West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #40
And Now the… Night Shift!
While on patrolling the streets of Los Angeles, Mockingbird comes across the criminal known as Digger burying a rival gang up to their necks in the middle of the street. She easily bests Digger in combat and then turns all the criminals over to the police.[1]
Word of Digger’s arrest quickly gets back to his teammates on the Night Shift. With their leader, the mysterious Shroud, off on business in San Francisco, the group argues over what to do about this situation. Misfit doesn’t understand why their boss has said the Avengers are off limits and suggest that they go against his wishes and get revenge.[2] This is unanimous agreed upon.
Loading into two hursts, the Night Shift drive to Avengers Compound and are able to sneak onto the property thanks to Tick Tock’s ability to predict the immediate future. Although the others take glee in terrorizing the Avengers support staff, the Werewolf questions why he continues to work with people who get off on this sort of behavior.
The commotion from the attack awakes Hawkeye who calls for the Avengers to assemble. The Vision answers the call to action, telling his wife the Scarlet Witch to remain in the room to protect their sons, Billy and Tommy.[3] However, these are the only two Avengers who are present, because Wonder Man is off at a Hollywood social event. Hawkeye and Vision try their best against overwhelming odds but find that they are greatly outmatched.
Meanwhile, Mockingbird returns to Moon Knight’s Moon-Cotpor where he and Tigra are waiting for her to come back. She tells them about the Digger bust and how he is in league with the Shroud. She remembers how they once invited the Shroud to join the West Coast Avengers and is confused about his criminal activities.[4] Moon Knight knows where the Shroud’s lair is located and suggests that they seek him out for answers.[5]
By this time, the Scarlet Witch has evacuated her children and support staff so she can lend Hawkeye and the Vision a much needed hand. Wanda’s hex powers begin turning the ride until she uses her powers to turn the Brothers Grimm’s magic beans into cotton balls. This proves to be a mistake as Gypsy Moth uses her ability to mentally control fibrous material to restrain Wanda in cotton. Needle then takes Yolanda — one of the support staff — hostage. Dansen Macabre then orders the Avengers to arrange the release of Digger. Hawkeye has no idea what they are talking about.
At that moment, Mockingbird and her team have arrived at the so-called Tower of Shadows. After getting past the automated defenses, they find a note from the Misfit telling the Shroud that they are going after the West Coast Avengers to free their teammate. When Tigra asks if they should go lend Hawkeye’s team a hand, Bobbi turns this idea down, saying they should wait for the Shroud to come back.
Back at Avengers Compound, Hawkeye is annoyed to learn that his estranged wife was responsible for Digger getting busted and realizes the Night Shift don’t know she quit the team. That’s when Wonder Man returns home from his party and mounts a daring rescue of his teammates. That’s when the Shroud returns to the Tower of Shadows, just as the Avengers have found a pile of loot the Night Shift stole from other mobsters. The Shroud is able to “read” the message left for him by Misfit with his enhanced senses and then tells the former Avengers that the can stay as long as they want as this hideout will be abandoned by his team.
He then races to Avengers Compound and uses his power to control darkness to help the Night Shift to escape the Avengers. Knowing this is the work of the shroud, Hawkeye turns up his hearing aid to try and figure out where he is in the pure darkness.[6] This allows him to get close to the Shroud and demand to know what’s going on. The Shroud tells Hawkeye to meet with him at their regular place in 10 minutes. When the darkness begins to subside, Wonder Man and the others want to go after the Night Shift, but Hawkeye orders them to stand down, but doesn’t offer an explanation.
When Hawkeye meets with the Shroud later, Clint warns him that he is losing control of the Night Shift and warns that his cover is in jeopardy of being exposed. The Shroud insists that pretending to be a criminal is still useful and asks Hawkeye to trust him. Clint decides to do that, but warns him to be careful. When the Shroud suddenly vanishes in the cover of darkness, Clint admits to himself that he hates it when the Shroud does that.
Recurring Characters
West Coast Avengers (Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, Tigra, Moon Knight), Night Shift (Shroud, Brothers Grimm, Digger, Danse Macabre, Gypsy Moth, Misfit, Needle, Tatterdemalion, Tick Tock, Werewolf by Night), Billy Maximoff, Tommy Maximoff
Continuity Notes
The Digger makes a lot of stupid horror puns and offers to tell his would-be victims some scary stories. Digger’s character first got his start as the host of two of Marvel’s horror anthology titles from the 70s: Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. These were a call back to old horror EC Comics horror books from the 50s like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror and a broader tradition of horror anthology books having a regular host.
What the group doesn’t know is that the Shroud has been posing as a criminal in order to destroy the underworld from within. He started doing this in Marvel Premiere #21. He formed the Night Shift and started recruiting villains to unknowingly do his dirty work back in Captain America #330.
Here, Wanda mentions how Mockingbird, Moon Knight, and Tigra recently quit the team. Not long ago, in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #23, Mockingbird let the Phantom Rider fall to his death because he basically raped her. The team all found out in issue #34-35. When confronted about it in issue #37, Mockingbird quit the team with Tigra and Moon Knight.
The Shroud was offered a spot on the WCA in West Coast Avengers #1. It’s odd that Mockingbird doesn’t know about the Shroud’s criminal ruse since he explained his con to the Avengers at the time, but whatever, you can’t expect everyone to remember everything I guess.
Moon Knight tracked down the Shroud in Solo Avengers #3. He also encountered Shroudy in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #29 when he was hunting down Taurus of the Zodiac cartel.
Depending on who you ask, Hawkeye either damaged his hearing in Hawkeye #4, while Hawkeye (vol. 4) #19 states that Clint has been deaf since childhood due to his father’s brutal beatings. Marvel has yet to provide clarification. My theory is that Clint had been hiding his disability for years — perhaps out of fear of being othered by his fellow Avengers — and after he felt he proved himself used the Crossfire incident to make it seem he was just newly disabled so he could stop hiding his disability.
Topical References
Gypsy Moth’s name is considered a dated reference. The main reason is that the term gypsy is no longer the correct term to use to describe the Romani people and is considered by many to be offensive now. The moth species was later changed to the less offensive sponge moth. I have continued to refer to Gypsy Moth by this name because the character is Romani and chose to name herself such.
Tigra and Hawkeye make references to the Adams Family and Twilight Zone respectively. These dated TV references are not necessarily topical since both are commonly known enough to still be considered part of the cultural zeitgeist. More over, they are referred to as “old”, referring to past incarnations of these classic TV franchises.
