Avengers West Coast #51
Written and Pencilled by John Byrne
Inks by Mike Machlan
Hoo boy. Today I picked out a truly random back issue from a series I was never a huge fan of, Avengers West Coast. As a matter of fact, I can only think of two reasons I even have this issue and the next four or five following it: House of M.
Briefly after I got back into comic collecting, Marvel released an "event miniseries" entitled House of M. If you've been a Marvel reader in the last decade or two, chances are the events in this series were reflected in whatever Marvel title you happened to be reading at the time. The Scarlet WItch flips her lid and remakes the world in her father Magneto's image.
Mutants are on top, dogs and cats are living together, etc.
In the conclusion to that story (written by Brian Bendis and drawn by Oliver Copiel if memory serves), the Witch utters the words, "No more mutants" and the X-Men corner of the Marvel universe is impacted forever. Even now the X-books exist in the wake of this story, never fully recovering even after other stories would attempt to negate her actions or change things back. This was much to the ire of fans, who felt Wanda's madness in this story (and in the Avengers Disassembled story just prior to this) was just a vessel for then-editor bossman Joe Quesada to undo the mutant baby boom, which was introduced and expanded upon in Grant Morrison's New X-Men run.
Boy, Marvel continuity can go all "rabbit hole" on ya real quick.
Anyway, House of M was a favorite of mine at the time, so I did some back issue hunting and rounded up as many of the key "Scarlet Witch goes batty" stories as I could find. The strangest by far has to be the Master Pandemonium saga, which begins in this issue of Avengers West Coast and would go on for a few issues until things get really weird later and Wanda turns evil and gives Wonder Man head against his will while the other heroes look on.
That really happened. Issue #56. She blows him in front of everybody.
This issue sets Wanda on the path to shortening her hair and going cackling mad, and it's easy to see why she might have a screw loose. I mean, her father is Magneto and her brother is Quicksilver. Her android lover the Vision has regressed to a more cold, robotic state after being kidnapped and reprogrammed by some baddies. AND her two infant children may or may not be real, since they tend to phase out of reality when she's not concentrating on them.
And if that's not enough to drive you bonkers, consider the West Coast roster at the time: USAgent, Hank Pym (who's dressed like Doc Savage for some reason), Wasp, the time-displaced android Human Torch, and Wonder Bread . . . I mean Wonder Man.
Oh yeah, Iron Man is there too. At least there's one A-lister hanging around. Although the team isn't certain if this Iron Man is Tony Stark or not because at that time Tony was believed to be dead or something.
What'd I tell ya? Rabbit hole.
Agatha Harkness shows up too, and Wanda mentions she was burned at the stake the last time they saw her. That's metal. As far as the plot, Wanda's children are targeted by the demonic douche Master Pandemonium so he can fill the void where his soul used to be or something. He attacks the West Coast mansion, then retreats into hell or somesuch and is pursued by the team. It's handled pretty well by Byrne, who was already a legend by this point. The dialogue is exactly like most "cape" books at the time, and Machlan inks Byrne well enough, but this IS NOT the sharp, crisp Byrne art you might be used to seeing in old X-Men or Iron Fist issues. Still, there's nothing too offensive here. It's a solid B+ team book.
The last page features Master Pandemonium with baby hands. Words cannot do this justice, so I'll shut up now.
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