Best Coast Avengers

Best Coast Avengers This page is a place to share the story of the West Coast Avengers.

A brief sidestep for a series almost everyone overlooks:Avengers InfinityWe tarry here for a few reasons. First, it's wr...
08/17/2026

A brief sidestep for a series almost everyone overlooks:
Avengers Infinity

We tarry here for a few reasons. First, it's written by the father of the West Coast Avengers, Roger Stern, and it highlights his approach to having more Avengers than can be carried on one team. Second, it stars Tigra, a WACO who has been sidelined for most of the 90s and to no good purpose. Third, it's dedicated to the mother of the West Coast Avengers, Mark Gruenwald.

The story is pretty epic. When Quasar finds a world destroyed, he summons up a crew of Avengers to help save the galaxy. Moondragon, Thor, and Jack of Hearts bring massive power. Photon brings the best kind of leadership and reconnaissance. Tigra brings the heart and Starfox shows up too. Together they learn the danger caused by the Infinites (a sort of Beyonder group operating like the Celestials but on a multiversal level) and enlist Eternity to talk them down. In the end, the galaxy is saved, a new world created, and Moondragon apologizes. Of those three, the apology is the most amazing.

For WACO fans, it's a treat to get Tigra back to Earth and to see Stern telling a new tale. It's also a sad thing since the dedication serves as a marker in time. In the summer of 2000, Mark Gruenwald's loss was a heartbreak for all fans of long-continuity storytelling. With him gone, the light of commitment to having the characters grow in maturity and experience dimmed greatly and it's very likely that what comes next for the Avengers won't be as built on what came before.

Still, for four issues of a limited series, this grab bag of Avengers showed a lot of skill and fun.

08/16/2026

The Nefaria Protocols, a great crossover to end the 90s and a fun swan song for George Perez.

As WACO/EACO crossovers go, this one has plenty of action and some really great art. Perhaps best are the moments when-

Wonder Man again saves the world by beating a bomb in space. This time he isn't killed for no good reason, as was the case in Force Works #1.

Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch affirm the heroics each has made and shown each other what decades (real time)/a decade (comic time) of heroic Avenging has done for their characters.

There are more dramatic stories but not many have more spectacle than this one.

Next time we go full Kree in Thunderbolts #45.

08/10/2026

Thunderbolts #43
Gives us an augmented Black Widow infiltrating the Tbolts HQ after spying on them while Scourge continues to spy on Techno who is spying on the Tbolts.

So much spying.

Hawkeye gets a new suit, mostly like his original suit but with a Thunderbolt logo (like Charcoal and Mach 2 have) so branding continues to progress.

Moonstone is caught by Mr. Fantastic as she tries to dig up her own past, Citizen V washes up on Latveria but
The main thread is that Count Nefaria has taken control of Atlas and Wonder Man and is attacking the Avengers.

So it's up to the Thunderbolts to bail out their East Coast cousins, in the best tradition of the West Coast Avengers.

I have been a bad curator. I ignored the greatest West Coast Avengers event, the actual sequel to the Secret Wars:Empero...
08/09/2026

I have been a bad curator. I ignored the greatest West Coast Avengers event, the actual sequel to the Secret Wars:

Emperor Doom!

In this fun graphic novel, Doctor Doom realizes he doesn't need the power cosmic (he stole from the Silver Surfer once), the power of Galactus or the Beyonder (Secret Wars), or even to destroy the Fantastic Four (every FF story he is in). He just needs to shackle the Purple Man to a device that allows him to substitute submission to Doom for obedience to the Purple Man.

And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky WACOs (especially Wonder Man).

While Cap and the other EACOs get moments, the story is really driven by Wonder Man and spurred on by Hawkeye and Silver Centurion Iron Man.

Ultimately, like the Secret Wars, Doom defeats himself.
But this gives us the window into how effective our Best Coast Avengers are as a team (AND shows us, just this once, how well She Hulk would have fit the team).

It's not expensive, the art is absolutely Marvel House style for the mid 80s but it has lots of great lines and it shows off the West Coast team hitting on all cylinders.

(Sadly, it's one of only two times the team faced Doom. But it is in a graphic novel so it's easy to treat as a highlight.)

Oh, and Marvel copies itself later with the 'One World Under Doom' event, to much less narrative insight. Emperor Doom shows Doom at his best, and why it would make humanity's road too easy for our fractious species.

7/10.

08/08/2026

Thunderbolts #42
Returns Wonder Man to the Best Coast, but this time as an antagonist. Such a shame since he, more than any other character was a mainstay of our West Coast teams. Killed off stupidly in issue #1 of Force Works, he was brought back by the Scarlet Witch over in the Avengers and has now come out to Colorado to beat up Atlas (for some reason).
Many subplots move forward (Scourge, Moonstone, Crimson Cowl, Dallas Riordan, Techno, and Man Killer) but the main focus is on Wonder Man's rage.

08/05/2026

Thunderbolts #41
Fun in Symkaria part 2. Sandman tries to get to Silver Sable but she's not a part of this issue. Citizen V tries to get to Crimson Cowl but shes not a part of this issue. Scourge tries to get to Techno but that won't happen this issue. Moonstone tries to get to the Kree Moonstone but she's also not in this issue.
Seems like the main theme of this issue is characters trying to get to someone who's not in the issue.

08/04/2026

Thunderbolts #40 has the team rumbling along on all cylinders as they continue the work of rescuing Dallas Riordan from the V Battalion.

Sandman is the featured guest star.
A solid if not mind-blowing issue.

08/03/2026

Thunderbolts #39
The cover promises a '100 page monster' which was a brief marketing scheme where Marvel would tell 1 new story and then reprint 3 classic tales in one issue to goose sales and marketed value without spending more on artists making the material. (Expect more of that from Marvel in 2027.)

The main plot is Zemo V. Scourge, a Scourge who has a nifty weapon acquisition power that allows him to summon what he wants when he wants.

The issue teases the notion that Scourge is actually Bucky resurrected. But that can't be, everyone knows that Uncle Ben and Bucky are the two Marvel characters who stay dead. Right?

07/29/2026

Thunderbolts #38
Brings Baron Zemo and Scourge together, along with revealing that Dallas Riordan has taken in the Citizen V identify.
A fun issue with lots of swirling subplots.

07/14/2026

Avengers Annual 2000
Focuses on the aftermath of the Thunderbolts annual and providing a teaser for a Hellcat mini series to come.
Not much here for WCA fans unless you are one of the ones who wish Englehart had been given the chance to make Hellcat a WACO for real, rather than handing things over to Byrne for his Scarlet Witch/Vision deconstruction.
Since I am one of those, this hit me as a fun, if very light, adventure to return Patsy Walker to the Marvel Comics world.

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