West Coast Avengers #17-24Issue(s): West Coast Avengers #17, West Coast Avengers #18, West Coast Avengers #19, West Coast Avengers #20, West Coast Avengers #21, West Coast Avengers #22, West Coast Avengers #23, West Coast Avengers #24 Review/plot: "I don't know how the action could be any more spectacular than it has been, but if upping our quota will do it, Wonder Man is for it!" That's Wonder Man, agreeing that heading to Albuquerque to recruit Firebird into the West Coast Avengers is a good idea. And someone that writes dialogue like that probably shouldn't be tackling a serious topic like depression and suicide. But while the whackos are heading to the desert, Henry Pym is writing suicide notes. To continue the tonal dissonance, the Avengers get themselves into a fight with a bunch of goofy desert themed villains (i don't know whether to laugh at these guys or demand that Cactus get his own series. And it's weird how Sunstroke is wearing a traditional looking villain costume while the rest are monsters)... ...while Pym is reflecting on his life and having what he thinks will be his conversation with the Wasp. And as much as Steve Englehart's scripting is incredibly clunky, the drama of the scene, the depression that Henry Pym feels, is deep enough to give it some power, especially when the Wasp realizes that something is wrong and asks to speak with Hawkeye, only to find out that he's not there. This is a bit of a tease, though, because the issue ends with Firebird, who has now has now become a super-nun calling herself La Espirita, showing up to stop Hank from shooting himself. Meanwhile, Iron Man has been feeling like Wonder Man has become too much of a braggart now that he's overcome his fear of death. He'd been ragging on Pym a bit on the flight over, and during the fight he was hogging the enemies. So when the desert villains flee, Iron Man pours on the speed to follow them. The villains lead the team to a desert cave where we meet their leader, a figure wearing the costume of Lucifer and calling himself Dominus. And it turns out that their attack was a lure; the Avengers find that they are standing on Dr. Doom's time machine and they are sent back in time. This kicks off a 7 part "Lost in Space-Time" arc. Hawkeye is ok with that, because cowboys! It's three years after Hawkeye's last visit to this time period, and the Marvel cowboy characters have now banded together and even have their own villains to fight. Wonder Man takes the broken time machine to "Two-Gun's pal, Boom-Boom Brown" and the rest go to help the Western heroes with their villains. Mockingbird goes with the Night Rider, and there's some interesting phrasing there. Cowboy villains ought not to be too much of a challenge for the Avengers, and that's the case here... ...but there's also a Living Totem to contend with. Actually, he's not much of a challenge either. It turns out, however, that the time machine can't be repaired, and will only continue to go backwards in time. So Wonder Man suggests going all the way back to the day of Rama-Tut and get him to repair it. However, it turns out that Night Rider has developed a thing for Mockingbird and has decided she's a goddess, and so he grabs her off the time-platform and runs away with her at the last minute. The Avengers sans Bobbi wind up in 1776, where Wonder Man uses the opportunity of Hawkeye being worried about his wife's safety to suggest that maybe he should take over the team. But he ignores that, and Wonder Man later proves his ineptitude by trying to destroy a bunch of Spanish soldier's guns, causing an explosion that gives Hawkeye a bad burn. They later meet Carlotta Valdez, the woman that Firebird had a vision about earlier in the series. Hawkeye gets the idea to give her a note telling Firebird that the West Coast Avengers are lost in time and heading for Rama-Tut's Egypt and asks her to contact the Fantastic Four. He also drops an arrow head in a cave. The Avengers fly across the world to Egypt so they wind up in the right place when they time-travel (if location is important, i hope they took the Earth's rotation around the sun and the sun's position in the universe into account as well), and eventually make it to the time of Rama-Tut. Unfortunately, this is the older, good guy Rama-Tut, and he is just soooo tired right now. Almost as tired as someone reading a 7 part time travel story. The good news is that through all these trials, Hawkeye's leadership has been shining through, and the rest of the team, even Wonder Man, are respecting him and willing to continue to follow. They go back further in time to find the earlier, villainous Rama-Tut, but he's ready for them. The paralyzed Avengers are dumped in a room with a statue of Khonshu, Moon Knight's patron god. Meanwhile, in 1876, Night Rider gives Mockingbird a love potion... ...and she helps him fight off the other cowboy heroes that come to rescue her. She does wind up in the same cave where Hawkeye drops that arrowhead, though, and takes it with her. Later, he buys a wedding dress because he intends to "marry" her. When the Avengers are dumped in front of the Khonshu statue and Hawkeye mutters that he's still going to find Mockingbird, she gains a semblance of self-awareness and recoils from Night Rider for the first time. Back in the further past, Hawkeye has a conversation with Khonshu... ...who agrees to put in a word to Moon Knight in the present in return for the Avengers helping him take vengeance against Rama-Tut. Back in the present day, Moon Knight gets the message. Also, in the present, Firebird convinces Pym that he's been going about things all wrong by trying to be a traditional super-hero, something he's failed at in four different ways. Instead, he mockingly asks if he should become the Amazing Lab-Man, but that actually is the general idea. She starts guiding him to a solution using scientific inquiry. It's a good set of scenes. And he eventually builds "Rover". And comes up with the idea to keep equipment on his person in ant-size, to be re-grown as needed. And he even comes up with a new super-hero name and costume for himself. Well, sort of. Also, holy rebound relationship. Literally, holy. Back in the Egyptian past, the Avengers get loose and begin fighting their way through Rama-Tut's base. The Whackos are the third set of super-heroes to appear in this scene, after the Fantastic Four... ...and Doctor Strange. Dr. Strange's presence is more plausible since he could be in astral form. The combined power of Iron Man and Wonder Man really ought to have changed the dynamic here. Just to make it completely over the top, i'd love to see a Deadpool story with him coming here as well. Back in the present, Moon Knight shows up at the West Coast compound. And Pym, obviously now in a manic phase, shows off his new powers. Moon Knight does get Bonita to look at her Bible, which is where Hawkeye's message from the past has wound up, and they then contact the Fantastic Four. But it turns out that Dominus anticipated them getting contacted, so he (off panel) launched an attack on the FF, destroying their time machine (which i thought was already destroyed in Fantastic Four #278-279). Still feeling super-confident, Pym heads to the east coast in Rover with Moon Knight and Firebird and starts fixing the time machine. And they do get it fixed, and head back to ancient Egypt where the Avengers are helping the locals with a rebellion that also inspires the weaponry eventually used by Moon Knight. It's a big group! Henry Pym's Ant-Man/Goliath-colored clothing will be quickly abandoned, luckily. Back in the western era, Two-Gun and Rawhide help Mockingbird fully recover from Night Rider's brainwashing, and she vows to be unpleasant towards him. And she does hunt him down, and well, doesn't quite kill him, but certainly lets him die. The Avengers then show up to pick her up... ...but Mockingbird doesn't mention that she was brainwashed and raped, or that she let Night Rider die. Just that "he killed himself". The final issue, not technically part of the "Lost in Space-Time" arc, is the team returning to the present to fight Dominus and his desert dudes. A little background on him. He is from the same alien race as Lucifer... ...and the idea is that after Lucifer's repeated failures, the aliens decided to lay low for a while until people forgot about him, and then sent Dominus to try again. It's said that Dominus made the desert creatures, expecting to come into conflict with the Defenders or the Rangers, but both of those groups disbanded. It's worth noting that the desert creatures appeared in the continuity insert in Marvel Tales #262, which should give you a sense for how long this Dominus has been on Earth. And now the fight. Dominus has created duplicates of all the desert guys except Sunstroke. Wonder Man's attitude problem isn't completely resolved. Hawkeye observes that Mockingbird is more "intense". Firebird vs. Sunstroke. Dominus reveals that he is enslaved by, and actually is the super-computer that his alien race uses. Based on Dominus' claim, i'm using a single Character tag for this Dominus and the super-computer from the original X-Men story. That may not be entirely accurate - the MCP list them as two separate characters - but that's the way i'm interpreting it. Dominus uses the computer to enslave the Avengers, but what he doesn't count on is Moon Knight's multiple personalities. Dominus escapes in a rocket, and Iron Man, Firebird (i know i should be calling her La Espirita, sorry), and Wonder Man pursue him into space. Iron Man is mystified that Firebird can breathe - not that she doesn't need to breathe, but she actually breathes - in space. But they have to cut their chase short when Wonder Man, whose rockets can't function without air, falls back to Earth (Iron Man: "That idiot!"). Sunstroke also manages to escape. When it's all over, Moon Knight and But Wonder Man hears from his Hollywood guys that no one likes his new costume. And when the other Avengers tell him not to worry about it and wear whatever he wants, he gets defensive and sends them away, talking about how maybe he doesn't need the Avengers anymore. If it seems like i didn't give as much detail about the ins and outs of the time-travel story, well, that's just the way i feel about that. I always find these things exhausting. There's actually several important things going on in this arc. The cute triple-crossover in the Rama-Tut era is worthy of a mention on its own. On a much more serious note, Mockingbird is raped and this will create a rift with her husband Hawkeye. There's also the developments for Wonder Man. And the major change for Henry Pym. And some new Avengers. As always, Englehart has some good ideas mixed in here. His handling of Pym alone is both very innovative and incredibly clunky. The man was suffering serious, suicidal depression, and you don't just bounce back from that. But his bounce is a good one, and a very innovative way to use a character that was never comfortable as a traditional super-hero but kept getting pulled into that life. Then there's Mockingbird's rape. Dealing with rape and suicide in the same story as a talking cactus and a goofy time travel romp, it's just a perfect example of Englehart's plusses and minuses. He wants to be a serious writer, but also loves the rich, fun, crazy history of the Marvel universe, and can't find a way to blend his serious themes with the more wild stuff. It's just all kind of thrown in here. I do wonder, if Englehart had a better artist here than the very stiff Al Milgrom, if his stories might have worked better. All that said, i don't know if, even if handled better, Mockingbird really needed a rape in her backstory. The statistics on rape are higher than we like to talk about (rape by semi-mystical cowboys while time-traveling is another thing). So it's fair to say it's a topic that is worth exploring, that there can be a female super-hero who has had to deal with it. On the other hand, taking an established character with a really long and varied history already and adding this to it this late in her career seems unnecessary. I know that Englehart has plans here; he's not "just" throwing this in during the middle of this high concept time-travel story. But surrounded by so much other clutter, it doesn't feel like it's getting the attention it deserves to do properly. But i see i'm back to the "not handled well" question. And i guess that's really preventing me from seeing further on this. Englehart is not good at this type of character development. Or writing women. We just went through some horrible stuff with Tigra. So of all writers to handle a rape theme, i wouldn't pick him. But we'll look at Englehart's handling of this more in coming issues. Tom Brevoort said in 2015 that this is his favorite West Coast Avengers story. I thought that was interesting because it feels to be so much the opposite of stories that were produced circa 2015. Quality Rating: C Chronological Placement Considerations: A footnote places this after Avengers #277. Note that i am not listing the "local" characters for the time-travel story. I will one day figure out a better solution for that. The (present day) FF appear here between Fantastic Four #303-304. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (16): show CommentsWho knew there were Cactuar in the Marvelverse? Posted by: Ataru320 | March 5, 2014 4:53 PM I like this one, despite it's goofiness. I remember being generally afraid Pym would check out (considering I knew next to nothing about him at the time). It was convoluted at times but sometimes the cosmicness of it all was fun. Moon Knight being the way that Konshu kept his deal plus the way that he was the big hero (I doubt thats how split personalities work but who cares?) Mockingbird's arc was good. I was glad she took revenge herself (She's an ex-spy and probably has red in her ledger) but knew Hawk was too much a straight arrow to understand. And wonderman, what a jerk! Posted by: kveto from prague | March 5, 2014 7:13 PM Phantom Rider was a man that hurt a woman the way that only a man can. And Englehart hurt a reader the way that only a writer can. Bobbi actually thought to herself, "I was an '80's woman when we met but I'm real old fashioned when it comes to loving my man." Has ANY married woman in all of human history ever thought anything remotely resembling that to herself after being raped? Posted by: Michael | March 5, 2014 9:08 PM I like Firebird. She is better than Mockingbird and Tigra. She isn't used enough in comics. Posted by: Steven Printz | March 6, 2014 12:35 AM Dr. Pym sure seems to be inspired by Dr. Who's fashion sense there Posted by: S | March 6, 2014 1:48 AM I have to say, while I recognize all of the faults of Englehart's writing and Milgrom's artwork, their West Coast Avengers run is pretty high on my list of guilty pleasures. Maybe it's partly nostalgia as I loved this series as a kid. I pull my back issues out every few years and read them again. They just read like good old fashioned uncomplicated comics to me. To compare them to movies, they're like fun "B" movies that are entertaining in spite of (and sometimes because of) their faults. Posted by: Robert | March 6, 2014 8:34 AM The Word Espirita does not exist in the Spanish language. Posted by: Jay Gallardo | March 6, 2014 1:35 PM It's hilarious to see Wonder Man in some of these panels. He has the classic superhero pose - hands on hips, chest puffed up. He was always so full of himself. At least Tigra had an interesting personality. Posted by: clyde | March 6, 2014 2:53 PM @clyde: so true! Posted by: Shar | March 6, 2014 5:02 PM I believe Espirita is from Esperanto. The term was used with spiritism. While I agree Engelhart's writing went downhill by this point, and there are some bad points, I found WCA to be fun, overall as well. Posted by: ChrisKafka | March 6, 2014 6:02 PM @Jay Gallardo: not in Spanish, perhaps. But in Portuguese it is usually associated with a particularly sick yet popular belief, nearly extinct outside Brazil. As a doctrine, it is quite the can of worms, because it is both completely incompatible with Christianity (including Bonita's Catholicism) and self-styled as its natural "evolution". IIRC Bonita presents herself as "La Espirita", which implies the use of Spanish language (not Portuguese) and at the same time the adoption of animist (non-Christian) beliefs. My best guess is that Englehart had a storyline planned for her revolving around her no-longer-human nature. Much was made of her apparent immortality during her Espirita phase. Posted by: Luis Dantas | March 8, 2014 8:06 AM I actually liked this story despite all the problems FNORD12 noted. I thought the main story was quite ambitious, and that Englehart treated the complexities of time travel it deserved. As far as I know, all the divergent time lines made sense and did not lead to continuity errors and paradoxes. This is tight plotting. I consider this to be one of the highlights of the series, and one of the few times I picked up more than 2-3 issues in a row of the title. Posted by: Chris | March 8, 2014 7:06 PM I really liked this storyline at the time and the run in general, as silly as some of the villains were. I think Milgrom sometimes gets a bad rap although he was better on 'Avengers' than he was here, in my opinion. Some of Englehart's dialogue was abysmal too, with tons of exclamation marks!!!! The reunion between Mock and Hawkeye towards the end of this story was the worst offender, with Clint calling Phantom Rider a 'banana slug', if I remember rightly. You're totally on the money with Wonder Man. Englehart went right out and pushed him as being even stronger than Thor and called him the most powerful Avenger of all time several times but his attitude stunk ... and he never really got his comeuppance. He suffered a few bruises courtesy of the Abomination but seemed just as much of a blowhard afterwards. He made Hercules look shy and retiring. Wondy's attitude seemed to peter out a bit towards the end of Englehart's run though and Byrne seemed to transfer his arrogance onto USAgent, as well as dialing back his strength level a little. It's a shame, it would've been a nice change to have seen Wondy fighting it out with Hulk for the title of Marvel's strongest hero but other writers seemed to reluctant to pick up the ball. Posted by: Nick | March 11, 2014 5:58 AM At the time Englehart broke into comics, he was told to end every sentence in an exclamation point or a question mark because periods didn't show up with the printing process they were using. Unfortunately, he never stopped using exclamation points. Posted by: Michael | March 11, 2014 7:56 AM I think I have to give the nod back to the continuous "Master Panda-bear" put-down as most cringe worthy. Posted by: ChrisKafka | March 11, 2014 4:58 PM Were those corny Western-era villains intended as analogues for Silver Age contemporary Marvel villains? I mean, for Iron Mask, read Doctor Doom; for Doctor Danger, Magneto (same 'Master of Magnetism' self-title, and Hawkeye even lampshades this in one of the panels above); for the Fat Man, the Kingpin and maybe for Red Raven, the Vulture. Posted by: Harry | March 12, 2014 8:00 PM Probably not, since all those western villains were characters who had appeared in Marvel's western comics in the past. Posted by: ChrisKafka | March 12, 2014 8:27 PM The Western villains were most likely introduced to pump up sales at the time, since Marvel's Westerns were never huge sellers(except for the Living Totem, who came first and was an example of pre-MU Atlas monsters). Posted by: Mark Drummond | March 13, 2014 3:20 PM I agree with Steven Printz, Doc Pym's fedora/long ass scarf/trenchcoat may have been directly inspired by the Tom Baker Doctor, who was still the Doctor for the most part on AMERICAN PBS television in 1987. Posted by: George Gordon | March 14, 2014 10:53 PM In the 80s I was a big fan of Moon Knight's solo series, when it was being written by Moenech. The recent comics have been very very poor for Moon Knight, but I digress. Posted by: Damiano | March 17, 2014 8:35 AM Englehart claims per his website that "Hank Pym, having chosen to live, took on a non-superheroic identity at editor Mark Gruenwald's request." He also says #23 was one of his favorite issues. Posted by: Robert | May 28, 2014 3:18 PM Because a twelve year's old world can be mixed with goofy as well as sobering ideas, it could be that's just the right age to discover a storyline like this and think it's very cool, character-filled and fun, without the literary and experiential background to be bothered by its uneasy thematic blending. (But "Al Milgrom, pencils" were three words that made me feel gypped every time---too bad, he did some nice work in the 70's, I've found! God bless 'im, he's probably a pretty cool dude.) I'm not sure I want to dig it out again; I read what I found of it two dozen times back in the day! I found suicidal thinking darkly rebellious (though consequentially selfish), but wished better stories could be told with more not-quite-superhero characters like the Pym who evolved here. Posted by: Cecil Disharoon | July 5, 2014 3:23 AM An article in Amazing Heroes #149 confirmed that Henry Pym was going for the Tom Baker-Dr. Who look, and questioned how the fabric message in Espirita's bible didn't get lost, read by somebody else, or just plain decayed after 200 years. Posted by: Mark Drummond | December 28, 2014 11:49 AM Fnord, it seems there's a couple of errors with the scans in this review. Firstly, you have this text: It's three years after Hawkeye's last visit to this time period, and the Marvel cowboy characters have now banded together and even have their own villains to fight. But under the text there are some panels from much later in the story, when the Avengers have already traveled to ancient Egypt. Then the next piece of the next is this: Wonder Man takes the broken time machine to "Tow-Gun's pal, Boom-Boom Brown" and the rest go to help the Western heroes with their villains. Mockingbird goes with the Night Rider, and there's some interesting phrasing there. But the scan below doesn't fit the text; rather, it's a panel with all the Western villains, which I think should be under the first text I quoted. There's no scan on the page with the scenes you describe in the second text. Posted by: Tuomas | June 21, 2015 1:05 PM Thanks, Tuomas. Should be fixed now. Posted by: fnord12 | June 21, 2015 1:19 PM There are a couple of things that bug me a lot about Hawkeye's message from the past to Bonita: * When we first see the piece of fabric in the present day, it seems to be used as a bookmark in Bonita's family Bible, with Hawkeye's text clearly visible. So it wasn't hidden inside the books leather cover, or any other place where Bonita wouldn't have found it. Are we seriously supposed to believe that there's an ancient piece of fabric placed between the pages of Bonita's beloved family Bible, one that she says she has read many times, yet she's never noticed the mysterious text in the fabric? I get it that Englehart and Milgrom wanted to visually show the page had survived until the present day, but they should've done it in some other way that wouldn't have made Bonita look like an idiot. * The message simply asks the Fantastic Four to find the Avengers in Rama-Tut's Egypt. It doesn't give an exact year or any other indication of time and place beyond the extremely vague "Rama-Tut's Egypt". Now, we know (and Hawkeye knows) that Rama-Tut ruled for many years on two different occasions. Did he really expect that the FF would time travel to each day of each year of Rama-Tut's rule and scour the whole Egypt, until they manage to find the Avengers? What's worse is that at the time Hawkeye is writing the message, they know the exact location where they are, and they know they've traveled exactly 200 years to the past. So why doesn't Hawkeye write a message asking the FF to time travel to that desert in Arizona in 1787, and set the date in their time machine for whatever day it is when the story takes place? Then the Avengers could have just waited to find out whether the whole "message to future" thing worked out, and they would've spared themselves the trouble of traveling to Egypt, as well as saving the FF the trouble of figuring out which date to time travel to. Posted by: Tuomas | June 21, 2015 1:33 PM Fnord - first, I hate to point out errors (because, in all honesty, I hate when people point them out on my blog), but you twice mention Bonita joining the team (just before the final panel with Wonder Man, and in the Historical Considerations). But, unless there was some change later, she doesn't actually join (as the Annuals following this storyline make clear) - it's Moon Knight and Hank who officially join (they even make that clear on the cover of #21). But, on a more storyline related issue, you wrote in the Under Siege storyline that you were wondering if your perception was colored by loving it as a kid. Well, I loved Under Siege then and still love it now. I loved this as a kid, and well, there are some serious problems with it now. I recently got the Omnibus from the library and a lot of it was quite painful. First, as Tuomas points out, there are serious plot holes in it that just make the whole thing ridiculous (Tuomos - you are absolutely right). Second, as you point out, Englehart's writing is just not up to par for the serious parts and the rest is just a bit too ridiculous. I was bothered even as a kid that Simon, whose interactions with Hank were one of the best parts of the Avengers in the early 80's, had just become a complete dick. And his costume is just beyond hideous (I love that Hank makes fun of it). I always liked Hank and was glad that he was finally officially on the team, but this was all just not handled very well. Some of the parts of the story are still enjoyable - I love that Cactus is so ridiculous and everyone knows it. I love that Moon Knight's personalities allow him to beat Dominus (I had always been intrigued by Moon Knight, but was never a big fan of the street crime books like his or Cloak and Dagger or even a lot of Daredevil). I love the line "I'm not a nun." I will still always have a strong fondness for just the very idea of WCA, but this storyline, which I was obsessed with in 1987 (I have vivid memories of not being allowed to read one of the issues until vacation started because of not doing homework) just doesn't hold up when adult me goes to look at it. Posted by: Erik Beck | July 10, 2015 6:53 PM Thanks Erik. I guess i already thought of Pym as a member, so when Hawkeye says it "finally looks like we finally found some new members for our team" i assumed he was including Firebird along with Moon Knight. And she does get included in some Avengers Spotlight stories after this, so i always assumed she was a member in some capacity. But you're right that West Coast Avengers annual #2 states that she wasn't a member. Posted by: fnord12 | July 10, 2015 7:33 PM But she's treated like a former member in Avengers 305. Posted by: Michael | July 10, 2015 11:29 PM I always counted it as Firebird DID join the Avengers here...as an inactive or reserve member. She declines a spot on the active roster, but I think they still counted this as her being granted Avengers membership. Bonita would hardly be the first (or last) person to be granted membership without joining the active roster. Posted by: Dermie | July 11, 2015 1:19 AM You have omitted the fact that Iron Man and Wonder Man almost crossed paths with Doctor Strange, Clea and Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in WCA #20. Wonder Man also mentioned (in WCA #22) that he and Iron Man had seen Strange while they were in 1776. The three panels with Clea, Franklin and Strange take place between Doctor Strange #18 & 19. However, there is a small problem. According to WCA #20, the almost-meeting occurs in Philadelphia in July of 1776. Unfortunately, Doctor Strange #18 revealed that Strange and Clea met Franklin in March of 1775. And in Doctor Strange #19, Strange realized that the Franklin with whom Clea was seemingly having an affair must be an imposter because on that day, May fifth of 1775, Franklin could not have been at home because he was being chosen as a member of the Second Continental Congress. I don't know enough about American history to tell if this is accurate but it does indicate that Clea and Strange were in Philadelphia in 1775, not 1776. Who knows, maybe the damaged time machine briefly activated while the Whackos were flying from Arizona to Pennsylvania and it sent them back in time 14 months without them realizing it? Also, Hawkeye was trying to travel to the Twelfth Century when he used Doom's time machine (in a flashback in Avengers #142). He only ended up in the Old West of 1873 because he had been attacked by King while in the timestream. Finally, the time machine that Hawkeye was using when he ended up in the Old West was returned to the present in Avengers #140 with blood on its deck as part of a trap that Kang the Conqueror had set for the Avengers. So, where did the time machine Dominus found really come from? Posted by: Don Campbell | February 5, 2016 3:59 AM Don, i've added a reference to Doctor Strange #18. Thanks for pointing it (and the other things) out. Posted by: fnord12 | February 5, 2016 9:12 AM I know it's outside the scope of this site, but the post-Secret Wars Mockingbird miniseries, Slade is just a bad ex-boyfriend, and Hawkeye didn't divorce Bobbi because she thought she murdered Slade, it was because she cheated on him. The idea that Slade drugged her is "ridiculous." As a feminist middle finger to Engelhart's story I kind of like it, but the retcon, like a lot of post-Secret Wars stories, feels to me like weightless fan fiction. Posted by: Andrew | October 21, 2016 8:10 AM In Fantastic Four #19, Doctor Doom's time machine console remained in the present while they journeyed to the past. This presented no problem, because they were able to casually leave a blind woman alone in Doctor Doom's castle to operate it, and retrieve them from the past after a prearranged interval had elapsed. Then in West Coast Avengers #17-24, purportedly using the exact same time machine, the Wackos travel from time period to time period, taking the time machine console with them everywhere and everywhen they go, because continuity. We see the console in one of the scans above, seemingly floating in the air above the desert floor, just before they travel to 2940 BC (approximately 500 years before modern Egyptology tells us the Giza pyramids were built). The villainous Rama Tut fails to even notice it, maybe because it's off-panel, or perhaps because it's "broken."[/sarcasm] Posted by: Holt | November 10, 2017 2:35 AM The word they should have used is "Espíritu", which means "Spirit", and is part of "Espíritu Santo", which means "Holy Ghost" (one third of God). That was the theme they were setting up for her, with her bird of fire imagery and her faith. I suppose they thought the female form would have an "a" at the end and changed it to "Espirita", but that just makes it sound stupid for us Spanish-speaking people. Posted by: Cesar Hernandez-Meraz | December 1, 2017 3:02 AM I have thought that these same stories would definitely be better with other artists. Specially in the Marvel way, where artists are very important in the story-creation process. If a writer usually creates things focusing on the artist's strengths, in this case Milgrom's strengths, then there was not much to use here. Just look at the impressive difference on the unused pages of Secret Wars II #1 when compared to the finished pages drawn by Milgrom. An epic story can look uninteresting when drawn by Milgrom, and a mediocre story can look epic when drawn by someone else. Posted by: Cesar Hernandez-Meraz | December 1, 2017 3:06 AM A great plus to this site is the synopsis aspect of it when needed. By this I mean that in addition to my "Great FF Re-Read" I've doing the same to the Defenders, Marvel Classics, various horror reprints, among others AND the Avengers! After I left off with #275, the last one I have, I decided to re-read my West Coast Avengers. I may have purged this set somewhat because I have only #'s 1-20, 2 Annuals and the Byrne run. Having just finished #20 and the story unfinished, I can come here to see how any story that got cut off finished up. Posted by: KevinA | July 8, 2018 9:46 AM If I didn't have those books, this site is the next best thing! Whatever fnord12 may miss, the comments complement. Posted by: VtCG | July 9, 2018 11:15 AM Comments are now closed. |
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