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thebibliomancer · 7 months

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #42: ONE OF OUR ANDROIDS IS MISSING!

March, 1989

It begins here... VISIONQUEST ONE OF OUR ANDROIDS IS MISSING!

Oh, comics. You and your movie references.

Scarlet Witch: "Where is my husband? Where is the VISION?!" Wonder Man: "He -- he's gone, Wanda -- vanished as if he never existed!"

God damn it, Byrne. You know I love dialogue on comic covers.

But we're kinda jumping into things here. I don't even really feel like we need to do a last times recap because the start of Byrne's run feels like its taken a time skip forward.

Tigra has rejoined the West Coast Avengers. Hank Pym has rejoined the West Coast Avengers. WASP HAS JOINED, as more than a guest star!

Despite the cover declaring OH NO VISION IS MISSING, the beginning is a slow burn, establishing the normal functioning of the West Coast Avengers.

Implying that this new status quo has lasted long enough to be comfortable.

The Byrne run is contentious, in part due to the very story arc starting here.

BUT I WILL BE FAIR!

So lets get into it.

Scarlet Wanda wakes up from an uneasy sleep to find that despite the early hour, her robo-husband Vision is not in bed with her.

He doesn't need to sleep but still spends his nights at her side (awww) but this morning one of her husbands is missing.

Wanda checks around the guest house that she and Vision have made their home in the West Coast Avengers Compound but no trace.

Also, while she's getting dressed the narration notes that she must practice ABSOLUTE CARE not to accidentally gesture indiscriminately and cause WACKY MAGIC SHIT to happen.

I didn't think she was still experiencing that kind of magical incontinence after her training with Agatha Harkness.

But that's one of the things I've heard about Byrne's run. He prefers a certain, classic portrayal of characters like Wanda and Vision and apparently not burning down houses by pointing the wrong way is a bridge too far.

As Wanda wanders across the compound grounds, she spots Hawkeye up early and training with some absolutely ridiculous equipment.

It's some industrial looking robot arm that flails him around so he can practice his aim even while being flailed around.

I don't know how often that comes up but an ounce of preparation.

Wanda accidentally steps on the one twig on the otherwise immaculately groomed grounds and startles Hawkeye into shooting an arrow right at her.

Wanda just probabilities the arrow to lose all its forward momentum and fall to the ground.

Hawkeye shuts down the flailing and asks why Wanda is up so early. She asks the same thing of him.

Hawkeye: "Er... yeah... Well, since me an' Bobbi have been on the outs there ain't been too many reasons for lying around all day."

Oof.

You can just imagine Clint laying in bed, unable to sleep. Just staring at the ceiling and feeling the emptiness next to him. And then going 'fuck it, I'm going to go shoot things with arrows until I can't feel feelings anymore.'

Having had to admit how empty his own life is, Hawkeye repeats the question to Wanda. She explains the thing where he took off? Maybe? Without letting her know or leaving a sign. Its all kinds of weird and foreboding.

Hawkeye goes well this is why we have "eleventy skillion dollars" worth of the best communications technology.

You seriously didn't try calling him first, Wanda? C'mon.

Hawkeye calls for Vision over the intercom but only gets Hank Pym, who is also working early, running a systems check on the computer system.

See, because, he had a "biostatic analysis running overnight" and the results were off.

Also, what the hell are you doing here, Hank Pym?

You quit to fix your first wife's enormous head.

Well, that's not a happy story. Because when is it ever for Hank Pym?

Big brain lady who claimed to be Maria Trovaya was actually MODAM, the lady version of MODOK. Because MODOK is clearly a gendered name. Her not giant brain name was apparently Olinka Barankova.

She took Hank captive and replaced him with an android imposter that Hawkeye unmasked. Hawkeye and Black Widow (and Mockingbird independently) help Hank Pym thwart AIM's schemes until AIM hit the self-destruct and ran away.

MODAM went on to other things but eventually got killed by Red Skull and put on display like a big-headed trophy. While, apparently, Hank went on to just sheepishly rejoin the team.

Anyway, this went down in the Solo Avengers issue that has the same cover date as this West Coast Avengers issue so I'm surprised there's not a "wondering what Hank Pym is doing here? Check out this month's Solo Avengers for the full story!"

Anyway. Back to the point. The communications system blows out with a squawk. As if the transponder on Hawkeye's side was blasted! Or maybe there's a duck in the wiring! So Hank runs outside to confirm that there is indeed shit going down.

Shit of the most Ultron-y type possible. The Ultron kind.

Really thought he'd be gone longer after Wonder Man ripped him in half.

I know Ultron always comes back but geez.

Meanwhile, inside Tigra's bunglow, she's asleep. Not everybody is awake at ungodly hours! Take a page from her book, the Avengers!

But only the sleeping in part. Not the weird fucking dream she has.

Tigra dreams of being a tiger with a perm, hunting blue alien space deer.

But when she pounces and tears out its throat, she wakes up only to a mouthful of feathers. Having lived the punchline "and when I woke up, my pillow was gone!"

Except, I can't figure out what Tigra is sitting on. Doesn't seem like a normal bed. Maybe its a large, feather pillow and she uses it like a cat bed? Maybe its a small feather mattress and she uses it like a cat bed? Maybe don't sleep on a cat bed and you won't have cat dreams, ya dork.

I canNOT believe that I had live through the drawn-out "oh no, Tigra's cat instincts are getting the better of her!!" plotline and now we're just doing it again.

We're doing Ultron again, we're doing Tigra having cat problems again. Some fresh start.

I do hope her cat problems don't manifest as uncontrollable hypersexuality again.

Tigra is considering that maybe she should tell her teammates that she's having vivid dreams about murdering animals but a loud BOOM draws her attention and she rushes outside.

Also rushing outside is the Wasp! Hi, Jan! You definitely left so I'm wondering if we'll get an explanation for why you decided to come back and join the team.

Also also, Tigra notices that Wasp is flying out of Hank Pym's bungalow, instead of the main house where Jan's room is.

She notices it and thinks hmmmm.

A lot of writers try to put Jan and Hank back together. And a lot of writers try to more definitively break them up.

Englehart was one of the latter. He had Jan yell "divorce means divorce" at Hank when he tried to hug her. He brought back Hank's first wife and basically annulled Hank's marriage to Jan.

But, remember, Maria turned out to be a big, evil science brain so the divorced marriage is unanulled and it seems like Byrne mgiht be one of the former type of writers who want to undo undoing the marriage.

Busiek was one too. One of the creative decisions I wasn't really onboard with for his run but he tried his damndest to sell the idea, including having Hank reconcile (again) all the disparate parts of himself.

Then the following writer Geoff Johns had Wasp shoot down the idea that she'd ever marry Hank again.

It comes and goes in waves.

Less so now that Hank is turbo-dead.

Anyway.

Tigra and Wasp rush toward the training area, where they heard a big boom. And Wonder Man is rushing to check it out too.

Wasp: "Simon! You can fly faster than me! Get up ahead and reconnoiter!" Wonder Man: "Just what I was going to do, Wasp!"

You don't need to get snippy, Simon.

He grouses to himself that Wasp got too used to being in charge and that she's still barking orders like she's Captain America.

I guess there's always gotta be some kind of tension in the team. And Wonder Man always gotta be fighting someone. And he's stopped being the Hawkeye to Hawkeye.

Wonder Man flies up and sees Ultron. And like me, is surprised because he didn't think he'd see him again so soon.

Ultron blasts Wonder Man with "some kind of magnetic field blast." Not usually a weapon Ultron has so maybe he upgraded.

Wonder Man just gets off the tree that he broke with his butt and launches back at Ultron.

Simon William's nearly indestructible fists strike the robot's sterling hide like the clappers of a great bell... The sound that reverberates across the California hills has the ominous tones of a death knell!

Hawkeye cheers on Wonder Man but Dr Pym warns him that Ultron could turn the tables.

COMPLETELY UNPROMPTED, Scarlet Witch has an intense expository flashback about Vision's ENTIRE BACKSTORY.

Important for setting up future stuff but fucks sake, Wanda, get your head in the game.

You should know the drill.

Dr Phineas Horton created the Human Torch, no not Johnny. A lifelike robot that accidentally burst into flames whenever exposed to oxygen.

Jim Hammond Human Torch became a hero, the first Marvel hero. The company wasn't called Marvel but he was in Marvel Comics #1 so there.

Since Stan Lee rebooted Human Torch as a teenage human for Fantastic Four, there needed to be some explanation for why the robot guy wasn't around anymore.

And the answer is that his flame burned out of control and he exploded and collapsed in the desert.

Where he was found and rebuilt by the Mad Thinker who used him to fight the human Human Torch. Until robot Human Torch learned that the Mad Thinker was Evil, Actually, and turned against him.

And the Mad Thinker's failsafe made robot Human Torch explode again.

The Fantastic Four just left him in the Mad Thinker's abandoned base because Reed is an asshole and doesn't believe robots deserve due to the dead.

Where Ultron found him.

Anyway. Back in the here and now, Wanda remembers that she's actually in a life or death fight and that everyone else has been participating while she's been gazing off into the middle distance.

Again: fucks sake, Wanda. You're one of the win buttons against Ultron! Get your head in the game!

But Hank notices that Wonder Man's punches have been denting Ultron. Which should be impossible if Ultron is made of adamantium, as he usually is.

Figuring never asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission, Hank shrinks Wonder Man tiny size and insists he flies down Ultron's throat.

Wonder Man says, uh, no, I don't want to unshrink inside an indestructible chassis, that sounds like a horrible way to spend my time.

But Hank insists so Wonder Man does it but complains the whole time.

The Journey To The Center of Ultron is weird. The usual atomic flame that burns in Ultron's mouth (yes, that's apparently what his mouth glow is) is just an illusion.

Also, when the shrink wears off Wonder Man OH YEAHS right through Ultron instead of that not happening.

Hank explains that when he noticed that Wonder Man was actually denting Ultron, he realized it couldn't be the real deal.

But the (West Coast) Avengers were kept so busy fighting Ultron that they didn't notice the discrepancies.

Until Hank did. And instead of explaining it, he decided to demonstrate it in the most dramatic and visually interesting fashion possible.

Hank, you weirdo.

Scarlet Witch wonders why someone would send a fake Ultron and Hank realizes it was probably a distraction.

Taking charge, he yells "AVENGERS DISASSEMBLE!" which is a big oof with cursed future knowledge. But what he means is everyone split up and search for clues.

If someone was distracting the (West Coast) Avengers from something, its likely to be something around the compound.

Instead of actually helping search, Scarlet Wanda wanders off to the cliffs to moodily stare off at the ocean and CONTINUE TO FLASHBACK.

FUCKS SAKE, WANDA!

Anyway.

Blah blah blah, Ultron found robot Human Torch's body.

He wanted to rebuild it into a cool minion but Ultron apparently sucks at robots. Ironic, since Hank Pym shoulda sucked at robots and somehow built the worst one and Ultron has Hank's brain.

Anyway, Ultron kidnapped the robot Human Torch's creator Dr. Horton and forced him to rebuild the Human Torch into Vision. Making his skin red as a private joke about the flame powers he once had.

Didn't think Ultron's sense of humor ran that subtle, honestly.

After the rebuilding was done, Ultron had to erase the Human Torch's personality because he kept trying to fight Ultron. So Ultron used some Simon Williams brain tapes that he swiped from Hank Pym's lab. And with that as a base, Vision lived!

Ultron sent him to attack the Avengers where he pretty promptly defected and switched sides. And the Avengers accepted him because the Avengers are cool like that sometimes.

And it was on the Avengers that Scarlet Witch met Vision and they fell in love and got married and then Vision dry humped two babies into her, magically.

THAT SURE WAS VISION'S ENTIRE BACKSTORY, WANDA. VERY HELPFUL.

Meanwhile, the other Avengers were actually searching.

Hank Pym contacts her on some kind of video phone that stalks her to the cliffs and tells her that they found something but they really need to discuss it face to face.

And when Wanda joins everyone who was actually doing work, Hank Pym explains that Vision is "gone."

Because A) he's nowhere in the compound. They still don't know where he physically is except 'not around.'

But things have gotten a bit weirder and more sinister.

B) Hank finished that computer scan he was doing and found a sophisticated computer virus. One that found and erased every trace of Vision from the Avengers' files. All the information they had on him, every report he's ever entered, everything.

And the virus infected the East Coast Avengers' computers as well. And SHIELD (not actually around currently, so slight continuity hiccup) and the Pentagon and the Fantastic Four.

Every system the virus infected has lost all trace of Vision.

Its like he never existed. Except for all the memories everybody has of him. And also any physical record like print-outs or photographs. But digitally its like he never existed!

Hank Pym: "For this to have happened means somebody got in through our defensive network. Somebody got past all our alarms, all our codes... Everything!" Wasp: "And to do that... They'd have to be one of us!!" Hawkeye: "One of the Avengers has turned traitor! But... WHO??" Mockingbird: "Is that really so hard to guess, Hawk?"

MOCKINGBIRD

WHAT

DID

YOU

DO?

Follow @essential-avengers and be very angry with me about things that are about to happen. Like, reblog, and comment maybe. I don't know about mockingbirds but my cat definitely tried to stop me from finishing this post.

#west coast avengers #avengers #essential avengers #fake Ultron #Hawkeye #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #Hank Pym #Dr Pym #Tigra #Wonder Man #the Wasp #Mockingbird #a conspiracy against best robot boy #a cover that doesn't quite lie

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theinsanecrayonbox · 2 years

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you know, i wrote out my Training Belle plot synopsis then got back to work on it, maybe if i wrote this one out it’ll magically happen. or at the very least get out of my head

Origins: Omega Red

start off loosely around 1950. Arkady’s an early teenager, Vassily is 6-9 years younger?? folks affected by the repressions in Leningrad are filtering into where he and his family live; an influx of new people who were used to living the high life and are now destitute because one member of their family was accused of treason and imprisoned and/or executed, so now the whole family is worthless. that’s when Arkady meets Yuri; Yuri’s family was one of those affected. Yuri caught Arkady killing a dog, but didn’t rat him out. the two start up a friendship. --on the other side of things, Olinka Barankova is a late teen? and has managed to escape a similar fate as other intellectuals in Leningrad. her father was put to death for refusing to help develop the carbonadium; Olinka reveals she’s actually the one that developed the formula and is more than happy to help the State.

we move forward a few years. Arkady and Yuri are 16-18, and have developed a relationship, but have to keep it on the down low because that’s a punishable offense. those local beggars Arkady’s files say he killed? other destitute refugees, but also likely bums that caught him and Yuri. eventually Vassily catches them; Arkady threatens his brother not to tell but doesn’t kill him (obviously). Yuri freaks out about that, but Arkady refuses to kill his own brother; Vassily tells about the killings and the homosexual relationship. The boys run away together.

They set up a new life in a city, but Arkady ends up joining the Army; as part of enlistment blood samples are taken, which we see end up in the hands of a now older Olinka, who is working with the KGB on the series of projects that would ultimately create Omega and Epsilon; these blood samples are being screen to find potential candidates for her research. Arkady gets sent away to the Arctic outpost, where he gets outed because one of his squad mates gets a hold of his mail and goes through the letters Yuri sent him. Arkady is executed, last thing he hears before falling unconscious is that the one that outed him joking with his buddies about heading back to the city to go find Yuri and do the same to him.

Arkady’s powers activate, releasing his death spores and they blanket the compound; some hours later he wakes up to everyone remaining in the camp laying dead, drained of their life force. as he’s looking through paperwork, seeing that they guy that started this did get off base before this apparently, this is when the Secret Police show up. they demand answers for why Arkady’s the only living person left here, especially since they’d just been on a radio call to the base however many ours ago and everyone was still alive then. fight ensues, Arkady manages to escape. a second wave of Secret Police show up the next day, Olinka with them; she marvels at the level of death on display here, and reaffirms that they came here for Arkady, and that she wants him desperately for her work now.

next we follow Arkady back to his home with Yuri, but it’s too late. Yuri’s dead. Arkady is enraged, and he goes hunting. not sure if he finds the guy or not...because Olinka and her team do find him and confront him. he refuses to work for her; she’s all “haha you won’t work for me, you’ll be a test subject. no one will miss a deadman after all”. and he might be captured there? -either he gets captured and Olinka over sees several stress tests to judge the limits of his powers and how they exactly work, to better judge which Red Plan to use (this is what leads to his skin whitening and eyes blanking red...unless that happened after he “died”); he somehow escapes from that during a location transfer, thus leading to his European escapades that gets the attentions of Sean Cassidy. which he gets caught and returns to Olinka’s “care”. OR -he escapes right then and there, does the European escapades, gets recaught, given to Olinka, then the stress tests.

either way, we get to about 1963, and the Omega Plan was the one chosen, because it was figured that his healing factor, though it needed to be fed, could compensate for the carbonadium implantation. (because his healing factor repairs present tissues, but doesn’t regrow removed tissues, thus the castration to punish his prior sodomy being permenant). and that worked....however, Olinka hadn’t factored in that the carbonadium’s radiation would be magnified when inside of a living organism; the higher ups weren’t happy with the idea that they’d have to “feed’ their living weapon near constantly to keep it alive, and weren’t willing to spend the money to try it again, so she developed the C-Synth. however, she caught wind of her planned execution after this failure, so she leaked to the CIA the existence of the C-Synth, leading to Team X’s attack. she used that attack as the perfect cover to escape herself, eventually defecting to AIM.

so without the ability to recreate the C-Synth, and unable to repeat the Omega Plan, the KGB put Arkady in cryostasis, and instead pulled out the Epsilon plan, because Olinka hadn’t run off with all her work is seemed.

#my writing #thinking outloud #arkady rossovich #omega red #packverse #tagging it that because it goes with my continuity with that

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