Avengers West Coast Epic Collection, Vol. 6: California Screaming

Avengers West Coast Epic Collection

by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Paul Ryan (Illustrator)

The reaper and the robot! When two of the greatest foes ever faced by Earth's Mightiest Heroes join forces, it spells doom for the West Coast Avengers! If the team can somehow triumph over the deadly duo of the Grim Reaper and Ultron, who will be left in a revamped roster? And will there be any room for the U.S.Agent? Not if Hawkeye has his way! Then, Julia Spider-Woman Carpenter and the Living Lightning join the fight against the diabolical Doctor Demonicus and the Pacific Overlords! The WCA and the Fantastic Four are caught in a cross-dimensional struggle, while Doctor Strange lends a mystical hand when the Night Shift raises hell! But what will the cosmic civil war known as Operation: Galactic Storm mean for the Whackos? Collecting AVENGERS WEST COAST #65-82 and ANNUAL #6.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Superheroes

512 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2023

About the author

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Avengers West Coast #65-68 (California Screaming) - Our West Coast heroes kick this one off with a sequel to the Ultron & Grim Reaper grudge match (or should that be Everyone Hates Simon grudge match). In any case there’s nothing very special or new going on here (3/5).

Avengers West Coast #69 - Speaking of “grudge matches,” Hawkeye vs USAgent. Basically hothead vs racist egomaniac. Let’s call it an epilogue to the previous arc and leave it at that. In any case, it’s rather poorly written. (2/5).

Avengers West Coast #70-74 (Pacific Overlords) - Oh my. That was kind of a disaster of clichés and racial stereotyping. I almost think this was a left over idea from the author’s days writing the Invaders that he just tried to update and use here. This is just, simply put, bad. Actually it’s kind of embarrassing. The art even starts out as something akin to emulating the awful style of Rob Liefeld, and while it does get better after the first issue of this sequence, it never really gets good. Basically just a mishmash of seemingly incompatible pencilers and inkers. But the worst aspect is the poorly developed story, the badly developed characters and the atrocious dialogue. Five issues of sheer embarrassing stupidity (1/5).

Avengers West Coast #75 - This issue and the chapters from Operation: Galactic Storm are the only things I’ve previously read from this volume. I picked this one up because of the presence of the Fantastic Four, and it’s as bad as I remember it being. Badly plotted and poorly written. Even putting it the chronological context of where it occurs didn’t help in the slightest (1/5).

Avengers West Coast Annual #6 (Subterranean Wars) - Oddly enough, I’d thought I’d read this before, and maybe I did, but I don’t recall anything about this entire annual. So if I had previously read it, then it certainly left absolutely no mark of any kind on my memory. The only story in this one that I liked at all, is the story featuring Living Lightning, and even that is mostly racial stereotypes and gang clichés (2/5).

Avengers West Coast #76-79 (Infamous Monsters of Filmland) - This story arc was a bit more interesting, mostly because it dealt with the group of west coast characters that never get a lot of attention: the Night Shift. But also, the writers seem to be settling in with the characters finally, and things are starting to sounds like the characters we’ve been reading about, instead of a bunch of strangers that just look like our heroes. Still not great, but entertaining (3/5).

Avengers West Coast #80-82 (Operation: Galactic Storm) - I get why the whole arc isn’t included, see Avengers Epic Collection, Vol. 22: Operation Galactic Storm or Avengers: Galactic Storm, Vol. 1 and Avengers: Galactic Storm, Vol. 2 if you want the whole story, it is huge and sprawling, as well and printed in it’s entirety elsewhere. But having only these 3 “random” chapters is just about pointless (2/5).

[Tom Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've worked my way past where I originally stopped reading this series with this volume. Roy and Dann Thomas were the regular writers for all these stories, with a few different artists ultimately settling in to David Ross as regular penciller.

It's interesting comparing these Thomas stories to the Englehart and Byrne ones which preceeded them. Englehart embraced the soap opera elements while Byrne was focused more on a deconstruction of the team. The Thomas's quickly settle in on a more stable line-up and, while some of the soap opera elements still exist, the stories are more balanced.

The area where I did have problems were some of the villains characterizations and motivations. Sometimes, superhero writers could concoct weak reasons to get on with the battles and the Thomas's fall victim to that here, particularly in one story arc where the motivations of most of the villains were to achieve success in Hollywood.

The art is solid throughout, if not necessarily spectacular. Overall, it's a decent collection.

[Tomás Sendarrubias García · Rating 2 out of 5]

Con El Segador y el Robot, Roy y Dann Thomas, que habían aterrizado en la serie con las prisas de cubrir la salida precipitada de John Byrne, después de poner fin a la saga de la Bruja Escarlata Oscura de la mejor manera que supieron, van a comenzar a contar sus propias historias, de momento aún con Paul Ryan a los dibujos. Y lo hacen con El Segador y el Robot, una historia que recurre a los orígenes fundacionales de la serie, con los dos enemigos más clásicos de Los Vengadores Costa Oeste. Y es que, como su nombre indica, los dos villanos van a ser El Segador y Ultrón, que van a llegar a una turbia alianza y abocada a la traición, con el objetivo de expandir una especie de virus tecnorgánico que "ultroniza" a la gente. Y aunque la historia no es muy allá, sí que por ejemplo es interesante como Roy y Dann Thomas toman uno de los temas propios de la época (el miedo y la preocupación por los pesticidas) y lo aplican a los malévolos planes de Ultrón.

Y tras El Segador y el Robot, el matrimonio Thomas comenzaron un nuevo arco, Los Señores del Pacífico, donde un villano que había aparecido alguna vez en Iron Man, el Doctor Demonicus, reúne a su alrededor a un equipo de villanos más o menos forzosos con los que Demonicus trata de establecer su propio dominio en el Pacífico. Al margen de que los villanos son un poco "de paso", es interesante que por primera vez en la historia de la colección, los Thomas dirigen la mirada de los héroes hacia oriente, hacia Japón, las islas y el Pacífico en lugar de a la zona suroeste de Estados Unidos. Y además, en la serie aparecerán dos personajes que se convertirán en miembros del equipo a no mucho tardar: Spiderwoman (Julia Carpenter, la Spiderwoman que había salido en las Secret Wars) y el Rayo Viviente, un héroe de origen hispano. Y además, tras un número dibujado por Steve Butler (que ojalá no hubiera sido interino y se hubiera quedado), llegaría el nuevo dibujante titular de la serie, David Ross... que no es el mejor dibujante del mundo, y vamos a dejarlo ahí.

Y después de Los Señores del Pacífico, y con una nueva alineación (Ojo de Halcón, Pym, el USAgente, Spiderwoman, Rayo Viviente, el Hombre Maravilla y la Bruja Escarlata), tendremos un nuevo arco (Roy y Dann parecían decididos a ir encadenando sagas de 5 o 6 números, en el más puro estilo Bendis que vendría después), y que supondría el regreso de Turno de Noche, el equipo de villanos oscuros y un tanto terroríficos (en espíritu) dirigidos por El Ahorcador y con miembros del corte de los Hemanos Grim, Danza Macabra, Aguja, Andrajoso o el Enterrador, que van a llevar su enfrentamiento con los Vengadores a lo más terrenal y mezclándose a través del Hombre Maravilla (que parece que era el personaje más interesante para el matrimonio Thomas) con el mundo de Holywood.

Y después de Turno de Noche... Iba a llegar Operación: Tormenta Galáctica...

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters are mostly portrayed well as they deal with personal issues, but these stories are weak compared to previous collections and seem to just hinder developing the team members. And I hate the way the writers phased out Tigra. Going back to the previous collection too, it felt like the writers simply didn't care about her and wanted to remove her no matter how sloppily.