A Brief History of Marvel's West Coast Avengers

Earlier this month, Marvel announced that a new volume of West Coast Avengers would arrive in August of this year. Written by CBR alum Kelly Thompson (Rogue & Gambit, Hawkeye) and drawn by Stefano Caselli (Invincible Iron Man, Avengers World), the book will see Kate Bishop team up with "other Hawkeye (Clint Barton)," her boyfriend Johnny (aka FUSE), the Unbelievable Gwenpool, America Chavez and Quentin Quire (AKA Kid Omega) to take down the influx of villains heading to her new home of LA... and also earn cash by appearing on a reality show, in the style of the New Warriors.

The second project from Thompson since she signed an exclusive deal with Marvel, and Caselli's first big project since working with Brian Michael Bendis on Invincible Iron Man, this comic lookslike a fun romp in the vein of the late, lamented The Unbelievable Gwenpool and the most recent Kate-starring Hawkeye series. But as novel as it still is to see a Marvel team outside of NYC, this isn't the first time Clint or the Avengers have been fighting crime on the West Coast.

In 1984, with the original Secret Wars in full swing, the Vision detected that the Dire Wraiths (aka, the Marvel villains from ROM Spaceknight that became very important to the Marvel Universe but may never be referenced in-continuity again as ROM was a tie-in toy comic) were coming and that more needed to be done to prepare for their arrival. Thus, in a four-issue miniseries written by Roger Stern (best known as the co-creator of the Hobgoblin) and drawn by Bob Hall (longtime Avengers and Spider-Man penciller in that era) and Brett Breeding, the Vision, after requesting permission from the US Government (who were supervising the Avengers more at the time) suggested to Clint that the Avengers expand their influence.

Liking the idea, Clint, his then-wife Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra and Iron Man (who was Jim Rhodes at the time, unbeknownst to all, as Tony Stark was an alcoholic mess) decamped to Los Angeles, where they fought the Blank and Graviton. The initial West Coast Avengers miniseries proved so popular that an ongoing series of the same name began in October 1985.

Initially written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott, the team, cheerfully calling themselves the "WACOS," added Hank Pym as support and fought villains like Ultron and Master Pandemonium, an actor who, after losing his arm in a car crash, made a deal with Mephisto to get it back but wound up with a fragmented soul, demonically grafted metal limbs and demons living inside him that he could control for his trouble. (See, even before One More Day, people shouldn't have been making deals with Mephisto!) When Tony returned as Iron Man, he joined the team, but was kicked out for his actions during the "Armor Wars" storyline.

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The team's first big test came during the "Lost in Space-Time" storyline, when they were sent throughout history by the super-computer Dominus (the secret weapon of the Arcane that X-Men villain Lucifer--aka the alien who crippled Professor X), most of them winding up in ancient Egypt. Mockingbird wound up in the Old West, where Phantom Rider (aka the original Ghost Rider) used amnesia-inducing drugs to convince her they were lovers and later raped her.

After Moon Knight and Hank Pym rescued the team (with the two heroes joining the team full-time), Phantom Rider's spirit appeared to Hawkeye and said that Mockingbird had let him fall to his death. This caused a rift between Clint and Bobbi as she broke the Avengers' "no killing" rule (regardless of Bobbi's obvious trauma) which led to her, Tigra, and Moon Knight left the team. Teaming up with Goliath, they formed a team calling themselves the "Ex-WACOs." Tigra and Mockingbird soon came back, but Bobbi and Clint's marriage would ultimately fail. Meanwhile, Vision and Scarlet Witch had joined the team in the others' absence so as to not leave it short-handed.

Wanting the team's activity more closely monitored, the government assigned U.S. Agent as field leader, which made Hawkeye quit in protest. He and Mockingbird worked to investigate rumors of an unsanctioned group of Avengers, which turned out to be the Great Lakes Avengers we all know and love. Meanwhile, West Coast Avengers was about to have its most famous storyline, "Vision Quest." (Curiously, around this time, the book was renamed Avengers West Coast, which leads to some confusing Googling.)

Written and drawn by John Byrne (who took over the title with #42), "Vision Quest" saw agents from several hostile governments abduct and dismantle the Vision. The team recovered him and Pym was able to reassemble him, but, due to skin damage, he was resurrected with a bone-white appearance.

Even more shockingly, he also had no emotions. This was because Wonder Man, whose brain patterns were used to create the Vision originally, refused to have that happen again, claiming the process was done without his consent and that it had "ripped out his soul." With several other Avengers agreeing with this, the Vision was resurrected as a blank slate, leading to a love triangle between him, Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man, who, as he lent his brain patterns to Vision's mind, naturally also had feelings for Wanda.

But it was what happened next with the Vision and Scarlet Witch that was, in some ways, the most lasting addition to the Marvel Universe from the WACOs. Scarlet Witch was visited by her old mentor Agatha Harkness, who revealed that her and Vision's twin boys, Thomas and William (who she'd conceived using magic), were actually constructs created from soul fragments from Mephisto. Wanda, struggling with this, her in-flux relationship to the Vision, an earlier kidnapping and some minor influence from Immortus, went insane. Naturally, Magneto popped up at this time and recruited her back to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. This plotline, decades down the road, led to a pair of major events that still reverberate throughout the Marvel Universe to this day: "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M."

After a few more adventures, including Mockingbird's death at the hands of (who else?) Mephisto, the West Coast Avengers were officially disbanded due to the costliness of maintaining them and the constant in-fighting and instability of its members. And so California lost its Avengers... until now.

The original series (which ended in 1994 in favor of Avengers Force Works) was never the center of the Marvel Universe during its heyday, but it lasted a long time and was beloved by loads of fans and later fans-turned-pros. Will the new Thompson and Caselli comic fulfill the insane soap opera quotient of the original? Only time will tell.