West Coast Avengers #1 (of 4)
(Marvel Comics, 1984)
Writer: Roger Stern
Pencils: Bob Hall
Inker: Brett Breeding
Letters: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Julianna Ferriter
Greetings from the Wasteland!
There is one title that, whenever I see it floating up at me from the dollar box, brings me right back to the eighties, to parachute pants and big hair, and that is West Coast Avengers. It was a time when the main Avengers title was being reorganized, adding characters like the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel, Starfox, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk, and Iron Man is kicked out due to his actions during the Armor Wars. Under the Avengers charter, pardon my geek, put forth by Captain America, the active team membership is limited to six members, but with the constant change in characters and the limited ability to delve into them creatively, Marvel (and new Avengers chairman Vision) thought it best to move part of the team to the other side of the country under the leadership of Hawkeye. The West Coast Avengers were born.
This book is the first in a four issue limited series, which tells the story of the recruitment of the new team and the set up of their home base south of Los Angeles. Later this would become the main Avengers compound. The series would later be picked up by Marvel for a 102-issue run that lasted from October of 1985 to January of 1994, with issues 42 to 57 penned and drawn by John Byrne.
As I said before, the team was the fictional brainchild of the Vision, who thought the Avengers should have a stronger presence west of the Rockies, and would be more effective with a second team. Hawkeye is tapped for leadership and sent west to get the compound up and running. Mockingbird is his wife at the time, and goes with him, the second member of a super team with no super powers. The rest of the team is quickly gathered, and includes Tigra, Wonder Man, and Iron Man.
Tigra declined membership in the original Avengers because she doubted her effectiveness amongst some many super humans. Wonder Man is still in the midst of his stunt man career, and only dons his red trench coat when he gets a call from the Vision. Iron Man is not Tony Stark but James Rhodes, who has donned the suit while Tony dries up.
With all of the popular heroes associated with the Avengers, these were some interesting choices, taking a group of sort of outcasts and letting them go off on their own. Each is battling their own demons, even as they try to fight off a mysterious stranger who has forced his way into the new Avengers compound. Hawkeye doubts his ability, wondering what Cap would do. Mockingbird thinks she’s only a member because she is Hawkeye’s wife, despite her years of S.H.I.E.L.D. training. Wonder Man will later on get an ego so big it would rival Tony Starks, and Rhodey is new to the suit and not familiar with its abilities.
In the meantime they find that the man who has broken into the Avengers compound is Shroud, sort of a black Moon Knight knockoff, and they take him out rather than speak to him. In the end the misunderstanding is cleared up and they offer him membership, which he declines.
The art by Bob Hall and Brett Breeding is consistent with the time for Marvel. Realistically drawn characters without the overblown muscles that came into fashion in the late eighties and early nineties. And Tigra is in it, so, if you’ve got a thing for furry girls in bikinis…there you go.
This issues functions just as it was meant to. It shows us a deeper side of characters that mostly only got a passing glance in other Marvel titles, secondary characters that are thrust into the spotlight in West Coast Avengers. It also set up the team for the longer run that was to come.
This brought me right back to being a kid, and in the end, isn’t that a big part of what we’re looking for when we browse the comics shops? A one-dollar piece of our childhood. (And Tigra in a bikini.)
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Follow Brad Gischia on Twitter: @comicwasteland
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