Avengers West Coast #55

Sep 18

Sep 18 Avengers West Coast #55

The Breaking Strain

Acts of Vengeance continues from Fantastic Four #336…

High above California and entering Earth orbit is one of the bungalows that was part of the Avengers Compound. It has been pulled into space by Magneto, who has come to claim his daughter the Scarlet Witch.[1][2] Wanda is still in a catatonic state after her recent ordeals and the Master of Magnetism begins using his mutant powers to try and stimulate her mind and break her out of her current state.[3]

Meanwhile, on the east coast, both teams of Avengers have met in order to determine who the mastermind is behind the coordinated attacks on the superhero community. Thor concludes that it could only be one person: his stepbrother Loki. However, the Wasp thinks it must be Doctor Doom,[4] while the Vision has interrogated the recently captured Wizard who claims that it is actually a consortium of villains behind all of this.[5] Hawkeye and Mockingbird believe that they should question the Wizard, who the east coast Avengers have in one of their holding cells.

At that same moment, the Wizard is already plotting his escape. Removing a false finger nail, he accesses a device that opens a portal to the room where he and the other Prime Movers of the “Acts of Vengeance” conspiracy meet. There he finds the Kingpin, Red Skull, and Mandarin all examining the ruins of a Doombot that recently destroyed itself.[6] This revelation shows them that while Doom may have been involved from the start, at some point he decided to swap himself out for one of his robotic duplicates. The Wizard then calls out the Mandarin for leaving him to be captured by the Avengers and explains how he escaped them. When the man they all have considered a lacky hears this he calls the Wizard a foolish mortal for giving the Avengers an opening to invade their sanctum. The Wizard and the other Prime Movers take offense to his tone. However, this “mere lacky” has decided that the time for subterfuge is over and reveals that he is actually Loki, the Asgardian trickster god, and explains that he has been manipulating them all this entire time. As the Red Skull looks on in utter shock, the Kingpin sees the writing on the wall and decides that now would be a good time to leave.

Elsewhere in time and space it is April 14, 1865 and President Abraham Lincoln is sitting is watching a play at Ford’s Theater. When John Wilkes Booth sneaks up behind the President and tries to shoot him in the back of the head, Lincoln notices him at the last minute and is able to ruin his shot. As the police come to take Booth away, Lincoln remarks how close a call this was to the military general seated next to him, the general — who is actually Immortus in disguise — admits that he is an admirer of Lincoln’s place in history and while he is tempted to leave this divergent reality alone he must fulfill his duty and purge it from existence.[7] As this reality is erased, Immortus returns to his domain in Limbo. He checks his scanner that is trained on the Scarlet Witch and is shocked to discover that her domicile was removed while he was busy. Seeing Wonder Man heading for the home, he decides to continue observing this scene to see if he can learn what happened to his target.

When Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams, arrives at the spot where Wanda’s bungalow once existed he finds Agatha Harkness waiting outside. She explains that she was lured outside by a knock at the door and witnessed as the building was suddenly pulled into the sky but some unknown force. Unfortunately, it disappeared from sight too quickly for the elderly witch to cast a spell in time to stop it. US Agent also arrives and confirms what happened, explaining that he was just getting back from their recent battle with the Mole Man that he too was unable to try to prevent the kidnapping.[8] Simon decides to go looking for Wanda in the Quinjet modified for space travel. However, the US Agent insists on tagging along as Simon shouldn’t tackle this alone. When the two reach escape velocity in the Quinjet they soon find the bungalow drifting in Earth orbit. Suiting up for a space walk, Wonder Man tries to reach the house but it suddenly explodes before he has a chance to get to it.

Back at Loki’s hideout, the trickster has used his magic to incapacitate the Wizard, Red Skull, and Mandarin, and begins chastising them for not being able to carry out his plot to destroy the Avengers. Suddenly, Thor teleports into the room bringing a team of Avengers — which include Captain America, Iron Man, Hank Pym, the Wasp, Hawkeye, Vision, the Falcon, and Mockingbird — with him. With the need for pretense over, Loki gestures his hands causing the walls around his hideout to shoot up in the air, revealing that they are in the middle of Asgard’s Isle of Silence. Seeing the desolate landscape, Thor suddenly realizes what this is all about. Loki then uses his magic to summon an army of Silent Ones from the ground as well as use the elements to destroy the Avengers. While the rest of the team deals with these threats, the thunder god goes after his wicked step-brother.

While the heroes are busy, the Wizard, Mandarin, and Red Skull decide that they should bounce just like the Kingpin had earlier and escape through the still functioning portals back to Earth.

As this is happening, Thor’s anger grows and having had enough of Loki’s treachery slams Mjolnir into the ground. This causes a chasm to open up and swallow Loki whole before sealing back up once again.[9] With the battle over, Thor tells his fellow Avengers that this was where he fought his brother all those years ago on the day that the Avengers first formed.[10] He concludes that Loki’s greatest regret was inadvertedly causing the team to form and that was the motivation for his attack this day.

A few hours later, the two teams have returned to Earth and eventually Hank, the Wasp, and Iron Man head back for the west coast. Once they reach California, Iron Man takes off to get some downtime while Hank and Janet return to Avengers Compound. After arriving, Janet changes into a fresh costume and goes to check on Wanda to see how she is doing. She arrives at the Scarlet Witch’s bungalow — which she is not aware was ever missing — and inside she finds an injured US Agent telling her to get away while she can. Before the Agent can explain anything, the Scarlet Witch — now wearing a brand new costume — appears and explains that she was the one who attacked the Agent and that she is now going to turn her full power against her former friends, the Avengers.[11]

Recurring Characters

Avengers West Coast (Iron Man, Hank Pym, Wasp, Wonder Man, US Agent), Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Vision, Falcon), Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Loki, Wizard, Mandarin, Kingpin, “Red Skull”, Agatha Harkness, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Immortus, Ebony

Continuity Notes

Magneto kidnapped the Scarlet Witch from Avengers Compound in Avengers #313.
Magneto refers to the Scarlet Witch as his daughter here. He was led to believe this in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4. This was later revealed to be a lie perpetuated by the High Evolutionary. The geneticist experimented upon Wanda as a child and in order to cover up his work he made it so she would register as a mutant. Her biological mother is Natalya Maximoff, but the identity of her father (as of this writing in September, 2022) has yet to be revealed. See Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5 and Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3.
The Scarlet Witch has been dealing with a lot as of this story. She witnessed her husband get disassembled and rebuilt without his emotional connections to her in the aforementioned West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-45. She later was told that her children (born in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #12) were nothing more than figments of her imagination as seen in Avengers West Coast #51-52. She was briefly on her feet again to assist the east coast team fight rogue members of Freedom Force in Avengers #312.
The Wasp got this from Cloak and Dagger who encountered Doctor Doom in the 9th issue of their own series.
The Avengers captured the Wizard at the end of Avengers #313.
Speaking of robots, the Red Skull seen here is also a robot, as we’ll learn in Avengers Annual #19. The real Red Skull was kidnapped by Magneto and left to die in an abandoned bomb shelter, as seen in Captain America #367. The Skull won’t get out until issue #370 of that series.
Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3, this divergent reality has been identified as Universe-9002.
Wonder Man and US Agent fought the Mole Man last issue.
Loki will eventually get free, as we’ll see in Thor #414, so don’t worry your pretty head about it.
I shouldn’t have to tell you that this was way back in Avengers #1, but here we are. Thor says that this was “many years ago”, which is pretty vague. Per the Sliding Timescale, the Avengers have been together for about 8 years at the time of this story.
Here, US Agent states that Wonder Man is dead. While he was killed in the explosion, Wanda uses her powers to bring him back to life, as we’ll see next issue.