c“Are the Avengers even like a thing anymore?!” a concerned Jason Ionello asks at the beginning of Spider-Man: Far From Home. “Does anyone have a plan?!” The early answer -- at least within the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself -- is no. With the super team decimated by the events of Avengers: Endgame and Earth’s remaining heroes more or less pursuing their own courses, the question of whether they will re-form remains open . And with the Fantastic Four ultimately waiting at the end of Phase Four, the Avengers may become past tense in the MCU.

However, the franchise may have a trick up its sleeve on this front. While Phase Four has been dedicatedly free of team-ups like the kind that produced the MCU’s Avengers, a few alternate options have quietly made themselves known. And while choices like the Young Avengers and Dark Avengers are floating around, another possibility is becoming very distinct. The West Coast Avengers -- an “expansion team” that thrived in the Marvel Comics in the 1980s -- may be quietly undergoing assembly right in front of fans' eyes.

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The roster of the West Coast Avengers

The team served as a spin-off for the original Avengers, beginning with a four-issue miniseries in late 1984 and introducing a full comic line with West Coast Avengers #1 in October 1985. It folded in 1994 but developed its own identity and had a brief revival in 2018. In and of itself, that might not merit much attention. But comparing the team members in the comics to the lingering heroes in the MCU -– as well as a sudden yet subtle shift towards Los Angeles -– makes the possibility of an MCU version look very distinct.

Marvel is deeply rooted in New York City, and the MCU has taken such care in respecting that connection that it’s easy to forget where the franchise began. Iron Man’s Tony Stark couldn’t be anything but an Angeleno -- complete with a Malibu home and a movie star’s razzle-dazzle to introduce him to mainstream audiences. Tony’s solo movies stayed in LA, though the Avengers usually put him back in New York, and with 2013’s Iron Man 3 ending with his mansion in smoldering ruins, that West Coast link looked to be gone.

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Wonder Man using his ionic abiliites

But the arrival of Phase Four has returned focus slowly but surely to the MCU's version of the West Coast. Both Shang-Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania share a San Francisco setting, while She-Hulk: Attorney at Law will be based in Los Angeles. The announcement of a Wonder Man series -- posited as a satire of Hollywood -- even brings a second LA character into the mix. And with Simon Williams comes a ready means to bring the West Coast Avengers to life.

In the comics, the spin-off team differed little from their core counterpart beyond their base of operations and membership. And it's the latter part that draws attention. The group got brought together by Clint Barton and included Mockingbird and War Machine among its first members. All three currently have well-established versions in the MCU. With Wonder Man confirmed, only Tigra needs to get accounted for among the original team. The West Coast Avengers changed membership over the course of its run, as most superhero teams do, adding the likes of Ant-Man, the Wasp, Scarlet Witch and Moon Knight. They, too, have current incarnations in the MCU, and with easy adds like She-Hulk and White Vision nearby, a number of possible heroes could get included in a potential team without a second thought.

A West Coast version of the Avengers would also make logistical sense. With the Fantastic Four presumably setting up shop in New York City and potentially acting as the primary focus of the MCU’s Phase-ending team-ups, a new Avengers group allows the legacy of the franchise’s first superhero team to live on in-world. There’s no guarantee it will happen, but enough pieces are there that fans may need to consider the possibility of the West Coast Avengers assembling.