Retro Review: Avengers West Coast #58 – 102 By Thomas, Thomas, Ross & Others For Marvel Comics

Avengers West Coast (Vol. 2) #58-102, Annual #5-8 (May 1990 – January 1994)

Written by Fabian Nicieza (#58), Danny Fingeroth (#59), Roy Thomas (#60-63, 65-101, Annual #5-8), Dann Thomas (#60-63, 65-83, 85-94, 96, Annual #5-7), Terry Kavanaugh (#64), Jim Novak (#100), Len Kaminski (#100), Dan Abnett (#102), Andy Lanning (#102), Gary Barnum (Annual #5), Dwayne McDuffie (Annual #5), Carrie Barre (Annual #5)

Co-plotted by David Ross (#95)

Pencilled by Tom Morgan (#58, 71, 100), Gary Hartle (#59), Brad Vancata (#59, Annual #5), Paul Ryan (#60-63, 65-69), Chris Wozniak (#64), Rik Levins (#65-66), Steve Butler (#70), David Ross (#71-74, 76-82, 84-95, 98-102, Annual #8), George Freeman (#73, Annual #6), Herb Trimpe (#75, 83), Andrew Currie (#96-97), Don Hudson (#100), Tom Tenney (#100), Jim Fry (Annual #5), Grant Miehm (Annual #5), Jeff Moore (Annual #6), Steve Carr (Annual #6), MC Wyman (Annual #7), Al Bigley (Annual #7), John Dennis (Annual #7), David Ammerman (Annual #7), Kris Renkewitz (Annual #8), Scott Kolins (Annual #8), Larry Alexander (Annual #8), John Czop (Annual #8), Vince Russell (Annual #8)

Inked by Randy Emberlin (#58), Chris Ivy (#59, 71, Annual #5), Brad Vancata (#59, Annual #7), Danny Bulanadi (#60-72, Annual #6), Keith Williams (#65-66, Annual #5, 7), Don Hudson (#71, 96-97, Annual #8), Tim Dzon (#72-74, 76-82, 84-95, 98-102, Annual #7-8), Herb Trimpe (#75, 83), Charles Barnett (#100), Avon (#100), Don Cameron (#100), Jim Sanders (Annual #5), Grant Miehm (Annual #5), Andrew Pepoy (Annual #6), Bob Wiacek (Annual #6), John Tartaglione (Annual #6), Mark McKenna (Annual #6), George Wildman (Annual #6), Mike DeCarlo (Annual #7), Pam Eklund (Annual #7), John Lowe (Annual #8), Maria Beccari (Annual #8), Mike Barreiro (Annual #8), Fred Fredericks (Annual #8)

Inking Assist by Charles Barnett (#75, 83), Aaron McClellan (#93)

Colour by Bob Sharen (#58-102, Annual #6-7), Joe Andreani (#100), Ariane Lenshoek (#100), Reneé Witterstaetter (Annual #5), Brad Vancata (Annual #5), Ed Lazallari (Annual #5), Kevin Tinsley (Annual #6), Evelyn Stein (Annual #6), Paul Becton (Annual #6), Paty Cockrum (Annual #7), Sarah Mossoff (Annual #7), Marie Javins (Annual #7), John Kalisz (Annual #8), Maria Parwulski (Annual #8), Rob Tokar (Annual #8)

Spoilers (from twenty-seven to thirty-one years ago)

When John Byrne left this book, he left it in a state of disaster. The team was reeling from the fact that Scarlet Witch had turned evil after a string of personal disasters, and wanted to kill them all, only to be stopped by her father Magneto and brother Quicksilver. Tigra had turned feral and been shrunk by Hank Pym, and then gone missing. The Human Torch was told that the team was about to be evicted from their headquarters. We’d spent months watching Immortus plot something that hinged on Wanda and the team. Also, with Hawkeye gone, the team seemed leaderless and adrift.

Byrne left abruptly, leaving a ton of dangling subplots. After he left, there were two issues by guest creative teams, before writers Roy and Dann Thomas, and artist Paul Ryan, seemed to solidify as the new ongoing team.

I don’t remember much about these books at all, and that’s not a good sign. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Roy Thomas, who kept the Golden Age alive through his work on the Invaders and All-Star Squadron, as well as wrote a number of essential Silver Age stories, but by the end of the 80s, I was finding his comics dull. Maybe, looking back at these books now, I’m going to find more in them, but I know that I dropped this run at some point, and never looked back (I’m sorry for anyone who was hoping there’d be a Force Works column in the future).

So, how did the Thomases clean up Byrne’s mess? Let’s find out together.

Let’s track who turned up in the title:

West Coast Avengers

Wasp (Janet Van Dyne, Avengers; #58, 60-63, 65-74, 76, 81-83, Annual #5-6, 8)
Doctor Pym (Henry “Hank” Pym; #58, 60-63, 65-74, 81-83, 90-91, Annual #5, 8; as Giant Man; #101-102)
Wonder Man (Simon Williams; #58, 60-80, 82, 84-91, 102, Annual #5-7)
The Human Torch (Jim Hammond; #58, 63-65, 83, Annual #5)
USAgent (John Walker; #58, 60-63, 65-69, 71-72, 74-82, 84-85, 87-96, 98-102, Annual #5-8)
Iron Man (Tony Stark; #58, 60-63, 66-80, 84-86, 94, 102, Annual #5-8)
Hawkeye/Goliath (Clint Barton; as Hawkeye, #60-63, 65-72, 74-80, 84-85, 87-90, 97-101, Annual #5-8; as Goliath #90-97)
Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff; #60-63, 65-80, 82, 84-96, 98-102, Annual #5-8)
Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff; #60-63, 65-70, 83, 101, Annual #5)
Tigra (Greer Nelson; #66-74, 83, 100, Annual #8)
Mockingbird (Bobbi Morse; #69, 76, 78-83, 87-100, Annual #8)
Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter; #74-82, 84-102, Annual #6-8)
The Living Lightning (Miguel Santos; #74-80, 82, 84-90, 92, 96, 100, Annual #6-8)
War Machine (Jim Rhodes; #94-102, Annual #8)

Villains

Vibro (#58)
Immortus (#59-62)
Magneto (#60)
Black Knight (William Garrett; Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Iron Man 2020 (Arno Stark; Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Grim Reaper (Eric Williams; Legion of the Unliving; #61, 65-68)
Swordsman (Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Left-Winger (Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Right-Winger (Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Oort, the Living Comet (Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Toro (Tom Raymond; Legion of the Unliving; #61)
Tempus (#62)
The Living Lightning (Miguel Santos; #63, 70, 72-73)
Nekra (#65)
Ultron-13 (#65-68)
Mandrill (#66)
Jawbreaker (Pacific Overlords; #69-70, 72-74, 93-95)
Taifu (#69-70, 72-74)
Kuroko (Pacific Overlords; #69-70, 72-74, 92-95)
Dr. Demonicus (Pacific Overlords; #70-74, 93-95)
The Big One (Pacific Overlords; #70-71, 74)
Pele (Pacific Overlords; #71, 73-74)
Irezumi (Pacific Overlords; #72-74, 93-95)
Cybertooth (Pacific Overlords; #72-74, 93-95)
Kain (Dr. Demonicus’s assistant; #73-74, 93-95)
Thundra (#75)
Arkon (#75)
Hangman (Night Shift; #76-79, 98-100)
Brothers Grimm (Night Shift; #76-79)
Tick-Tock (Night Shift; #76-79)
Dansen Macabre (Night Shift; #76-79)
Misfit (Night Shift; #76-79)
Needle (Night Shift; #76-79)
Gypsy Moth (Night Shift; #76-79)
Tatterdemalion (Night Shift; #76-79)
Satannish (#76-77, 79, 98-100)
Digger (Night Shift; #77-79)
Oracle (Imperial Guard; #80)
Tempest (Imperial Guard; #80)
Electron (Imperial Guard; #80)
Kree Sentry (#80)
Warstar (Imperial Guard; #80-81)
Captain Atlas (#81)
Dr. Minerva (#81)
Nightside (Imperial Guard; #81)
Scintilla (Imperial Guard; #81)
Starbolt (Imperial Guard; #81)
Neutron (Imperial Guard; #81)
Shifter (Imperial Guard; #81)
Titan (Imperial Guard; #82)
Smasher (Imperial Guard; #82)
Hussar (Imperial Guard; #82)
Earthquake (Imperial Guard; #82)
Astra (Imperial Guard; #82)
Unnamed Skrull (#82)
Ultimus (Kree Starforce; #82)
Therak (Deathweb; #82, 84-86)
Antro (Deathweb; #82, 84-86)
Arachne (Deathweb; #82, 84-86)
The Hyena (#83)
Mike Clemson (The Commission and The Conclave; #84-86)
The Manipulator (#85-86)
Svyatogor (Bogatyri; #87-88)
Mikuli (Bogatyri; #87-88)
Zvezda Dennista (Bogatyri and Pacific Overlords; #87-88, 93-95)
Dr. Volkh (Bogatyri; #87-88)
Ultron (no number designation, sometimes called Ultimate Ultron; #89-91, Annual #8)
War Toy (Alkhema; #90-91, Annual #8)
Goliath (#92)
Klaw (#93-95)
Raksasa (#94-95)
Power Platoon (#96-97)
Quantum (#97)
Wundarr (#97)
Coldsteel (Joseph Stalin, Lethal Legion; #98-100)
Cyana (Lucrezia Borgia, Lethal Legion; #98-100)
Axe of Violence (Lizzie Borden, Lethal Legion; #98-100)
Zyklon (Heinrich Himmler, Lethal Legion; #98-100)
Mephisto (#99-100)
Crossfire (#100)
Sons of the Serpent (#100)
Hate Monger (#100)
Exodus (#101)
Magistrate Elite (#101)
Skelter (The Unforgiven; #101)
Syth (The Unforgiven; #101)
Fabian Cortez (#101)
Terminus (Annual #5)
The Termini (Annual #5)
Eel (Surf; Annual #5)
Sharkskin (Surf; Annual #5)
Undertow (Surf; Annual #5)
Doctor Goodwrench (Annual #5)
Grotesk (Annual #6)
Tyrannus (Annual #6)
Brutus (Annual #6)
Professor Power (Annual #7)

Guest Stars

Lockjaw (Inhumans; #60-62)
The Time-Keepers (#62)
Vision (Avengers; #63, 82, 89-92, 96, 101-102, Annual #5-6)
Captain America (Steve Rogers, Avengers; #64, 69, 80, 88, 100-102, Annual #5-6)
Mister Immortal (Great Lakes Avengers; #64)
Flatman (Great Lakes Avengers #64)
Big Bertha (Ashley Crawford; Great Lakes Avengers #64)
Doorman (Great Lakes Avengers; #64)
Dinah Soar (Great Lakes Avengers; #64)
Namor the Sub-Mariner (Avengers; #65, 71)
Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter; #70-72)
Sunfire (Shiro Yashida; #71, 74)
Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards, Fantastic Four; #75)
The Human Torch (Johnny Storm, Fantastic Four; #75)
The Thing (Ben Grimm, Fantastic Four; #75)
Franklin Richards (#75)
Invisible Woman (Sue Richards, Fantastic Four; #75)
Wong (#78)
Doctor Strange (#78-79)
Rick Jones (#80)
Quasar (Wendell Vaughan, Avengers; #80-82, Annual #5-6)
She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters, Avengers; #81, Annual #5-6)
Gilgamesh (Avengers; #81)
Falcon (Sam Wilson, Avengers; #81)
Her (#81)
Majestrix Lilandra Neramani (Shi’ar; #82)
Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau, Avengers; #82)
Starfox (Eros, Avengers; #82)
Thor (Eric Masterson, Avengers; #82)
Machine Man (Aaron Stack; #83, Annual #5)
Spider-Man (Peter Parker; #84-86)
Wolverine (Logan, X-Men; #87-88)
War Machine (Jim Rhodes; #89)
Darkhawk (#93-95, Annual #7)
Bill Foster (#100)
Hercules (Avengers; #101-102, Annual #5-6)
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers; #101-102, Annual #6)
Black Knight (Dane Whitman, Avengers; #101-102)
Crystal (Avengers; #101-102)
Sersi (Avengers; #101-102, Annual #6)
Professor Charles Xavier (X-Men; #101)
Beast (Hank McCoy, X-Men; #101)
Cyclops (Scott Summers, X-Men; #101)
Gambit (Remy LeBeau, X-Men; #101)
Bishop (X-Men; #101)
Rogue (X-Men; #101)
Jean Grey (X-Men; #101)
Archangel (Warren Worthington, X-Men; #101)
Iceman (Bobby Drake, X-Men; #101)
Edwin Jarvis (#102)
Firebird (Bonita Juarez; Annual #5)
Kala (Annual #6)
Mole Man (Annual #6)
Rage (Avengers, Annual #6)
Sandman (Avengers; Annual #6)
Raptor (Gary Wilton; Annual #8)

Supporting Characters

Agatha Harkness (#61-63)
Ann Raymond (#63, 65)
Rachel Carpenter (Spider-Woman’s daughter; #75, 78, 84-86, 88-90, 92)
Larry Carpenter (Spider-Woman’s ex-husband; #78, 84-86)
Consuela Sanchez (AWC cook/maid; #84, 89-90, 92)
Lou (Commission; #87, Annual #7)
Myron MacLain (#89-91)
James Rhodes (Annual #7)

Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:

Fabian Nicieza and Tom Morgan stepped in to keep this book going after Byrne left, with pretty unimpressive results. The villain Vibro, looking very deranged, is angry that people keep moving to Los Angeles, because he figures the San Francisco earthquake should have been enough to make people leave the geologically unstable region. He shows up at a municipal development office, and rants, and then decides that the best way to warn people about the dangers of an earthquake is to cause a massive one himself. He enters the Earth, and starts a massive and ongoing earthquake. The Avengers – Wasp, Doctor Pym, Wonder Man, USAgent, and The Human Torch (these last two are injured) – are still in the metal sphere Magneto trapped them in. They are sent to their compound, where they are freed, and immediately learn from a gardener of the earthquake. Simon wants to go back for Wanda, but Hank makes it clear that people need help. He asks the gardener to take Walker and the Torch to the infirmary, and he enlarges Rover, his flying vehicle (who thankfully seems to have stopped talking). Iron Man finishes charging his armor at some guy’s apartment (as seen in the last issue) and then heads out to help. The Avengers help him, and they start doing whatever they can around the badly damaged city to save people, having to make some hard choices to prioritize emergencies. Jan is upset to see some dead bodies crushed in rubble, but Hank helps set her straight (I really hate this dynamic, when we all know she’s much stronger than he is). It’s standard rescue stuff for a few pages, until Hank receives a call telling him about Vibro’s involvement in things. Iron Man, who, remember, is trying to tell his teammates that he isn’t Tony Stark, tells Hank all about Vibro. Hank and Jan go looking for him, while Simon rescues a kid and a cat. When Hank and Jan meet up with some scientists along a fault line, Jan flies down to investigate. She finds Vibro and engages in a nonsense debate with him, and he decides to start another, bigger, earthquake. Jan flies back to the surface, and Hank somehow uses his ability to shrink and grow things to close the fault, believing that Vibro will be able to live under the Earth, although it looks very much like he is crushed to death, given that we see his weird glasses go flying. Hank is tired, but heads back into LA to join Simon and Tony on a roof. The four Avengers realize they need to keep working, and of course they worry about rioting in Black neighbourhoods, so they head back to work.
The Statement of Ownership for 1990 reports an average press run of 289 000 copies of this book, with average newsstand returns of 107 000.
Issue fifty-nine is a little confusing, as it’s clearly an inventory story, that then got reworked at the end to make it fit with the rest of the series. Danny Fingeroth wrote it, while someone named Gary Hartle drew it, except for the last two pages, which were done by Brad Vancata. In the story, Hydro-Man gets an intelligence upgrade by a mysterious stranger (who turns out to be Loki), and then decides to use his new intelligence against the West Coast Avengers. Only Hawkeye and Wonder Man bother to go fight him, and are surprised to be defeated by him. Doctor Pym comes to their rescue in Rover, but also falls to him. They are about to be killed, but Loki (who is still disguised, but is now sporting different-coloured hair) takes away his intelligence, and suddenly the team is able to capture him in a large tube. He tells them he’s hidden a bomb somewhere, so they need to free him and let him find it. Because he’s dumb again, he reveals that the bomb is in their swimming pool at their compound. Hank, who needs scuba gear to go into the pool, apparently, finds the bomb, but it’s too complex for him to defuse, and Hydro Man, who built it when he was smart, can’t remember how to stop it. Simon decides to crush it, and even though it’s only the size of a first gen ipod, the resulting explosion kills them all (even the invulnerable Simon). We see USAgent and Paladin comfort Jan at the funeral, and then learn that Immortus is there. He erases the timeline, and looks in on the AWC in his spying globe thing, and talks to himself about how he might not be able to spare the Avengers. This was not a good issue at all.

So with issue sixty, the new creative team of writers Roy and Dann Thomas and artist Paul Ryan settle in, working to resolve all of Byrne’s ongoing plots. But, we open in Dallas in 1963, and see an officer shoot Lee Harvey Oswald before he is able to shoot John F. Kennedy. It doesn’t much matter though, as someone else kills Kennedy a moment later, and Immortus decides to delete this timeline, and get back to his main project, which he claims is about to end. He watches as the Avengers still fly around fixing problems caused by the earthquake two issues before. A lighthouse is about to collapse, but the team is able to hold it together. Some debris almost hits the Wasp, whose biostings have stopped working, but Hawkeye arrives with the USAgent on his skycycle and knocks the debris away with an arrow. Clint explains that Mockingbird is still working with the Great Lakes Avengers, but he decided to return to the Avengers. Clint almost gives away Tony’s secret identity in front of Walker. Tony, Simon, and Hank finish supporting the lighthouse and a crowd gathers around Walker, mistaking him for Captain America, and thanking him. Clint is still upset that Walker is on the team, and Jan suggests it’s time they get a team chairman. The Avengers decide to head home, acknowledging that they have to deal with their pending eviction and the Scarlet Witch situation. Jan rides with Hank in Rover, and they talk about Quicksilver. Meanwhile, on Magneto’s asteroid, Magneto wants to push a button and bring weather based havoc on the Earth. Quicksilver rushes to stop him, revealing that he’s not really on his father’s side. Pietro quickly wraps Magneto in some non-metallic wires, but the Scarlet Witch attacks him, dropping him through the floor so he injures his leg. Magneto explains that he’d always figured that Pietro was going to betray him (which is weird, because during Englehart’s run, Pietro became a villain, and we’ve not seen his redemption anywhere). Pietro pulls a miniaturized Lockjaw from his belt, and uses vibrations to bring him back to full size (we finally see what he and Hank must have talked about), and the Inhuman dog teleports them all away. They show up in a futuristic-looking city, surrounded by the Avengers West Coast (I’m not sure how it is that the Avengers are here waiting for them, without having communicated with Pietro). Wanda insists on siding with her father, and so the Avengers attack him, and of course, that doesn’t go well. Wanda is about to step on Jan, but she hears a voice telling her to “cease this nonsense”, and she appears to return to the same type of trance we saw her in before. Tony tosses a big piece of something at Magneto, and it sends him flying through a plywood wall. It seems they are in the Atlantis exhibit of an abandoned aquarium, where there is very little metal. Magneto tries to draw Wanda to him, but there is an energy field around her that keeps him from being able to reach her. Angry, Magneto flies off, but most of the team pursues him. Pietro, still injured, stays back and explains to Lockjaw that he’s come to realize that Magneto is not the reason Wanda is acting so strangely. The Avengers catch up to Magneto, and he and Iron Man end up fighting in the smokestack of an oil refinery. We don’t see what happens, but the smokestack explodes, and only Tony emerges. They head back, and somehow get Wanda, who is still in the energy field that makes things disappear, back to their compound. They try to figure out what to do next, and we learn that Lockjaw can’t teleport her out. That’s when Immortus shows up, and explains that he’s been using the Avengers as pawns in his strategy, and that he’s promoting Wanda to the level of his queen.
Immortus insists that he’s the Master of Time, and makes it clear to the Avengers that encircle him as he stands next to the catatonic Wanda, that they can’t attack him. There is a lot of posturing and yelling, before Pietro decides he’s going to attack anyway, with no luck. Janet has an idea for Lockjaw, but he’s not able to teleport Wanda away from Immortus. Immortus puts Lockjaw to sleep (not in that way; he’s still alive), and then starts to teleport Wanda back to his realm. He takes all the Avengers with him, but weirdly, a trace of him remains in the Avengers’ base, like a ghostly afterimage, and someone speaks to it. In Limbo, the Avengers marvel at Immortus’s base, and again posture. Not having any real reason for them to be there, Immortus calls forth his Legion of the Unliving to fight them – it’s a bunch of villains connected to the team or its individual members in some way. We see the first Black Knight, the Grim Reaper, the 2020 Iron Man (that reads weird now), the Swordsman, Right-Winger and Left-Winger, Oort, the Living Comet (who no one knows), and maybe a Human Torch, although that creates confusion. The Reaper attacks Simon, while Arno Stark attacks Tony, threatening to reveal his identity. Swordsman goes after Clint, of course, while the Black Knight goes after Pym, who enlarges his Rover. Walker starts to fight both of the -Wingers, and Jan tries to figure out which Torch is attacking her. Oort, who is from the 50th century, claims Pietro should know him, and blasts him. Back in LA, Agatha Harkness talks to the shade of Immortus that was left behind. She’s figured out that Immortus was behind Wanda’s turn, and she cast a spell that keeps part of him with her now. Clint’s fight with the Swordsman follows every other fight we’ve seen between them since the Swordsman died (it really is a well that is returned to often), and Clint electrocutes him. Agatha puts a spell on Immortus, commanding him to explain his plan. Pym manages to take down the Black Knight, who dies exactly as he did before. We get yet another recap of Immortus’s origin, and learn of his time as Rama-Tut and Kang. Walker evades the -Wingers, and they end up killing one another by mistake. Immortus talks about how he was given powers by the Time Keepers, and given the task of looking after 7000 years of history, culling divergent timelines. He explains that he came across his ultimate purpose, and Agatha demands to know what that is. 2020 almost destroys 1990 Iron Man, but Tony is victorious. Immortus explains to Agatha that Wanda is a “nexus being”, a constant in all timelines, who can help give him greater power. Simon tries to hold his brother off, and ends up breaking his neck by mistake; this makes Simon very angry. Immortus continues to talk, explaining how he has manipulated events involving both Vision and the Scarlet Witch for years, including having planned her childbirth. Janet finally learns that she’s not fighting a Human Torch, but Toro. He feels bad, but has no control over the fact that he has to kill Jan. Immortus continues to recap Wanda’s recent history, inserting himself into everything that happened except for Magneto getting involved. Agatha finally realizes what Immortus’s plan really is (although I thought he already said so), and is clearly angry about it.

So now the Avengers are facing off against Immortus again, having dispatched his Legion. Immortus stands next to Wanda, with a forcefield protecting them both, but once again, that doesn’t stop Pietro from trying to get through it. Then everyone tries to attack it, to no avail, until Immortus calls his guardian, Tempus, a big white giant, to attack them. Back in LA, Agatha Harkness yells at the shade of Immortus, and then figures that she can travel through him to Limbo. Once there, she sees the Avengers fighting Tempus. Pietro discovers that hitting him with pieces of Immortus’s castle hurts him, so they all start doing that. Tempus hits them with his “timestorm”, causing them all to live through some of their worst moments. They collapse, and Agatha takes advantage of Immortus’s state of distraction to try to reach Wanda. She conjures images of Vision and her children, but she doesn’t react. Immortus decides to kill the Avengers (really, his motivations for bringing them to Limbo never made sense), and then senses Agatha’s presence. The old lady tries harder to awaken Wanda while Immortus starts to tear her astral form apart. Wanda wakes up, and starts firing hexes everywhere. The Avengers all find their most painful moments resolving in ways that are different from how they lived before, and this freaks Immortus out, because this will create more timelines he’ll have to undo. As the Avengers recover, they see that Wanda is herself again, and that she’s losing her new powers. Just then, the Time-Keepers, the trio of alien beings that gave Immortus control over 7000 years, appear. They are not happy with Immortus, despite the fact that they wanted him to locate a nexus being like Wanda, because he failed to gain control of Wanda. The Avengers finally realize that Immortus has been manipulating them all along, and Walker and Clint (who at one point calls him John Walters) try to attack them to no avail. There’s a lot of talking, really, and in the end, Immortus tries to absorb Wanda’s extra powers, which are just floating around. This makes him as immobile as she was, and the Time-Keepers explain that they were also preparing him to take on the role he wanted Wanda to take in case he failed. So, in the end, Wanda feels sorry for Immortus, and they are all transported back home. Wanda and Agatha embrace and Pietro tells Lockjaw he can go back to the Inhumans. Everyone starts to relax, but Hank remembers that he still has to deal with The Human Torch (who is still deactivated), and Tigra (who is still feral and tiny).
The 1990 Annual is the fourth chapter of the five-part Terminus Factor event. The main story is by the Thomases, and opens with Hank and Janet working to bring the Human Torch back online. The rest of the Avengers (Tony, Simon, Walker, and Clint) are there, as is Machine Man, although his presence isn’t explained. Jim is confused at first, but happy to learn that he hasn’t been offline for long. Pietro arrives to tell them they received a call from Hercules, alerting them to the fact that Hercules has called them to San Francisco, where he’s dealing with metallic creatures called Termini that Tony and Machine Man have recently fought. They head out. In SF, Hercules watches as the older Avengers foe, Terminus, fights the combined forces of the Termini, which basically look like another, more feral, version of him. The Avengers come, and Hank puts together a plan involving using some lenses he enlarges. These lenses, after the Torch shines his light through them, confuses the two creatures so they chase illusions of the other away from the city for a bit, before they figure it out, and fight the Avengers. Our heroes have little luck fighting these creatures, and as Terminus and Termini fight one another again, they cause destruction all around them. Somehow, Termini shrinks and Terminus eats it. There’s an explosion, and we see a larger, more-armed Terminus, who turns away from the Avengers, heading to some destination. The East Coast Avengers, which are apparently only Vision, She-Hulk, Quasar, and Captain America, make plans to rendez-vous with the AWC and fight the creature in their annual.
Annual 5 has a number of substandard backups that are worth enumerating for no other reason than to chart the decline of comics in the 1990s. Firebird is at an aquarium in San Diego when three Atlanteans – Eel, Sharkskin, and Undertow, who are collectively known as Surf, turn up to liberate the whales. She calls in the Avengers, so Hank, Jan, and Clint board a quinjet. When they get there, they find that Bonita is holding the three from completing their mission. Hank starts shrinking and bottling the whales to protect them, while the others fight. Once Hank has all the whales somewhere safe, Bonita heats the water in their tank so the members of Surf jump out. Cornered, they begin to talk, and they learn that both sides care about the whales’ well-being. Once the whales are put back in their tank, Undertow makes the point that forcing the whales to perform is not cool, and then they leave. We see that wild whales are still in danger of being hunted.

The great Dwayne McDuffie contributes a messed up story. The guys of the Avengers (Clint, Simon, Walker, Tony, and for some reason, Vision) are hanging out watching Walker lift weights. Simon tells them that because he has to go to his set, he needs them to fill in for him in a public appearance. Tony is stand-offish, but Clint agrees for all of them. They are at a monster truck show, having to participate in the act. A villain who actually calls himself Doctor Goodwrench believes that he is a crusader for machine rights, and uses his mutant powers to turn the trucks and the big truck dinosaur thing against the crowd. The heroes work to stop them, but Goodwrench takes over the Iron Man. It takes the Vision to tell him that he can’t actually communicate with machines before he gives up, and wants a hug. (I’m guessing we aren’t going to be seeing Goodwrench on Krakoa any time soon.
The final ridiculous story is set after the fight the team had with the U-Foes. Hank has lost a miniaturized hyperatomic anti-proton cannon, and knows that even shrunk down, it could destroy the compound. He tears his room apart looking for it, and the rest of the team helps, except for Simon, who isn’t allowed to move in case his weight sets off the cannon. Finally, after much hilarity (actually, no hilarity), Simon eats it with a handful of chips. Ha ha.
Back in the regular series, a young man goes hiking into the Santa Ana Mountains, looking for a hidden base that his father, as a member of The Legion of the Living Lightning used to come to. He finds the base, and is able to enter it. The Avengers and Agatha Harkness gather around Wanda, who is lying in a hospital bed in the team’s compound. The doctor thinks she will recover with rest, and we learn the team has hired a nurse to look after her. Everyone leaves, but Simon stands around for a bit, being awkward. When the doctor tells Pietro that he doesn’t know if her hex powers will return, because he hasn’t treated mutants before, Pietro flies off the handle momentarily before Clint calms him down. Jan is organizing helpers to look for Tigra, who is still missing, but Tony wants to go back to his business, and Clint is arranging to meet Bobbi, who is flying into town for a visit. The guy at the Lightning base, Miguel Santos, thinks about how the place was destroyed by the Hulk a while back. When he tries to plug the damaged Lightning Machine in, he is electrocuted. USAgent asks Simon to play pool with him before they go looking for Tigra, but Simon blows him off. Waler, who refers to himself as Jack Daniels, the second time he’s been mis-named in two issues (there’s nothing like 90s editors!), recriminates himself for not fitting in better, and then decides it’s not his problem. Hank and Jan talk about him as he walks off, and Agatha talks to Hank about staying around to help Wanda recover. Hank and Jan head to check in on the Human Torch, who returned to being deactivated after the Terminus Affair. They see Simon talking to Vision on the phone; Vision declines his invitation to come check on Wanda, since he doesn’t remember being married to her, and Simon is so angry he busts through a wall and flies off (because he clearly doesn’t care about finding Wanda). Miguel emerges from the wreckage of the Lightning base transformed into a silver energy being. He wrecks the place, and flies off as The Living Lightning. Hank and Jan enter Hank’s lab and find Ann Raymond standing still in the dark in front of the tube that Jim Hammond had been in before. He apparently woke up, burst into flame, and flew through the ceiling some hours before, and Ann had been blinded and then just stood around, because really, she has no purpose in this book. Hank figures out what time he left because he managed to melt a clock, and then enlarges Rover, who still doesn’t talk, to go looking for him. Jim flies around feeling disconnected from the modern world, and humanity. He stops at a donut place to ask how to get back to the compound, when he hears reports that a flying glowing man is wrecking things in Fullerton. He flies off to investigate, despite the fact that he doesn’t know where Fullerton is. Hank, Jan, and Ann hear the same reports and think it might be Jim. Jim finds a burning gas station, and people who think he’s the cause, but then finds Living Lightning in the sky. He explains that he’s testing his new powers, and seems a little confused. They start to fight, and Jim works to rescue people that Living Lightning is putting in the way of danger. Rover arrives, and Jan joins the fight. LL causes Rover to crash, but Jim gets back in the fight. Hank tosses him a grounding wire, but he misses it. Jan brings it to him, and when Miguel grabs it, it causes Rover to explode (to be missed by no one). Miguel seems to be gone, and Jim thanks the others for saving him. Hank gives him a lecture about teamwork, and Jim feels like he fits in. Jan worries about how they’re going to get home, but Hank has a shrunken quinjet in his pocket (which means he chose to ride around in his dumb-looking Rover instead).

Issue sixty-four is yet another fill-in issue, by Terry Kavanaugh and Chris Wozniak, and marks another step in the decline in this title. Captain America receives a distress call from Rick Jones, which he traces to the AWC compound. He talks to the Torch, who tells him the computer he’s asking about isn’t used often. Cap suggests he interface with it, and the Torch (who has been asleep for years) explains that the computers are too advanced for his human-like android circuitry, but then proceeds to know how to work the computer to trace a contact back to a location he gives Steve. Some kid watches on a home computer as Steve rushes off to rescue Rick. The kid, we learn, has a lucky red rock that he takes with him as he sneaks out of the house. Cap makes his way to an abandoned amusement park in the Midwest, and we see that some other, familiar silhouettes are also arriving there, responding to a call from the Avengers. The Torch learns that the computer has detected traces of the energy given off by the ruby of Cytorrak (because that’s how computers from 1990 work), and decides he should join Steve and flies off. As he flies, he recaps for himself the history of the ruby, which he wouldn’t know because he was deactivated while all this was happening. Cap gets attacked by mannequins, and falls through some walls, and then has his shield snatched by the thing that we saw attack Rick. The Torch arrives, and the kid with the ruby decides to maybe animate some mirrors to attack him, and then more mannequin things, and then some images of old friends. Cap and the Torch end up in the same wax museum, where they fight a bunch of animated wax figures of heroes and villains, and end up realizing they are each legit. They try to rescue Rick, but get attacked by the Great Lake Avengers, who we saw earlier, and then some stuff happens, and some other stuff happens, until they all work out that Rick wasn’t ever real, that Cap didn’t call the GLA there, and they’d been played. Everyone thought Cap lost his shield in the fight, but he swapped it with a wax one, which the kid with the ruby realizes when he takes it to school for show and tell. This was a bad comic.
Simon visits his brother’s grave, recapping their life, his death, and how he’s glad he’s buried in Southern California. He flies off, and almost immediately, his brother, the Grim Reaper, digs out of his grave, happy to be alive again. Nekra, his girlfriend, appears to tell him that he’s not alive. She learned Black Talon’s techniques, and has brought him back, but he needs to absorb a human’s life energy every 24 hours through his scythe arm. Nekra wants him to kill a groundskeeper, but he kills her instead and absorbs her energy. At the AWC compound, Clint is practising at night. USAgent interrupts him, and they almost come to blows, except Pietro and Wanda interrupt, just as Simon also arrives in a quinjet. The fight ends, and Pietro mentions that Hank and Jan have left. Simon asks to talk to Wanda. She shares that her powers haven’t returned, and that she thinks that maybe she’s done with being the Scarlet Witch. When he suggests that they go get a meal, she sees that it’s important to him, so she agrees. Somewhere on the coast, in an old abandoned military gun-emplacement, some people perform voodoo rites (seriously) when the Grim Reaper arrives and kills all but one of them. Simon and Wanda are settling into a taco spot, with Simon signing some autographs, when the woman who survived the Reaper’s attack comes into the restaurant and tells them what happened. Simon and Wanda offer to accompany two state troopers. Simon goes in first, and finds Eric there. They start fighting. When the cops open fire on Eric, their bullets don’t faze him. He wants to drain Simon’s life energy (which Simon takes as proof that Eric is not in his right mind), but somehow, when his scythe touches Simon, it drains Eric, but makes Simon feel ill. Eric turns towards Wanda, whose powers still don’t work. In desperation, she knocks over the only lantern in the place, and Eric flees. Simon feels responsible for finding him. Elsewhere, we learn that Jan and Hank took a car on their trip together, but got a flat tire on a back road. They make their way to a farmhouse, where the inhabitants can’t help them, because they don’t know what a jack is. Hank pulls a new Rover out of his pocket and enlarges it. Just then, the farmer and his wife start smoking and explode – they are robots! Hank and Jan are confused by this, and decide they should return to LA. Ultron-13 is watching this on a screen, and is clearly behind planting robot wheat farmers in LA (where I’m pretty sure wheat won’t grow).
In a backup to issue 65, the Human Torch and Ann Raymond have travelled to a small channel island off the coast of Santa Barbara, after having put ads in papers around the world looking for information on the death of Toro. They only got one response, which has led them here. The Mad Thinker reveals himself, and reveals exactly where Toro died before having a giant whale monster attack. The Torch burns the monster, and finds that the Thinker is gone. Both he and Ann find this odd, but decide to head to the island the Thinker mentioned. After they’ve gone, we learn that the Thinker was really Namor in disguise, and that he made a robot whale monster to help hide the fact that he’s really alive (I’m lost here).

Iron Man and USAgent are present at a spot where a helicopter is spraying malathion to control the medfly population (this was a thing in LA in 1989), and where protesters are about to get doused with the stuff. Tony disperses the spray, but ends up almost knocking the helicopter out of the sky, while Walker argues with the crowd, until he learns that they believe there has been secret night spraying which is causing them to have weird metallic patches on their skin. After Tony saves the pilots, he establishes that they are not doing night sprays, and decides he should just fly Walker out of there because he wants to fight the pilots now. They return to the compound, where they find that Tigra is back to normal (apparently Agatha Harkness fixed her in Avengers Spotlight), and that there is a team meeting. Everyone has gathered except for the Torch, and Hank and Jan reveal the robot wheat farmers’ heads. They want to look into this situation, and Walker wonders if it’s related to the malathion spraying. Clint makes fun of that, and Walker wants to fight him. Hank starts to plan and divide the team, but Simon gets angry and smashes the meeting table because he thinks looking for his brother should be their priority. When Hank and Tony disagree with him, he storms off. Wanda goes after him, but she can’t calm him down either, so he flies off. The team, minus Hank and Wanda, start searching LA for more robots (although they look in populated areas, not on farms). Clint has gone to a closed section of tunnels that were involved in a recent fire (the Thomases are being very topical with this issue, as this is also a thing that happened). Tigra and Quicksilver followed him, because they thought he acted oddly during the meeting. They enter the sealed off tunnel, and notice a crack in a wall that appears too neat. When they bust through, they find a big lab, complete with a helicopter (under the ground), and some robot pilots that attack them. They fight them off easily, but are then confronted by Ultron-13, who manages to knock them all out. They wake up in glass tubes, and learn that Ultron is working on a scheme to turn everyone on Earth into robots through altered wheat and nighttime chemical spraying. We learn that he’s already started the process on the three heroes (one of whom is super fast and could have run off for help and come back during the fight, but didn’t).
In the backup to issue 66, the Grim Reaper feeds on a homeless man, and is confronted by Simon, who tries to reach his humanity before being attacked by him. Just as Eric is about to blast his brother, the Mandrill, the brother of Nekra, attacks, but the Reaper stabs him with his scythe and kills him. Eric tells Simon he’s going to let him live, so he can continue to feel guilt over the deaths he’s going to cause, and he takes off. Simon ends up talking to the police who show up, and makes a comment about him not knowing his attacker.
The Grim Reaper walks through the sewers of LA and discovers Ultron-13’s lair, where he watches the robot rant to his three captive Avengers while he continues to try to turn them into robots with his gas. The Reaper realizes that if Ultron’s plan works, he’ll run out of sources of life-energy. While the Avengers try to resist, and everyone talks a lot, the Reaper starts sneaking up behind Ultron. Ultron brings out some of his new robot-ized humans, and muses that the only person who might be a problem for him is Iron Man, because he’s sealed in his armor. That awkward segue leads to us checking in on Tony, who is flying around aimlessly looking for robots when he sees a guy being beat on by two other guys. When he flies down to check it out, it turns out they are all robots, and they attack him. He’s able to take them out pretty easily. Ultron notices the Reaper before he can strike, and they fight briefly until Ultron turns his scythe into an actual extension of Eric’s body, and they agree to work together. Hank and Wanda have gone to UCLA to borrow their supercomputer, although Dr. Falk, the woman in charge of it, is not too happy to have them there. Hank needs it to figure out what’s going on with the robots and the wheat, but decides instead to use a microscope for a while first (good thing they have microscopes in their super computer room). Wanda thinks about her future without powers. Hank figures out that the metal in the transformed humans should be reversible with light, but he doesn’t know what kind (really, the Thomases aren’t even trying with this science). Just then, the newly robot-ized Pietro, Clint, and Tigra bust through a skylight and attack. Dr. Falk is very worried about her computer, which the robot-ized Avengers start smashing. Iron Man, Wasp, and USAgent show up to fight them. The fight ends up on the campus, just as Wonder Man arrives. Hank recovers from being briefly knocked out, and yells to Tony to use his uni-beam to stop them. He cycles through a number of lights on the spectrum, before learning that infrared hurts them. Wanda is pleased that Simon came to work with the team, and Dr. Falk stays mad about the computers. After the three are tied up, Hank wants Tony to keep using his uni-beam on them, and he starts moving through all frequencies of infra-red. He starts to worry that he will never find the right one, but Wanda manages to use her hex powers to help him narrow the probabilities, and the Avengers start turning back, although Tony’s light starts losing power. Pietro and Tigra are back to normal, but Clint’s hand is still metal. None of them can remember anything that happened to them, and Hank worries that Ultron might try to transform a number of people next. We see Ultron and the Grim Reaper talking, and learn that Ultron is going to use his gallium arsenide spray on the Rose Parade.

Wonder Man, Iron Man, USAgent, Tigra, and Quicksilver attack Ultron’s base, since Tigra and Quicksilver were able to remember where it was while under hypnosis. Ultron’s not there, but more of his “andrones” are, and they have to restrain them. A small child fools Walker and attacks him, but Simon pulls it off him. One of the andrones (because why not wait until the last chapter of the story to give them names?) sets off the base’s self-destruct, so the Avengers rush out of the tunnel, where they find a cop trying to give their quinjet a ticket for parking in a restricted zone. The tunnel explodes, and then the team prepares to leave, when Tony realizes that Simon didn’t come out with them. Pietro says he told him he was going to stick around and look for his brother, and that he wasn’t worried about the explosion. He finds Eric, who explains to him that as Ultron turns more people into andrones, he also somehow absorbs some of their human energy, which makes him susceptible to the Reaper’s scythe. His plan is to betray Ultron. He offers Simon a deal – he’ll take him to Ultron, in return for Simon allowing him to kill one person a day to feed himself with in perpetuity. Simon agrees. Back at the compound, presumably, Hawkeye is trying to attack Hank, Wanda, and Janet, and leave. Jan’s sting has no effect on him, and when Wanda tries to use a hex, she almost crushes Hank with some equipment. Clint is about to get away when the quinjet returns, and he collapses. Hank figures out that it was never his Pym particles that affected the farmer robots, it was the Rover’s engines (because of course people who have been turned into robots because of a compound added to their wheat would be susceptible to the sound of engines and infra-red light). Hank receives an alert from Simon, so the team piles into the quinjet again. Simon and Eric stand around the security desk of an apartment building, watching footage of the Rose Parade, which has a science fiction theme this year, when they are confronted by a guard. Eric wants to kill him, but Simon says their deal doesn’t go into effect until after they stop Ultron. Together, they fly to the dirigible that Ultron is using, while we get to “hear” the parade commentary of a couple of newscasters. Eric attacks Ultron, who is surprised to see that he can hurt him. The dirigible starts to go down just as the giant robot floats in the parade, fashioned after old sci-fi movies, come to life and start trampling the crowd (for no apparent reason). The Avengers arrive and start to fight them. With Ultron down, Eric is feeling very powerful. Simon starts to fight him. He’s convinced that there is no part of his brother left in him. Ultron recovers, and then Hawkeye, back in control of himself again, comes flying into the dirigible on his skysled, and hits Eric. Eric fights Clint over who gets to take Ultron down. Ultron tries to reassert control over Clint, while Eric tries to drain him; the feedback affects both villains. Simon pushes Clint out of the way, so Ultron and Eric collide into one another. Pietro, Tony, and Greer arrive. Tony picks up Clint and flies off with him, promising to help him. Simon seems very weak, and collapses while trying to help Eric. Pietro points out that he’s just asleep (really?), and the team stands around him for a bit.
The Statement of Ownership for 1990 reports an average press run of 317 000, with average newsstand returns of 109 000.
Issue 69 opens with Clint in his ridiculously ugly battle armor (metal gloves, weird googles, and a massive quiver) standing at the edge of a cliff getting ready to fight USAgent. There’s a lot of posturing, and we learn that Clint has been cured of his robotic-issues after the fight with Ultron. They start to fight, with Walker dodging a number of Clint’s arrows. In a flashback, we see that earlier, the two men were arguing during a team meeting. Mockingbird was there too, with the rest of the team. Hank calmed things down, and explained that they needed to vote on the team’s permanent line-up of seven. Each Avenger was to vote for five people, and the top seven would form the team, while the top seven runners-up would be alternates. Captain America called in, with a badly miscoloured team behind him – Quasar is drawn like Nomad, and She-Hulk is dressed as the Scarlet Witch somehow. He had General Hayworth with him, who explained that now that the Avengers are working with the UN, the US Government couldn’t still insist on having Walker on the team, which led to him punching the table and needing to be restrained by Simon. In the present, the fight continues. The voting ended with Clint, Tigra, Wanda, Simon, Tony, Hank, and Jan all making the cut. The alternates were Mockingbird, Quicksilver, USAgent, the Human Torch (who is not there), and Machine Man for some reason. Weirdly, that’s when Hank and Jan decided to tell everyone that they wanted to leave, but would stick around for a little while. Clint goaded Walker, who then stormed out. As they continue to fight, they also argue, but mostly it’s just posturing. Clint decides to take off his battle armor to face him in combat, and Walker tosses him. Before, Clint revealed to Bobbi that he wasn’t the single vote for her, and she stormed off in anger. Walker approached him and suggested they settle their differences in a half hour. At the same time, Wanda told Simon that she didn’t want to keep seeing him, and he flew off, upset. Wanda talked to Jan and Hank about how they are the only couple doing okay, and they informed her that they’ve decided to just be friends, and while they’re leaving the team, they aren’t doing it together. As Clint and Walker keep fighting, Walker pushes Clint off the cliff accidentally. Clint is able to use a grappling hook arrowhead to slow his fall. Walker comes to check on him, and Clint starts punching him. They end up in the water, and Walker starts giving him a real beat-down. When he gives Clint the chance to call it quits, Clint punches him, so Walker knocks him out. He starts dragging him towards the shore, and that’s when the rest of the team shows up. There’s some speechifying, and Walker leaves for good. Clint gets up. Wanda worries that Walker might turn bad (which is a bit ironic, given her recent story arc). Some guy called Jawbreaker sneaks off a ship in LA Harbor, carrying a big gox. Another villainous type, called Taifu, confronts him, wanting the box he’s carrying. Taifu’s arms turn into wind, and he knocks Jawbreaker into a wall. That’s when a woman, who appears to be just a silhouette, appears and knocks Taifu out. She reveals herself to Jawbreaker – she is Kuroko, and she’s there to meet him, having been sent by someone she calls “the doctor.” She believes the thing in his trunk will make them “masters of the Pacific Rim.”

Spider-Woman (the Julia Carpenter edition) has come to LA, and is hanging out on a roof at Newport Beach thinking in large narrative chunks about how a boat entering the harbor without any lights on is suspicious. She decides to investigate, and sees Jawbreaker disembark with Kuroko, carrying the unconscious Taifu and the large chest. Spider-Woman gets noticed, so Jawbreaker attacks her and ends up tossing her far into the harbor. Taifu comes to and gets knocked out again. At the AWC compound, the team emerges from their first full meeting with their official lineup. Greer flirts with Iron Man (still not knowing that it’s Tony Stark in the suit), and Clint complains that he’s on probation after his fight with USAgent. Simon is angry, and Jan and Hank are still talking about leaving the team. Greer and Iron Man head out on a date, and Pietro comes to say goodbye to his sister. Hank and Jan’s conversation is cringey. Wanda finds Simon cold-calling women, looking for a date, and he gives her a cold shoulder and heads out for a hook-up. Wanda feels a little lonely. Kuroko leads Jawbreaker to a wax museum, which is the headquarters of the doctor she keeps referring to – Dr. Demonicus (an old Godzilla villain). Demonicus has Jawbreaker kill one of his assistants, then talks (a lot) about how when the Human Torch fought the Living Lightning, he ended up capturing the Lightning, reconstituting his body. He also apparently created Taifu, but is upset that he betrayed him. We learn they are looking for a woman, and that he wants to use the thing that Jawbreaker brought – a glowing rock called the Lifestone – to get his way. Tony and Tigra return from their mini-golf date, and see Spider-Woman creeping across the grounds of the compound. Tigra tries to fight her, but Tony stops her, because he knows Julia. The others join them, and Julia explains that she fought the Pacific Overlords (I’m pretty sure no one called themselves that in their fight). Later, the team turns up at the wax museum (apparently Hank was able to detect an “unauthorized power source” in the place; what’s really odd is that the exterior of the building looks completely different than it did a few pages ago), and bust in. They find the place abandoned, but discover the secret lab, and are attacked by a giant, odd-looking man who growls and smashes stuff. They only take him down with Wanda’s help, and then realize that he’s a mutated toddler. The baby manages to tell them that they are looking for Doctor Demonicus, and they stand around wondering where he might be.
The Avengers luckily have a large cell, where they’re keeping the mutated baby, whose cries are now strong enough to send them all flying. Spider-Woman, who’s come back to the compound with the team, suggests that Tigra crawl into the cell and calm the massive kid down by purring. After this calms him, Wanda retrieves a teddy bear from the belongings of her former children that Hank enlarges and they manage to swap out for Tigra. Clint turns up with info to prove that Dr. Demonicus owned the wax museum. Tony, pretending not to be Tony, identified all of Demonicus’s equipment as having come from Japan and Australia. Clint found some photos of Tokyo and Sydney, and figures they are clues. The team is paralyzed with indecision, because they haven’t voted in a chairperson yet, and apparently don’t know how to make consensus decisions suddenly. Hank suggests that Iron Man run the show, because he’s the “newest”, and he splits the team up to investigate the sites in the photos. He wants Wanda, Simon, and Hank to go to Australia, while he, Jan, and Tigra go to Japan. He wants Clint to hang back in the compound. Simon tries to switch assignments, but Tony won’t let him. Spider-Woman hangs back with Clint, and they decide to show the photos to the giant baby. The phone rings, and Clint learns that Hank had a date with the woman from the super computer room back when they fought Ultron. Then another call reveals that Jan was looking to get signed with a talent agency, and was shopping a script around. Julia calls Clint over to see that the baby has found a photo stuck to the other ones, and is looking at it intently. Julia has to use her psionic webs to get it from him, and they realize that the one he’s identified is not of Japan nor Australia. Clint and Julia leave in a quinjet to investigate this new location (and it doesn’t look like they call the others to tell them about it). Elsewhere Demonicus is in a different facility of his, talking to an underling of his plans, which basically involve him taking over the Pacific Rim nations. In Hawai’i, tourists hang out near Kilauea, and see two figures come flying out of the volcano. At Pearl Harbour, Namor is on hand to accept a plaque honoring his work during the Second World War. He’s attacked by the figures from the volcano – the former X-Man Sunfire and a woman identifying herself as Pele, the goddess of fire. There’s a lot of posturing, followed by a smoke arrow fired by Hawkeye, who has arrived with Spider-Woman in a quinjet they’ve landed in the harbor. Clint can’t do much against foes like this, and when Julia attacks Pele, it seems she doesn’t have much hope either. There is more posturing and slow moving fighting, until Namor recovers and jumps off a wave (at this point, he’s lost his ankle wings) and decks Sunfire. Pele takes off, and Namor (appearing to fly still), brings Sunfire to the floating quinjet, where Clint is pulling Julia out of the water. It turns out that Sufire doesn’t remember what happened, and that makes sense to Namor, who feels like he could tell from his eyes (through his opaque orange lenses) made him look mesmerized. Shiro remembers being struck in Japan, and keeps thinking of July 18, which is tomorrow, but doesn’t know why. Namor says he has to get back to LA, as does Julia. In San Diego, USAgent, who with Tom Morgan drawing, now looks to be like eight feet tall, stops some guy from stealing a car, but then gets a call from someone from the Commission. He wants him to hunt down Spider-Woman, and when Walker learns that she was last seen with the AWC, he’s happy to return to LA to capture her. It seems that the Commission wants her dead though, and he’s okay with that, so he jumps on top of a cab and tells the driver to take him to LA.

At this point, I dropped AWC, but I do have a pair of annuals and the Operation Galactic Storm tie-ins in a longbox. I think I’m going to read on a little bit further at least, even though I’m generally pretty bored with this book right now. I’m a bit curious to see how much worse things get…

At the start of issue 72, Iron Man and Tigra are in the Tokyo offices of Hasanum Electronics, a company whose components Tony identified in Dr. Demonicus’s base, talking to an executive. Wasp is there too, but she takes a while to reveal herself. The exec denies knowing anything about sales to Demonicus, but it becomes clear he’s lying, and Tony figures out that it has something to do with the company’s Kyoto facility. Just then a helicopter appears outside the window, and some Yakuza types start firing through the window, killing the executive. Jan and Greer attack them, and Tony comes out to stop the chopper from crashing. A little later, Tony finally reveals to the other two that it’s been him in the Iron Man all along, and they decide to take their quinjet to Kyoto to investigate further. Demonicus is in his underwater base, where he learns that the Yakuza he hired failed him. He talks to Kuroko about his plans. He also talks to Miguel, the Living Lightning, who he brought with him to this base. Demonicus explains how he was irradiated by his lifestone, and used it to create monsters before SHIELD took it from him. After he escaped prison, he retrieved shards of the lifestone, which allowed him to transform Jawbreaker. He talks about how he rescued Taifu (who is also present) and his wife and child from almost drowning at sea, and transformed them too (the baby is obviously the Big One, and Pele is the wife). Taifu demands to know where his family is, and when he learns, he manages to free himself and attack Demonicus. He frees Miguel, who electrocutes Taifu by mistake; Demonicus tells him that he will surpass his father. Tony and the others arrive at the plant in Kyoto, where they discover they’ve been led into a trap. Some guy called Irezumi, another Pacific Overlord, attacks them, and manages to take down Iron Man and Wasp. Tigra has to fight her way through some goons, but she manages to make it back to the quinjet and escape. Hank, Simon, and Wanda arrive in Sydney, where they are being watched by Jawbreaker and another unfortunate villain called Cybertooth. Clint and Spider-Woman return to the AWC compound, where Julia reveals that she wanted to come back so quickly because she has a seven year old daughter who is living with her ex-husband. This is why she moved to LA, to be close to them. As they talk, Clint is attacked by USAgent, who immediately knocks him out. He tells Julia he’s there to kill her for Clemson and the Committee, and after he gets her by the neck, he realizes he can’t go through with it. The issue ends with Julia telling the Agent to listen to her plans.
Tigra is flying the quinjet to Australia, hoping to meet up with Hank’s squad, but she’s been injured and is losing blood, and the quinjet was damaged when Irezumi’s people were shooting at it – it doesn’t have radio communications, or a computer. The jet starts to go down just as Tigra begins to black out. She lands somewhere in a jungle, and falls into a river. We see a hand pull her out, unconscious. At his underwater base, Dr. Demonicus talks to Living Lightning, who he’s given a special suit to keep his electrical energy contained in his human body. Miguel has agreed to work with Demonicus. Kuroko chats with him about what a great man Demonicus is, and reminds Miguel that he could turn off his suit whenever he wishes. Hank, Simon, and Wanda arrive at the electronics factory in Sydney they’ve gone to investigate, and are immediately greeted by over-armored security forces. Simon loses his temper and smashes their jeep, escalating the conflict. Hank shrinks Simon and Wanda so they can get past the eight guards (who probably wouldn’t have been much of a problem, really). They sneak off, and Wanda suggests Simon is still angry at her having refused his advances. They enter the building and make their way to the office of the CEO, who they see working at his desk. Their size is restored just as they confront the man, who turns out to be Cybertooth, one of the worst-designed villains ever (he has jagged teeth). He demonstrates his fearsomeness by chewing up a metal statue and crushing it into a ball with his teeth. Simon grabs him, but is suckerpunched by Jawbreaker, who has already knocked out Wanda. They start to fight, while Cybertooth grabs Wanda. Simon sends Jawbreaker out a window, and he falls many floors (it didn’t seem like tiny Simon and Wanda had climbed so high in the building), landing on the guard below. Cybertooth tries to bite Simon, but can’t. Simon pushes him away, and right into Hank, who has just arrived in the room. Cybertooth grabs Wanda and puts her head in his mouth (it’s gross), so Simon surrenders, and then gets suckerpunched by Jawbreaker again, from behind, and knocked out. The two Pacific Overlords load the three Avengers into their quinjet, and fly off in it. Out over the Pacific, they fly into a water vortex, which leads them to Demonicus’s base. Later, they wake to find themselves trapped in glass tubes, as are Iron Man, Wasp, and Taifu, with Demonicus and the rest of the Pacific Overlords watching them. Demonicus takes off his mask, showing that cancer has destroyed his mouth and given him horns – he looks just like the skull on his mask now. As the base starts shaking, Demonicus explains that he’s using his machines to create a new island in the Pacific, just like how Hawaii was formed. He’s going to call this place Demonica. Pele breaks free of his control and is angry at how she and her family have been treated. Jawbreaker knocks her out, which Miguel doesn’t like. Demonicus explains his plan again, in more detail, and as the base shakes, Wanda is able to free herself from the glass tube. She sees that the base is beginning to leak, and is about to use her hex to save everyone but Kuroko knocks her out again. The leaking stops, because the base is now above ground, on Demonica, and Demonicus is happy.

The Pacific Overlords erect a flag on Demonica, and Dr. Demonicus notices that Living Lightning is not as excited as the others. The Avengers have been moved outside in their containment tubes, and Wanda and Pele now lie at Demonicus’s feet. He decides they should be executed, and as three of the Overlords vie to do the job, Miguel stops them. Demonicus is about to defuse the situation when Hawkeye arrives, with Spider-Woman, USAgent, and Sunfire with him. They attack the Overlords, and Miguel fights with the villains again. Julia tries to free the Avengers, but Kuroko stops her, while Walker trades blows with Jawbreaker. Irezumi turns the noise of one of Clint’s sonic arrows back at him (and, if the writers remembered he was practically deaf, the scene would have played out differently). Miguel appears to take out Sunfire, but then refuses to use Wanda as a hostage when Demonicus orders him to. Demonicus is about to turn off the “units” on Miguel’s uniform, but he blasts the deactivator. Wanda uses her hex powers to free her team. Hank shrinks Irezumi, while Cybertooth bites off a chunk of Tony’s armor. Simon knocks him out, and then punches Jawbreaker. Jan tries to stop Korko from hurting Julia, who is on the ground, and then Jawbreaker runs right into the invisible woman, knocking them both out. Demonicus triggers a switch in his glove, and suddenly Kain, his assistant is flooded with energy and grows really tall. Spikes start to grow out of his head, and he loses the ability to speak. The heroes try to figure out how to stop him, but he somehow takes over Tony’s armor and starts firing on everyone. It seems he can now control all electronic things, including some power cords that start wrapping around Wanda. Simon can’t stop the guy, and Miguel’s attack has little effect. Jan flies into the guy’s ear and uses her sting to take him down. Kain returns to normal (what was the point of that?), and Demonicus shows them that while they were fighting, at the UN, a lackey he altered to look like he used to, is receiving official recognition of Demonica. Because of this, the Avengers can’t continue to fight him, so they stand down. Taifu and Pele are still angry with Demonicus, until he points out that their child, restored to his proper size, is also at the UN with fake Demonicus (why?), and that gives them reason to stand down. Demonicus orders the Avengers to leave, so they do, departing in two quinjets. As they fly, they talk about how USAgent has been reinstated on the team, and that Hank and Jan are leaving. Tigra calls in to tell them that she’s decided to stay in Northern Australia with the indigenous men that rescued her (which makes no sense at all). She suggests that Spider-Woman take her place, and Wanda agrees. The Agent agrees to take Hank’s place, and Jan suggests that Miguel take over for her.
AWC Annual #6 contains part five, the conclusion, of Subterranean Wars, the crossover event of 1991. Iron Man arrives at the compound carrying Kala, the now aged former queen of an underground kingdom, and former consort to the Mole Man. There’s a war going on under the Earth, and she went to Iron Man for help, although she’s surprised that Captain America and Black Widow haven’t come to the team yet, given they were headed that way when she last saw them. There’s a lot of talking, and then the team agrees to help. They take a massive underground tank thing, built by Stark, and head into the Earth. Even though they’re in a huge tank that is blasting a path through rock, Clint notices some rocks falling out the window, so they stop, and Simon smashes the side of the cave, and they discover Captain America and Black Widow, who are tied up. Kala, who is guiding the team, gets disoriented, so they pilot it over a cliff and end up surrounded by hundreds of Moloids and Lava Men. The Mole Man comes to them, and we learn that he’s joined forces with Grotesk and Tyrannus and their subterranean armies, in the fight against the Deviants, led by Brutus. The other Avengers are captured, and the Deviants have a device that can destroy the Earth’s entire crust. Grotesk joins them, and they go to see Tyrannus, who is an Ancient Roman, and is freaking out because he’s aging now. There’s an alarm, and Brutus’s forces, made up of mutates and Deviants, start to fight the team. Brutus, we learn, is hated by the other Deviants. Wanda figures out how to make mental contact with Sersi, so she and Tony fly off to free the other Avengers. They find and rescue Rage, Vision, She-Hulk, Quasar, Sersi, Sandman (I forgot about him being on the team briefly), and Hercules. They all join the fight, and things get a little tedious, until Sersi figures out that Brutus is actually a mutate, “passing” as a Deviant. With that revelation, his forces turn on him. Grotesk decides to seize Brutus’s device, and is about to use it to destroy the Earth, but Living Lightning drains it of power, and all the Avengers knock Grotesk out. Kala is hurt, having jumped in front of a mutate to save Mole Man, so they take her to the tent where Tyrannus is convalescing. Mole Man has the antidote to save Tyrannus, and as the team prepares to leave, Tyrannus decides to go looking for the eternal youth Kala used to enjoy.
One terrible backup to the Annual has Spider-Woman sitting through a history of the WCA. A worse backup has Janet going to meet the director that Simon worked with before, to engage in a lot of Italian stereotypes and dumb jokes. I didn’t finish either of these backups.

The final backup has Miguel returning home after the team got back from Demonica. He’s not seen his family in weeks, and is surprised to learn that his sister Lisa was killed when his family’s house was targeted in a drive-by shooting, most likely because his brother José has joined a gang. Miguel reveals his powers and his new role as an Avenger, and José is angry he won’t use them to avenge his sister. He goes to see his girlfriend, Asuka, who is apparently Vietnamese, and is now dating the leader of the Vietnamese gang that killed Miguel’s sister. There’s posturing, a gang stand-off and a fight, and in the end, the Vietnamese gang leader is dead, and the Latinx gang leader is hurt, but Miguel is able to protect his brother from being arrested.
Issue seventy-five is hella tedious, so I’m going to go through it quickly. The Fantastic Four are in town, and the team has arranged to take them all to Sword-And-Sorcery World, an as-yet unopened, fully automated theme park that they have all to themselves. Spider-Woman has brought her daughter, Rachel, but is pretending to not know her, and the Richards have brought Franklin. Everyone seems to be having way too much fun, and the kids are becoming friends. Julia explains to Sue why they are deceiving her daughter, who doesn’t question why a bunch of superpowered strangers want to take her to a park. There is an Arkon-themed rollercoaster that the two kids ride alone, even though everyone else went on rides with them before. The coaster starts going way too quickly, and Clint is not able to stop it with the hand brake. Neither Tony nor Miguel are able to use their abilities to stop it either, and Wanda and Sue are afraid to use their powers. The cars have sealed, but Reed is able to catch the coaster and slip into a gap, where he finds that the kids are gone. The power goes out across the park, but the two teams figure they can repeat the ride and also go where the kids went, provided Tony and Miguel, with help from Johnny, can power the ride. They leave USAgent behind for no good reason, and he discovers, when the ride stops, that they are all gone. Clint, Reed, Ben, Julia, and Miguel find themselves the captives of Thundra, on her alternate Earth. She admits that she wanted to bring the two kids to her world, but doesn’t explain why. When Julia tries to bind her, she fights back, and eventually explains that she wants Ben to be her husband, and Franklin her emperor-consort. Or the other way around. Honestly, I don’t get what she’s trying to do here. Thundra tells him that she believes the others were all diverted by Arkon. At that moment, we see Wanda, Simon, Tony, Sue, and Johnny materialize as prisoners in Arkon’s court. We see that he also has Rachel with him. From listening to Arkon talk to his advisor, we learn that he’s in conflict with Thundra, and had hoped to use the Avengers and Fantastic Four to help. The heroes from Earth appear under his control, which freaks Rachel out. Arkon prepares his soldiers to teleport to Thundra’s world, where her army is waiting. They begin to fight, and the heroes on Thundra’s world are surprised when their friends attack them. Franklin tries to stop a beam and gets teleported behind Arkon’s forces, where he sees Rachel. Julia sees her daughter while she’s fighting Sue, and things get chaotic and tedious at the same time. The guy that Arkon assigned to look after Rachel, Shigaru, gets killed protecting her from a rocket, and then Julia uses her web things to protect them from another. Franklin is able to reach through Arkon’s mind control to get Sue’s attention, and she protects them all from a third rocket. For some tedious reason, the other mind-controlled heroes come to their senses, and Arkon and Thundra end up in direct combat, which leads to them making out. Arkon sends his soldiers away, and then all the Earthers return home, finding themselves back in the damn roller coaster. Julia decides to reveal to Rachel that her mother is Spider-Woman, but she already knows that, and their tender moment makes Ben want to cry (I also am ready to cry, for different reasons). The FF decide to leave, and I think Johnny asks Miguel to go on a date to Coney Island with him. Ben feels some kind of way that Thundra doesn’t like him any more, so he picks up a garbage can, and throws it at the picture of Arkon on the roller coaster. The 90s were not good for comics…
Simon has taken Julia and Miguel on a trip to a Hollywood soundstage, to watch the filming of a horror movie that had been delayed when its start, Jason Roland, went missing. Now they’ve recast Wes Nelson as the monster, and resumed filming. Nelson, who is in a full monster suit, gets caught by a noose and dragged upwards. Miguel breaks the rope, and we see he’s been attacked by a villain called Hangman (I always thought that only DC had this character). Simon flies up (the guy is on an acrobat’s platform, which is part of the film set), but is attacked by the Brothers Grimm. Miguel moves to help him, and Julia stands around to watch, until she notices that Gypsy Moth is making off with Nelson. She uses her psi-web to disrupt her concentration, so she drops Nelson into Julia’s arms. The Night Shift departs, but leaves behind exploding jacks so Simon and Miguel can’t follow. In the aftermath, as everyone stands around at the film set, Nelson quits, Simon convinces the director to hire him, and Jan wanders through, coming from a meeting about her movie, and demonstrates zero interest in helping her teammates and friends out. At the weird castle the Night Shift uses as a base, we see that Hangman has taken over the team, and that, I guess, The Shroud is gone. Misfit gets into a pissing contest with Hangman, who smacks him across the room, and then tosses a rope into a vortex in the sky, and makes all the members of Night Shift hang on to it as they get pulled up (I honestly cannot follow this plot). The Avengers meet and discuss why they don’t want to stand around the set of Simon’s new movie in case something happens. Oh, and Tony is the chairman now. Julia wants to look into the disappearance of the first actor on Simon’s movie, and Clint offers to go help her. Just then he gets a call from Mockingbird, who wants to come see him to talk about things (the state of their relationship makes no sense at this point), but Clint tells her he can’t, and lies about who he’s helping. Walker decides to go with Clint and Julia. They go to the beach house of that actor’s co-star, and get attacked by the Night Shift, who happen to be there to maybe do something to the co-star. The members of the Night Shift are all more powerful than ever, and are able to knock out the three Avengers. When they wake up, they are secured to some kind of round thing, and Hangman has the Night Shift become some kind of ritual that opens a portal to a big green hand. I’m lost.

Digger, the Frankensteinish member of the Night Shift escapes from prison, not realizing that he’s being observed by Iron Man and Living Lightning, who made sure that he had access to a shovel so he could get away. As they follow him, Tony and Miguel talk about Miguel’s sister’s death, and then discover the current location of the Tower of Shadows, the base that the Night Shift uses. They enter, and are noticed by Digger just as they enter the main room, where the gigantic double-mouthed Satannish is about to kill Clint, Julia, and Walker. Tony and Miguel free their friends, and Satannish turns his anger on Hangman, who is working for him. Satannish tries to fight Tony and Miguel, and then teleports away. The Night Shift fights the Avengers, who struggle against their increased powers. Dansen Macabre teleports the Night Shift away, taking the Tower with her, and our heroes, who were on an upper level, almost fall, except Clint attaches a suction cup arrow to Iron Man, and the others grab the line. They agree they should go check on Wonder Man, in case his film is their next target. Simon is now wearing the monster suit and filming. Simon is not happy to figure out that he got the role because of his powers, and not his acting ability (we need to remember he’s in a full monster suit, so I’m not sure what acting he could do). He chats with Wanda, who has gone with him to help protect the set, and things get more awkward when his co-star comes to eat with them. Simon notices that Wanda and the actress have been frozen in time; Tick Tock has stopped time for them, and the Night Shift attacks Simon. Tatterdemalion, the guy who fights by hitting people with his scarf, give Simon a hard time, and just as Wanda starts to recover, the Night Shift captures him. She isn’t able to stop them from teleporting away with him. At the Tower, Hangman reveals that he’s set up a movie studio, and he wants to finish filming the movie himself. He reveals that he is Jason Roland, the missing movie star. Apparently, he got mystically trapped in the monster suit from the movie (in some deep cut horror comic that I’m sure Thomas wrote). He ended up making a deal with Satannish, returning him to human form, and gaining new powers. His rationale stops making sense here, as he took over the Night Shift so he could gain their help. I have no idea why he took on a Klansman-esque rope-based identity. Simon suggests that he has a better idea (which, I mean, couldn’t be a worse idea). At the compound, Wanda tells the other Avengers what happened. The cook tells them to turn on the TV, where they see that Hangman has taken over an entertainment news show. He announces that they will be filming their movie, “The Night Shift Takes Hollywood”, and announces that Simon is working with them. This surprises the team, who worry about Simon’s motivations.
Hangman begins filming his movie, which involves hanging Simon from the Hollywood sign, and filming the Night Shift beating the hell out of him for a couple of pages. Dansen Macabre is unhappy that she doesn’t have more lines, and one of the kidnapped film crew members objects to Misfit trying to paw her. Simon intervenes to protect her, and that almost leads to a fight. When Hangman gets involved, he threatens the hostages to keep Simon in line with their agreement. At the Avengers compound, the team gets irritated with USAgents attitude, then he and Clint get into yet another argument, which Walker turns personal by bringing up Mockingbird. Finally, Walker decides to storm off, appearing to quit the team. Tony refers to him as Jack Daniels again, but puts the name in quotes, so I’m not sure what that’s all about. Just then, Mockingbird flies in on a skycycle, offering to help, and figuring out that Clint lied to her about helping Spider-Woman before. Since Julia has to go see her daughter, she asks Bobbi to take her place on the hunt for Simon. Clint and Wanda fly off on one skycycle while Bobbi takes her own. Miguel suggests to Julia that Clint is flirting with her, and then Tony and Miguel leave to look for Simon too. Julia starts to change out of her Spider-Woman outfit when she gets a call from the woman whose house she went to before, asking for her to come see her. Julia calls her ex-husband to say that she’s got to cancel her weekend with her daughter, and he yells at her. The other horror movie continues to be filmed under a peer, and the new actor in the monster suit uses his robotic tail to pull down a section of the peer while chasing the actress. This is more destruction than the film crew expected, but the new actor manages to pull the actress out of harm’s way. It turns out that Walker has gotten this job (and wears his USAgent getup under the suit, metal ears and all. The director isn’t too happy with him, but has only one shot left before he’s finally finished the filming. The Night Shift watches the news, and are upset to learn that Walker has taken on the monster role. Hangman trashes the TV, and gets upset when Simon reminds him they need to finish their own film. In New York, Tony has gone to see Doctor Strange to talk about Satannish, but he ignores Wong’s insistence that he wait, and bursts into the Doctor’s sanctuary, where a bunch of ectoplasmic creatures almost escape through the open door. Strange has to do some magic to return them to where they came from, and then has to follow them, so he refuses to help Tony. Back in Hollywood, the director sets up his final scene and talks to a reporter about the film. There’s a flash of light, and once again, we see Simon hanging from a noose. The Night Shift shows up, and Walker takes off the monster costume, which Hawkeye and Wanda are watching on TV. The Night Shift starts beating on Walker, and the issue ends with Hangman holding up both Simon and Walker, calling out the Avengers.
Hangman has the Night Shift take over the Griffiths Observatory, even going so far as teleporting their Tower of Shadows there. They have Wonder Man and USAgent wrapped up tight, and while Walker wants to break free and attack, Simon suggests they wait so as not to endanger all the hostages. Spider-Woman has gone to see Stella, the actress, who tells her that she thinks Hangman is Jason Roland (I’m not sure why she couldn’t tell her this over the phone). They see Hangman on TV, announcing that he wants the rest of the AWC to come to the Observatory. Julia has a quinjet, which she isn’t too proficient with, and Stella insists on coming with her. As they fly, they hear from Tony and Wanda that they are on their way. At the Observatory, the film crew hostages decide to try to fight the Night Shift, using fire extinguishers and hair spray, but shockingly, it doesn’t work. Miguel arrives and protects some of the hostages; he kisses the woman named Mona who he apparently knows well (although we’ve already met his girlfriend, and this isn’t her). Tony, Clint, Wanda, and Bobbi arrive. Hangman has Simon and Walker released, so he can have their fight filmed. They all start fighting, which is being broadcast around LA. It goes on for a while, until a portal opens and Satannish starts to emerge. Wanda, who was dropped away from the fight by the Brothers Grimm, decides she needs Doctor Strange. Satannish comments that he has distracted Strange, and the Night Shift feel themselves becoming ever more powerful. Strange arrives, just as Hangman manages to tie up the rest of the Avengers with a single rope. Stella runs over and unmasks Hangman, but he slaps her away, possibly killing her. Strange confronts Satannish, and opens a portal to the dimension he just left. The weird spirit things we saw last issue fly out – it turns out they are the portions of the Night Shifts’ souls that Satannish stole in exchange for their power upgrades. Strange also figures out that Satannish was stealing souls from everyone watching the news broadcast of their fight. He turns some of the extra strength of the Night Shift to the Avengers, so now they can break free of the single rope that binds all of them. The Night Shift joins them in attacking Satannish. Tony and Miguel disrupt all the various TV vans, and Satannish retreats, taking Hangman’s soul with him, leaving him catatonic. Strange suggests that Wanda might become his disciple one day, Clint asks Miguel how he enjoyed his first mission on Earth (which makes no sense, because it’s his second), but Miguel just hugs that girl.

With issue eighty, the AWC entered Operation: Galactic Storm, a massive Avengers-centred crossover. Rick Jones has been captured by three of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, Oracle, Tempest, and Electron. Oracle uses her mental powers to plumb Rick’s memories of his time with Captain Marvel and to locate the cave with the hidden Kree facility where they became bonded. With his information, they head towards that location. Clint and Miguel are training, and Clint’s arrow knocks Miguel back into his human form, making him fall. Julia catches him with her web. The team gathers for a meeting, but they receive a phone call from Captain America (Simon is worried that there is still bad blood between the two of them). He’s just been in a fight with another Imperial Guardsman, Warstar, and needs a pickup in Arizona, and help tracking Rick. They leave Mockingbird behind to man the compound, and head out. Later, after getting Cap, the team tracks his identicard, which he gave to Rick. Rick, mesmerized by Oracle, leads the Shi’ar into the Kree facility, which was not as destroyed as Mar-Vell believed. In a lower level, they find the psyche-magnetron, the weapon they are looking for, so they can remove a component from it. A Kree Sentry is activated, and the Shi’ar begin to fight it. Oracle leaves with the component, while Tempest and Electron fight the giant robot, which almost blasts Rick, who stands frozen. Cap jumps in, pulling Rick to safety and restoring his mental control. The rest of the Avengers prepare to fight, but are attacked by Warstar, who was tracking them. In the ensuing confusion, Oracle and the other two escape, taking Rick with them. Cap and Iron Man fight Warstar and take them out, while the others fight the Sentry. Simon and Miguel go after Rick, Warstar gets back into the fight, and Hawkeye trips the Sentry. Finally, Tony and Walker blast the Sentry with a massive gun they find. Miguel takes out Electron, and Cap tackles Oracle. Oracle blasts everyone with a mind blast, and the Shi’ar make their escape while the Sentry starts to explode. It’s not actually clear if they took Rick with them or not. The Avengers get out of the cave just as it blows up. The Avengers know they can’t follow the Shi’ar craft in their quinjet, as it’s heading into space. Cap calls Quasar, asking him to find and track them. The Shi’ar ship boards a much larger vessel in space, and just as Quasar arrives, it moves through a hole in space. Quasar is hit by a “black solar flare” and loses them. At the same time, someone is on the tiny moon of Saturn where Captain Marvel was buried.
The Statement of Ownership for 1991 reports this title had an average press run of 243 000 copies, with average newsstand returns of 90 000.
In Part 9 of Operation: Galactic Storm, a group of AWC, supported by reservists, are guardian Project: Pegasus, while the rest of the active Avengers are in space. USAgent, Spider-Woman, and Mockingbird are working with Doctor Pym, Wasp, She-Hulk, Falcon, and Gilgamesh (of all people). Walker’s in a big argument with She-Hulk because he and Bobbi didn’t come to relieve her and Falcon. They finally go do their job, and check on their shrunk-down prisoners – Warstar, two Shi’ar soldiers, and the Kree Captain Atlas and Dr. Minerva, who are in stasis. Walker kind of flirts with Bobbi, admitting that the first time he saw her (which he claims is when he voted that she be returned to the team, even though they were both around during the Vision Quest thing), he fell for her. He pushes her too far, and she flips him over. Just then, a Shi’ar Imperial Guardsman named Nightside (who is basically Shadow Lass) turns up in the middle of Project: Pegasus and attacks them. She has a tiny companion, Scintilla, with her, who frees the Shi’ar prisoners. Just then, Jen comes to smooth things over with Walker, and discovers him and Bobbi unconscious. She gets attacked by Warstar, and calls on the other Avengers. There’s a fight, where Jan gets taken down by Scintilla, and Gilgamesh and Jen team up to fight Warstar. At the same time, Dr. Minerva manages to free Captain Atlas, after she was knocked free by a stray shot. Julia tries to fight Nightside, while Warstar is taken down. Minerva leads Atlas to a Shi’ar craft she knows is hidden outside the Project. The Avengers finish wrapping up their fight and Bobbie is surprised by someone we don’t see. Jan and Falcon see the Shi’ar ship about to launch. Walker grabs ahold of it, which is a problem as it’s heading for space. Minerva shocks him off the ship, and he falls through layers of Julia’s psi-webs to slow him down. He’s angry at being caught by She-Hulk. On the ship, Atlas tries to make out with Minerva, but she’s not interested. She leads the ship to a giant Shi’ar cruiser, and when they go aboard, Atlas is shocked to see other Imperial Guardsmen (Neutron and Starbolt). It turns out he wasn’t with Minerva at all, but with a Shi’ar hobgoblin called Shifter; they take Atlas prisoner and grab the Kree nega-bands he’s wearing, which is what they’ve been after all along. Back at Project: Pegasus, the Avengers interrogate the real Minerva, who explains how she was suckerpunched by Shifter and replaced. Wanting revenge, Minerva helps the Avengers, telling them where the Shi’ar cruiser is headed (she uses her intuition). Jennifer calls on Quasar, who is flying around in space with Her, to go stop them. As he and Her approach the ship, they are attacked by Neutron and Starbolt, who begin to fight them as the Shi’ar ship enters the Stargate near the Sun.
Part 16 of Operation: Galactic Storm shows that a lot has happened since the last chapter. Majestrix Lilandra has the Kree Starforce prisoner, and is ordering their execution. There is a group of Avengers – Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Scarlet Witch, Living Lightning, Starfox, and Thor (in his Eric Masterson incarnation) – present, and Monica argues for negotiations, not executions. Things get tense, and when the Imperial Guardsman called Earthquake puts his hands on Thor, a fight breaks out between the Avengers and the Guard. The Avengers struggle, with some defeating their foes while others are defeated. When Lilandra thinks about freeing the Starforce, Araki, her advisor, pushes her to kill them. Miguel zaps him, and it turns out, he’s a Skrull. This stops the fight, and Monica again pushes for negotiation. Lilandra lets Ultimus, one of the Kree, out of the stasis field they are in, charging him with returning home to let his leadership know that the Skrulls have been manipulating the conflict between their people. Lilandra also reveals that the Nega-Bomb, the massive weapon at the centre of the conflict, is missing. Back on Earth, Hank, Jan, Bobbi, Walker, and Julia return to the AWC compound, having left Project: Pegasus. Julia wants to check on her daughter, but first walks around the grounds thinking about her fears that Rachel will grow up to hate her. She doesn’t notice that three very 90s villains, Antro (a shiny suit guy), Therak (a giant spider), and Arachne (she looks like the WildCAT Warblade in drag) are standing in the woods watching her. They teleport away, planning to return in two issues. Somewhere in space, Vision and Wonder Man are in the Nega-Bomb; Vision has discovered that it’s being transported by a Skrull ship, most likely towards the Stargate near the Earth’s sun. Captain Marvel calls Quasar, and he tells her he knows where the Nega-Bomb is.

Alright, issue eighty-three is as bad as the other one that Herb Trimpe drew. The old WWII villain the Hyena, who is a normal guy with weird ears, sits in an old building in LA. He claims he hasn’t smiled since 1947, but because of the plans he’s made, he starts smiling and laughing. Jim Hammond, the Human Torch, arrives at a junkyard, calling for the Hyena, who has summoned him there, but he is attacked by four goons. He is able to fight them, and when he knocks the last one out, he finds a note in his pocket. It’s printed on paper that would ignite near flame (aka, paper), and it claims that if the Torch is reading it, it’s proof that he’s lost his powers. The Hyena insists that the Torch come to see him at “the gingerbread house” at precisely 5:23 the next day. Jim drives off in his Toyota (there are a lot of specific references to car brands in this issue), driving to the AWC compound. He’s surprised when he enters to find that the only Avengers there are the reservists – Wasp, Doctor Pym, Mockingbird, Quicksilver, Tigra (who flew in from Australia), and Machine Man. Hank and Jan explain that the rest of the Avengers are in space, and it seems like Jim is not sure that this team is going to be enough to help him beat a crippled old man whose only power is a weird smile. He fills them in on his history with Hyena, and confirms that he’s lost his powers (I think that happened in an issue of Namor). Everyone still has to convince Jim to accept their help. The next day, Hank tries to drive Jim to the meeting, but he gets stuck in traffic, so Jim has to run. He enters the house, and finds Hyena waiting for him. He offers to help Jim recover his powers, and finally learn where Toro is buried. He has a device that will connect Jim to all networked computers in LA, which will fix the “immunity block” that is preventing Jim from flaming on, somehow. At the same time, he’ll be able to search government databases for Toro’s name. In return, Hyena wants some information. Jim puts the helmet thing on, and at the same time, a truck caught on a freeway releases a ton of hyenas into traffic. Elsewhere, a monster truck starts driving over cars on another freeway. In a third location, a plane crashes into traffic. In all cases, no one is killed, but the effect cripples all traffic flow. The Avengers are monitoring the situation from a quinjet, and split up to help out. Tigra scares the hyenas by yelling at them, so they fall off an overpass. Jan gets inside the remote controlled monster truck, and wrestles to turn its key, fearing she doesn’t have enough time to trigger her near-instantaneous return to full size. Pietro and Machine Man stop the fire from the empty downed plane. Hank, meanwhile, has been trying to find records of the Hyena, and finally succeeds. Hyena is enjoying watching Jim, who takes off the helmet thing and tells him he resisted curing himself, because he knows that the Hyena wanted him to burst into flame. He figured out that Hyena had set this all up as a trap; Hyena pushes a button, but is upset when nothing happens. The four goons from before come in and attack Jim, but then all of the Avengers come through the wall and take them out. Hyena had planned to have Jim blow up the house (there are bombs in the basement) when he got his flame powers back, so that Jim would feel guilty for having killed him. It seems Hyena has some kind of incurable cancer, and wanted to go out that way. He collapses. When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital, and all of the Avengers are standing around him. The doctor explains that when Hyena started smiling and laughing, it put his cancer into remission, so now he’s going to live, but he’s going back to prison. This was hella dumb.
A businessman is working late in Century City when he’s attacked in his office. A security guard finds him dead and stuck to the wall with a web. In New York, Peter Parker is about to go to a press conference being held by a newspaper that is announcing dirt on a political candidate. He thinks about how the three contenders for President – a Democrat, a Republican, and the candidate for the Liberty Party are campaigning in California, so he won’t be able to cover their reactions to the news for the Daily Bugle. The information is supposedly coming from an insider in the candidate’s campaign or something. The guy suddenly appears on stage, as if teleported there. He claims he doesn’t feel well, and it’s noticed that he has a weird growth on his neck. He collapses, and a doctor who I guess likes to come out to political press conferences declares him dead. Parker decides to fly out to Cali to investigate on his own dime, which makes no sense. Clint, Wanda, and Walker are eating breakfast at the AWC compound, being served by Consuela, the latest in a string of Latinx servants. Clint and Walker argue, because of course Walker supports the Liberty Party. Miguel joins them, shirtless, and with that film lady Mona on his arm. He says he doesn’t vote, so Consuela scolds him. The radio broadcasts the murder of the man in Century City, a lawyer, and that he’s connected with the political scandal that’s brewing. Tony and Simon enter and tell the rest of the team that they are going to go investigate. Julia picks up her daughter at her ex’s place, but she’s late, so he’s grumpy. Once they’re in the car, Julia tells Rachel that she’s got to take her to the compound because the Avengers have called her in. They talk about how Julia’s ex cheated on her, and how Julia asked her old friend Val Cooper for help in getting a new job. Val had her working for the government as a lab guinea pig, and one day, she was injected with the wrong vial, and developed her powers. They gave her the Spider-Woman identity, and then Julia got caught up in the Secret Wars, where she debuted, and afterwards, Val put her on Freedom Force. Julia talks about how she turned against the Commission to help the Avengers, and after that, Val assigned her a handler named Mike Clemson. He had her left on the fugitives list while she continued to work for the Commission, but after she joined the Avengers, all that got cleared up. Julia is on her way to meet him (I thought she was going to the Compound, but okay), and has Rachel wait in the car. Mike is rude, so Rachel gets out of the car to hit him. When Mike pushes the kid, Julia tosses him into a wall and declares that she is no longer working for the Commission (let’s remember that Clemson is the same guy that sent USAgent to kill her a while back, so you can be forgiven if you thought she’d already quit). Clemson heads into the abandoned building they met at, where a bank of monitors shows that he is in a huge Zoom call with hidden people in the organization called the Conclave, which is like the Commission, only more secret. Clemson makes reference to a special operative, and says something about eight legs. Julia next drives to the Liberty Party’s Convention, and gives Rachel a mask to wear so no one will recognize her (I guess they really aren’t going to the compound). She meets up with the rest of the team, and Wanda is rude to her for bringing her child. They dump Rachel in a chair and spread out around the convention, keeping an eye on Michael Galvan, the party’s candidate. Tony worries that it looks like they are endorsing him, which Walker is okay with. The lights go out, leaving only Tony’s spotlight to light the massive convention hall. They spot a figure bouncing around the ceiling and chase it. It’s Spider-Man, who was following his spider-sense. That’s when the three spider-themed villains we saw before appear, calling themselves Deathweb.
Most of the Avengers and Spider-Man continue their fight with Deathweb. Simon realizes that Therak has ionic energy like him. Spider-Woman and Living Lightning are guarding the Liberty Party candidates, and Julia keeps one eye on her daughter, who is sitting on a chair in the corner. Julia’s ex-husband works for the Liberty Party, and she is worried he’ll recognize her. The five Avengers and Spider-Man keep having trouble holding off the three terrible 90s spider-themed villains. Miguel gets tired from keeping the whole convention centre lit, and just as the lights come back on, he collapses. Julia realizes that Rachel is not on her chair anymore, and leaves to find her. The Avengers still struggle against Deathweb, and Julia discovers the fight. She pulls Arachne off Wanda, which allows Wanda to take out Therak, which in turn allows Hawkeye to fry Antro’s armor with his electro-arrow. Just then, Rachel, who has taken off her mask, enters the room and Antro grabs her. The three villains teleport away with Rachel. The Avengers get chewed out by Julia’s ex. Afterwards, Tony tells Julia it’s her fault that Rachel is missing because she didn’t stay at her post (not, you know, because she brought a seven year old to a team mission), and he sends her home. The press makes it look like the Avengers are there to endorse the Liberty Party. Elsewhere, Mike Clemson goes to meet with a terrible-looking 90s villain called The Manipulator, who is in charge of Deathweb, and is working for the Conclave. He makes it clear that he’s involved in politics at every level. The Conclave join the meeting via viewscreens, and they make Clemson look bad in front of him, because they demonstrate continued faith in the Manipulator, even though the Liberty Party situation didn’t work (I’m not sure what anyone’s goals are here). Clemson tries to jump the Manipulator, but he’s just a hologram, and he disappears. Just then, Julia breaks through the wall. Julia doesn’t know about the Conclave or that Clemson is involved – she wants his help in tracking down her daughter, and is willing to do a job for the Commision again if he’ll do it. He refuses, and she says she’ll go to Val Cooper. Clemson pulls out a gun, but Spider-Man enters the room and gets it away from him. Julia pulls out her communicator card to call Val, but two of Deathweb (Antro and Therak) enter and destroy it. The Manipulator is there too, in person. He uses his mental powers to silence Clemson. Julia wants to hear what Manipulator wants. He’s figured out her identity, and shows Rachel on the videotapes. Weirdly, he calls Julia Mrs. Carpenter in one panel, and Mrs. Robertson in the next. We see that Arachne is with Rachel, and is threatening to kill Rachel if Julia doesn’t do what they want, namely, killing Spider-Man. She turns on her friend, and the spider on her chest changes colour (that’s probably just bad 90s editing again).

Spider-Man doesn’t think that Spider-Woman will hurt him, so he’s surprised when she starts beating on him. As they bash each other into the computer equipment, a fire starts, and Clemson worries that things will explode. The Manipulator teleports away with Deathweb, reappearing outside the building just as Clemson leaves, and things explode. Clemson and the Manipulator argue, and they all leave. Julia’s ex is at the compound with the rest of the Avengers, where we learn that Hawkeye and USAgent are at the hospital. The team is planning on attending the Liberty Party’s rally that night. Simon worries that Tony is angry with Julia. Just then all three members of Deathweb teleport into the room and attack Simon (he’s on his own), and do something to a TV console. Simon thinks they’ve planted a bomb. The others arrive, and Tony determines that it’s a telemodule. He plugs it in, and the Manipulator appears before them, holographically, to tell them that Spider-Man and -Woman are dead, and that if the Avengers don’t go to the rally, Rachel will be kept safe. Larry never questions how or why Manipulator has his daughter, but insists that the Avengers not go to the rally. Spider-Man and Julia are okay, but buried under debris from the explosion. They talk about how Julia feels like a failure, and Spider-Man mentions that he got a spider-tracer on Rachel before Deathweb took her away (but it’s stuck to her mask, so he’s not sure they can find her). This motivates them to dig out of the rubble. At the rally, the Liberty Party candidate, Galvan, talks about law and order (it is the 90s). Larry is backstage, where Julia comes to see him in costume. Spider-Man brings Rachel to him; they found her in a trailer in Gardena. Larry gets angry that they could have endangered her, and Julia reveals her identity to him. He gets even more angry, vowing to keep Rachel away from her forever. That’s when Deathweb teleports onto the stage and Arachne kills Galvan. It turns out the Avengers were nearby, disguised as cops, and they start to fight, with the two Spiders joining them. This time the Avengers are better prepared for their foes, so Deathweb try to teleport away. The thing is, Wanda uses her hex to bring them back to a spot that both Miguel and Tony are already shooting at; they manage to take them all down. Julia goes to check on her family. Wilson Lambert, Galvan’s running mate goes to the mic and starts giving a speech about what happened and how he will continue the law and order crusade. The Manipulator confronts Larry and Rachel. He tries to take the kid back (why?), and when Larry tries to fight him, he gives him a heart attack with his touch. That’s when Julia and Spider-Man arrive; Manipulator decides to teleport away. Julia goes to Larry, who dies. Back on stage, Lambert is still talking, declaring that he wants Deathweb executed for their crimes. Antro and Arachne start talking about how they were ordered to kill Galvan, but to keep Lambert safe. The Avengers figure out that the original news story that started this whole thing probably would have revealed Lambert’s ties to the mob. Lambert loses the crowd, and they walk away.
Annual #7 came out during the Deathweb storyline, and is set after it, but doesn’t perfectly fit here, as Clint and Walker are recovered from their injuries. This is the second part of the Assault On Armor City event, which began in a Darkhawk Annual. Tony and Darkhawk call the team to explain that someone has captured James Rhodes. Tony wants to attack the manufacturing base where he’s being held, and wants Wanda and Julia to meet him there, and wants the rest of the team to watch over Stark Enterprises’s California headquarters. There is some concern that Tony is getting fired up about his designs again, but the team follows him, although they can’t get ahold of USAgent. That’s because Walker is staking out some kind of drug deal, but has been interrupted by someone from the Commission, who wants him to retrieve the stolen Iron Monger armor. As they talk, we learn that Clemson had gone rogue from the Commission. The drug dealers must have seen Walker on the roof, because they start shooting at him, and he has to take them down. The Commission guy offers him a weekly stipend to work for them again, and Walker accepts. Tony talks to Darkhawk while they wait for the others to join them, about the history of Professor Power, who I guess is the bad guy here. We see that Power is interrogating Rhodey, but Rhodey doesn’t go along with him and tries to escape. He gets caught and beaten on, because Power hopes that he’s friends with Captain America, believing it was Cap who killed his son (it was really Walker, back when he was dressing as Cap). When Wanda and Julia join them, they attack the manufacturing plant, where some scientists are building Iron Mongers, while protected by yellow Mek-Men robots. Spider-Woman, Scarlet Witch, and Darkhawk fight the Mek-Men while Tony goes elsewhere in the facility to hack its databases. Tony gets a virus into the computer, deleting data stolen from his company. Power figures out what’s going on, and is about to electrocute the unconscious Rhodey, but Tony gets there and stops him. The others join them too, and we see that Rhodey is okay. Tony says something about AIM. In Silicon Valley, Clint, Simon, and Miguel stand around outside Stark Enterprises, when they get attacked by a dozen villains in various suits of armor.
The rest of the Annual is made up of pretty dull backup stories, mostly drawn by artists I’ve never heard of. Al Bigley drew a story about Wanda peering into an alternate dimension where her family wasn’t destroyed. John Dennis drew a story about Julia visiting a friend in Denver and saving a crashing airplane. David Ammerman drew a short story about the AWC trying to figure out who their top ten villains are, which has Tony talking about their fight against the Blank, even though Rhodey was wearing the armor then. The final backup is by 90s mainstay MC Wyman, who also drew the main story, and involves Miguel being confronted by someone from the Legion of Living Lightning. It was boring so I stopped reading it.
Issue eighty-seven opens in the Northwest Territories of Canada, where a stealth hovercraft attacks a radar station. The craft is full of Russian soldiers, led by Dr. Volkh, and three other powered beings, Mikula, Zvezda Dennista, and Svyatogor, pretty standard looking poorly-designed 90s villains. They are working to restart the Cold War. In LA, Clint and Walker are sharing a hospital room, in their gowns, and arguing. Mockingbird comes in, surprising them with her presence. The phone rings, and it’s Lou, Walker’s new Commission handler; he wants him to get to Canada in a hurry, and secretly. Walker gets dressed, giving Bobbi “a thrill”, and then the phone rings again. This time, it’s Wanda, calling Clint and Walker back to the compound immediately. Walker grabs Clint and Bobbie (Clint is dressed now too) and jumps out the window with them, and they head for Bobbi’s rented car. Back in northern Canada, Wolverine is backpacking around, being followed by a polar bear. The bear is blasted by two of the Russians, who start fighting Logan. Eventually, they get him down. At the compound, the Avengers learn that Tony Stark has died (I have no idea what was happening in Tony’s book – is this when he became a teenager?). The team struggles to process this news, and then Walker, referring to himself yet again as Jack Daniels, declares that he’s going to take a quinjet for some private business, and leaves. Wanda asks Simon to go with her to follow him, while Miguel and Julia continue to process. As Walker flies north, he talks to Lou on the comms screen; he’s being sent to check out the radar station. Wanda and Simon are following in another quinjet, and are able to tap into Walker’s conversation, revealing that he’s working against the Avengers’ agreement with the UN. Simon also worries that he’s going through some ionic changes. Walker lands some distance from the radar station, but is immediately discovered by some soldiers on a flying platform. He fights them, but then gets captured by one of the powered Russians, who ties him up and tosses him into a lake. Dr. Volkh has Logan trussed up, and talks to him at length about his operatives, all named after characters from Russian folklore, and tries to interrogate him, believing it wasn’t random that he was there at the same time they attacked. Wanda is able to pull Walker out of the water, and he’s a jerk to her and Simon. Logan frees himself, and starts fighting Volkh, who has Mister Fantastic-like abilities from a run in with cosmic rays. Volkh tosses Logan right into Wonder Man as he and the other two enter the radar station. They stand off against the Bogatyri.

Wolverine and the three Avengers start to fight the Bogatyri, and after a few pages, Wanda and then Simon get taken down, and Logan and Walker have to retreat. Dr. Volkh doesn’t want them pursued, as he learns that the mission they are on is ready to commence. Logan and Walker find some Canadian and American soldiers on their way to respond to the situation. In LA, Clint talks to Captain America, rejecting his offer to go help the team in Northern Canada, claiming it should be a West Coast responsibility, but then just stands around talking to Bobbi, who didn’t go to Tony’s funeral (I guess it happened between issues, even though not that much time has passed). Bobbi wants to talk to Clint, but they are interrupted by Rachel, running through the monitor room, with Julia chasing her. Julia says something about Rachel having to behave if she’s going to live in the Avengers compound. Clint still doesn’t let Bobbi talk to him, preferring to check in on Miguel, who tells them that he’s decided to go to college, and become a reserve Avenger (there was a lot of character development put into him for no real reason). Bobbi finally reminds Clint that their divorce is going to be final soon. Back up north, the Bogatyri have Simon and Wanda tied up. The Russians argue, and then Volkh explains that he’s there to access a quick freeze crystal that was being developed at the radar station, which complements his own research. He has the device working, and it starts generating ice in the room where our heroes are trapped. That’s when the Canadian and American soldiers attack, creating a diversion for Logan and Walker to enter the station. As Logan fights Volkh, Walker breaks Simon free of the ice. The other Russians join the fight, and then Simon wants to break the crystal, with Wanda’s help. There’s some routine fighting, until finally Simon and Wanda are able to reverse the crystal, so things start to get very hot. The Russians run, and the radar station blows up. The Avengers are fine, and Logan digs himself out of the wreckage. They see the Russians get away, but capture a number of their soldiers.
Issue 89 opens in The Vault, where Ultron-13 is being held in a block of adamantium, in a room devoid of any technology. A guard has slipped in a hand-held video game though, which Ultron has managed to take over, and use to mesmerize the guard. The game releases a swarm of ‘robo-ticks’ which eat the flesh off him, and then which get to work on the adamantium block, freeing and changing Ultron at the same time. As he fights off other guards and Guardsmen, he showcases his new, larger form, and refers to himself as Ultimate Ultron. At the AWC compound, the team (including Bobbi) is meeting to discuss USAgent’s moonlighting as an agent of the Commission. As they argue, a security alarm goes off. Simon and Miguel rush ahead of the others, to find that War Machine has come to see them. Apparently they got into it at Tony’s funeral, but now he’s decided that he should join the team to replace the power that Iron Man brought to it. The other Avengers decide that Clint should be their chairman, and hell tells WM that he wants to know who he is before he can be accepted. WM refuses, and then leaves. Clint tells the others that he figures he’s Jim Rhodes (it’s weird that they know they can’t trust Walker, but they talk so freely in front of him, outing Rhodey like that). As they try to talk about all this, they are interrupted by a servant coming to tell them that someone is on the phone for Hank Pym. Clint takes the call, explaining that Hank is on sabbatical. The man on the phone is Dr. Myron MacLain, the inventor of adamantium (who should be a lot older, given how long adamantium has been around). He wants the Avengers to come to him because he’s figured out how to make the super-strong metal even cheaper (I’m not sure why this is a superhero mission). Clint agrees, and sends Simon, Julia, Bobbi, and Walker. Miguel heads off to his college orientation, leaving only Clint and Wanda behind; Wanda learns that Clint wanted to get away from Bobbi (who I guess has joined the team?). When the squad arrives in San Diego, at MacLain’s company, he turns them away, but Walker thinks something is up and attacks him, only to get slapped across the room. Simon fights the doctor, discovering that he’s a robot. It takes a while to take him out, and Julia finds some dead security guards. They figure out that Ultron is behind this. Walker calls Wanda, who enters the monitor room, just as Ultron takes over the Avengers’ computers and attacks her. She rushes outside to get Rachel and the servants away. Ultimate Ultron appears and starts fighting Wanda, whose powers aren’t being reliable again. A gardener tries to help Rachel, while Wanda ends up in the pool. Clint arrives and joins the fight, while Ultron takes over a riding lawnmower to attack Rachel with. Clint saves her, and Ultron releases his robo-ticks. As they approach Clint and Wanda, they are suddenly blocked by the arrival of Vision, who is there to fight Ultron.
Vision fights Ultron, destroying his robo-ticks with his solar jewel, but also almost blasting Rachel, Consuela, and the others, when his beam ricochets off Ultron’s body. As the civilians flee in a pair of vans, Vision continues to fight Ultron. Ultron brings a wall down on Vision and Wanda, and then returns an exploding arrow to Clint, knocking him down. Ultron enters the Avengers’ main building, and finds Hank Pym’s collection of body parts from former incarnations of Ultron. Just as he flies off, the quinjet returns, bearing Bobbi, Walker, Julia, and Simon. All but Bobbi bail out, but Ultron evades them. He flies at the quinjet, grabbing Bobbi from it, and flies off. Vision and Wanda emerge from the rubble, and Julia almost steps on the dead gardener. We learn that the servants called the others, and that Vision came as soon as he’d learned that Ultron had escaped the Vault. Clint is very upset that Bobbi was taken, and starts to argue with Vision until Wanda calms him down (Clint admits that he still loves Bobbi). Hank Pym is doing research in a large building in Death Valley. Ultron shows up with the unconscious Bobbi, and the mesmerized Doctor Maclain. When Hank tries to fight him, it does no good, and Ultron is able to mesmerize him. He says he wants Hank to build him an adamantium mate. Vision tracks the geo-tagged Ultron parts to Death Valley, which Wanda identifies as Hank’s new home. Rachel and the servants return, and they all pay their respects to the dead gardener, who is lying on a table. Clint gets the team together to pose before they fly off in another quinjet (he’d wandered off to check on them earlier). Miguel happens to call in, and Consuela tells him what happened, and then he goes to class. As the team travels, Walker makes a comment about Clint and Julia that earns him a slap. At Pym’s lab, Ultron straps Bobbi into some machines, talking about how he’s going to turn her into his mate. When he learns the team is approaching, he sends his body parts to fight them (this is weird). Wanda’s hexes start working, and we see Clint drink a vial of liquid. He runs towards all the bits of Ultrons, which pile on him. Suddenly, he grows very large, and as his Hawkeye costume shreds, we see he’s wearing his old Goliath outfit. The Avengers rush towards Hank’s place, where Ultron greets them, and introduces his bride, who is a robotic version of Bobbi, now called both Alkhema and War Toy (which is a terrible, terrible name).

War Toy starts fighting the Avengers with Ultron, and he doesn’t like her casual attitude (which she got from Bobbi). Clint has shrunk down and is exploring the wreckage of Pym’s lab. He grows big again to dig through some rubble, and discovers a large plate of adamantium, but he passes out before he can move it. Ultron and Alchema have the Avengers down, except for Wanda, who pilots a quinjet right into them, although that doesn’t even push them, which is nonsense. Clint is able to smack them with the adamantium plate and send them flying though. The Avengers recover and re-enter the fight, but Ultron decides it makes more sense to kill all of humanity at once, so he leaves with Alchema. Bobbi comes out of the lab with Pym and MacLain, and Clint is surprised to see her. They embrace, and decide to not get divorced. At the same time, Wanda doesn’t want Vision to help her get on her feet. We learn that Ultron used Bobbi’s brain patterns and MacLain and Pym’s work to create Alchema. They figure out that the robot is going for the Sun Lake Weapons Center, a repository for experimental weapons. Hank enlarges a flying car thing, and they all head out. Ultron and Alchema fight off the facility’s defenses, while they argue about whether it’s better to kill all life on the planet at once or slowly, over years. They start to fight one another. The Avengers arrive, and Pym, Vision, Bobbi, and MacLain enter the facility, headed for a large nuclear missile. The other Avengers start to fight the robots again, and it’s tedious. Vision gets strapped to the missile’s nose, while Bobbi and the scientists reprogram it. They open the silo, and turn Vision into an electromagnet which attracts Ultron and Alchema. The missile is launched, and explodes after it leaves the atmosphere. Vision returns, unharmed, and assumes that Ultron and Alchema have been sent into space. Clint announces that he and Bobbi are back together (so random), and Wanda looks sad, while Simon worries about his lack of humanity. The ‘next issue’ box mentions that some things from Wonder Man and the Darkhold series happen before the next issue.
The team has returned to the largely wrecked compound after Carlos the gardener’s funeral. Walker and Clint get into it once again, but Bobbi calms Clint down, leading him inside. We learn that Rachel and Consuela (called Consuelo because of 90s editing) are moving off the compound for safety reasons, and that Simon went nuts and quit the team in his own book. This has Miguel thinking he should stay full time, but Wanda talks him out of it, so he heads off to school. There are a number of reporters camped out outside the compound, but another reporter has a unique take on recent events, so has gone to a prison to interview the villain Goliath about the fact that a hero is using his name. He’s pretty drugged up, but when he hears Wonder Man’s name, he gets angry, and uses his powers to escape, looking for Simon. While Bobbi and Clint have some intimate time together, she hears something. They discover Kuroko, the Pacific Overlord, in their living quarters. Clint punches her, and we see that she’s already been beaten pretty badly. She says that Dr. Demonicus did this to her, then passes out. Julia and Wanda chat in the car, and we see that Rachel has seen too much death lately. As Clint and Bobbi try to figure out what to do, Goliath attacks, reaching into their bedroom and grabbing Clint. Clint grows, and Goliath freaks out that he’s also calling himself Goliath – he has a complex about that ever since Luke Cage stole his first villain name. They fight, but Clint is at a disadvantage because Goliath can grow to a larger height that he can. He forces himself to grow anyway, but his system can’t really handle it, so he stumbles around, breaking things. Walker stands in a forest and broods about how he doesn’t fit in, and how women don’t like him. The Goliaths keep fighting, moving into a more populated area. Goliath almost has Clint beaten but Bobbi turns up on a skysled, and fires a tricked out arrow at him, which interrupts his ionic powers long enough for her to knock him down. Clint gives him one big punch, knocking him out. They head back to the compound, where the others have arrived. Wanda is surprised to see they left Goliath behind, but Clint explains about Kuroko. She’s turned invisible again, but then she reveals herself, and tells them that Demonicus plans to destroy the world.
Kuroko tells the team about how Dr. Demonicus made a resource-sharing deal with the UN, but after finding a cave on Demonica, began to change. He started recruiting citizens to his new nation, and then had his operatives land on and board a UN aircraft manned by Wakandan operatives. The Pacific Overlords freed Klaw, and Demonicus made him the Vice-President of Demonica. Kuroko was suspicious of what all was happening, and followed Demonicus and Klaw as they escorted Kaine into the cave; they put a mind control device on him, and when Kuroko learned she was to be next, she tried to flee, but was seen. A creature attacked the plane she stole, and while she was able to get away, she was hurt. She headed to the Avengers for help. The team is not sure what to do with her, and then are surprised to see that Darkhawk has come for a visit, on Spider-Woman’s invite (apparently he can just walk into the mostly-ruined compound). He tells them that Iron Man is fighting robots at Stark International, and they see on the news that Tony Stark is alive. As they process this news, Klaw and Zvezda Dennista (who is apparently working for Demonicus too now) attack. They fight for a few pages, and manage to escape with Kuroko. They have a flying car thing, and since none of the Avengers can fly (Darkhawk can only glide, apparently) and their quinjets are all trashed, they don’t know what to do. Wanda wants to talk to the UN before they invade Demonica, while Walker wants to go get a vehicle from Stark. He heads off with Clint and Bobbi, using the new version of Pym’s Rover. When they get to Stark International, they are attacked by the same robots that they saw Iron Man fighting on the news. They take a couple of pages to defeat them, and then say they are going to get a quinjet. At the same time, over the Pacific, two of the Pacific Overlords land a small vessel on a commercial plane, and steer it towards Demonica.

As Clint, Bobbi, and Walker try to take down the last of the battledroids at Stark, War Machine shows up to help. He tells them that he didn’t know that Tony Stark had faked his death, and because of that, he’s quit working with him, and now wants to be on the Avengers West. He reveals that he’s Jim Rhodes, and Clint welcomes him. He goes and gets them a quinjet. Tony Stark allows this to happen, and arranges to deliver a second quinjet to the compound with his apologies. On Demonica, the Pacific Overlords deliver the hijacked plane and its passengers to Dr. Demonicus, who will hold them as hostages. The quinjet arrives at the compound, where the team, and Darkhawk, gather. They are told by the UN that they should go to Demonica, and the team makes Darkhawk a reservist so he can go with them. For some reason, he and War Machine fly outside the quinjet (Darkhawk has to attach himself with a tow rope), and talk about their armor and stuff. As they approach the island, they are attacked by a swarm of air piranha. Rhodes and Darkhawk kill a lot of them, while Julia raises the quinjet above their range. They land on the island and are greeted by Demonicus and the Overlords. They see Kuroko with them, claiming that she’s there of her own free will, despite the fact that she has a mind control thing on her forehead. Demonicus explains that his island is now a theocracy, dedicated to the demon Raksasa. He wants the Avengers to leave , and orders his Overlords to throw them out. There’s a fight between the Avengers, the Overlords, and Demonica’s army of criminals. After a few pages of back and forth, Demonicus threatens to start killing hostages from the airplane. The Avengers stand down and promise to leave, but Demonicus insists that Mockingbird and USAgent stay as hostages. Clint refuses, but Rhodey incapacitates him and they all leave. Demonicus and the others take his new prisoners to the cave we saw before. Bobbi figures out that Klaw and Zvezda Dennista are not under mind control, but suspects that Demonicus is. Raksasa, a very over-the-top snake demon thing is summoned, and orders that they attack Hawaii. Bobbi manages to use her battle stave to knock out Klaw, freeing her and Walker. They try to escape, and Raksasa insists they be killed. The other Avengers arrive in Hawaii for refuelling, and as they talk about what to do next, they see a swarm of demons coming their way.
On Demonica, Bobbi and Walker try to fight the Pacific Overlords on their own. Walker gets into it with Zvezda Dennista, while Bobbi is left facing the rest of them, and gets knocked out by Kuroko. Walker tries to get away, having to go through some guards before Zvezda catches up. She pushes him into an empty room, and offers an alliance. In Hawaii, the American military is having little luck against the air piranha. War Machine and Darkhawk try to fight them off in the air, while Clint tries to divert a bunch of them on the ground by growing big, so their bits don’t hurt so much. Wanda tries to help him, and ends up shrinking him. Julia spins a web to protect herself, Wanda, and Clint. The air piranha change course, heading towards Honolulu. On Demonica, Zvezda tells Demonicus that she killed Walker, and gives him the man’s shield. Demonicus has Bobbi tied to an altar, and prepares to summon Raksasa. Zvezda tries to get Klaw to join her side, when Walker drops out of the sky and kicks Demonicus in the head. Zvezda turns on the other Pacific Overlords, while Kuroko and Jawbreaker take on Walker. Klaw takes out Irezumi and Cybertooth, and as Walker knocks Jawbreaker down, the demon Raksasa begins to form. Kain takes control of Klaw’s sonic cannon, and to stop its destructive force, Walker aims it into the ground. Raksasa continues to materialize, while Walker knocks out Kain, returning Klaw’s control over himself, but too late. His sound cannon has destabilized the entire, which begins to quake violently. Walker has Zvezda blast Jawbreaker and Klaw so he can throw his shield into Demonicus, causing Raksasa to disappear. Just as Rhodey and Darkhawk are about to be engulfed in air piranha, without Raksasa’s presence, they turn on one another and begin to fight. On Demonica, the hostages and guards realize what’s happening just as Walker and Bobbi come to free them. They load into the stolen aircraft and take off. The heroes and their new allies try to figure out how to get away. Klaw refuses to go with the others, and when a fissure opens behind him, he falls in. Demonicus apologizes to his Overlords for betraying their ideals, just as some rocks fall on them all. A quinjet arrives to get Bobbi and Walker. Zvezda refuses to go with them, and kisses Walker before flying off. The Avengers leave in their quinjet just as the island sinks back into the ocean.

Issue ninety-six brings the AWC into the Infinity Crusade crossover event. It opens with Clint and Julia sparring amid the wreckage of the compound, with Bobbi watching. The match starts to look heated, and that’s when War Machine jumps in, pushing the combatants apart. He reveals that one of their gardeners is lying injured under some debris that Clint almost crushed. The guy comes to and explains that he wasn’t hurt in the attack a couple issues back, but was attacked by Miguel. He came across Living Lightning, who appeared to be in a trance, and when he touched him, he got electrocuted. The team decides to check in on Miguel, and figure they need to go find their two other members. Walker is shooting at a gun range, so Rhodey decides to get him, while Clint and Bobbi decide they should go get Wanda from the apartment she now keeps off-base, while Julia decides to go ask Miguel’s mom where the church he mentioned is. When Clint and Bobbi arrive at Wanda’s, they find her meditating in costume. She is angry they’re there, and seems to know what’s happened to Miguel. When Clint touches her, she uses her hex on him, making him grow right through the walls of her apartment, while she walks off. She tosses her super into the pool, and when Clint tries to shrink, he gets even bigger. Wanda walks into the street, and disappears through a portal, just avoiding being hit by a car. Rhodey approaches Walker at the gun range, where he has been standing in a trance. Walker talks about how “she” doesn’t like guns, and then when Rhodey tries to stop him from leaving, he tosses him into a wall. James has to keep the wall from collapsing. Julia approaches Miguel’s church, where he has been praying. As she approaches him, he says something about expelling darkness, and tries to fly away through a stained glass window. Julia tries to hold him with her psi-webs, and manages to knock him down. He zaps her and flies off to join this mysterious woman. The other Avengers get there and compare notes. Vision calls to say that heroes all over are vanishing. He asks that the team send someone to New York, and it looks like Julia heads off alone. Clint and Bobbi go for coffee, in uniform, and are attacked by Quantum and many of his duplicates.

As it turns out, it’s not Quantum Clint and Bobbi are facing, but the Power Platoon, aliens from his world who can’t speak English, and all look the same, except they have different powers. Clint and Bobbi struggle to fight them, and call for War Machine’s help. As they wait for him to come, an LAPD cop acts like an LAPD cop and starts shooting at one of the aliens, who deflects the bullet back into him. Just things look bad for our reconciled couple, Rhodey shows up and blasts everyone. He takes out much of the Platoon, but it’s not until Bobbi remembers that Clint once took out Quantum by using a smoke arrow to block the sun that they come up with any kind of plan. Clint has his Hawkeye stuff in his car, so he lets a smoke arrow fly, and immediately, the rest of the Platoon collapse (I guess they are unconscious at night?). Rhodey wraps them all up in the metal awning of the coffee shop, punching in some air holes so they can breathe. A paramedic treating the cop mentions that there is no crime anywhere (a reference to the Infinity Crusade). Rhodey pushes the Power Platoon metal awning burrito he’s made through the air, and they all go back to the compound, where they do a computer search on their foes, and we learn a complicated history involving Wundarr, Quantum, the Stranger, Hyperion, and the Platoon’s quest for Quantum, who is now stuck as three people. Clint changes back into his Hawkeye identity, and then Quantum shows up, speaking English, but lacking in real motivation. He’s brought Wundarr with him, who used to be Aquarius and a pacifist, but Quantum controls his mind or something, so they start to fight, while the hole Wundarr knocked in the roof shines through the air holes in the metal awning, and then the eight aliens are able to get free. Clint is about to use another smoke arrow, but gets blasted. There is more pointless fighting, and with the three Avengers cornered, Quantum orders the others to kill them. As they approach, they appear to freeze, but really they just move very slowly. Wundarr recovers his self-control, and explains that he and the Platoon don’t want to hurt anyone, so they all leave, with Quantum yelling at them. Spider-Woman calls in to say that all over the world people are becoming less aggressive. Quantum is still there, but can’t actually hurt anyone because he’s stuck in a phased state or something, so he just threatens the team. It doesn’t even look like he leaves, but everyone just ignores him and his baseless aggression. They stand outside in the sun together, wishing they knew what was happening (I can relate to that feeling).
Annual #8 fits here, and for the first time in years, it tells a single, long story, albeit by a bunch of different art teams. The AWC have come to San Francisco on a tip that two of their villains are around Coit Tower. An eighteen year old named Gary Wilton freaks out that there must be danger, and starts to run down Telegraph Hill. His pencil clip (actually) falls out of his pocket and down an open manhole, so he climbs down to retrieve it. He sees a light, and discovers that Ultron and War Toy are there, making plans. They discover the kid, who has a strange aura around him. They grab him, but are attacked by Hawkeye and Mockingbird, who have found the base. The other Avengers arrive too, and they fight until Ultron uses his mesmeric ray to take control of all of their minds. Gary wasn’t looking though, so Ultron goes to kill him. Strangely, the kid turns into a bird-man named Raptor and makes his escape. Raptor has Bobbi’s identicard (Gary picked it up just before), and is surprised when Iron Man calls Bobbi, wanting to talk. Raptor identifies himself and explains what’s going on. Tony fries the card, and then calls in Miguel, Tigra, Jan, and Hank to get them to help out. It seems that Ultron plans on placing seismic devices in three places – Mexico, Washington State, and Alaska, to set off three volcanoes at once and create a volcanic winter so he can kill millions of people. The reservists agree to go to different spots. Raptor also wants to enter the fight, even though he’s not in communication with the others. We then see Raptor’s origin story. Gary was diagnosed as being seriously malformed as a fetus, but his scientist parents worked out some kind of cure. Sadly, Gary’s father was killed in a wreck, and Gary was born prematurely, but normal. His mother raised him with an abundance of caution until she married his stepfather, at which point she more or less ignored him. When he went to college, he saw a gang of thugs beating on someone, got chased by them, and when he got really scared, he turned into Raptor. The mesmerized Clint and Wanda arrive in Alaska and get ready to set up the machine Ultron gave them. Hank and Jan are there to stop them, but Clint, who uses his size-changing powers, knocks Hank out, and Wanda takes out Jan, who is coloured orange (but this is before she turned into an alien creature in the worst part of the 90s). The device is activated. Rhodey and Bobbi arrive in Mexico and begin to set up their device when Miguel attacks. Tigra is also there, and fights Bobbi. Rhodey grabs Tigra and threatens to kill her if Miguel doesn’t surrender, so he does, just so Bobbi can crack him over the head. The second device is activated. Iron Man meets up with Raptor over Washington state, and we are reminded that at this point, the Iron Man is empty; Tony controls it from a hospital bed now. A group of scientists on Mount St. Helen’s are attacked by USAgent and Spider-Woman, who are there to do Ultron’s bidding. Iron Man attacks Walker, while Raptor tries to fight Julia. Walker does some damage to Iron Man, which in turn causes Tony pain in his bed. Even still, he’s able to take Walker down. With his connection to the armor glitching, Tony slowly moves towards Ultron’s device to turn it off, but just as he reaches it, Raptor (turning back into Gary) and Julia fall on him, which knocks him out. Ultron and Alchema are surprised to see that their devices aren’t working because the Washington one wasn’t activated. They fly straight there, discovering that all of the Avengers are present – mesmerized and not. Alchema destroys a police helicopter that comes to investigate, and then kicks Iron Man, which restores Tony to consciousness. He starts to fight Ultron, and is almost defeated when the rest of the Avengers rise up, conscious and free of Ultron’s control, and start to batter away at the shield he puts around himself. Raptor recovers and attacks as well. Ultron is about to set off all three devices, but Alchema attacks him, revealing that she is the one who tipped the Avengers off in the first place. Everyone attacks Ultron at once, disabling him. When Alchema attempts to escape, Raptor goes after her, but is burned by her jets, and falls to the ground far from the others. The team stands around and chats.

Four beings are brought back to life and given new powers by Satannish. We see that the two men have animosity towards one another, but Satannish stops them from fighting. He has brought them back and empowered them for Hangman, and introduces them as Coldsteel (he’s like Colossus or that metal guy in the U-Foes, Cyana (she has long nails), Axe of Violence (she has an axe for a hand), and Zylkon (he’s in a power suit). Their mission is to pick off the Avengers West Coast one at a time, and in return for doing this, Satannish will return their souls. At the compound, Clint says he’s going to step down as chairman of the team, largely because he feels he fell apart when Bobbi was in danger on Demonica. Bobbi nominates Wanda, and everyone agrees, albeit reluctantly on Walker’s part. The team heads outside to look at the repairs taking place, and we learn that one of Clint’s motivations for stepping down is that he and Bobbi want to try to have a kid; they make out. Julia comments that her parents are coming to town, and chats with Rhodey about things. Walker feels left out, and decides to head into town to look for bad guys to beat on. He stops a robbery and is pretty rough on the group of thugs. Thirsty, he goes into a convenience store, where a skinny woman convinces him to walk her to her car. After a few blocks, she kisses him, and then reveals that she is Cyana. He’s able to shake off the poisons in her kiss, so Coldsteel and Zyklon show themselves and attack. Walker fights hard, but Zyklon’s gas (this character is in very bad taste) starts to affect him. He tries to get away and call for help, but his identicard is smashed. He makes it to a car and tries to hotwire it, but someone pulls out the engine. Hangman shows himself and gets a rope around Walker’s neck, pulling him out of the car. Axe of Violence tries to kill him, but he is able to use his shield to defend himself. All of the new Lethal Legion surround him, and beat on him. Just as Coldsteel is about to finish him, the rest of the Avengers show up. Coldsteel gives Walker one more hit to the head, and then Hangman orders his group retreat in the high tech flying ship that Satannish, a demon, provided them. They set a building on fire as they retreat, so the Avengers work at containing it. Julia goes to Walker just as he passes out or dies.
Walker finds himself in Renaissance Italy, where Lucrezia Borgia orders her men to hold him and poison him. He falls through time, having visions of the Holocaust, executions in Soviet Russia, and a grisly domestic murder scene before finding himself in the hospital with the Avengers West standing around him. He gets into yet another pissing match with Clint, and is upset that he’s not able to go with the team to track down Hangman and his new squad. Julia takes Rhodey to visit Stella, the woman who helped her find Hangman once before. They see that Axe of Violence has killed her, and they fight her, while also making it clear that she is connected to Lizzie Borden, the famous historical murderer. Axe escapes. Wanda and Clint go to Hangman’s old mansion, where they find Cyana waiting for them. It’s confirmed that she is Borgia, and just as Clint is about to fire an arrow at her, Hangman grabs him by the neck with his rope. Wanda uses her hex to stop him, and the villains get away. Clint has returned to the hospital to see Walker, convinced his visions contain some important truths. Walker suits up, but they are attacked by Coldsteel, followed by Zyklon. Bobbi has a gas mask, but she also has a vision of the Holocaust that is very vivid. Walker figures out that Coldsteel is actually Josef Stalin, and Bobbi realizes that Zyklon is Heinrich Himmler. Zyklon captures Bobbi. Coldsteel is about to kill Walker once again, but Rhodey arrives and intervenes. The rest of the Avengers arrive, and Clint learns that Bobbi was taken. Wanda has an idea, so they all head back to the compound, where she retrieves one of Agatha Harkness’s books, and uses it to open a portal to Satannish’s realm. Once open, they see that the Lethal Legion is holding Bobbi. Satannish admits this whole thing is just a quest for souls, and closes the portal. Wanda prepares to open another portal, and the team is interrupted by Mephisto, who wants to go with them.
Issue 100 was an extra long one, with a terrible shiny cover. The team tries to make their way back to Satannish’s dimension, but are sidetracked by Mephisto, who is upset that Satannish stole four souls from him. Wanda gets the team away from him, and they continue to Satannish’s spot, where they find a strange maze made of rocky pillars. Rhodey tries to scout the way through the maze, and is attacked by the Lethal Legion. He gets captured and stuck in a rocky pillar. Next, Walker gets trapped in rocks, and then Julia gets captured as well, leaving only Wanda and Clint. The Legion and Satannish confront them, and Mephisto comes out of Clint’s mouth as smoke. Mephisto and Satannish get ready to fight, but first Mephisto puts the rest of the Avengers into the same rocky pillar, so they can watch. As the two devils fight, they end up knocking the Avengers free. They start to fight the Legion, but Satannish needs all his power for his fight, so he ends up depowering his Legion, making it easy for the Avengers to capture them. The fight between the devils starts to affect the Earth, so Wanda opens a portal. They are able to push Mephisto through it, but he wants his four souls back, so he grabs Himmler and the others. Satannish holds them too, so they get ripped apart. Satannish turns towards the Avengers, but Wanda materializes Agatha’s book, and starts to get them all home. As the team moves through the portal, Satannish fires brimstone at them. Wanda is left behind, but Bobbi and Clint go back for her. As they come through the portal, Mephisto (I thought he was gone) spits fire at them, and hits Bobbi in the back. Back on Earth, Bobbi dies in Clint’s arms. Later, we see the team, with Miguel, Tigra, and Captain America, standing over her grave while Wanda tries to comfort Clint.
In the first backup story, Clint stands at Bobbi’s grave again, remembering when they first came to the compound at Bill Foster’s suggestion. They were there to purchase it from an old movie star, but were set up by Crossfire. The old lady ended up saving them.
In another backup, Walker returns home to Custer’s Grove to check on his dead parents’ house, and gets involved in stopping some local ruffians.

In the final backup, War Machine tries to track down some exotic weapons, gets told off for being too violent, and then fights the Sons of the Serpents, and then Hate Monger, who is knocked out with one punch. This story was terrible.

Issue 101 contains part three of the five-part Bloodties event, that has the Avengers and X-Men mixing it up with various factions on Genosha. I remember not being able to follow this event when I read the whole thing, so coming into chapter three is an exercise in frustration. Clint is with Julia, Hank, Hercules, Vision, and Black Widow at the UN, demanding that they have the right to go to Genosha to help with the crisis there, although it’s pointed out that Clint doesn’t appear to be speaking for everyone. In Genosha, Wanda, Rhodey, Captain America, Black Knight, Sersi, and Crystal are facing off against Exodus, who has just killed some people. He displays his hatred for humans, and his disdain for Wanda as his spiritual leader’s daughter. His bigotry enrages Rhodey, and they fight, while the others find themselves caught between advancing groups of humans and mutates Genoshans, all set on killing one another. Crystal separates the two groups; Crystal is set on finding her daughter, Luna, and she and Wanda leave. USAgent is in some sewers with Professor X and Beast, who displays a lot of anti-human sentiment. Xavier leads them to a wall that the other two break down, revealing a large chamber filled with wretched mutates. The soldiers of the Magistrate Elite attack. Somewhere else, the X-Men (Cyclops, Gambit, Bishop, Rogue, Jean Grey, Archangel, and Iceman), with Quicksilver, fight against Genosha’s dictator, Fabian Cortez, and his Unforgiven (basically, terribly derivative generic bad guys). They fight, and capturing Cortez, learn he’s actually a shapeshifting mutate. Rhodey keeps fighting Exodus, who defeats him. Sersi, looking very angry, joins the fight.
Roy Thomas left with issue 101, and issue 102 basically existed to ease (or is it create?) the transition from AWC to the Force Works series. It was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, and the shifts in tone are very abrupt. At a meeting of both Avengers teams (attended only by Wanda, Julia, Walker, and Rhodey on the WC side, with no explanation of where Clint has gone), the Vision declares that it’s time to shut down the West Coast team. He claims that their track record has been one of failure, and Wanda, who is sporting a sexier, more revealing look than usual, disagrees. Walker wants to argue, but it’s Wanda who pushes back most strongly. Captain America offers as proof that neither Rhodey nor Walker were effective in the fight on Genosha. Vision’s plan is to fold the WC branch into the main team, making the members of that group reservists. Wanda objects to this too, especially when Hank doesn’t value how long Wanda’s been with the team. Iron Man turns up, surprising everyone, and wounds from Operation Galactic Storm that were never discussed in this title are brought up. Walker gets mad, Hercules wants to fight him, and instead, Jarvis serves lunch. Tony tells the other WC members that he has a plan, and chats with Jarvis. Tony’s being there angers Rhodey to the point where he quits and flies off. Cap starts lecturing Tony, which leads to Walker getting involved, and Tony has to stop him from swinging at Cap. They return to the meeting room, and take a vote on Vision’s proposal. Cap, Black Widow, Black Knight, Hercules, and Vision vote to disband the team. Crystal abstains. Wanda, Walker, Sersi, Julia, and Hank vote to keep the team. The final vote comes to Tony, who decides to disband the team, surprising everyone. When Wanda hears she’ll be a reservist, she quits and storms out. Tony does the same, as does Walker. Hank tries to get Julia to stay, but she follows the rest of her squad. Tony talks to the two women outside, asking them to meet him in the Palos Verde compound in a couple of days (I don’t know where Walker went). We see that this whole thing is being watched by someone who is likely Kree. Walker takes a ferry, and as it passes the Statue of Liberty, he tosses his shield and costume in the river. Later, Wonder Man turns up at the AWC compound, and is surprised to find it wrecked and empty. Iron Man is there, and tells him what happened.

I’m not sure why I ended up reading this run all the way to the end, except that there’s a pandemic on, and I don’t always make good choices with my scant free time. A certain apathy set in while I was reading these comics, and so even though I wasn’t enjoying them, continuing to read them felt easier than picking something else.

I mention that, because I also feel like the same apathy was involved in writing these comics. Roy and Dann Thomas worked on this book for almost four years, and didn’t achieve anything of note with it. The took over after John Byrne left, and picked up most of his plots, while abandoning a few others (such as the eviction sub-plot). They added a few characters to the team (Spider-Woman, Living Lightning, and War Machine, although I doubt that his inclusion was their choice, as it feels like a marketing ploy, given how often he got the cover), moved some off, randomly made some cosmetic changes, and that’s about it. They kept cycling through the same villains, and more or less just treaded water until the book got canceled.

Along the way, they tried hard to achieve 90s guest star bingo, bringing in appearances by Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Darkhawk (but never got around to Punisher or Ghost Rider) in an obvious attempt to boost sales.

Some of these comics, like the Arkon/Thundra issue, were god-awful, but for the most part, they were just bland.

One thing that stood out in their early issues, and then became a mainstay of the book, is just how easily all of the characters gave in to their anger, just about all the time. There is a lot of pontificating in this run, followed by unreasonable flares of temper. It’s tiresome. This team never felt like a team, and definitely never felt like a group of friends.

One thing that hampered this book was the way in which events in Iron Man and Wonder Man’s own series impacted things. Tony Stark just “died” between issues. Something happened with Simon, and he just up and quit between issues. It left the book feeling like an afterthought a lot of the time.

Outside those examples, the changes wrought on other main characters often felt just as forced. Let’s look at some of these characters individually.

Hawkeye/Goliath – Clint came back to the team rather suddenly, just as he suddenly changed from Hawkeye to Goliath and back again (which I suspect has something to do with Hank playing Giant Man in the main Avengers book). He reconciled with Mockingbird way too easily, and then their problems vanished to the point where they were ready to start a family. It never felt believable. Plus, his constant sparring with Walker was exhausting.

Mockingbird – Her death served no real purpose, and wasn’t even emotionally notable. She was never interesting in this run.

Tigra just shuffled off to Australia for no apparent reason. It doesn’t make sense that she’d crash a quinjet in the Outback, and just decide to live with the first group of people who she met, but then also occasionally come back to LA for a big event.

John Byrne took the Human Torch with him to Namor’s title, but he just kind of stopped appearing in this book, and that was weird.

Hank Pym was supposed to be looking after his first wife, but he just returned to the team with no mention of her made ever again. It was lame. So little was done with the Wasp that it’s not worth mentioning her here.

USAgent was a problem throughout this run. It was never explained why he was sometimes called Jack Daniels, but at other times John Walker. Maybe that was made clear somewhere, but it wasn’t in this comic, and I found that irritating. Plus, he only existed to get mad, and was never given any kind of depth.

Spider-Woman should have been more interesting than she was here. The character always had a lot of potential, but aside from being the only character with actual b-plot storytelling, she never brought much to the table aside from her awesome costume.

Living Lightning is a character with a ton of potential. I feel like the richness of having a Latino kid from gang neighbourhoods in LA join the Avengers was never explored except in low-key racist backup stories in Annuals, and then Miguel was shuffled off without cause too.

War Machine wasn’t on the team for long, but while he was there, he did and said little of note.

One thing that bothered me about this run was the almost complete lack of running sub-plots. Aside from the Walker/Clint grudge, and the easily resolved storyline about Clint’s marriage to Bobbi, no one else had their own subplots or character arcs. Julia went through the wringer, losing her ex-husband, but even still, her daughter was more of a plot device than an actual character in the book.

Art-wise, this book was decent after Dave Ross came onboard. I liked his Alpha Flight work more, but he’s a very stable, very reliable artist. As so many other books descended into a 90s crapfest, Ross kept this book looking classic. At the same time, I wish the AWC got jackets when the East Coast team did, because I’m always a sucker for a good team jacket. Before he came along, this book hosted some terrible art. Tom Morgan couldn’t figure out how Spider-Woman’s cowl worked, and I don’t want to be disrespectful, so I’m not going to talk about Herb Trimpe’s issues. Paul Ryan is always good, but his work here felt pretty staid.

I don’t know, this run was disappointing. I think I’m glad to be done with it. As I read that last issue, I did toy with the idea of reading Force Works (I only own the first issue, and remember that I didn’t like it). I then realized that’s more of the same covid-related apathy, and decided it’s time to switch things up, so for my next column, I’ll be returning to the back catalogue of one of my favourite writers, and reading a maxi-series he wrote before changing his name, that I’ve never read before.

If you’d like to see the archives of all of my retro review columns, click here.

If you’d like to read any of the stories I talk about here, you can follow these links for trade paperbacks that encompass some of these issues.

Avengers West Coast: Darker Than Scarlet

Avengers – West Coast Avengers: Along Came A Spider-Woman

Avengers Epic Collection: Operation Galactic Storm

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Retro Review: Avengers West Coast #58 – 102 By Thomas, Thomas, Ross & Others For Marvel Comics

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