Random Back Issues #25 - Avengers West Coast #55

I just had to go and open my fat yap about Byrne and his weird interest in who can and can't have kids last week. Now look where it's gotten me. Stupid dice.

We are one issue away from the "Darker than Scarlet" storyline, where the Scarlet Witch goes entirely off the rails. She spends most of this issue in a comatose state in their "Whackos" compound/mansion. Which is in low-Earth orbit because Magneto thought that would snap her out of it. Explains a lot about Mags' parenting style, right there.

That gets Immortus' attention, fresh off erasing a timeline where Lincoln gives John Wilkes Booth a taste of the back of his hand. Wonder Man and U.S. Agent (ugh) track the house into space, but something blows up, and then the house is back where it's supposed to be by the time Wasp swings by.

OK, whatever, that's more time than that deserved. Relevant to my interests, this is the end of the line for Acts of Vengeance, minus Loki magically fusing three Sentinels in one and sending them at a nuclear plant. The Avengers caught the Wizard after he and a few others tried to attacking the East Coast Avengers, but he can activate the dimensional door the "lackey" gave all the baddies to reach their secret meeting room. He gets back, learns Doom may have been a Doombot the whole time, and Magneto has bailed (for reasons detailed above). The "lackey" isn't too happy Wizard used the door in the Avengers HQ, since Thor could track it and reveals he's actually Loki, who's been manipulating them this whole time.

Or maybe he just took offense to the Wizard, of all villains, trying to boss him around. I will never get over how out of place that schmuck looks next to Doom, Magneto, and the Red Skull.

Thor does lead a bunch of Avengers there, except "there" is the Isle of Silence, where Thor fought Loki after the crap he pulled that brought the Avengers together in the first place. Every hero other than Thor is basically useless, to the point Byrne doesn't even bother drawing what Hank Pym (cargo suit version), the Vision (albino, emotionless version), or Hawkeye (just Hawkeye) are doing after bothering to have them there.

Thor and Loki fight in their usual way. Thor asks Loki to try, please, to not be such a dick. Loki yells a bunch of crap about Odin and hatred, and tries to use magic attacks against Thor. Thor yells "I say thee nay!" and smashes crap with his hammer. You know how it goes. Skull, the Mandarin, and the Wizard escape during all the fighting. Which is good, because it enables Magneto to find the Skull later and throw him in a pit to die slowly. (He does not die.)

Then Thor explains Loki was mad about inadvertently creating the Avengers, so he tried to create a Bad Guy Avengers of his own. Earth's Vilest Villains, or something. I'm not sure how the part where they farmed out destroying each other's villains to other bad guys who weren't on the team factors in, but it's Loki. He's a few crackers short of full pack.

{12th longbox, 126th comic. West Coast Avengers #55, by John Byrne (writer/penciler), Paul Ryan (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Bill Oakley (letterer)}