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thebibliomancer · 1 year

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers Annual #2: Death and Texas!

September, 1987

Can’t believe the West Coast Avengers killed the East Coast Avengers so they could all move back to New York.

New Yorkers are real wackos.

Also, Lady Death took over the cast box! I can’t believe she helped the West Coast Avengers kill the East Coast Avengers in exchange for the cast box!

I also can’t believe that cool GIANT-SIZED ANNUAL font. So cool, the 1980s.

I don’t got a lot else to say about the cover and this bad boy is 42 pages long so I’d better get going. For that reason, I’ll only be doing this one annual in this one post, even though it continues into the Avengers Annual.

So many pages. I can’t keep killing myself doing two annuals in a week. I mean, I can but I don’t want to.

LETS PLAY BASEBALL!

Yes, we’re doing this again.

Nobody ever criticizes the X-Men for playing football and having orgies. Let these nerds play baseb- THOR USE A REGULAR BASEBALL BAT, C’MON.

The two teams get into some good-natured shit talking of each other.

Everyone is playing except Moon Knight and La Espirita. They’re tagalongs for the West Coast Avengers but they’re not, technically, on the team.

And we get some good superhero sports plays, which is really all I ask from superheroes playing sports.

Wonder Man throws his ultimate fastball, so fast that it catches on fire. Thor hits it with Mjolnir for a homerun that unfortunately breaks the dome over the stadium.

The Avengers are NOT going to get invited back to the Houston Astrodome.

(Wait, is that the only reason this is called Death and Texas? Because spoilers but they’re not sticking in Texas for much more of this annual.

Anyway, the game is over now because Silver Surfer shows up, smashing MORE of the dome on his way in. He shoots sparkling energy all over the stadium and then starts yelling that there’s not much time!

Even though Silver Surfer finally escaped Earth in his own solo book, he came back because he learned about a TERRIBLE MENACE to the Avengers!

In Silver Surfer’s own book, he’s been tangling with the Elders of the Universe, and he learned that one of the Elders plans to kill the Avengers! For some reason!

He surfed back to Earth as quickly as he could, trying to outrace an eldritch energy bolt from one of the Elders...

... but he was too late.

You had one job, Norrin Radd.

Hawkeye: “Playin’ softball in a stadium! We were like fish in a barrel, to somebody shootin’ from space!”

Well said?

Iron Man proposes that Silver Surfer can protect the West Coast Avengers from any more attacks, while they head out into space to AVENGE.

Wonder Man worries that Silver Surfer is an imposter but the Surfer proves himself by quoting something Hawkeye said when they both teamed up in the Defenders book.

Since the (East Coast) Avengers are already dead, Silver Surfer decides he can slow things down and exposit.

Silver Surfer: “So while you decide whether to trust me, let me tell you about the Elders! They are the oldest living beings in the universe, each one the ultimate survivor of an otherwise long-dead race! Each has found the thing that most intrigues him and focused his ancient life upon it! There is the Collector, the Gardener, the Possessor --”

Moon Knight: “-- and the Grandmaster was one, until he died! Even though I’ve worked with other heroes only sparingly, we were all at the Contest of Champions! He died to bring the Collector back from death!”

Silver Surfer: “Yes! The Grandmaster is the one we face!”

Oh, neat. The Collector is alive again. Always liked that nerd.

Moon Knight is confused that the Grandmaster is dead and somehow causing trouble but the Silver Surfer doesn’t find it too weird to assume he’s up to some of his weird gambling tricks even in death, somehow.

Hawkeye tries to tell Moon Knight and La Espirita to stay behind since they’re not Avengers but both tell him they’re coming along anyway, which Hawkeye appreciates.

Silver Surfer uses THE POWER COSMIC to tow the West Coast Avengers Quinjet into space to the Collector’s spaceship...

Aw, boo. I liked it when he had a TARDIS.

The Collector welcomes the Avengers plus Moon Knight and la Espirita and Silver Surfer WITHOUT trying to collect them! Mighty nice of him.

He’s even willing to aid them against the Grandmaster, even though they’re fellow Elders. For one thing, he’s grateful to the Avengers for their part in bringing him back to life after Korvac killed him. I guess the Avengers were involved in Contest of Champions.

Should I go back and read it? Eh.

But for another reason, the Grandmaster is doing a dick move.

The Collector: “Elders can sense each others’ minds, to a limited degree! The Grandmaster swore he would never use you as pawns again, but he has come to feel that, dead, he is not the Grandmaster, but his shade -- and so is free of that vow. Unaware of your dispersal into two camps, he offered a group called ‘the Avengers’ to Death in exchange for his life! That is why only the east coast group was taken!”

Sure. That sounds like it makes comic book sense.

Anyway, point being, the Collector is going to help. But the only way for the West Coast Avengers to get to Death’s domain to free the East Coast Avengers is to drop dead.

(Lets ignore that Thanos frequently breaks into her house later to watch her TiVo)

Wonder Man claims that as an ionic man, he cannot die! As an ironic man, he used to be afraid of death. But the Collector claims that everyone will die eventually. “Even I will die someday! Even Death will die -- someday!”

And as luck would have it, the Collector has a poison collection because of course he does. And he’s got a milk jug full of the Most Powerful Poison. One sip of this bad boy will kill anyone!

The West Coast Avengers... debate this for a surprisingly short time considering that the Collector is literally telling them to go die.

Like. Geez. I know we have to book it. We only have so many pages to tell this story and looking ahead, a lot of those pages are required for other things. But it should take more than half a page to decide to drink poison and die on some wrinkly old dude’s say so!

What it comes down to is that they’re pretty sure they can trust the Collector. And they’re even more sure that they’re going to do whatever it takes to rescue the East Coast Avengers.

Iron Man: “We’ve put our lives on the line in other ways! The only difference here is the degree of directness!”

OKAY!

So the West Coast Avengers and guests all drink poison and drop dead.

Well done, y’all.

Oh, but La Espirita no sells the poison.

The Collector is shocked and his thoughts immediately pivot towards collecting her as a rare oddity. The Thing What Would Not Die. So she threatens to set his collection on fire if he tries anything.

The scene is going to shift to all the dead guys in the dead realm so I wonder if we’re going to come back to the Collector’s ship to see everything on fire with La Espirita saying “I warned you.”

So in Chapter 2: THE OTHER SIDE! (because this is an annual and it loves breaking up into chapters with names. So I guess Death and Texas! is just the name of the first chapter...)

I lose track of that sentence. Anyway. The East Coast Avengers (Wasp, Dr Druid, Captain America, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Black Knight, and Thor) appear in the land of the dead. Which resembles the American Southwest except with a pinker sky.

The Grandmaster greets them and expresses his deepest regrets for them being super dead.

The Grandmaster: “The truth is, we are all dead -- though hear me out before you assume that all is lost! My apologies, meantime, are for the one responsible for your fate -- my brother, the Collector! You see, his time in this realm scarred him deeply! He wants never to die again -- and so has made a pact with Death, to deliver the West Coast Avengers in exchange for immortality! As you recall, I swore never to use Earth’s heroes as pawns again, but he made no such vow! I learned of his treachery, however, and brought you here to capture them for me, before Death can claim them -- because I have found a way to take all of us back to life!”

Oh, goddammit.

We’re getting conflicting information here.

And its not out of character for the Grandmaster to set two hero groups against each other and lie about the stakes.

Although, I’m already seeing holes in Grandmaster’s claims. He says that the Collector is responsible for the East Coast Avengers being dead but he also says that he Grandmastered them to death so they could save the West Coast Avengers.

Hell, its even possible and likely that both are lying and are working together. Dammit.

Anyway, when the West Coast Avengers show up, he points and is like “GET ‘EM!”

The Grandmaster: “Here they come already! And if know the Collector, he’s told them some fairytale to keep them occupied here until Death comes! You must subdue them, or their lives will be lost beyond recall!”

Goddamit. Company mandated misunderstanding based fight.

Like I said with the West Coast Avengers chugging poison, I understand that we have to get the plot booking but geez. Both teams really do just wholeheartedly jump into the “gotta kick the crap out of my friend to save them!” thing. The Grandmaster just gotta point and they jump a-punching.

Anyway, the Silver Surfer fucks off to go have a conversation with Death because otherwise, the numbers are uneven.

And the first fight?

IRON MAN VS. CAPTAIN MARVEL!

Ohhhh there’s a Civil War II joke here somewhere.

So the fight starts off with Captain Marvel no-selling a... I dunno if that’s a repulsor. Its more kirby crackly than I expect. But she’s energy so energy doesn’t bother her.

Captain Marvel talks about what a legend Iron Man is.

Captain Marvel: “We don’t know each other all that well, Iron Man! You left the group just after I joined! But I know you’re a legend in the Avengers! Brave -- strong -- smart -- !”

Iron Man: Yeah -- and a lapsed alcoholic, whose last descent into a bottle was the reason he left then!

Aww.

It’s a good dynamic between Monica who sees Iron Man by his highest and shiniest reputation and Tony who feels he doesn’t live up to that because of his lowest points.

Monica asks Iron Man why he doesn’t believe the Grandmaster when he was present when the guy promised not to fuck with Earth’s heroes anymore. But Iron Man was also there too many times when the Grandmaster tricked the Avengers. He doesn’t trust that easily.

Iron Man creates a smoke screen by blasting some cliffs and then UNI-BEAMs Captain Marvel, which apparently disrupts her wavelengths.

So Captain Marvel splits into multiple Captain Marvels which I guess is something she can do to try to buy time but even though Monica can move the speed of light, Tony manages to blast all of the Monicas in one go. BUT since Monica can move the speed of light, she recovered from disrupting her wavelengths in only a second and all the Monicas were actually MAGNETISM!

God. I barely understand this fight. Its very sandbox fight.

Captain Marvel insists to Iron Man that there’s no reason to fight and they should just assume that Grandmaster is telling the truth because otherwise it means accepting there’s no way out. I don’t know that I buy that argument and neither does Tony.

He counters the MAGNETISM with force fields, claiming that he can absorb Monica’s energy to power his suit, so Captain Marvel decides to overload his suit.

So they fly around, Captain Marvel blasting Iron Man, Iron Man absorbing the energy but then Iron Man wheels around and blasts Captain Marvel with all the energy he absorbed and knocks her out.

Which I don’t know if I buy, since Monica has been able to short circuit the shields of a huge spaceship. But it is what it is and what is is is

West Coast Avengers: 1

East Coast Avengers: 0

Mockingbird vs Captain America!

Hawkeye wanted to fight Captain America. And you know, there’s a lot of history there. Finally squaring off so Hawkeye can see how he measures up. But on the other hand, Bobbi refuses to fight She-Hulk and good for her for refusing the designated girl fight. And also refusing to get punched by She-Hulk.

Unfortunately for Mockingbird, Cap(tain America) is a slippery bastard. And he quotes her own words back at her with scare quotes. Fiend!

With her battle staves combined into a staff, Bobbi does manage to hard press Cap. So he decides to fall back into the giant bramble patch that just happens to be here.

Why is there a bramble patch in Death’s domain? Isn’t that a living thing? Dammit, Death! You don’t get house plants!

Mockingbird keeps up the barrage of mocking dialogue because its who she is. She talks about how Hawkeye always talks about Cap, mostly in the context of trying to beat up Cap. But to herself she thinks she’s better suited to fighting Captain America than Hawkeye is, being a close-range fighter. And her battle staves give her an advantage because they’re built for offense and Cap’s shield is build for defense.

... You have seen him throw that thing before though, right? This is bad logic.

Anyway, he throws his mighty shield and her staff must yield. It pops into its two constituent parts and then Cap presses the attack so she doesn’t have time to rejoin them and regain the reach advantage.

Cap knocks one of her battle staves out of her hands and then runs away deeper into the bramble tangle.

While trying to figure out what he’s thinking, Bobbi fails to notice that the brambles are getting so thick that she gets her big sleeves caught on them when she lunges to knock the shield out of Cap’s hand.

Kinda have to wonder if writer Steve Englehart didn’t want to write Captain America punching a woman because victory by oops my sleeves got caught on something is a pretty non-violent way for Cap to win.

Iron Man blasted Captain Marvel but I don’t know if that counts as violence because it looks like he’s just shining a big ol’ flashlight at her.

Whatever the case, this is a pretty embarrassing defeat for Bobbi. Womp womp.

West Coast Avengers: 1

East Coast Avengers: 1

In CHAPTER 5: Silver Surfer

Remember how he flew off to go speak to Lady Death?

He finds her.

Silver Surfer: “Great one, in the final analysis, you and your other, Eternity are all that is in our reality! The machinations of lesser beings -- even those as ancient as Elders -- need not concern you! The Grandmaster’s wager has imperiled fourteen brave men and women, as well as myself, to no good end -- and so, I ask you humbly to ignore the Elder’s distractions, and return the Avengers and myself to life now, without further delay!”

Lady Death turns to look at Silver Surfer and WHAT HE SEES IS SO SCARY, YOU GUYS.

And very mysterious because chapter change.

Oof.

This is a fraught match to do. The mostly amiable exes.

It’s also potentially very interesting. They know each other very well. But they’ve both had changes in their powers that the other hasn’t seen.

Dr Pym doesn’t grow or shrink himself anymore, he carries shrunken equipment that he can grow at will.

Wasp still uses her basic power set but they’ve been refined far beyond what Hank knows. Her Stinger is stronger and her body has adapted to her wings so she can fly at larger heights.

She peppers Hank with tiny stinger blasts so he grows a plexiglass shield to protect himself. She flies around the shield so he grows some camera/laser drones.

Wasp flies so his laser drones shoot himself instead and Hank topples to the ground.

But it turns out he made himself IMMUNE TO LASERS?? Or at least the lasers his own stuff uses. Sounds dubious but whatever.

When Wasp checks on him to make sure he’s okay, Hank grabs her and stuffs her in a sleeping gas filled bubble just her size that he has for some reason.

... Uh, weird thing to have ready.

I don’t know if I buy this result either but I’ll talk about it at the end.

The score stands

West Coast Avengers: 2

East Coast Avengers: 1

THE FIGHT THAT PROBABLY SOMEONE WAS CALLING FOR!

THOR VS. WONDER MANNNNNNN!

They’re the respective powerhouses of their teams. Wonder Man has often claimed he punches as hard as Mjolnir hits. Now they’re going to have a knock-down drag-out fight that Wonder Man will probably lose.

I mean, c’mon, he’s never been as impressive as Thor. He doesn’t have Thor’s supporting powers like the lightning or any of Mjolnir’s wacky powers. He’s just a really punchy guy that needs belt jets to fly. But at least his new costume is a lot better than his recent green costume with a jetpack that shot fire at his ass.

New Confident Wonder Man crows that he’s going to kick Thor’s ass for upstaging his new costume but Thor isn’t very impressed.

Thor tries convincing Wonder Man that they don’t need to fight. Thor has come and gone from death so they should trust Grandmaster to help them out of it this time.

Wonder Man throws Thor off him and pummels the god of thunder.

Wonder Man: “Nothing stops the man of wonders now!”

Thor: “You are indeed and at last a warrior true, Simon Williams -- but you run afoul in forgetting that the war supersedes the warriors! The East Coast Avengers must needs emerge triumphant from the fray, and so I call once more upon mighty Mjolnir!”

Thor summons a mighty storm but Wonder Man scoffs that he stopped being afraid of thunder when he was a kid and stopped being afraid of anything six months ago. He even dares Thor to summon the entire Asgardian army to his aid.

Not sure how he thinks Thor is going to do that when they have no way of communicating with the living but whatever. Its a boast. And Thor has one of his own ready in response.

Thor: “Asgard has no army, Avenger! It has gods and gods only -- gods of the forces in purest nature -- and nature has ways to bring even the strongest of men to their knees! Now, Mjolnir! Let us claim our edge!”

And Thor whirls Mjolnir to (I assume) concentrate the power of the storm into one devastating hammer throw and knocks Wonder Man the fuck out.

Putting aside that Asgard definitely does have an army, Thor, solid speech and solid hit.

That’s what I expect from Thor fights. Some top notch declamations and boasts.

So that puts the score at

West Coast Avengers: 2

East Coast Avengers: 2

Now here’s an odd matchup but with Dr Druid being on the Avengers, for some reason, we’re going to get an odd matchup.

He’s little bit psychic, little bit an illusionist, a little bit a martial artist. And overall, he’s just not had time to show off what he can do.

Tigra is a cat lady. She’s got boosted stats and senses, claws, and a tail.

If she gets her hands on him, she can murder him pretty easily.

But he can apparently read her mind to predict what she’s going to do. Also, he seemingly summons monsters but Tigra realizes they don’t smell real. They’re just illusions!

He flees into a desert of pink rock pillars and topples one of the formations onto her. But she deduces its just an illusion too.

Tigra jokes that she’s going to have to put in a word to the East Coast Avengers about their hiring standards if Dr Druid passes muster.

Dr Druid threatens to topple another rock tower on her, which Tigra dismisses as another illusion but Druid uses his telekinesis which he definitely has to drop a rock on her tail for real.

While she’s distracted by a rock probably breaking several vertebra, Dr Druid uses his mind powers to put her in a trance.

Alas, Tigra.

Because of the mismatch in their powers, she didn’t even get to really show off.

West Coast Avengers: 2

East Coast Avengers: 3

BATTLE OF THEMATIC FOILS!

Both called knights. One dressed in silver, one called black. Both heroic but with a dark side. As Moon Knight says, both are bound to the nightside.

Black Knight warns Moon Knight about his extremely cursed sword, as I assume is the polite thing to do before trying to kill them with a sword that drinks blood.

But Moon Knight has his own weapons, passed down to him by his god Khonshu. He throws some of his throwing weapons but Black Knight deflects them. He throws a boomerang but Black Knight just cuts it out of the air.

Moon Knight berates Khonshu in his thoughts, that he gave him all these weapons (that Hawkeye made!) but didn’t make any of them enchanted! He’s pretty sure he could beat up Black Knight in a fist fight but Black Knight’s enchanted cut things really good sword is proving a tough hurdle to jump.

So Moon Knight tries his iconic Random Bullshit attack.

Black Knight manages to deflect all the projectiles again but the bola tangles his legs.

Moon Knight pulls out an axe, probably from his ass, and jumps at the tripped Black Knight. Black Knight blocks the axe with the Ebony Blade and then dodges so that a second attack cuts the bola.

Freed, he cuts Moon Knight’s axe in half.

Moon Knight concedes that was his last weapon but doesn’t concede the fight.

Instead, he throws himself on the Ebony Blade.

Dane’s thoughts go from ‘oh shit that mad fellow just literally threw himself on my sword’ to ‘OH SHIT THE CURSE’ before Moon Knight reveals he was faking. He caught the sword under his arm (like this was a stage production!) and then wallops Black Knight with an ankh.

Which for some reason makes a PLUK! noise.

He played a little dirty but alls fair in whatever you call this.

Game is tied again.

West Coast Avengers: 3

East Coast Avengers: 3

TIME FOR THE LAST FIGHT! THE FIGHT NOBODY HAS BEEN ASKING FOR

The rosters weren’t going to match up exact enough to do good thematic pairings for every match. The books have two different writers and are doing two different things.

But you had the powerhouses and secondary powerhouses fighting in Thor v Wonder Man and Captain Marvel v Iron Man. You had acrobatic close range fighters fighting with Captain America v Mockingbird. Knight against knight with Black Knight vs Moon Knight. You even had size-changing heroes who are also exes fighting with Wasp v Dr Pym.

Then you have fights that are the leftovers like Dr Druid v Tigra, for some reason. And She-Hulk v Hawkeye.

Anyway.

Hawkeye tries to convince She-Hulk to defect to his team since she’s from California but she just breaks his bow and crushes his quiver.

Things are not going great for him and its only been one page.

Hawkeye: “Hey, that’s my best bow! How d’you expect me to be an archer without my best bow!”

She-Hulk: “Or your arrows!”

Hawkeye: “Yeah -- or my arrows -- !”

Hah.

Having him disarmed, She-Hulk decides to rub it in a little that she backed the winning horse.

She-Hulk: “You want to know why I stayed back east? Really? Because working with the Fantastic Four, I showed I was suited to the big time, and you’ve got to admit, that means Thor -- Cap -- the original Avengers!”

Hawkeye counters that he’s closer to an original than her and plus he’s got Hank Pym and Iron Man.

Then he baits her into punching a rock outcropping and dumping her in a pond that’s here for some reason.

While she’s in the water, Hawkeye demonstrates his second most potent skill after archery. The ability to Macgyver up archery equipment from random crap.

He pulls a dead reed out of the ground. At least this reed is dead, I still don’t know what the deal with the brambles was. He uses a spare bowstring and turns that reed into a backup bow.

She-Hulk starts surfacing so Hawkeye throws a bunch of spare explosive arrowheads into the pond to keep her busy while he Macgyvers some arrows out of more reeds.

When She-Hulk finally manages to emerge from the water, Hawkeye is ready with a makeshift bow and a makeshift arrow and fires a gas arrow at her right as she pops up and draws a deep breath.

And that’s enough to knock her out.

Final score:

West Coast Avengers: 4

East Coast Avengers: 3

I’m not sure why they don’t go into a round two dealie and have all the East Coast Avengers victors fight all the West Coast Avengers victors.

For some reason, everyone agrees that the West Coast Avengers won, as if they’d agreed ahead of time that whoever won the most individual matches won overall. Despite no such conversation going on.

Everyone convenes back at the Grandmaster and

Oh no whoever could have foreseen that the man was not trustworthy such an upset.

So what it seems like is that Grandmaster made one of his famous wagers but against Lady Death herself this time. A wager that would have the East and West Coast Avengers fight. And Grandmaster was betting on the West Coast Avengers so now, ???, and Grandmaster wins the universe.

That’s bad.

Ah, well, we’ll have to see what’s going on next week in Avengers Annual #16.

But before I end the post, I just want to say really quick. About the fights.

It’s a little bullshit that none of the women won their fights. I’m not going to quibble with any of them specifically, except Wasp vs Dr Pym because she deserves to laser his face non-lethally.

Any given comic book fight ends with the guy the writer chose winning. Yes, Captain Marvel vs Iron Man, Dr Druid vs Tigra, Wasp vs Dr Pym, Captain America vs Mockingbird, and She-Hulk vs Hawkeye could easily have gone the other way because that’s how writing superhero fights works.

But having all of the women lose their fights has me side eyeing. Englehart isn’t overall good with gender politics.

At least there weren’t designated girl fights.

Its funny that Captain America tells Mockingbird that she should have been in a designated girl fight. But he’s just sore that his group lost and now the universe is doomed.

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