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thebibliomancer · 8 months

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #39: UPSET!

December, 1988

Swordsman’s Corpse: “So, Avengers, you thought you’d buried me for good, but you were wrong -- DEAD WRONG!”

Damn but if this isn’t the type of cover I love. A superhero team reacting to something and with dialogue right on the cover.

This is also the end of Englehart’s run. Or half of this is the end of Englehart’s run. I’ll get into it.

Lets last time so we can dig in.

Last time on West Coast Avengers: Well, directly last time Wonder Man just sat remembering stuff we’ve never seen before for the entire issue.

But in a broader sense.

Mockingbird hiding some cowboy manslaughter blew up in her face when the ghost of the cowboy revealed it to her husband/boss Hawkeye. Irreconcilable differences ensued and Mockingbird quit and took half the team with her. Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Mantis cycled in so the West Coast Avengers wouldn’t just be two sad dudes. Also, Mantis is here now. She has amnesia and wants the Avengers to help her find the son she may or may not have. Its pretty potent amnesia.

But in a narrower sense, last time, after Wonder Man remembered some new stuff for a while, the Quinjet started crashing.

As the Quinjet tumbles, rattling the Avengers around like peas in a tin there’s one of those action scenes I can’t help but love. Where each member of the team does their own thing in a situation.

Here, Mantis just has the reflexes to grab onto the seat belt that she should have had buckled. Scarlet Witch can use her hex to float in place long enough for Wonder Man to grab her using his belt jets. And Vision just intangibles enough to float but not so much he falls out of the Quinjet.

Good job everyone.

So what caused this aviation near-disaster?

Hawkeye was calling in a Savage Land report to the East Coast Avengers team (but who though?) and they said they’d already heard about it from Mockingbird.

And hearing Mockingbird’s (code)name was enough for this pre-divorcee to almost crash a jet into the ocean.

Hawkeye, I don’t think you’re okay.

I would also like to know who you spoke with since the East Coast Avengers disbanded thanks to Thor. Mostly Nebula and Dr Druid but some Thor.

There was an ad hoc team for the purposes of Evolutionary War and that’s going to get super funny in a second.

Wonder Man correctly guesses that Mockingbird somehow got involved in the Savage Land business and Hawkeye gets into a funk about it.

Vision asks whether the West Coast Avengers will work with the East Coast Avengers and Hawkeye goes “I’d rather not!”

His thought is that if Mockingbird’s group is already helping, the West Coast Avengers can get on with helping Mantis.

SO THE REASON WHY THE WEST COAST AVENGERS DIDN’T HELP THE AD-HOC AVENGERS AND DIDN’T RESPOND TO THE SPECIAL ALERT

was because Hawkeye felt it would be too awkward if his soon-to-be-ex-wife was there.

Fucking amazing.

Remember how a big deal was made out of the Avengers being so hard up for people responding to the super special emergency beacon that Yellowjacket II was a good option to bring along?

Turns out that the West Coast Avengers got the same alert and Hawkeye just ignored it.

The world was almost turned into furries because Hawkeye can’t be an adult.

Regarding helping Mantis, Scarlet Witch chimes in to say that if they’re doing that, they really need to stop in Paterson, New Jersey. They’ve been having Ma Williams watch the twins and one of them really should relieve her.

Scarlet Witch: “We don’t mean to slight your problem, Mantis!”

Mantis: “Of course not, Wanda! This one became the Celestial Madonna to have a child, though she doesn’t know now if she did or not! Naturally, you must see to yours!”

“As a potential mother, I understand your mother concerns. I potentially have a child!”

Cool contribution, Mantis.

Anyway. New Jersey!

Vision tells Ma Williams that they’re relocating to Los Angeles to join the Avengers and of course taking the kids. But Ma Williams is welcome to move with them.

Ma Williams: “I’m a little old to join the Avengers, Wanda -- and a little old to tear up my roots here! No, I’ll watch you on TV -- but don’t forget to call!”

Cool old lady.

Wanda takes the time to announce out loud to the audience and to Ma Williams, that she and Vizh aren’t going to sell their house in Leonia since they like it too much. But they will rent it out while they’re in LA.

Hawkeye gets so bummed out at seeing a family scene that he sighs and goes outside for some air.

Refusing to read the room, Mantis follows him and tells him that they can be miserable together.

Although she also insists that her misery is worse because she has no idea what she’s lost. Could be one-hundred children wondering where their mom is! So clearly she has it worse than Hawkeye who knows exactly what he lost out on by being too stubborn for couples counseling.

Thanks, Mantis.

The team jets out in the Quinjet but Wanda stays in New Jersey, probably to arrange the move.

And apparently she told Ma Williams all the hot goss because the old lady asks wasn’t that the Mantis homewrecker lady?

Which Wanda confirms but she’s not worried that Vision is going off with Mantis (and also Hawkeye and Wonder Man) because she trusts their marriage is solid.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Newark Airport, Tigra complains. Because the East Coast Avengers didn’t let them land at Hydrobase.

Considering the East Coast Avengers don’t exist right now...

Who do you guys keep talking to??

Giant-Man Bill Foster asks whether they should have helped fight against the High Evolutionary and Mockingbird says she doesn’t want to deal with Hawkeye if he showed up so she made the executive decision to skip the event.

Oh my god.

Both Hawkeye’s team and Mockingbird’s team decided helping stop the Gene Bomb was someone else’s problem and just went on with their day.

Amazing.

Giant-Man Bill Foster is still giant so Tigra asks... why? Bill explains the thing with the cancer. And being giant isn’t supposed to cure the cancer that should have already been cured. But all this extra mass from the mass dimension will replace his damaged tissue or something if he stays big long enough. Or something.

Look, they wanted the “stuck big” status quo for a size-changing character. That’s all.

Bill Foster Giant-Man takes off, going to find Hank Pym and help him cure his giant-brained wife. Aw, what a good friend.

Meanwhile, Moon Knight sounds racist by saying Giant-Man is not their kind. But what he means is that this is the murder is good group and Bill is too idealistic.

And they’ll need to be ruthless to stop Phantom Rider! Who is still totally haunting her and oh hey speak of the devil.

Seriously. Was he just hanging around invisibly waiting for someone to mention him so he could pop out and go boo?

This is a stupid way to spend an afterlife.

Tigra didn’t know about Mockingbird being haunted by Phantom Rider. She’s just confused by this new detail. I love her surprised kitty face.

She asks why Phantom Rider helped in Budapest if he’s a revenge-fueled dick but Phantom Rider said that was helping himself.

Phantom Rider: “I only pretended to help you, TIgra -- in order to destroy Barbara’s marriage!”

And then he shoots Tigra a whole bunch with ghost bullets.

What a dick.

The bullets don’t injure her. Because they’re ghostly. But she’s stunned.

Although, it’s unclear whether that’s an inherent property of them or whether getting shot a whole bunch will just throw you off your game.

Moon Knight tries to get Phantom Rider but the ghost punches him in the face and then has his horse kick him.

What a dick.

But getting clobbered knocks Moon Knight the fuck out and Khonshu pops out to play.

Which is actually good. Khonshu possessing Moon Knight can’t do a lot against a ghost. But freed of his meat puppet, he’s a lot more mighty.

Phantom Rider even recognizes it, fleeing when this new factor joins the battlefield. But he muses to himself that he wasn’t prepared for Khonshu this time but he’ll definitely be ready other times!

Unable to see Khonshu, Mockingbird comments that Phantom Rider sure fucked off a lot sooner than she expected.

Moon Knight wakes up and announces he knows how to solve Mockingbird’s Phantom Rider problem.

Over in Connecticut, the West Coast Avengers search the home of Mrs. Mandy Celestine trying to find clues about Mantis’s lost memories.

Mantis woke up in this house and Mandy Celestine is the kind of name Mantis, Celestial Madonna, might come up with if she had absolutely no imagination at all.

Which, I guess she doesn’t.

Someone knocks on the door so Mantis turns her green skin to be human Vietnamese/German skin tone instead to answer.

Yeah, she can do that. She just wants to be green. Are you going to tell her she can’t be green?

Anyway, it’s just the mailman needing her to sign for a package. And him recognizing her as Mrs. Celestine confirms she’s been living a life here.

So, that’s useful.

But Hawkeye is tired of this location and proposes they go and visit

The Vietnamese temple of the Priests of Pama.

Remember Mantis’ wacky backstory?

She was taken as a child and raised by the Priests of Pama (who were secretly Kree pacifists who were friends with tree people), trained in martial arts and MIND POWERS, mindwiped on her 18th birthday and given false memories of growing up as an orphan, before dumping her in a city where she eventually became a sex worker? This last part was essential because it meant she stayed humble unlike Moondragon. Or something. Anyway, she met Swordsman and swooned over the broken man, helped him clean himself up and join the Avengers, and then started trying to hit on Vision instead because he was emotionally unavailable.

Yadda yadda, Avengers stuff, Kang tries to figure out if Mantis, Scarlet Witch, or AGATHA HARKNESS is the Celestial Madonna by kidnapping them all and trying to decide which one he should date. Avengers stuff, Avengers stuff, Swordsman dies, Mantis learns she’s the Celestial Madonna, Immortus shows up to dump a whole bunch of exposition, Mantis marries a tree possessing her dead boyfriend in a double marriage with Vision and Scarlet Witch, then Mantis and Tree Boyfriend blast off into space.

God, Mantis’ life is weird.

So, remember how I said this is half of the end of Englehart’s run? Or I guess more specifically that half of this issue is the end of Englehart’s run?

Englehart himself has complained that half of this issue was re-written by editorial against his wishes. He has also complained that he was fired from West Coast Avengers supposedly for deadline issues but that also Marvel wouldn’t send him the pages he needed to work.

So I don’t even know if the back half of this book was even in Englehart’s script.

At least according to Englehart, Tom DeFalco had it out for him. And would do stuff like withhold the letters column.

Given that he also cites the missing text bubbles for Mantis in the previous annual, I dunno, he may be onto something.

That said.

If half of the book was rewritten, I’m guess that Marvel Unlimited pg 13 is where it starts. Because it has that hallmark of retcons.

The walls of text.

The West Coast Avengers and Mantis find where Swordsman was buried and have to clear the area since its overgrown. Hawkeye cracks a joke about the Priests of Pama not being much for lawn maintenance, perhaps forgetting the big plot point that they all died.

Wonder Man gets a bee in his bonnet about the specific way that the tree marriage and tree honeymoon played out, claiming that despite what everyone saw that day, it made a lot more sense that Swordsman’s body was just left to rot on Earth instead of being turned to energy.

And this is important because, somehow, Wonder Man has cracked this whole case wide open.

But first,

A corpse, of course.

I guess the body was left to rot. And not turned into pure thought or energy or whatever.

I hate it when Wonder Man is right about things.

Cotati Swordsman is here to Explain It All.

By stabbing Mantis.

She doesn’t much like that so she dodges out of the way and now there’s a fight. A fight that the West Coast Avengers jump into to protect their good friend Mantis.

Cotati Swordsman is one dude against a team and has a gimmicked up sword so he’s in full on stomp mode. Its like conservation of ninjas.

He shoots nerve gas out of the sword at Mantis that works on skin contact so she can’t just hold her breath. He hits Wonder Man with a force blast to mess up his ionic body. And when Vision blocks the disintegrator beam with a SOLAR BEAM, Cotati Swordsman just hits Vision with another force blast. Good enough for Wonder Man, etc.

Hawkeye is able to fight him for a bit due to his familiarity with the guy but the same is true reversed. Swordsman easily cuts a bunch of arrows out of the air.

Vision pops out of the grave intangible-style to grab Cotati Swordsman’s ankles so Wonder Man can try to disarm him.

But remember the conservation of ninja? Swordsman is able to bat Wonder Man out of the air with his sword - just the sword, not any of its built-in powers - and smack him into Vision.

Both fall against the Swordsman’s grave so Wonder Man can have a moment where he rehashes his fear of death.

Well, I guess fears don’t just go away.

Mantis recovers from the nerve gas and side kicks Cotati Swordsman.

Mantis: “You have something this one wants, Prime One -- desist in this pointless scuffle and deliver!”

I mean, she has a point. I looked ahead and there’s no reason he couldn’t just explain what he’s going to explain without all of this fight scene.

What he does do is promise what she wants is in the temple and baits her into following.

Then he traps her and throws his sword into her gut.

Oh no!

Good thing she has an extra guy!

So apparently the real Mantis has been buried alive in a grave this whole time.

Half of this book being an uncredited rewrite, I’m pretty sure this is a retcon.

Mantis going around in a plant simulacrum is from Englehart. In his Silver Surfer book, that’s how she was hanging around in space. Formed a body out of alien plants to go on space adventures.

But when she blew up and ‘died’ in the fight against the Elders, she woke up in her Connecticut home with AMNESIA. The implication is that the body in Connecticut was her real body because why wouldn’t it be? Why make this convoluted?

Well, we’re making it convoluted.

Also, Mantis is not green anymore. She could turn herself not green. But since this is her original body, I guess she’s just not green.

Except later, when she helps form the Guardians of the Galaxy. Where she’ll be green again.

Shrug.

Since Mantis has her memories back, she Explains It All.

After the tree wedding, Mantis and Prime Cotati ditched their bodies and flew off into space to fuck a Celestial Messiah into being.

Mantis: “Love, after all, is for souls, not bodies.”

Well, you clearly don’t know how fucking works. Because that’s very much for the bodies.

While Mantis and Prime Cotati are off in space fucking with their souls, the Priest of Pama bury the abandoned bodies.

The Priests of Pama were definitely dead by this point but we’re in uncredited rewrite territory. The goal is to wrap this up and fire Englehart.

After getting soul pregnant, Mantis returned to Earth to make herself a plant body because her special hybrid baby is part tree so needs a tree womb.

Sure!

Then the rest of what’s happened since the tree wedding happens.

Mantis gives birth to Sequoia, her future dirtbag son. She raises him in a Connecticut suburb so her former superhero life doesn’t disturb the air of tranquility she’s going for.

When Sequoia is old enough, the Cotati come and take him off Mantis’ hands to teach him his tree heritage.

Left with nothing to do, Mantis decided to go exploring space. We know this part. She made a plant body to hang out with Silver Surfer. Died in one of his adventures and woke up in her original plant body in Earth with AMNESIA.

The Cotati Swordsman explains that he was pretty sure that killing her near her meat body would jog her memory and force her spirit back into her original body.

Cotati Swordsman: “I am glad I surmised correctly.”

Hell of a thing to gamble on, asshole.

Then he tells Mantis to go live her best life. Because she’s done Celestial Madonna-ing. She made the Important Baby she needed to make. She took care of that pesky baby stage of things. Now she’s not needed anymore. “The child no longer needs a mother.”

And Prime Cotati wearing Swordsman is basically telling her to fuck off, she doesn’t get anything to do with her kid anymore.

Mantis tries to object or ask follow-up questions but Cotati Swordsman just moves on to talking to Hawkeye.

He bequeaths Swordsman’s sword to Hawkeye and then immediately crumbles to corpse dust and plant matter.

Hawkeye is clearly a bit perplexed by the ending of this Mantis quest but, well, it did end. Amnesia cured. He implicitly invites her to keep hanging out with the West coast Avengers.

But she needs time to process all this biz so she stays in Vietnam to meditate on a grave.

I have no doubt that if Englehart had remained as writer, Mantis would have stayed on the team. It also seems likely that if he remained as writer, the Mantis quest would not have been wrapped up this quickly. Not a single subplot in this book has wrapped up quickly.

What’s there to say here?

The rewritten part of this issue was meant to get Mantis out of the book as soon as possible because nobody likes her but Englehart and he has a habit of putting her in one of his books if he can get away with it and even if he can’t.

I like Mantis.

Mostly, that’s from her later Guardians stuff. But even in her time with the Avengers, even despite the stupid love triangle and the Celestial Madonna stuff, I liked her there too. And I liked when she got silly plant powers in Silver Surfer from fucking a tree man. And I like the tree wedding, as a joke. As a silly thing to tell people about that happened in comics.

There’s a lot of problems with the character and with Englehart’s writing for her. But I still like her.

So it is a shame that she’s in West Coast Avengers for, like, two issues.

And. Eesh. This isn’t a great wrap-up for her. Her amnesia is solved but mostly its nothing that hadn’t already been covered in her Silver Surfer appearances.

There’s a lot of problems with Englehart’s West Coast Avengers run so I’m not necessarily sad to see him go. He’s had 30ish some issues, some clunker stories, and it really is time for something new. But he’s being followed up by John “I’m going to mess up Vision” Byrne. And I don’t like that either.

So at the end of Englehart’s run, wherever it fell in this specific issue, it feels like out of the frying pan and into the fire. Because I’m gonna get Byrned. That’s the joke.

Follow @essential-avengers because I’m not a tree puppeting around a corpse of a supervillain turned superhero. And I think that gives me a lot of credibility. Like, reblog, and comment if you please. I’m lonely down here in the italics.

#avengers #essential avengers #west coast avengers #hawkeye #wonder man #the vision #scarlet witch #mantis #she's not listed as an avenger for this issue on marvel wiki #very rude #mockingbird #moon knight #tigra #swordsman #cotati swordsman #not a lot going on here #just some tree murder

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