The Abandoned An’ Forsaked - Why Was Quicksilver Such a Crazy Supervillain During the 1980s?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published May 10, 2015

In this feature we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, we look at the reason behind Quicksilver's dramatic heel turn in the 1980s (commenter Omar Karindu suggested I feature this, but I was already planning to do it, but he didn't know that, so he should still get credit!)...

So everything starts in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #10 (by Steve Englehart, Richard Howell and Frank Springer), where Quicksilver discovers that his wife, Crystal (who is sick at the time) had an affair with some dude...

At the end of the issue, he decides to take off...

The next issue shows the state of mind he is now in...

It was with this in mind that he set off on a series of just flat out evildoing, a number of which I detailed in The Top Five Worst Things Quicksilver Has Ever Done.

But to recap, he framed the Avengers for treason and then tried to kill them all...

and then he tried to kill Alicia Storm...

Now here's where things get super tricky.

Okay, so first up, soon after that FF story, Jo Duffy, Tom Grindberg and Joe Rubinstein combine on the 1987 X-Factor Annual #2, which abandons and forsakes the story that Quicksilver just turned evil after his wife cheated on him.

No, they reveal that the evil brother of Black Bolt, Maximus the Mad, is behind Quicksilver's turn to villainy.

IN the end, he returns to taking care of Crystal and their daughter...

Here's the hitch, though, he then appears in 1988's West Coast Avengers #33-36 (written by Englehart) as a flat out bad guy...

The end result is that West Coast Avengers #36, where Hank Pym's first wife is revealed to have fixed the problem with his mind...

We only learn this is the 1988 Fantastic Four Annual #21 (in a story written by Edward Norton, Jackson Guice and Jose Marzan)...

The main story in that issue is by Englehart (with artists Kieron Dwyer and Joe Sinnots), who accepts the retcon, but tries to present it as a sort of fake excuse by Quicksilver. Still, Crystal quits the Fantastic Four and tries to reconcile with Quicksilver (they ultimately broke up again).