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Avengers West Coast Epic Collection
Avengers West Coast Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Lost in Space-Time
The West Coast meets the Old West! Firebird finds herself in the middle of a fight between the Rangers and the Avengers - but will she become the sixth Whacko, or will the Thing? Menaces mount - including Master Pandemonium, Headlok, Griffin and Graviton - while Tigra and Hellcat team up against Tiger Shark! Meanwhile, Hank Pym battles his demons - but who will be his savior? Then, a time-warping terror leaves the West Coast Avengers trapped in the past! Hawkeye meets old friends Two-Gun Kid and Rawhide Kid, but another Western legend spells big trouble for Mockingbird! The sprawling space-time saga spreads to ancient Egypt as the Whackos travel ever further back in time - but what role will Moon Knight play? And will the team ever find its way home? Collects West Coast Avengers (1985) #8-24, Annual #1; Avengers Annual #15.
488 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2019
About the author
Steve Englehart
1,402 books100 followersSee also John Harkness.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 1, 2025
With the nostalgia factor removed, this collection is probably more of a 2 star read, if I’m completely honest. Even with my rose-tinted glasses that yearn for my youth in situ, this only just scrapes a 3. The artwork is just… not good… and some of the story elements are a little ropey, too.
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January 17, 2023The problem is that I fundamentally love superheroes, but also can't stand most of the comics which began the whole genre, because they come across so dated and inept. And with most of the stuff I like, even when it's doing its damnedest to recapture childlike magic in something like All-Star Superman (the best superhero comic ever, obviously), there's an unavoidable element of self-consciousness in the mix. But there does exist a little crack in time where people were writing better than Stan and not yet trying to be Alan, and within that nestles a series for which I've had a great fondness since childhood: West Coast Avengers.
To be clear: there are 20 issues here, and even on a charitable interpretation, maybe six are good by any normal standard. But dear heavens I enjoyed them. We open with the Whackos, as chairman Hawkeye will unfortunately insist on calling them, up against Texas-based superteam the Rangers – and that these no-marks slow them down doesn't bode well. Hawkeye keeps chasing Ben Grimm, at this points on the outs with the FF, to take the team's extra membership spot, while the eager Firebird pines for an invitation which never comes; at some point it goes past soap opera and starts feeling like almost a romance comic plot, only to be resolved as farce when, after all that, it turns out there was never actually a membership limit anyway; Hawkeye just missed a memo, or was trying too hard to play by the rules, or who even knows. Much of the time it's not a comic where you get the impression the creators were paying that much attention, which ought to feel insulting, but instead ends up weirdly fun, or else oddly revealing. Sometimes they bring in absolute no-mark villains who already existed, like Whirlwind and Tiger Shark; sometimes they create their own, seemingly just by playing word association games of 'things you'd find in the desert' or similar, and if the self-explanatory Cactus and unfortunately named Butte* have ever made repeat appearances, somehow I missed them.
Elsewhere, it's more a case of Having To Remember It Was A Very Different Time, as when the team discuss their look.
Clint: "A lot of the costumes we worked out in New York don't make it in L.A. weather! I ditched my long sleeves..."
Simon: "Yes, and we're glad you stopped there!"
Tony: "Just as we're glad Tigra didn't!"
Not that Tigra minds, given she's basically in heat for several issues at this point: "Why did I do that? Why do I melt any time any man wants me?" Even supposed playboy Tony Stark ends up running away, the wuss, but she's being spied on from miles away by a mysterious figure: "What a woman! I can wait no longer! I must have her, and I must have her now!" No, not Uncle Monty gone suddenly heterosexual, but Graviton, and once he's kidnapped her, despite hating him, her catgirl nature means she's powerless to resist:
"You see, this cat-woman has no control over herself...and I have total control!"
Thinks: "Oh, why did I do that? Why do I always melt before anything in pants?"
It's a scene that you suspect was both born out of and responsible for a lot of fetishes, and before you ask, no, this isn't one of the stories I recall from a formative age. And nor is the issue where we see the deeply suspicious shape and colour of the device with which a villain called Dominus plans to turn humanity into mindless slaves.
What else? An annuals crossover with the East Coast team, half of it drawn by Ditko, later than I think of him working for Marvel. This seems reliable embodiment of oppressive authorities Gyrich cracking down on both teams, with the aid of rebadged evil mutants Freedom Force, all at the instigation of Quicksilver, who's being even more of a dick than usual. I particularly liked the line about his ex Crystal, "to whom I gave the love my sister threw away". Not that he has issues or anything. He talks about how he can't trust anyone but himself, before enlisting robot doubles of the already quite poor villains Zodiac to get completely trousered by the Avengers in a scheme there's no earthly reason for Gyrich to have signed off on when he's begun by far more sensibly using soldiers and Guardsmen who, even in a superhero universe, are surely more likely tools of government power than knock-offs of D-list villains. After that, some of the team take a trip to San Francisco – AND HELL! Guest-starring Daimon Hellstrom in a short-lived superhero costume which must surely have been an influence on the spandex Hellblazer suit in that dream issue of Doom Patrol.
But then it's time for the title epic, in which the team get sent into the past on a broken time machine that can take them deeper, but never bring them home. Things definitely step up a gear here, as shown in smart little touches like not giving away the name of the story – and thus the threat – until the trap has been sprung. At first it looks like it's going to be a story about wife-beating fuck-up and accidental creator of genocidal robots Hank Pym (AKA Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Yellowjacket, Goliath, Uncle Tom Cobley and all) finally doing the decent thing and topping himself, after the incident in which he was lured into falling off a roof by intellectual titan Whirlwind, and then dumped by Tigra. Which occasions a classic incel rant where he yells about how he's not seen as beloved, or heroic, but "nice". And in a sense he's quite right to complain – how little attention must Tigra have been paying to anything if she can describe Hank fucking Pym as the nicest man she knows? But just as he's about to pull the trigger (having already written a foot-high stack of suicide notes to everyone with whom he was ever an Avenger – classic Pym), he is alas interrupted by the former Firebird, who mainly seems to be doing that creepy Christian thing of trying to recruit people when they're at a low ebb, but instead ends up convincing Hank to rebrand himself yet again, even while he insists he's doing nothing of the kind. So he creates a knock-off of Blue Beetle's Bug called the Rover, which makes you realise that the whole series could be interpreted as a sort of fairground mirror of the Justice League during their comedy era; see also the way that, back in the old West, the rest of the team are teaming up with Marvel's cowboy characters against the likes of Doctor Danger, the Master of Magnetism (he has a standard horseshoe magnet) and the Fat Man (a fat man with a boomerang). But it's the sort of comedy that's always on the verge of tipping over into something incredibly dark, as it does here, when the Western version of the Ghost Rider suddenly proves himself less Spirit of Vengeance than Spirit of Roofies, abducting and drugging Mockingbird. The rest of the team, unable to retrieve her, are still determined on heading to Egypt and then going way, way back to a point where they know there's a time machine, which for once is actually not a bad idea, but Hawkeye has also thought to instigate a Plan B, leaving a note in Firebird's family Bible which he knows will survive to the present day.
Except what ensues is, again, right on the line between farce and despair, in a way that of all things reminded me of Johnny Vegas on Taskmaster, the way he'd be falling over himself while also giving the distinct impression that he'd bet the farm on the outcome. The time-lost team keep just missing any of the surprisingly frequent opportunities to get back to their own time, while Pym and Firebird prove similarly incapable of noticing the note. When she does finally see it, it's only because it's been brought to her attention by a literal act of god – but not her crappy deity, a proper god: Khonshu! With whom Hawkeye has made a deal back in ancient Egypt, one which seems a lot less onerous than Marc Spector's was, despite Khonshu's stock presumably being higher in Ancient Egypt, Rama-Tut's reign or no. Making you wonder if all the crazy was just Marc the whole time. See also Khonshu's insistence "I am god of the Moon... I work in subtlety and shadow!" Really, mate? Even if we leave aside that bit where you dotted New York with pyramids while stealing everyone's powers, we do need to talk about your hiring choices. But he does at least consent to send a message up the timeline to said hire: your boy Moon Knight! Who, on his second page, gives us the panel since made famous online as 'Random bullshit go!' He promptly drops the case he's on without a second thought and heads to LA just in time to run into the debut of 'Dr Pym, the Scientific Adventurer' – who shows what a changed man he is by having his first interaction with another superhero beyond the former Firebird be going at Moon Knight with a chainsaw. Which, to be fair, is the only language he understands. And I've not even mentioned the whole bit where as soon as he has a Hollywood hit, Wonder Man goes from being beset by crippling self-doubt to the most overweening bell-end going, which is saying something when he's frequently stood next to Tony Stark. The inference is obvious, though I'm not even sure coke would have any effect on his ionically-charged physiology.
It's a wild ride, is what I'm saying here. Not one I would necessarily recommend, but one I enjoyed all the same. Comics at their most ludicrous, frequently creepy as hell, but doing stuff you don't get anywhere else, possibly for good reason.
*Yes, I know it's pronounced differently. Even so...
To be clear: there are 20 issues here, and even on a charitable interpretation, maybe six are good by any normal standard. But dear heavens I enjoyed them. We open with the Whackos, as chairman Hawkeye will unfortunately insist on calling them, up against Texas-based superteam the Rangers – and that these no-marks slow them down doesn't bode well. Hawkeye keeps chasing Ben Grimm, at this points on the outs with the FF, to take the team's extra membership spot, while the eager Firebird pines for an invitation which never comes; at some point it goes past soap opera and starts feeling like almost a romance comic plot, only to be resolved as farce when, after all that, it turns out there was never actually a membership limit anyway; Hawkeye just missed a memo, or was trying too hard to play by the rules, or who even knows. Much of the time it's not a comic where you get the impression the creators were paying that much attention, which ought to feel insulting, but instead ends up weirdly fun, or else oddly revealing. Sometimes they bring in absolute no-mark villains who already existed, like Whirlwind and Tiger Shark; sometimes they create their own, seemingly just by playing word association games of 'things you'd find in the desert' or similar, and if the self-explanatory Cactus and unfortunately named Butte* have ever made repeat appearances, somehow I missed them.
Elsewhere, it's more a case of Having To Remember It Was A Very Different Time, as when the team discuss their look.
Clint: "A lot of the costumes we worked out in New York don't make it in L.A. weather! I ditched my long sleeves..."
Simon: "Yes, and we're glad you stopped there!"
Tony: "Just as we're glad Tigra didn't!"
Not that Tigra minds, given she's basically in heat for several issues at this point: "Why did I do that? Why do I melt any time any man wants me?" Even supposed playboy Tony Stark ends up running away, the wuss, but she's being spied on from miles away by a mysterious figure: "What a woman! I can wait no longer! I must have her, and I must have her now!" No, not Uncle Monty gone suddenly heterosexual, but Graviton, and once he's kidnapped her, despite hating him, her catgirl nature means she's powerless to resist:
"You see, this cat-woman has no control over herself...and I have total control!"
Thinks: "Oh, why did I do that? Why do I always melt before anything in pants?"
It's a scene that you suspect was both born out of and responsible for a lot of fetishes, and before you ask, no, this isn't one of the stories I recall from a formative age. And nor is the issue where we see the deeply suspicious shape and colour of the device with which a villain called Dominus plans to turn humanity into mindless slaves.
What else? An annuals crossover with the East Coast team, half of it drawn by Ditko, later than I think of him working for Marvel. This seems reliable embodiment of oppressive authorities Gyrich cracking down on both teams, with the aid of rebadged evil mutants Freedom Force, all at the instigation of Quicksilver, who's being even more of a dick than usual. I particularly liked the line about his ex Crystal, "to whom I gave the love my sister threw away". Not that he has issues or anything. He talks about how he can't trust anyone but himself, before enlisting robot doubles of the already quite poor villains Zodiac to get completely trousered by the Avengers in a scheme there's no earthly reason for Gyrich to have signed off on when he's begun by far more sensibly using soldiers and Guardsmen who, even in a superhero universe, are surely more likely tools of government power than knock-offs of D-list villains. After that, some of the team take a trip to San Francisco – AND HELL! Guest-starring Daimon Hellstrom in a short-lived superhero costume which must surely have been an influence on the spandex Hellblazer suit in that dream issue of Doom Patrol.
But then it's time for the title epic, in which the team get sent into the past on a broken time machine that can take them deeper, but never bring them home. Things definitely step up a gear here, as shown in smart little touches like not giving away the name of the story – and thus the threat – until the trap has been sprung. At first it looks like it's going to be a story about wife-beating fuck-up and accidental creator of genocidal robots Hank Pym (AKA Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Yellowjacket, Goliath, Uncle Tom Cobley and all) finally doing the decent thing and topping himself, after the incident in which he was lured into falling off a roof by intellectual titan Whirlwind, and then dumped by Tigra. Which occasions a classic incel rant where he yells about how he's not seen as beloved, or heroic, but "nice". And in a sense he's quite right to complain – how little attention must Tigra have been paying to anything if she can describe Hank fucking Pym as the nicest man she knows? But just as he's about to pull the trigger (having already written a foot-high stack of suicide notes to everyone with whom he was ever an Avenger – classic Pym), he is alas interrupted by the former Firebird, who mainly seems to be doing that creepy Christian thing of trying to recruit people when they're at a low ebb, but instead ends up convincing Hank to rebrand himself yet again, even while he insists he's doing nothing of the kind. So he creates a knock-off of Blue Beetle's Bug called the Rover, which makes you realise that the whole series could be interpreted as a sort of fairground mirror of the Justice League during their comedy era; see also the way that, back in the old West, the rest of the team are teaming up with Marvel's cowboy characters against the likes of Doctor Danger, the Master of Magnetism (he has a standard horseshoe magnet) and the Fat Man (a fat man with a boomerang). But it's the sort of comedy that's always on the verge of tipping over into something incredibly dark, as it does here, when the Western version of the Ghost Rider suddenly proves himself less Spirit of Vengeance than Spirit of Roofies, abducting and drugging Mockingbird. The rest of the team, unable to retrieve her, are still determined on heading to Egypt and then going way, way back to a point where they know there's a time machine, which for once is actually not a bad idea, but Hawkeye has also thought to instigate a Plan B, leaving a note in Firebird's family Bible which he knows will survive to the present day.
Except what ensues is, again, right on the line between farce and despair, in a way that of all things reminded me of Johnny Vegas on Taskmaster, the way he'd be falling over himself while also giving the distinct impression that he'd bet the farm on the outcome. The time-lost team keep just missing any of the surprisingly frequent opportunities to get back to their own time, while Pym and Firebird prove similarly incapable of noticing the note. When she does finally see it, it's only because it's been brought to her attention by a literal act of god – but not her crappy deity, a proper god: Khonshu! With whom Hawkeye has made a deal back in ancient Egypt, one which seems a lot less onerous than Marc Spector's was, despite Khonshu's stock presumably being higher in Ancient Egypt, Rama-Tut's reign or no. Making you wonder if all the crazy was just Marc the whole time. See also Khonshu's insistence "I am god of the Moon... I work in subtlety and shadow!" Really, mate? Even if we leave aside that bit where you dotted New York with pyramids while stealing everyone's powers, we do need to talk about your hiring choices. But he does at least consent to send a message up the timeline to said hire: your boy Moon Knight! Who, on his second page, gives us the panel since made famous online as 'Random bullshit go!' He promptly drops the case he's on without a second thought and heads to LA just in time to run into the debut of 'Dr Pym, the Scientific Adventurer' – who shows what a changed man he is by having his first interaction with another superhero beyond the former Firebird be going at Moon Knight with a chainsaw. Which, to be fair, is the only language he understands. And I've not even mentioned the whole bit where as soon as he has a Hollywood hit, Wonder Man goes from being beset by crippling self-doubt to the most overweening bell-end going, which is saying something when he's frequently stood next to Tony Stark. The inference is obvious, though I'm not even sure coke would have any effect on his ionically-charged physiology.
It's a wild ride, is what I'm saying here. Not one I would necessarily recommend, but one I enjoyed all the same. Comics at their most ludicrous, frequently creepy as hell, but doing stuff you don't get anywhere else, possibly for good reason.
*Yes, I know it's pronounced differently. Even so...
March 21, 2021
Comic Books are odd critters. As they are, more often than not, a collaboration between a writer and artist, there are a lot of factors that influence just how effective the efforts of the contributors are going to be perceived. Why do I bring this up now? Well, this is a perfect example of one those times that the results of the writer and artist are fairly uneven. The stories here span quite a range of adventures for the team and some are more affective than others. This volume culminates in an epic 8-part story dealing with time travel that unfolds like a Chinese puzzle box that really could only have a single solution. There is some interesting character development, some daring authorial choices and some exciting adventures. Unfortunately, the art does not really live up to the stories. It’s not that Milgrom is a bad artist, he’s quite talented actually, but his style isn’t well suited for these kinds of stories, and sadly never really rises to their challenges. Englehart has delivered some of the classically best Avengers stories up to this point and with a different artist Lost in Space-Time might have risen to the status of The Celestial Madonna arc, but instead it gets mired in choppy image cuts and clunky, blocky character designs and weirdly twisted angles that skew the readers sense of depth and perspective.
I’d have given this 5-stars for the stories, but only 2 for the art. I’ll compromise and be generous with 4-stars.
I’d have given this 5-stars for the stories, but only 2 for the art. I’ll compromise and be generous with 4-stars.
July 15, 2024
A fun, if dated read. Really two major story arcs contained here. The first dealing with Tigra, and her history and development. We learn a lot about her, and she really develops as a character. We see some other characters also develop, Wonder Man, Hank Pym, and we also get to have some adventures with Son of Satan and Hellcat, which is great.
The second epic is the Lost in Space-Time overarching story that is a fun, thrill ride of an adventure. Several heroes cross over, and we get to learn more about Moon Knight and his history, as he joins the team.
The artwork throughout is great, and none of this is boring, it is a great read!
The second epic is the Lost in Space-Time overarching story that is a fun, thrill ride of an adventure. Several heroes cross over, and we get to learn more about Moon Knight and his history, as he joins the team.
The artwork throughout is great, and none of this is boring, it is a great read!
January 6, 2022
Bom, o que nós podemos esperar de um time com Vingadores de segunda linha?
Bom, eles enfrentam vilões de terceiro escalão para baixo, sério, quem é o Mestre Pandemônio na fila do pão? E o Dominus? Pois é, quem se importa?
Eu não.
Bom, a coisa começa com os Vingadores da Costa Oeste - Wacos (?) - enfrentando os Rangers, com a ajuda do Coisa, depois da função o Coisa e a Pássaro de Fogo vão embora e deixam os Wacos sem um sexto membro, mais uma daquelas burocracias odiosas que faziam sucesso na época. Logo em seguida, descobrimos que o Hank Pym tá pegando a Tigra, e a Tigra tá querendo pegar qualquer um que chegue perto - algo a ver com a alma de gato ou algo assim -, também há uma informação muito importante: a bunda do Simon "Magnum" Williams é indestrutível - eu não tô brincando - e isso é descoberto por causa de jatos - eu continuo falando sério. A história das almas da Tigra é uma loucura, não faz o menor sentido, envolve o Daimon Hellstrom, a Hellcat, o povo gato, um gato demônio e o tal Mestre Pandemônio. Quem diabos é o Mestre Pandemônio?
Mestre Pandemônio é um qualquer que faz um trato com Mefisto, e, por motivos inefáveis, o Mefisto troca os membros do cara por demônios.
A próxima história coloca os Vingadores Time B contra o cara super poderoso do time B da vilania, Gravitron e mais uns mequetrefes que nunca mais apareceram. Logo depois temos aquele odioso cross over entre os Anuais dos Vingadores com o Comitê Burocrático do Governo querendo prender todo mundo porque Pietro Maximoff dedurou os caras. Afinal, os Vingadores deixaram um sintezóide se passar com a irmã dele. Sério, imagina o ódio que o Pietrinho deve ter um desses robô-aspirador de hoje em dia?
Em algum momento a Tigra dá o fora no Hank Pym, por motivos de, bom, Hank Pym, né?
Enfim, chegamos na tal história dos perdidos no espaço-tempo. Sério, os Vingadores vão a Albuquerque convidar a Pássaro de Fogo para o time, acabam enfrentando uns vilões muito picaretas - nível Morsa e Metalóide de picaretagem - e o líder deles - o tal Dominus - encontrou a máquina do tempo do Doutor Destino.
Sério.
Um Zé Mané no meio do deserto do sudoeste americano encontrou uma máquina do tempo feita pelo Doutor Destino e faz uma armadilha para o time dos Vingadores.
E eles caem que nem patinhos.
E acabam no velho oeste.
Com uma máquina do tempo estragada que só vai para trás.
Qual é a grande ideia que eles têm?
Vamos voltar mais no tempo até virarmos um retcon naquela história em que o Quarteto vai para o antigo Egito e enfrenta o Kang Faraó saradão e peladão.
Sério.
E a vaca afunda ainda mais no brejo; a cada capítulo a história vai se dividindo com vários personagens perdidos o tempo e o Hank Pym passando o xalalá na Espírita - novo nome da Pássaro de Fogo, que, pelo visto, tem fogo noutros lugares também.
Claro que no final tudo meio que se resolve e como envolveu o antigo Egito, o Cavaleiro da Lua aparece entra pro grupo junto com Hank Pym, o cientista aventureiro.
Sério.
Decididamente não é o melhor momento de ninguém envolvido nessa história.
O melhor momento do Mestre Pandemônio deve ter sido essa piada:
Mestre Pandemônio: Salomé, pega no meu pé.
Salomé: Mas é um demônio!
Mestre Pandemônio: Salomão, pega na minha mão.
Salomão: Mas é um demônio!
Mestre Pandemônio: Nicolau, por que corres?
Bom, eles enfrentam vilões de terceiro escalão para baixo, sério, quem é o Mestre Pandemônio na fila do pão? E o Dominus? Pois é, quem se importa?
Eu não.
Bom, a coisa começa com os Vingadores da Costa Oeste - Wacos (?) - enfrentando os Rangers, com a ajuda do Coisa, depois da função o Coisa e a Pássaro de Fogo vão embora e deixam os Wacos sem um sexto membro, mais uma daquelas burocracias odiosas que faziam sucesso na época. Logo em seguida, descobrimos que o Hank Pym tá pegando a Tigra, e a Tigra tá querendo pegar qualquer um que chegue perto - algo a ver com a alma de gato ou algo assim -, também há uma informação muito importante: a bunda do Simon "Magnum" Williams é indestrutível - eu não tô brincando - e isso é descoberto por causa de jatos - eu continuo falando sério. A história das almas da Tigra é uma loucura, não faz o menor sentido, envolve o Daimon Hellstrom, a Hellcat, o povo gato, um gato demônio e o tal Mestre Pandemônio. Quem diabos é o Mestre Pandemônio?
Mestre Pandemônio é um qualquer que faz um trato com Mefisto, e, por motivos inefáveis, o Mefisto troca os membros do cara por demônios.
A próxima história coloca os Vingadores Time B contra o cara super poderoso do time B da vilania, Gravitron e mais uns mequetrefes que nunca mais apareceram. Logo depois temos aquele odioso cross over entre os Anuais dos Vingadores com o Comitê Burocrático do Governo querendo prender todo mundo porque Pietro Maximoff dedurou os caras. Afinal, os Vingadores deixaram um sintezóide se passar com a irmã dele. Sério, imagina o ódio que o Pietrinho deve ter um desses robô-aspirador de hoje em dia?
Em algum momento a Tigra dá o fora no Hank Pym, por motivos de, bom, Hank Pym, né?
Enfim, chegamos na tal história dos perdidos no espaço-tempo. Sério, os Vingadores vão a Albuquerque convidar a Pássaro de Fogo para o time, acabam enfrentando uns vilões muito picaretas - nível Morsa e Metalóide de picaretagem - e o líder deles - o tal Dominus - encontrou a máquina do tempo do Doutor Destino.
Sério.
Um Zé Mané no meio do deserto do sudoeste americano encontrou uma máquina do tempo feita pelo Doutor Destino e faz uma armadilha para o time dos Vingadores.
E eles caem que nem patinhos.
E acabam no velho oeste.
Com uma máquina do tempo estragada que só vai para trás.
Qual é a grande ideia que eles têm?
Vamos voltar mais no tempo até virarmos um retcon naquela história em que o Quarteto vai para o antigo Egito e enfrenta o Kang Faraó saradão e peladão.
Sério.
E a vaca afunda ainda mais no brejo; a cada capítulo a história vai se dividindo com vários personagens perdidos o tempo e o Hank Pym passando o xalalá na Espírita - novo nome da Pássaro de Fogo, que, pelo visto, tem fogo noutros lugares também.
Claro que no final tudo meio que se resolve e como envolveu o antigo Egito, o Cavaleiro da Lua aparece entra pro grupo junto com Hank Pym, o cientista aventureiro.
Sério.
Decididamente não é o melhor momento de ninguém envolvido nessa história.
O melhor momento do Mestre Pandemônio deve ter sido essa piada:
Mestre Pandemônio: Salomé, pega no meu pé.
Salomé: Mas é um demônio!
Mestre Pandemônio: Salomão, pega na minha mão.
Salomão: Mas é um demônio!
Mestre Pandemônio: Nicolau, por que corres?
July 18, 2020
Good run of Avengers, West Coast style. Hank Pym(Ant-man) finds his niche in the superhero world as a scientist and the Avengers travel through time as they try to make it back to the late 80s. I've always been partial to this team of Avengers but I also know the best is to come as the stories will be taken over by John Byrne and get a lot darker.
May 22, 2020
I have always been a sucker for a good time travel adventure, and this volume features a classic one from the WCA. It was enjoyable to read this one again after so many many years. The art was spotty at times, but Englehart's writing is very strong.
April 2, 2022
This second volume of the Avengers West Coast collects more early issues of the 80s series, featuring their first annual crossover with the main Avengers title, as well as the lengthy "Lost in Space-Time" storyline.
I read these issues when they were originally released back in the day. I always enjoyed the mix of characters present, but I wasn't as enamored of the writing and artwork. These Epic collections give me the chance to revisit them decades later and see if my feelings are different given being able to read them straight through as opposed to one a month, as well as seeing if several decades of life experiences change how I feel about the storytelling.
The adventures themselves are solid, if not as spectacular as the basic premises would suggest. I still have some problems with these stories which haven't changed since first reading them.
Steve Englehart's writing at this time injected a lot of soap opera elements into the story, seen also in his Fantastic Four run and somewhat in his Silver Surfer. In general, that's not a problem except it did feel like he was doing it at the expense of established characterizations. The Best stories, I feel, come from actions being driven by the characters, but these often felt as though Englehart determined character beats he wanted to hit with each character, even if the characters had to behave out of character to get there.
Also, I was not a big fan of the art. Al Milgrim's style always seemed serviceable but unremarkable to me. Nothing particularly against the man, his art just never really did it for me.
Still, these don't make for bad stories, but for me they only range between mediocre and okay. There'll be another Englehart/Milgrom volume ahead, then the series moves into the more controversial Byrne run.
I read these issues when they were originally released back in the day. I always enjoyed the mix of characters present, but I wasn't as enamored of the writing and artwork. These Epic collections give me the chance to revisit them decades later and see if my feelings are different given being able to read them straight through as opposed to one a month, as well as seeing if several decades of life experiences change how I feel about the storytelling.
The adventures themselves are solid, if not as spectacular as the basic premises would suggest. I still have some problems with these stories which haven't changed since first reading them.
Steve Englehart's writing at this time injected a lot of soap opera elements into the story, seen also in his Fantastic Four run and somewhat in his Silver Surfer. In general, that's not a problem except it did feel like he was doing it at the expense of established characterizations. The Best stories, I feel, come from actions being driven by the characters, but these often felt as though Englehart determined character beats he wanted to hit with each character, even if the characters had to behave out of character to get there.
Also, I was not a big fan of the art. Al Milgrim's style always seemed serviceable but unremarkable to me. Nothing particularly against the man, his art just never really did it for me.
Still, these don't make for bad stories, but for me they only range between mediocre and okay. There'll be another Englehart/Milgrom volume ahead, then the series moves into the more controversial Byrne run.
Read
June 20, 2022Fair warning to anyone reading this for Moon Knight reasons (like I am): MK doesn't show up until something like the 80% mark, and on top of that you have to deal with gross sexist writing for Tigra, Hank being actively suicidal for a few issues (including a near-attempt), and some date rape for Bobbi. I love the 80s. /sarcasm
February 9, 2024
Definitely an improvement from earlier in Englehart's West Coast Avengers run.
A few average issues to begin with, but then Hellcat and Daimon Hellstrom turn up for a few issues, leading to mediocre villain Master Pandemonium making his exit (for the time being) and Tigra being cured of her schizophrenia. Hooray! Then the team move onto an interesting seven-part time travel storyline that crosses over with past Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange issues in a fairly smart way. Characters like Two-Gun Kid also return, which makes me think that Englehart is tying up some loose ends of unrealised plots from his original Avengers run.
Of course, it's not all great though. The religious overtones of La Espirita/Firebird's personality feel awkwardly ham-fisted and Wonder Man's overinflated ego is frustratingly annoying. Also, Al Milgrom's art steadily gets worse once Joe Sinnott's inks aren't there to help him out.
A few average issues to begin with, but then Hellcat and Daimon Hellstrom turn up for a few issues, leading to mediocre villain Master Pandemonium making his exit (for the time being) and Tigra being cured of her schizophrenia. Hooray! Then the team move onto an interesting seven-part time travel storyline that crosses over with past Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange issues in a fairly smart way. Characters like Two-Gun Kid also return, which makes me think that Englehart is tying up some loose ends of unrealised plots from his original Avengers run.
Of course, it's not all great though. The religious overtones of La Espirita/Firebird's personality feel awkwardly ham-fisted and Wonder Man's overinflated ego is frustratingly annoying. Also, Al Milgrom's art steadily gets worse once Joe Sinnott's inks aren't there to help him out.
July 23, 2021
I thought this would be a goofy, 80s time-travel romp.
It was, instead, more of Volume 1's strange blend of terrible characterization, weird plots, and storylines that take way too long to resolve.
The art is not great here. The character designs are subpar. Iron Man continues to look weird and Wonder Man...ooof.
There is more on Tigra and her spirit integration here (barf), Espirita's insufferable character (double barf), and the clunky reformation of Hank Pym as if we should ignore his unforgivable past actions.
The only redeeming parts of this volume are the two Annuals which show us the beginnings of Quicksilver's villainous streak (which comes back in modern times) and the inclusion of Moon Knight, always an interesting choice on a team.
It was, instead, more of Volume 1's strange blend of terrible characterization, weird plots, and storylines that take way too long to resolve.
The art is not great here. The character designs are subpar. Iron Man continues to look weird and Wonder Man...ooof.
There is more on Tigra and her spirit integration here (barf), Espirita's insufferable character (double barf), and the clunky reformation of Hank Pym as if we should ignore his unforgivable past actions.
The only redeeming parts of this volume are the two Annuals which show us the beginnings of Quicksilver's villainous streak (which comes back in modern times) and the inclusion of Moon Knight, always an interesting choice on a team.
August 18, 2025
while the writing in this was enjoyable throughout, the standout stuff for me was the storyline involving Hank Pym and how dark they were willing to go with it. the titular storyline was also a huge standout, and thankfully nothing stood out as bad at any point. it did have a slower start, but I think I enjoyed it more once tigras arc was wrapped up.
June 4, 2024
fun but took too long.
A good set of stories with multiple levels intertwined. Still, the main event took a long time to get to the payoff. I liked it but it should have been shorter.
A good set of stories with multiple levels intertwined. Still, the main event took a long time to get to the payoff. I liked it but it should have been shorter.
November 19, 2021
Time travel is my least favorite trope, but I do love what Englehart does with Tigra, MoonKnight, and Mockingbird.
April 19, 2025
Englehart's WCA continues with story arches Sins of the past and Lost in Space-Time. Certainly energetic but not very interesting.
November 26, 2019
This focussed an awful lot on Tigra, but it was a great read, more so for being one I hadn't read before with characters I don't normally read about.
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