West Coast Avengers Appreciation

[Nomads1]

Except that was never really explored, and it was just a way to get the heroes to the bad guys. The proactive approach eventually becomes a macguffin- it could be anything, it's just to involve the heroes in the plot. Which is kind of a weak premise to base an entire direction upon.

You mean in FW? I do recall it being explored. The whole Ember storyline, and the one in Australia came from that. IF I'm not mistaken, parts of the Hands of Mandarin storyline and of the original storyline had something to do with this also. It had a sort of Person of Intrest vibe. They were at the place where they knew they'd be needed, but didn't know exactly why. It was one of those things about Force Works that was different than the other books that I found interesting.

Peace

[Vic Vega]

I think because really it's not actually all that different from what teams do ordinarily.

It's like the Avengers are like "Oh, no, the Kree attacking. We better do something." And Force Works is "Oh, no, the Scatter are attacking. We better do something." It's kind of the same thing, just the way they get there is a little different. And when more of the focus is on the battle itself rather than how they get there, it kind of makes it seem like the actions of the two parties are fairly similar.

Unless you were to have the heroes blow up the alien shipyards so they could never get to earth to invade it in the first place.

The Illuminati miniseries had elements of that kind of thing now that I think of it.

[Nomads1]

Unless you were to have the heroes blow up the alien shipyards so they could never get to earth to invade it in the first place.

The Illuminati miniseries had elements of that kind of thing now that I think of it.

And we all know how well that turned out.

Though, to play Devil's advocate, they dis claim to have attacked in retaliation the the Kree/Skrull war.

Peace

[RDMacQ]

And we all know how well that turned out.

Though, to play Devil's advocate, they dis claim to have attacked in retaliation the the Kree/Skrull war.

Peace

And I think that was actually supposed to be the point.

Bendis doesn't really handle things the way other writes do. When other writers tackle the "Heroes being PROactive" approach, they usually try to paint it as being THE way to handle things. Bendis didn't do that with Illuminati, and showed the upsides and the downsides of such an approach. It wasn't a fix all situation, with the smartest people in the room solving all the problems because they're more "effective" than other heroes. If anything, they made the problems worse in a lot of situations.

[ChrisGa]

When Byrne was on WCA, it was definitely the better book(the main title definitely went adrift after Stern left and was that way for a couple of years). Having said that, when Harras/Epting came on the main title and Thomas/Ross was on WCA/ACW that was, for me, a time when both books were pretty damn good. Everyone hates on Harras for his soap opera plotting, etc. but I enjoyed his storylines and his roster--yep, with the brief exception of Captain America and maybe the Vision, all B-listers like Black Widow, the Black Knight, Sersi and Crystal--was my favorite roster on the book next to Stern's run on the title(Cap, the Wasp, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau, Vision and the Scarlet Witch, etc.). There hasn't been anything in Bendis' eight year stranglehold on the franchise that holds a candle to those two runs(or Busiek's) IMHO.

[XPac]

I never understood why a proactive team book was so hard to pull off.

I notice that Secret Avengers managed to keep the "proactive" theme even if it is only implyed.

MY problem with S.A. is that by premise it sounds like it should be a military espionage book, and except for the period when Eliis was writing it, its not.

I think one of the downsides of a pro-active book is that it innately gives the good guys the upper hand. And often the stories work better in the reverse.

If the good guys are the ones going after the bad guys instead of vice versa, they have the time and the resources to specifically prep for the bad guys. Unless they're going after someone who is flat out more powerful, it should in theory make them the favorites going into it.

That said, it's not an unworkable premise. In the early portion of New Avengers, they were actually a pro-active team hunting down escaped 52 prisoners for example. I think with the right premise, those sort of books work well enough.

[Hypestyle]

... I still wonder about a Gulf Coast Avengers.. based out of New Orleans.. make Monica Rambeau chairperson..

[gforce99]

Thinking back to the WCA/AWC comics, which was your favorite storyline?

One little gem that I really liked, was the Ultron-12, the Nice Ultron, story.

[XPac]

Thinking back to the WCA/AWC comics, which was your favorite storyline?

One little gem that I really liked, was the Ultron-12, the Nice Ultron, story.

Ultron Mark 12 definately does stand out in my mind. Having a nice loving Ultron acting like Pyms kid was pretty cool. I would have liked it if that was revisted somehow. Maybe Pym trying to rebuilt him or something.

I think my favorite story was still the two part annual cross overs with the East Coast Avengers. The ones with the softball games. The one with the Grandmaster in particular was a childhood favorite of mine.

[Frank]

I submit that when you replace a Bart Sears with a Ron Randall that does more to tell the reader that the book he/she is reading is second tier than anything in story.

ESPECALLY when the parent book is alternating between Kevin McGuire and Adam Hughs.

In the 90's the Xfranchise kept darn near every fan fave artist Marvel had in house, so they never had that problem.

Avengers?

You had the choice of either Dave Ross(who I liked, mind you) or Steve Epting.

I could never take Dave Ross. After Byrne and Ryan, let's just say his stuff was a little weird for my taste. So I left shortly after he took over.

[Nomads1]

And I think that was actually supposed to be the point.

Bendis doesn't really handle things the way other writes do. When other writers tackle the "Heroes being PROactive" approach, they usually try to paint it as being THE way to handle things. Bendis didn't do that with Illuminati, and showed the upsides and the downsides of such an approach. It wasn't a fix all situation, with the smartest people in the room solving all the problems because they're more "effective" than other heroes. If anything, they made the problems worse in a lot of situations.

I actually don't see that at all. I see Bendis always showing heroes as incompetent and inefectual (Manor is destroyed = disband, have trouble fighting ninjas, fight the Sentry and Collective and have to call for outside help, spend the greatest crisis fighting inefectively in the Savage Land, only to have "victory" snatched out of their hands by Norman Osborn, can't deal with Osborn, try and fail to kill him, need for Loki to orchestrate Osborn's downfall, who ends up defeating himself, etc...). Not two sides of the coin, just one. I agree it's a different way of doing things than the more "traditional", whatever that means, but, personally, after a couple of stories where it's new, I don't like it. I think he should learn to dose better those upsides and downsides. But, that's just me. Anyway, that's not the place to discuss this (have already done pleanty of that elsewhere). Let's talk about the West Coast Avengers.

Peace

[Nomads1]

When Byrne was on WCA, it was definitely the better book(the main title definitely went adrift after Stern left and was that way for a couple of years). Having said that, when Harras/Epting came on the main title and Thomas/Ross was on WCA/ACW that was, for me, a time when both books were pretty damn good. Everyone hates on Harras for his soap opera plotting, etc. but I enjoyed his storylines and his roster--yep, with the brief exception of Captain America and maybe the Vision, all B-listers like Black Widow, the Black Knight, Sersi and Crystal--was my favorite roster on the book next to Stern's run on the title(Cap, the Wasp, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau, Vision and the Scarlet Witch, etc.). There hasn't been anything in Bendis' eight year stranglehold on the franchise that holds a candle to those two runs(or Busiek's) IMHO.

Agree 110 %.

Peace

[Nomads1]

Thinking back to the WCA/AWC comics, which was your favorite storyline?

Lost in Space Time (if only Wonder Man wasn't wearing the Christmas Tree outfit, it'd have been almost perfect).
Their Second tussle with the Pacific Overlords (War Machine and Darkhawk).
The John Byrne and Terry Austin annual tieing in with Attlantis Attacks.
The Hangman and the Lethal Legion storyline that led to Mockingbird's Death.

Peace

[sethchristianmartel]

Just adding to the WCA love. The issue where Mockingbird quit the team because Clint couldn't understand her letting him die was one of my first comics. Geez, looking back kinda deep stuff for a kid huh... I guess thats why I've always liked MB and thought Clint was a total dick. Now it all makes sense.

[Hawk_fan]

I'll say this.. I WANTED to like that book. I liked the cast, and I was legitmately rooting for them to stick it a bit to the East Coasters after how things went down.

But I just could not get into that book. I didn't like the writing, or the art. And frankly as a Wonder Man fan I think the book killing him off right off the bat basically killed my buzz.

That's how I felt about Force Works too.
However, I continued buying the title for Scarlet Witch, U.S. Agent and Iron Man.