The Original West Coast Avengers #1: A True Soap Opera for Superhero Fans

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West Coast Avengers #1 from 1985.

By Theron Couch — The original West Coast Avengers #1 starts with Mockingbird leaving lipstick on Hawkeyes’s lips...I challenge Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli’s new West Coast Avengers to be half as tantalizing!

In fact, that first page with the lipstick business would ultimately prove to be consistent with the overall style the old book developed as it charted a course in a separate direction from its parent title, The Avengers back on the East Coast. With the West Coast Avengers returning to Marvel for the first time in ages this week, I’d like to look back today at the original series and at how its debut issue effectively used soap opera dramatics to separate itself from its parent title.

See, West Coast Avengers #1 was essentially a soap opera that just happened to guest star Ultron 12 and his henchmen, Man-Ape and Goliath. Writer Steve Engelhart spent most of the issue following personal drama rather than focusing on action. For instance, in the opening pages—when Hank Pym interrupts the Hawkeye/Mockingbird make out session—Engelhart introduced Hawkeye’s primary goal: find a sixth member to round out the team. Hawkeye then went on to offer the position to ol’ intruding Hank...who resoundly turned it down. These motivations reverberated throughout the issue, coming up repeatedly in both private moments and group scenes.

Speaking of Hank, he actually had the highlight of the issue, that being when his ex-wife Wasp (whom he didn’t want to talk to anyway) not only questioned whether he was joining the team but—unlike everyone else—agreed that he shouldn’t. In similar fashion, nigh-invulnerable Wonder Man spent much of the issue worrying about death—a fear that almost crippled him in the team’s first fight with Ultron, and Tigra spent most of the issue sorting out who and what she had become following her transformation...until she finally stopped, mid-mission, to psychoanalyze herself.

The new West Coast Avengers #1 is out now.

Artists Allen Milgrom, Joe Sinnot, and Petra Scotese complemented this soap opera scripting with superb rendering of the characters. For starters, everyone was presented consistently, whether it be via shape or shading or color. Most importantly, though, was the attention the artists paid to characters’ expressions. Even some of the best artists today still fail to present character expressions consistently or to connect those expressions to the dialogue and events taking place in the moment. The entire first issue of West Coast Avengers, however, is a study in accurate rendition of character expressions—and good thing too since you can’t very well have a soap opera without ample closeups on stricken characters.

Another soap opera-y quirk in this comic—one often found in spinoffs like this one—is packing the book with references to critical events from the past. In this issue, Engelhardt and editor Mark Gruenwald almost go overboard with 16 (!) issue callouts that see the cast frequently speaking of past events from the parent series. As if a cast of Avengers weren’t enough, Engelhardt and Gruenwald want to constantly remind readers that West Coast Avengers really is a spinoff, one that as the first page says continues the proud Avengers tradition in a west coast way.

Overall, West Coast Avengers featured no shortage of action, and this review shouldn’t be construed to mean that nothing exciting took place—indeed, a lot of exciting things did go down between the drama. This first issue, though, establishes a character style that borders at times on melodrama. The west coast way, it turns out, is the tried and true old-school soap opera. And it’s quite a lot of fun to read.

Read more of Theron’s thoughts about the original West Coast Avengers series here.

Theron Couch is a writer, blogger, and comic book reviewer. His first novel, The Loyalty of Pawns, is available on Amazon. You can also follow him on Twitter at @theroncouch.

Hawkeye, West Coast Avengers #1 & Redemption

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By Theron Couch — Superheroes fighting each other has long since gone from reliable genre convention to outright cliché. Whatever the reason for the fight’s start, it almost always turns into a let’s discuss how best to defeat a villain coffee clutch. Avengers West Coast #69, though, is one of those great examples of superhero fights that have nothing to do with upholding justice and fighting crime, and everything to do with two characters who can’t keep their mouths shut literally picking a time and place to beat each other senseless. So yes, it remains my favorite superhero fight to this day—and it also forever-defined for me a major character who is returning tomorrow in Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli’s new West Coast Avengers #1.

Avengers West Coast #69: The A Story & B Story

Avengers West Coast #69 is a glorified team picking. The story jumps back and forth in time, telling two stories concurrently. In the A story—the story that opens the issue—Hawkeye and US Agent dish out a mutual ass beating. In full costume and with arrows and shield, the two fighters hold little back. There is no love lost between them, and since the A story begins before the fight actually starts, it’s clear the whole thing was orchestrated in advance, which leads to the obvious question of why.

Enter the B story, which occurs earlier in the day and is confined to Avengers West Coast headquarters. The team is choosing a new roster, but before they do that General Heyworth has a message for US Agent. Both Avengers teams will operate under the United Nations going forward so the US government is no longer maintaining a representative on the teams. US Agent, who had had a guaranteed a slot on the team before, now has to earn his way on like everyone else. US Agent doesn’t take the news well, and Hawkeye rubs plenty of salt in the wound. Predictably, the voting doesn’t go US Agent’s way, and with only one vote cast in his favor he gets a spot as an alternate. The end of the B story dovetails into the A story as Hawkeye and US Agent set up a fight for later that night.

Avengers West Coast #69: The Fight

The infamous fight in Avengers West Coast #69.

It’s a lean story in Avengers West Coast #69, one that really boils down to two events of consequence: the team selecting its members, and Hawkeye and US Agent fighting. With respect to the first event there’s no real rising action or plot twist; the result of the vote is so obvious that it’s hardly a surprise when Hawkeye makes it and US Agent doesn’t. As for the fight—it’s also clear that it has no real teeth. The story is the fight rather than the outcome, so to an extent it’s overwritten.

To the benefit of both stories, though, Roy and Dann Thomas used a convention that these days is pretty common, but it much less so at the start of the ‘90s: non-linear storytelling. Both stories benefit from being broken up and interspersed with the other, preventing the vote from feeling more important than it is and keeping the fight from feeling too long. It’s a brilliant move, one that makes the issue work.

I’ve never read other issues of Avengers West Coast, so I don’t know if there is additional backstory to the Hawkeye/US Agent relationship. You don’t really need it, though. The Thomases write US Agent as a self-entitled jerk through and through. Even before the general unceremoniously delivers the news in front of the entire Avengers team with no warning, US Agent’s smug attitude goes such a long way to damaging him in the readers’ eyes.

Hawkeye, though, is actually almost worse—and this is where I wish I did know the backstory. Hawkeye starts rubbing salt in US Agent’s wounds immediately, and it’s entirely personal. At no point does he offer a compelling argument for why US Agent is a detriment to the team. Hawkeye just doesn’t like him, and he’s having a good time kicking him while he’s down. The pettiness behind both men’s actions colors the fight and sets it into a special class—a more personal class—of hero combat. There are no lofty ideals here.

Can Hawkeye Be Redeemed?

West Coast Avengers #1 is out Aug. 22.

Overall, Avengers West Coast #69 has all the makings of a forgettable one-off. And if not for the non-linear storytelling device, I’m not sure it would be so much fun. But it is the comic book that colored my perception of Hawkeye forever. US Agent is a jerk in this story. Everybody knows it. And everybody knows he’s not making it on the Avengers. But only Hawkeye takes the tack that he shouldn’t; he does it very personally and very publicly. Even if he’s right, his attitude in the B story and his willingness to stoop to US Agent’s level is definitely a stain on someone who just got overwhelmingly voted on to the team.

What’s more, the promised suspension at the end of the issue rings very much like the kind of non-punishment reserved for popular members of teams and groups. To me Hawkeye walks away from this fight looking far worse as a character, and to this day I’ve been ambivalent toward him, if not outright suspicious—his defining moment to me is a petty fight on the beach because he was talking shit to someone in a position beneath him.

Here’s wondering if Kelly Thompson can, at long last, redeem Clint Barton in my eyes.

Theron Couch is a writer, blogger, and comic book reviewer. His first novel, The Loyalty of Pawns, is available on Amazon. You can also follow him on Twitter at @theroncouch.