Issue(s): West Coast Avengers #3, West Coast Avengers #4
Cover Date: Nov-Dec 84
Title:
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Bob Hall - Penciler
Brett Breeding & Peter Berardi - Inker

Review/plot:
We start with the Avengers cleaning up after the world-wide snowstorm caused by the breaking of the Casket of Ancient Winters.

At this point, the actual storm is over (note the sun in the clear sky) and a few pages later, "by midday", all the snow has been whisked away (possibly making the team's clean-up efforts somewhat pointless, but to be fair, they also stopped a robbery at a Radio Shack. Sure, the East Coast team was fighting the Hordes of Muspell, but i guess as long as the LA Radio Shack is safe...).

You know what's pretty weird? Tigra in leg-warmers.

After wrapping things up, Hawkeye proposes a BBQ. That leaves Iron Man in a weird position - he obviously can't take his mask off to eat without revealing his identity. That would even have been a problem for Tony Stark, who had only revealed his ID to a few select team members.

Tigra was one of those members, though. And when she keeps Iron Man behind to talk about the fact that Wonder Man is acting sulky, Rhodey reveals to her that he's not Stark. He suggests that since he's not as close with Simon that she talk to him instead.

She does, and they share origins and Tigra shows him that she has an amulet that projects an illusion that makes her look like herself prior to her transformation into a Furry. She got it from the Cat People, and she says that "they're all gone now... all of them... it's been over a year". A footnote says "Remind us to tell you about it sometime".

Then they decide to go see if the Shroud can help find the Blank, since Wonder Man is still bothered that he got away. When they get to the Shroud's place, they find that it's been trashed. The Shroud has been masquerading as a crime lord, and it seems that a new player in town is consolidating all the smaller gangs. Wonder Man and Tigra go with Shroud to the new big boss' meeting.

Wonder Man is in "disguise"...

... and Tigra trails behind.

They find, coincidentally enough, that the meeting is run by the Blank. Except he's just working for Graviton.

The Blank, not used to being a super-villain, gets a bit whiny during the fight, and Graviton throws him, Shroud, and Tigra out to sea, while forcing Wonder Man to the bottom of a pool to drown.

The Blank disappears, and Shroud is badly hurt, but Tigra manages to activate her emergency beacon...

...and Iron Man shows up for the rescue.

As they recover and discuss their next moves...

...Hawkeye keeps referencing the Avengers' previous fight with Graviton and soon Rhodey has to reveal that he's not the same guy who fought Graviton previously.

Hawkeye is a bit shocked at first but after hearing that it was this Iron Man who fought alongside him in Secret Wars, Hawkeye remembers back to when he used to hate to be treated like an amateur by Cap during the Kooky Quartet days, so he apologizes and accepts Iron Man as a member of the team.

They devise a pretty sneaky plot to take down Graviton. Mockingbird infiltrates Graviton's mansion as a bartender and starts putting mickeys in everyone's drinks. And Tigra and Hawkeye disguise themselves as Madam Masque and a lackey and they show up pretending to be interested in Graviton's criminal consolidations (Hawkeye's "disguise" is almost as good as Wonder Man's was earlier).

Meanwhile Iron Man gets situated at a nearby power plant so that when Graviton is lured there Iron Man can blast him at full power.

On top of all that, it turns out that Wonder Man doesn't really need to breathe, so he's still alive and fights his way out of the pool to join the fight.

It's a testament to Graviton's power level that even while drugged he's still strong enough to take on an entire team of Avengers including Iron Man and Wonder Man, but they are able to beat him.

This was a great conclusion to this mini-series as the team works through its various individual issues (except Mockingbird, who seems remarkably level headed and/or underdeveloped), and comes together as a team.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: This arc begins in the aftermath of the Casket of Ancient Winters saga. It takes place before Avengers #250, and between Iron Man #188-189.

References:

• "For reasons behind this unseasonable snow, see the current issue of the Mighty Thor!".
  
• Tigra learned that Iron Man was Tony Stark in Avengers #216.
  
• Graviton was exiled into an interdimensional void in Thor #324.
  
• Prior to that, Graviton fought the Avengers in Avengers #158-159.
  
• Wonder Man tells Tigra a bit about his past. He was first given powers by the Avengers "enemies" and subsequently sacrificed himself in Avengers #9. He was resurrected in Avengers #151.
  
• Hercules gave Wonder Man the names of some producers in Avengers #211, but they didn't pan out.
  
• Wonder Man's break came after his appearance on David Letterman in Avengers #239.
  
• Wonder Man tells Shroud he still needs to make up for the fact that he broke Shroud's ribs in West Coast Avengers #1.
  
• James Rhodes replaced Tony Stark in Iron Man #170.
  
• Rhodes lets Hawkeye know that he was the Iron Man that was in Secret Wars.

Crossover: Casket of Ancient Winters

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

good issues. graviton was a real powerhouse. i think he beat the east coast avengers in that first meeting.
im not sure, when did he show up in that Marvel two in one with black bolt. in that one he was a monster. i thought it would fall somewhere between his first appearance and this one.

Yeah, his loss in Avengers #159 was pretty much self inflicted. He had all the Avengers on the ropes.

And that Two-In-One issue you're referring to was Annual #4. There were no references to that issue in this arc, but now that you've brought it to my attention i've added it to my want list. Thanks!

no prob. by the way, congrats for reaching 1985. will you keep adding new comics into the gaps? Ive read all the reviews (great). Is there anything that shows which new comics get added, like a recently added feature? thanks.

Yeah, i'll publish a list of the newly added books on the index page and the main blog. It won't be for a while, though. I'm currently working through my picture gap for 1980.

Thanks for the interest!

This being my introduction to Graviton, I was very impressed by him and felt he should have been used more extensively as the WCA's big villain. In my mind, he was up there with Doom, Magneto, and other A list stars. Didn't turn out that way. Englehardt would use him again, but he didn't have the same charisma and menace.

Considering the Pride retcon, while they may have let some "loser villains" operate in LA (does that include Shroud & the Night Shift?), I think they might have had a real issue with Graviton. But I guess they were still licking their wounds from the Illuminati battle, and before too long the WCA took care of the problem for them.

Do you get these benefits if you're a mutant? Or if you have gypsy heritage? What about if you're a Jew?

Come to think about it, the Illuminati don't have any Jewish members, do they?

ChrisW was responding to a spam comment about the Illuminati. This website gets a lot of weird spam about the Illuminati, and i can't just blacklist the word. But the spam comments do get deleted, so it's best not to talk to spammers!