But the usual editorial disagreements brought Englehart's WCA run to an abrupt end.

John Byrne became both writer and artist on WCA, and I refuse to read his issues. Why? Because of what he did to Vision and to Scarlet Witch. The damage to Vision -- the ugly new look and the robotic personality -- was eventually, and very effectively, undone by Bob Harras in Avengers. The damage to Scarlet Witch may have started out as Byrne's typical turn-back-the-clock nonsense -- specifically to rejoin her and Quicksilver with Magneto, just like they were in the early Silver Age -- but the long-term reprecussions were disastrous. Byrne's story directly influenced Bendis (and Bendis has confirmed this in interviews) to turn Wanda evil. And for that, Byrne can never be forgiven.

In an amusing irony, Byrne's exit from WCA was just as abrupt as Englehart's, and it was caused by similar editorial disagreements (specifically, both writers clashed with Marvel's then-EiC, Tom DeFalco.) Byrne's replacements were the husband-and-wife team of Roy Thomas & Dann Thomas. I've only read a few of their issues, mainly the ones that tied into Operation Galactic Storm and Bloodties, and found them to be lazy and by-the-numbers. WCA was cancelled at the end of the Thomases' run, making the book one which arguably never found any sort of peak, despite running for almost a decade.

I'll get back to this a bit later - my WCA/AWC reading is a bit spotty, and a while back at that.

The ending of the series was rushed as hell though - you've got the Death of Mockingbird, which appeared to be a 100th issue stunt for a sales boost. Then you've got a crossover (Bloodties) issue which has absolutely no connection to the previous issue (except in that Mockingbird was obviously absent). And then DnA were brought in to restart the flagging book under a new title, with a last issue which was almost pure deck-clearing as a result (Although, while far less satisfying to read, probably worked better for sales than giving them eight issues to fill/deck-clear before giving them the new #1).

Then they killed off Wonder Man . Who, as we've previously discussed, got brought back by Busiek as if nothing in WCA/AWC or later/elsewhere had ever happened.

I think I jumped in on the Byrne bandwagon, and ended up finding USAgent to be a pretty darn compelling character (more so than Captain America, which is probably sixteen different brands of heresy, considering that if anyone admitted to me that they liked Guy Gardner better than Kyle or John Stewart, I'd be tempted to flee in horror).

There were a lot of interesting standalone issues, such as That Which Prevails, something that Byrne does pretty well, but there wasn't much of a compelling arc, and Byrne has a habit of forgetting what he's done in the previous story and end up unintentionally treading and retreading the same damn story. Wanda in particular got soundly crapped upon, issue after issue, and I don't think Byrne *meant* to do that, but it happened nonetheless. It seemed like four arcs right in a row utterly decimated the poor woman (kids wiped from existence, husband discombobulated, possessed by critters, kidnapped to be the bride of Set, blah-blah).

In retrospect, Byrne's reputation for misogyny probably didn't get any favors from his treatment of both Wanda and Tigra in this set of stories. He didn't hold back on dumping on the menfolk either (USAgent having his parents murdered, for instance), but even then it looked bad to me and I didn't have any idea yet what 'Women in Refrigerators' meant.

I was fond of the Hank Pym character, as in the one who no longer called himself Yellow-Ant-Giant-Goliath-Man. He no longer exists, but it was an interesting notion.

I didn't mind the pale Vision, since he definitely didn't seem to be emotionless (and, frankly, I liked the ghostly coloration better than than Vision as the ghost-of-christmas in red, green and yellow), just lacking in some of his memories. It had the potential to be an interesting arc, but, like Carol Danvers and her emotional plunderage, was pretty much handled off-screen, ignored, and then gotten rid of when it proved inconvenient, much like his new coloration. I kinda loathe how terrified comics execs are of change. Spider-Man can't change his costume for more than a year. Professor X's back can't stay unbroken for more than 10 issues. If someone's powers change, they will inevitably change back. If someone cuts their hair into a funky mohawk and changes their entire demeanor, they'll be back to the old style within a year. I imagine that Scott Summers will have his glasses on within the year, despite being freaking cured, and that Rogue will never learn to control her powers, despite a half-dozen ways to control her power having been floated past her.

As relates to WCA, we've got Wanda, developed to become a parent, and then retconned back into being a non-parent, we've got Vision, changed and then changed back, we've got Hank Pym, abandoning his character growth to revert to Yellowjacket. Grr. It's like being a Legion fan all over again. Spend years growing along with Garth and Imra, and then watch them endlessly rebooted, their kid(s), their marriage, their entire *history* retconned out of existence, again and again.

For all that Byrne seemed to take a sadistic childlike glee in smacking Wanda around, he also gave her some of her most impressive moments, I thought. At one point, she is standing in front of the military complex in which her husband was dissassembled, and she points at it and the whole building just collapses into a pile of rubble and dust. The blurb is something like (paraphrasing), "Wanda has no idea what impossibly long odds it would be that every structural support, every brick of concrete and beam of steel, every spot of paint and spool of cable, would all fail exactly at the same moment. Nor does she care. She wants this building to die, and die it does."

She also has one pretty buff moment when the team is exploring the new information that the Vision is *not* actually composed of the body of the WWII era Human Torch, as previously believed. The Avengers are at the grave of said Torch, Hammond, and gabbing about how it can't be possible and blither-blather about if the robot is actually in the grave or not and Wanda, who is still freaking out about her husband being ripped open like a crackerjack box yells at them to shut up, waves her hands and reactivates the Human Torch robot, who has been inactive in this grave for about 50 years or so.

He comes bursting up on fire from his grave and she walks away, satisfied that he clearly isn't her husband, with the rest of the team is giving her a look like, 'uh, I guess *raising the dead* is one way to check who'se in the grave...'

But while I like many of the characters chosen, the stories were uneven and the artwork was appalling after Byrne left, prompting me to drop the comic like a hot potato when the WCA started fighting cactus people and gila monsters and embodiments of the four primal forces or whatever. Man, it got cheesy, almost as bad as the run on the normal Avengers where Gilgamesh got beaten up by lava monsters and the hydrobase got blown up by giant robots that appeared for the apparent sole purpose of blowing up hydrobase, 'cause the writers were tired of it...

I'm pretty sure one of the Shogun Warriors enemies showed up in there, Dr. Demonicus, or something. All we needed was a visit from Rom, Spaceknight to cement the descent into madness.

I've been reading and enjoying this topic, and, although it's been at least 10 years since I reread my WCAvengers issues, I will contribute in the hope of encouraging others to do so.

West Coast Avengers dates from the one period in my life in which I was buying a lot of Marvel titles. I only started buying Marvel-Universe series after the DC Implosion devastated my reading list, and I gave up on everything except Peter David's Hulk sometime before the "Heroes Reborn" fiasco -- and stopped buying Hulk when PAD left.

The stories in WCA may have been less ambitious than Englehart's other work of that period, but his issues certainly did have a quirky feel that was different from just about any other superhero title of the period.

My favorite character was probably "Dr. Pym, Scientific Adventurer!" Using Pym particles to shrink or enlarge anything except himself - at the time, I wished more had been done with this.

I didn't dislike Tigra the way Stealth does, but I'll admit that the cat-demon business got more panel time than it deserved.

Character Note That Some People May Care About: the Iron Man that was in the WCA was James Rhodes, not Tony Stark.

I will agree that, as far as I can remember, the art during the Englehart run was never better than average.

Memorable Moments:

-The conclusion of the Dr. Doom storyarc (in which the real Doom contended with the brainwashed-into-believing-he-was-Doom Kristoff for control of Latveria and the loyalty of the Doombots): the real Doom, in a rare show of maturity, acknowledged that maybe he'd made some not-so-good decisions lately. The listening Doombots take this admission as evidence that he must be the phony, and throw their support behind Kristoff once and for all.

-West Coast Avengers had one of my all-time favorite fill-in issues (yeah, a dubious distinction I know, but work with me here ), in which interdimensional would-be invaders abduct the WCA, as a representative sample of Earth's defense forces, and make each of them face a robot warrior in single combat. Dr. Pym defeated his opponent by shrinking it down to the size of a bug and STEPPING on it!!

I dropped the title sometime after Byrne came on board, being seriously unimpressed with the story ideas he brought to the book.

I've been hoping the last couple days someone would start this back up again! I've read about the first 70 issues of this book-- not in the proper sequence (which doesn't help), but only once, ages ago, so it's easier for me to respond to comments than post new ones.


"Except for Tigra, whom I dislike intensely"

Is it the character, or the way she's handled? I keep thinking of that 2-parter by Shooter & Weiss where Shooter turned her into a wimpy coward! (WTF was that guy's problem??? I know, we've all asked that question before.) A shame, as I sometimes liked her, particularly when she turned up near the end of Roy Thomas' 2nd run on the FF (where she seemed as goofy as Hellcat often used to be).


"And the art on the WCA mini-series, by Bob Hall and Brett Breeding, is IMO better than any of the art I've seen from the WCA ongoing issues that I've read."

If memory serves, the WCA mini was almost like a sequel to the HAWKEYE mini, art by the same guys, where Hawkeye first met Mockingbird, fell in love and wound up getting married all in one story! (Shades of DHARMA AND GREG.)


"I don't think Englehart's WCA is his best work by any stretch of the imagination"

Steve had been my #1 favorite comics writer of the 1970's. He always seemed like the ONE guy of that era who could write just about any book better than anyone else. It was a real blow when he quit Marvel, then left comics altogether. When he came back, his work was very uneven. COYOTE started out brilliant, then devolved into "WTF?"-ness. His FF and WCA wavered from pretty good to pretty BAD. His run on GREEN LANTERN / GREEN LANTERN CORPS really seemed inspired-- until Joe Staton took off to do MILLENNIUM, at which point everything seemed to degenerate. I loved his early SILVER SURFER-- was hurt by the editorial interference (which he later denied on his website), and thought his last year on the book was "readable"-- but that was about it. Much better than his last year on the FF.


"What on Earth, then, could have possessed Englehart to write in a subplot about Mockingbird being kidnapped, drugged, and raped? It completely ruins the story!"

That had to do with the original GHOST RIDER, didn't it? Talk about destroying the reputation for a long-standing hero! I still don't know what was going on there.


"John Byrne became both writer and artist on WCA, and I refuse to read his issues. Why? Because of what he did to Vision and to Scarlet Witch."

It's a horrible shame. I was so far behind on my reading, I actually STARTED reading WCA with Byrne's issues, then went back later to read the entire Englehart run. At the time, I thought Byrne's art was top-notch, and his writing (style) was still decent. But WHAT he was writing-- again-- "WTF????" What's the point of drawing a really hot Scarlet Witch if you're gonna treat her THAT way?


"considering that if anyone admitted to me that they liked Guy Gardner better than Kyle or John Stewart, I'd be tempted to flee in horror"

Heh. Funny... under Englehart, Guy Gardner developed a bad attitude via some form of brain-damage. Then Keith Giffen came along, and in JLI, turned that "brain-damaged" personality into one of the highlights of the book. (Some things work better when they're funny-- like JJJ.) But in the last 2 years, Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons have genuinely written the BEST Guy Gardner I've ever seen. Especially when Gibbons is also doing the art!


"Rogue will never learn to control her powers, despite a half-dozen ways to control her power having been floated past her"

Rogue was a MAJOR sore point for me way back when she was first introduced. After she joined the X-Men, I could not believe that Professor X NEVER (in any stories I read) even tried to find a way to help her control her power, since that seemed one of the main points of being an X-Man was about! (That was over 20 years ago, I admit, but it's still a valid complaint.)


"the artwork was appalling after Byrne left"

Yeah, I agree with that. Ironic, isn't it, considering how long Byrne has caught hell for HIS art going bad in the years since.


"Mike Machlan, had done nice work for DC, particularly the early issues of Infinity Inc. But his inking on WCA makes Milgrom's pencils even more mediocre than they already are."

I could never understand that. A LOT of inkers have done GREAT work at DC and C*** work at Marvel. Editorial incompetence? Brett Breeding once told me of how his Spidey editor used to let pages sit on his desk for weeks at a time, instead of looking them over and passing them on to the next stage of the assembly-line immediately. As a result, by the time he got 'em, they were already late, and his 2 choices were blown deadlines or rushed-looking art, which hurt his reputation. Then again, Al Milgrom USED to be a decent artist in the 70's (and I see he's doing good work again these days). But when Shooter was in charge, for whatever reason, Milgrom became one of the WORST artists at Marvel. I suppose his work dragged down both Sinnott AND Machlan-- and good as he was, Machlan was no Sinnott. (Who is?)

Being even more of an Avengers fan than even a Legion fan, it's time I add my views on all this.

New Avengers still isn't my cup of tea, even though Civil War has now stirred things up a bit and AT LAST something is happening in the book. But this is the Defenders, not the Avengers. Bendis still can't write a team book after all this time, but as long as the title sells, we won't have a return back to the "real" Avengers.

Mighty Avengers could be a great book. The team is a good mix, but once again, Bendis prefers spending time ridiculising Hank Pym than writing a good script with the characters he uses. He can't even write proper thought balloons. And I agree, Cho should go back to Liberty Meadows. This way, I wouldn't have to suffer through his art in Avengers. It's not a good match

Initiative is a very interesting book. Loads of potential and certainly very well written. Still it neeeds to find the right balance. Getting there though. But Slott has my vote only for redeeming Hank Pym, the most wronged character in a Marvel Comic book.

Young Avengers: The best of the lot! I'm so looking forward to the second season, even if it's only co-written by Heinberg.

Marvel Adventures Avengers: Great book showing how Wolverine and Spider-Man can really work in the Avengers. Bendis, take some notes please!

Ultimates... OK, the 26 issues by Millar were just great. Now, I'm really scared to see volume 3 by Loeb, whom I consider a very overrated writer

profh0011 The thing here is when the comic inevitably comes out with the retcon that Professor X was always an evil manipulative prick (a la the new version of the Doom Patrol's Chief), suddenly his apparent unwillingness to ever actually help characters like Rogue and Scott, which we've seen that characters like Emma, Jean and Magneto can cure *like that,* turns out to be just Charles being a controlling ass and keeping them under his thumb by forbidding them any chance of actually ever leaving and living a normal life.

I know that in a 'meta' sense it was nothing of the sort, at the time, and Charles didn't flex his mighty frontal lobe and retrain his wards to be able to control their powers in about the same amount of time it would take him to teach them to speak an alien language fluently was because the story demanded that Cyclops retain his trademark glasses and Rogue have something emo to whine about with the whole, 'I can't screw Gambit, but really want to, please pity me' character theme. [Add Wolverine and Storm and, more recently, the Beast, to the list of X-folk with mental conditions that Chuck could have helped with, if not actually snapped his fingers and cured, if he had the slightest inclination to actually do so...]

But nowadays, it's 'cool' to turn old long-standing 'heroes' into mustachio-twirling manipulative bastards, with Charles, Reed and Tony at the head of the wannabe-a-supervillain class, so I'm just waiting to read that inevitable bit of character assassination, disguised as 'character development.'

Anywho, my point was that character development, character growth, character *change,* is not a bad thing. Quesada has stated openly that he wants to kill off Mary-Jane and return Spider-Man to being an unmarried geeky no-luck-but-bad-luck sort of fellow, that he feels Spidey being married somehow detracts from the character. Didio has stated openly that he wants to kill of Nightwing, since he doesn't think that there is any room for a character that isn't Robin anymore. As long as reactionary twits like this remain in charge, viewing the characters as inflexible static forever-changeless IPs and 'properties' and 'trademark / icons,' they are never going to be able to grow and develop. If they'd been in charge at the beginning, the Hulk would still be grey (as would Iron Man), Reed and Sue never would have married, Garth and Imra never would have had a kid, Gwen Stacy never would have died, the Silver Surfer would still be trapped on Earth, Hank Pym would be Giant-Man, etc. since they *fear change.*

I never really read much WCA, except a few issues here and there, though I came in on the last 25 or so of the series. I have to say, at the time, I thought it wasn't that bad, considering what else was being offered by Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant and Dark Horse. I found myself at first hating the line-up, but then growing fond of US Agent, Spider-Woman (Julia), Rhodey as War Machine and even Darkhawk when he was appearing. Of course, Hawkeye had his second run as Goliath II, which was absurd, and Wanda was never really written right in the 90’s. But overall, it wasn’t *too* bad, though I have to really reread the issues to give it an honest review. I remember reading the Mockingbird death issue, but at the time, I hardly knew who she was (I didn’t read her stories until a few years after I read her death). Honestly, I’m largely ambivalent about the character now, as I like Hawkeye as an unmarried man, and don’t see what made her unique in comparison to a hundred other similar characters.

I did read Force Works when it came out, and I remember then thinking it wasn’t that great. The art was over the top, Wonder Man was killed VERY poorly, Century was a bit of an odd character that has been completely ignored. But on the other hand, US Agent had a cool new costume, there was a Recorder with an interesting subplot, and Iron Man was well done here IIRC. There was an early sense by DnA that they were carving out their own little corner of the Avengers-MU, and it was working. Then came along the Crossing, which completely destroyed the book. Tony was ruined, of course, but also there was an odd subplot about an inserted-into-continuity hero named Moonraker with a relationship with Julia or Wanda or something, and it pretty much fell flat from there.

I honestly think part of the reason Avengers West Coast isn’t being clamored for by fans is because the title of the comic seems slightly ‘meh’. In my opinion, in order for such a comic to stand on its own, it needs a very real separation from the main Avengers title, but having a ‘West Coast Avengers’ team kind of implies that its working in unison with the East Coast. Even at age 11 I thought it was kind of weak.

So yeah, I never read the Englehart or Byrne issues, and I’ve got to say…I’m not sure I want to now

PS - in other news, Mighty and New Avengers continue to reach new levels of hack writing. Man, Bendis has really dropped the ball here.

I followed West Coast Avengers from the beginning until sometime after Byrne’s tenure. I think I stopped with # 78. What do I remember about WCA after all this time? I think it was an unnecessary title that turned out pretty well. Unnecessary because it was part of Marvel’s inflated expansion of the mid ‘80s: mini-series, X-Factor, New Universe, etc. – projects that seemed generated through marketing instead of creative vision. Actually, if there was a creative vision at all, it seemed to be Jim Shooter’s idea of the Big Bang: expand as rapidly as possible in as many directions as possible. The end result was a watered-down line of comics without any real thought as to what made each title unique.

WCA started out in this vein. The characters were all second-stringers -- Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra, Jim Rhoades as Iron Man – who were suddenly elevated to star status. “Second stringers” may not be the best term; they were actually supporting characters who added flavor to the regular Avengers title, but lacked the substance to be truly important to it. I expected their own book to be about the same: All frosting and no cake.

But thanks to Steve Englehart, WCA turned out to be a fun, engaging, and sometimes even insightful read – often more so than the regular Avengers book. It’s been years since I’ve read those stories, so my memories are vague (Wonder Man becoming an actor; Master Pandemonium, etc.). The only story that truly stands out is Englehart’s “Lost in Space-Time” arc. As Stealth mentioned above, the story telling mechanics were clever and that alone made it memorable to me. But Englehart went further by bringing in Firebird as a Christian who counsels Hank Pym out of suicide, and then by having Mockingbird be raped by and then kill the Phantom Rider.

I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter what happens to characters – it’s how they respond to their circumstances that makes a story compelling and reveals character (and, therefore, reveals truths about the human experience). Both of these story lines tackled real and tragic problems: Friends sometimes do try to kill themselves (and sometimes succeed), even those you would never expect; women sometimes are raped, even “strong” and “independent” women. The fact that these circumstances happened to characters we care about makes these stories significant, in my opinion: How the characters reacted to their circumstances tells us a little about ourselves.

Hank Pym’s story line had a positive outcome. He came to realize that suicide wasn’t the answer (and kudos to Englehart for Firebird’s role in this; people often come to such a decision through spiritual or faith intervention). Furthermore, he came to accept himself as a “plainclothes” scientist who made *other* things grow and shrink. I viewed this as a metaphor for any number of conditions (physical, spiritual, sexual, etc.) that people have trouble accepting in themselves. (This is why it’s hard for me to accept Hank returning to his Giant-Man identity; it’s like saying, “Now that you’ve accepted being gay, you can go back to being straight.”)

Mockingbird’s story turned out differently. She sought revenge (understandably) and took it to its final conclusion, but the consequences devastated her and her marriage. I don’t recall if Hawkeye knew fully what had happened to her, but he could not abide a wife who had murdered. His reaction mirrored that of many men whose wives and partners make similar, life-altering decisions. (I remember equating Mockingbird’s actions and Clint’s reaction to abortion, which was major news at the time.) Whether it was right or wrong for him to feel this way was left to the reader to decide. But Hawkeye and Mockingbird became very human characters as a result of this story line; Englehart forced the reader to question his or her own attitudes about life, death, and the relationships of men and women.

WCA/ACW never again reached similar heights for me – certainly not during Byrne’s sloppy re-plastering job, in which bad things seemed to happen just because they were bad things. After Byrne left, the stories became standard super-hero fare. I remember the Living Lightning (whom I thought of as a Hispanic stereotype) and the unnecessary resurrection of the original Human Torch, and little else.

Though my memories of the early WCA, are vague, my impressions of it are fond. In some ways, it truly rose above the mediocre expectations I had for it. I think it helped that Englehart kept a consistent core membership: this allowed him to take chances in character development that would have been impractical in the regular Avengers title. Byrne’s practice of rotating the membership between the two Avengers books destroyed WCA's uniqueness. The book already had a fragile identity to begin with; after Byrne, it seemed to have no identity at all.