The release of 2020 Force Works #1 in February brings back one of the oddest little offshoots of The Avengers from the early 1990s comics. The newest version of what was once a remnant of the West Coast Avengers unit is now led by War Machine and reimagined as an elite paramilitary squad, featuring heroes like U.S. Agent, Mockingbird and Quake. Their mission: to stop the violent robot revolution that could end all biological life on Earth as we know it.

But this isn't how the Force Works team initially looked way back in 1994 when writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning first conceived it with artist Tom Tenney. Though U.S. Agent was a part of the original line up, that's the only recurrent face that provides a throughline. The team was an Iron Man production, part of Stark's insistence on having a team of superheroes who would follow his lead when his frustration with the rest of the Avengers team led him to walk out.

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1994 Force Works

Force Works Scarlet Witch

Let's rewind the tape to the early 1990s. It was a time when Marvel, following popular culture, decided that an East Coast vs. West Coast split in the Avengers team would drum up a little drama. The idea was initially from Vision, who thought of it as an expansion of the Avengers' influence. Under this advice, Hawkeye recruited Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra and Iron Man to join the team. Except there was a little hiccup: Stark balked at not being in charge, leading War Machine to fill in for him.

A general lack of organization on Hawkeye's part and the death of Mockingbird destroyed the group. In frustration, Stark quit the Avengers entirely and formed his own team, Force Works, featuring Scarlet Witch, U.S. Agent, Wonder Man, and Julia Carpenter's Spider-Woman. With this new team came a new mission: Force Works would not stop disasters, but prevent them from ever happening in the first place.

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Iron Man As First Among Equals

Scarlet Witch Wonder Man Force Works

On the one hand, these comics changed the view on Iron Man's behavior. Not that Tony hasn't always been a bit of a self-aggrandizing egotist, but he has the skills to back his claims up. But this was the first time the series took it to a new level, turning Stark into a force that isn't happy unless he's part of a group he can control. It also brings in what in The Avengers films would be a hallmark of Stark's philosophy: that he can control the events to come. It's not about stopping the bad guys today; it's about preventing them from doing anything ever again.

Force Works also placed Tony in a far more outsized role. Though he technically forms the group, he's just around to do whatever he damn well pleases, including going off on his own in the middle of missions, leaving the rest to figure it out on their own. In his absence, Scarlet Witch takes the reigns and relies on the assistance of Stark's staff members.

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Stopping Disasters Before They Start Is Hard To Do

Force Works presaged the rise of Iron Man, taking the character to new levels that the Marvel Cinematic Universe would use to launch a film franchise. His increase in importance was reflected in The Avengers comics from Jonathan Hickman, as well as Avengers World. Both of these reflected Tony's on-screen persona and his ideas of "disaster prevention" from 2014's The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

But as an actual team getting things done, Force Works was one of the weaker iterations of superheroes. That's because attempting to predict the future is a fool's game. Consider, for instance, Hawkeye shooting Bruce Banner dead in 2016's Civil War II. He does it because the Inhuman Ulysses Cain has visions in Stark's lab of Hulk turning on the team and killing the Avengers. Hawkeye murders his teammate because Stark orders it, based on Ulysses's probability calculations. However, "probability" is hardly enough to know the future -- which the comics reinforce as Captain Marvel's team ultimately defeats Tony.

Maybe Force Works has finally learned its lesson, but history says don't count on it.

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