Issue(s): West Coast Avengers #11
Cover Date: Aug 86
Title: "Pride of the regiment"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
Al Milgrom - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker
Howard Mackie - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
For all his sins regarding his depiction of Tigra, Steve Englehart has been doing a decent job with his portrayal of Mockingbird, reminding us that she's a trained SHIELD operative and showing her to be quite effective against superior foes. This issue, which was an attempted tie-in with the perpetually delayed SHIELD mini-series, plays on those ties, and has Mockingbird getting outraged over some media reports on the former agency, notably the crash of the Helicarrier and accusations of "agent brutality" (which, if they refer to the same incident that caused the Helicarrier crash, are true, and maybe Mockingbird should really be complaining to She-Hulk about talking to the press). Mockingbird decides to visit Nick Fury, and Hawkeye and Iron Man go along with her.

The team seems to have all but given up hunting Master Pandemonium, which is especially annoying considering Tigra's resolution last issue. She's seen here hanging out by the pool...

...and decides to go hang out with Wonder Man (to be fair, see the References. The hunt for Master P has been delegated to Hank Pym).

After we see that the LA SHIELD headquarters is hidden under a hairdresser's salon instead of a barber shop....

...Mockingbird and company get the cold shoulder at SHIELD.

And on their way home, they are attacked by three villains from Master of Kung Fu.

They actually seem tailor-made for these particular Avengers. Shockwave has a powered exo-skeleton like Iron Man, Zaran is a master of weapons and fights Hawkeye, who is at least the master of a weapon...

...and Mockingbird pits her bo-sticks against Razorfist's razor fists.

We learn that Mockingbird got her name because her fighting style makes it seem like she is mocking her opponents by always being one step ahead of them.

She tricks Razorfist into shanging his chi against her battle-staves while forgetting about her foot...

...and ultimately gets to beat him in the ass repeatedly while he lies on the ground and cries.

Shockwave thinks that he has an advantage against Iron Man because he's willing to kill, but Iron Man finds a loophole against that restriction.

The three villains eventually flee, loudly claiming that they work for Monsieur Khruul and the Blood Tong, but they fly off in a SHIELD flying car...

..and leave behind a clue for readers saying that they were actually hired by SHIELD.

Again, this was meant as a tie-in or promo for the Nick Fury vs. SHIELD miniseries, but that series won't actually come out until 1988. This isn't the first time this happened; 1984's Hulk #297-300 had similar references that went nowhere. The delays on that book were apparently epic.

Tigra, meanwhile, gets jealous at Wonder Man's set while he gets friendly with Christy Carson.

Just because Tigra "play[s] the field" doesn't mean Wonder Man should be showing interest in other women.

She consoles herself by hitting on Wonder Man's director.

The Master of Kung Fu villains make nice opponents for these Avengers, as long as we allow that Shockwave can go a few rounds with Iron Man. Of course the group would have had less luck if Wonder Man was also with the team at the time, but they could have formed a nice foundation for a team of villains and i wouldn't have minded seeing them come back. But since they're tied to the delayed SHIELD plot, they don't reappear again in the same capacity.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Iron Man #208-209. Iron Man references the satellite research facility that he's been working on.

References:

• The SHIELD Helicarrier crashed in Marvel Graphic Novel #18.
  
• Mockingbird changed her hairstyle after it got chopped while she was fighting Werewolf by Night in West Coast Avengers #5. Hawkeye doesn't like her shorter cut, and they have some good-natured bickering about it this issue.
  
• Iron Man stopped selling weapons to SHIELD circa Iron Man #129.
  
• Bobbi Morse spent time in the Savage Land from a period beginning in Astonishing Tales #8 and ending in Ka-Zar #5.
  
• She briefly became Huntress in Marvel Super Action #1.
  
• And then became Mockingbird in Marvel Team-Up #95.
  
• Iron Man referencing the satellite research facility gets a footnote for "current issues of Iron Man". We first saw it in Iron Man #205.
  
• Henry Pym goes to the LA department of records to look up information on Master Pandemonium's movie studio that the team learned about in West Coast Avengers #9.
  
• Pym doesn't mind taking on the research work because it takes his mind off the death of Ultron Mark Twelve, who died in West Coast Avengers #7.
  
• Zaran fought Captain America in Captain America #302. He's pleased to fight these American fighters like Cap and Hawkeye after fighting his way through Europe and Asia.
  
• Monsieur Khruul was shown in Avengers #123.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I agree that the MoKF villains made a nice team. With Zaran in Batroc's Brigade, it would have been nice to see Shockwave and Razor Fist should up there.

Say what you will about Englehart, but I loved how he wrote Mockingbird--he was the one who made her one of my favourite Avengers. For a long time it seemed like he and Mark Gruenwald were the only ones who could write her well. After Englehart left WCA, no one really seemed to know what to do with her...until Jim McCann's HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD series a few years ago.

Her battle tactic of using constant chatter to distract her foes, and scathing sarcastic comments to mock them and make them sloppy, is something that is popular with some male heroes (noteably Deadpool and Spider-Man), but we don't see too many women that use it--at least not as directly as Bobbi did. That was something I really missed when later writers got ahold of her.

More issues of WCA should have been like this. They needed teams of villains to face ala lethal legion,masters of evil, etc.

MoKF had a lot of villains who could be integrated more into the MU proper as Zaran was. Especially, Shockwave (an armour wearing, electro-shock martial artist, how cool is that). However, this razor-fist should have only been missing one hand, not both.

So they have some elaborate cover story, but they lose a note on which it says who really hired them? How incompetent are these guys?

To be fair, the note was in code.

How does Razorfist dress himself, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, shower, blow his nose, wipe his tears after Bobbi beats him up?

I wish that guy with the maces in his hair had shown up too.

We saw 2 servants of Razorfist in an Elektra story. Presumably they do that stuff.

We also saw that with the "handmaidens" of a different weapons-for-hands guy in Master of Kung Fu: Bleeding Black.

They must have put Razorfist in charge of holding the note.