An hour ago. Avengers West Coast Compound.

The table was round, for tradition's sake, but there was no question about who was at the head of it. Clint Barton had done this sort of thing many times, had rallied more than his share of troops, but if he'd ever felt as uncertain about the team he was commanding, he couldn't remember a time. Maybe right after he'd taken up with the Thunderbolts--maybe.

"I'd have liked to get a couple more butts in these seats before going off on a mission," he said, indicating the table's two unclaimed chairs, "but, as usual, the bad guys aren't taking our readiness into account."

"We're ready," Warbird nodded. She sounded like she was saying that more for her own benefit than Hawkeye's, but maybe he was just being paranoid. He wanted Carol back as a productive Avenger as much as anybody, but he remembered vividly how she'd acted when they'd confronted her about her alcoholism. Iron Man vouched for her progress now, and considering IM's history with drink, that was saying a lot, but Clint knew they were going to have to watch her anyway.

"Let's hope so," he replied. He punched a control near his seat and a holo-image of a man in a black and silver uniform appeared over the tabletop. A stylized snake's head was emblazoned on the front of his uniform, and his black mask was engulfed in a cowl shaped to look like a snake's gaping mouth. Hawkeye took just a moment to congratulate himself for getting the tabletop controls right before speaking again.

"The Sons of the Serpent. A radical hate group that's locked horns with the Avengers, the Defenders, and the New Warriors. Usually, they're made up of a bunch of white guys looking to drive 'inferior races' out of the country. This time, their costumes and tactics have apparently been adopted by a group of blacks who want to kill off most of the country's white population."

"How are they going to do that?" Darkhawk asked. It was the first time he'd spoken since the meeting had begun.

"A genetic plague," Iron Man said from his seat to Hawkeye's right. "They tested it yesterday at a bank in downtown LA. It killed twenty people--all but six of the whites in the building--and didn't harm anybody else in the slightest."

Darkhawk didn't reply. He wondered if the virus would have any affect on him -- as Chris Powell, he was as white as the driven snow, but when he used the amulet embedded in his chest to become Darkhawk, he was wearing an entirely different body, one that wasn't even human. He hoped he wasn't going to get a chance to find out.

"We have to be ready to go as soon as we have a lead on where to find these guys. We're confident they're somewhere on the West Coast, since they chose to trial run their plague in LA, but...." Hawkeye paused. "Where's Vagabond?"

The table's four occupants looked around at the empty seat where Priscilla Lyons, aka Vagabond, should have been sitting. "She said she had to go to the bathroom," Darkhawk said.

"How long ago was that?"

"About fifteen minutes ago," Darkhawk replied sheepishly. Hawkeye's tone brought to mind images of Mrs. Myers from the fifth grade.

"Did she fall in?"

Warbird pushed her chair back. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Hawkeye. I'll go get her."

"Don't bother," a new voice said from the doorway. They all turned and watched as Vagabond hurried in, clutching a roll of printer paper in one hand.

"I know you're new to this Avengers stuff, V," Hawkeye began, "but you can't just bail on these meetings when it--"

"Who was bailing?" she asked. Her tone wasn't defensive. If anything, she was bubbling with excitement. She rounded the table until she was standing next to Hawkeye, and started to reach for the holo-controls at his position, only drawing up short when she noticed Hawkeye's annoyed look. "May I?"

He sighed and slumped back into his chair. "Why not?"

She keyed in some commands, and watched as a mugshot of a thick-jawed middle-aged black man appeared over the table. "This is JC Pennyworth. Back when the Sons battled the Defenders, he was the guy backing them financially."

"But he's black," Warbird observed. "They were a white supremacy group at the time."

"I know. Wierd, huh? Anyway, JC did some of his time and was released on probation last year. Two months ago, he stopped checking in with his parole officer. Nobody's seen him since.

"Now, back when Pennyworth was a big money man, working for Richmond Industries, he owned a small airfield near La Jolla. The airfield, along with a couple of other small East Coast properties, was put into trust for Pennyworth's heirs before he went to jail, so the government couldn't confiscate it. DEA has nailed a couple of drug flights going into and out of the airfield since then, none of which seemed to have anything to do with Pennyworth himself." She pushed some more buttons, and a GPS map came up. "But nobody has used the field's two hangars in the last five years."

There was a beat of silence as the team took this in.

"You found all this out on your bathroom break?" Darkhawk finally asked. Vagabond tipped him a wink.

"Worth checking out," Hawkeye decided. "'Bird, fire up the Quinjet. We're taking a trip to La Jolla."

Now. Pennyworth Airfield.

Warbird arrowed forward, her speed and durability turning her into an adequate battering ram as she barreled through the ranks of masked racists.

"V, back her up!" Hawkeye shouted, nocking an arrow and firing it at a small contingent of Sons that were charging Vagabond from the side. The head of the arrow erupted, and a black steel mesh net flared out over the troops.

It was just the beginning. There were probably three hundred of these guys crammed into this hangar. Clint Barton marveled -- how could there be that much open race hatred left in this country?

Still, there would be time to mull over the philosophical issues later. He waved his bow arm at Iron Man while the other hand slipped over his shoulder for another arrow. "Shellhead, back Darkhawk up! We need to know where the virus is!"

With a brief nod, Iron Man stopped pummeling the Sons with low-grade repulsors and rocketed into the air, heading toward the beams at the top of the hangar.

The albino man stepped out of the shadows, walking slowly and casually across the eight inch beam that stretched across the roof of the hangar. His hands were in the pockets of his black trenchcoat, and his blank eyes seemed to be bleeding white radiance.

Further down the steel pathway, a child was interrogating the leader of this incarnation of the Sons of the Serpent, the man who called himself Seth. The trenchcoat man knew all about Seth, but the child...

He reached out, touched the boy's neuroses with empathic fingers. Oh yeah. Plenty of negative emotion to play with here. Daddy issues galore: feelings of abandonment, bitterness at being manipulated and lied to. Uncertainty about his place in the Avengers. Fear of screwing up. Not much hate, granted, but just because the man in black couldn't have the steak didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the sizzle.

He reached out, and gave his prey the merest twist.

"You've got one chance," Darkhawk said. "Tell me about the plague or I drop you on your sheet-wearing, cross-burning a--"

"Burn...in...hell!" Seth croaked, clutching at the line wrapped around his throat, the line by which he was dangling two hundred feet off the concrete floor. Darkhawk knew he probably should have pulled the guy up onto the beam by now, but damnit... something about these racist bastards really got under his skin.

"You're not listening," he said, jerking the line and feeling a sick satisfaction when Seth's breathing became even more of a whisper. The man's tongue lolled out of his mouth, his eyes began to roll back to the whites.

"Darkhawk!"

He looked up sharply. Hovering in front of him, in all his red and gold glory, was Iron Man. Iron Man, who'd all but accused him of only being into the Avengers for the money. Iron Man who reminded Chris entirely too much of his da--

Darkhawk shook his head. What the hell...? Where had that come from?

Iron Man was saying something about letting Seth go, but Darkhawk could barely hear him. Had he really been taking pleasure in watching a man strangle to death? What was going through his head? He--

"Darkhawk!"

His head snapped up again as Iron Man lifted the choking man and unwound the strangling cord. "We don't do things this way," he said, setting Seth down on the narrow beam.

"I--I don't know what I--"

"Shut up."

The words were matter-of-fact, but to Chris, they felt like two slaps across the face. He reeled for a moment--and did he see a pale white man, dressed all in black, standing at the far end of the beam in that instant? Yes, he thought he did, but he was gone in the next--and then the surprise and hurt flipped over into anger.

"You can't talk to me like that."

Iron Man didn't even look in his direction, he was too busy making sure that racist, hate-preaching pile of steaming crap was still alive. No time for rookie, mercenary teenagers and their little fits of temper. No, not from the big, bad founding Avenger.

"I said, you can't talk to me like that," Darkhawk pressed, slapping a hand onto his teammate's shoulder. Iron Man looked around.

"Remove your hand, Darkhawk. Or I'll do it for you."

That was it.

An ebony blast of energy exploded from the amulet buried in Darkhawk's chest, taking Iron Man in the sternum and flipping him backwards over the side of the beam. Sharp metal wings snapped into place under Darkhawk's arms, and he launched himself straight down at his teammate.

On the beam, the author of their rampaging emotions smiled and licked his chops. This just got better and better.

They had been doing pretty good, Hawkeye would reflect later, until the bad guys broke out the heavy artillery.

Before that, he was reflecting on what a pleasant surprise Vagabond was turning out to be. Clint knew she'd run with Nomad and with Captain America for a time, and knew from talks with Steve that she was a solid acrobat and fighter. But some of the things he saw her doing now--leaping straight over some guy's head, knocking another guy out with one punch, slipping beneath a hail of gunfire--went way beyond "solid". Some of the things the girl was doing now actually reminded Clint of Cap. Had she had some enhancements, or--

There was the sound of screaming metal behind him, and another of the hangar's walls sheared away. Through the new hole marched a massive collection of pipes, pulleys, and hydraulics, vaguely man-shaped, with a single Son of the Serpent seated dead in its center. Five more suits of battle armor followed it in.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Hawkeye said, and nocked an arrow. These losers want to sit right out in the open like that in their junkbots, they had to know they made themselves big fat targets for a sharpshooter. Better Hawkeye disillusioned them with a concussion arrow than some SWAT cop put a bullet in them.

He let fly... and nearly got shot in the back by stray plasma fire when the armor's lightning-fast parry stunned him into momentary immobility. Vagabond hit him, knocking him to the ground and just under the flash of lightning that passed overhead.

"Watch it, fearless leader," she said, grinning, and then she was gone again, leaping back into the fray.

Hawkeye regained his feet, all his attention focused on the robots as they formed up and began moving in on Warbird. Okay, they were fast. But Clint knew somebody who was faster. And stronger. And shinier. He looked to the rafters.

Iron Man was nowhere in sight. Neither was Darkhawk.

"Oh crap," he muttered, and began sprinting towards Warbird, hoping he could get within earshot of her before the robots blasted her out of the air.

Another ebony bolt slammed Iron Man down, through the platform Seth had been giving his speech from, the entire structure crumbling as Darkhawk landed on top of him.

"Who the hell are you to give me crap about taking money?" Darkhawk demanded, driving a completely ineffectual fist into the side of Iron Man's helmet. "You're a paid bodyguard, for crying out--"

Iron Man's chest beam blazed, and Darkhawk just managed to get his own shield up before it struck. The impact was still sufficient to hurl him clear of the wreckage.

"What is wrong with you?" Iron Man demanded, shifting the rubble off of his shoulders. "Attacking me in the middle of a fight? Do you have any idea what being an Avenger means?"

"If it means being a righteous pain-in-the-ass like you...mister, you can take this job and shove it!" Another bolt lanced out from Darkhawk's amulet, but this time Iron Man fired himself up into the air above it. He began laying down a curtain of repulsor fire, but the kid managed to stay one step ahead of it. He was quick. Still, with onboard tracking and targeting computers, it was just a matter of time until...

Inside the armor, Tony Stark paused at the sound of a small, shrill beeping noise. He knew that tone. It was the one meant to alert him whenever an outside force was attempting to control his mind. The alarm flickered off, and then picked up again, as if it wasn't certain of its findings.

A few months ago, the Enchantress had managed to sidestep Iron Man's mind-control failsafes by manipulating his emotions instead of his thought processes. He'd recalibrated his equipment since, but there was just no way to account for that kind of magical control.

Could that be what was happening here? Darkhawk was a bit of a punk, but Tony was surprised at his rage. Could some unseen force be trying to set them against each--

Darkhawk's grappling claw snapped around Iron Man's throat, pulled taut, and yanked the Avenger down and into the floor of the hangar. Before he could get back to his feet, Darkhawk swooped into him again, driving him backwards.

"Darkhawk, listen to me! You're being manipulated!"

"Not anymore, Iron Jerk! Never again, you hear me! I'm not going to end up like--"

Iron Man clamped his hands around the kid's pointed helmet, and fed 5,000 amps of backup power through his gauntlets. Darkhawk jittered and spasmed under the onslaught, then managed to kick away from his teammate.

"Not...not gonna--" he said, and then simply hurled himself forward again.

Iron Man dropped his fist on top of Darkhawk's head, and the kid was unconscious before he slumped to the ground.

The man his followers knew as Seth rolled over...and nearly dropped right off the side of the beam he was balanced so precariously on. He steadied himself, putting his hands to his bleeding throat, and despaired at how quickly his plans had fallen apart.

"Despair is nice," a voice said above him. "But you're not ready for that yet, son. You've still got work to do."

Seth looked up, and found himself face to face with the albino man, crouching in front of him on the beam.

"They'll tear down everything," the albino said, gesturing to the heroes making wreckage of his Sons of the Serpent. "Just like they did with Pennyworth's followers, and with every other incarnation of the Sons."

"No..."

"But you can still stop them, can't you? You can play this game out to its bloody end. Copperhead will probably kill all of them anyway. Poof. All your troubles gone. All at the push of a button."

Seth looked at his wrist, looked at the jacketed button built into the sleeve.

As a boy, one of Seth's heroes had been Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt, who more than likely knew about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in advance, but allowed it to happen because he knew it was the only way to wake his country up to the threat from outside.

Just like Seth was going to do. He would wake his people, the whites of this country, even if he had to kill three-quarters of them to do it.

Nodding at the albino, he flipped the cover off and pressed the button.

"Hawkeye!" Vagabond called, fighting her way through the army of racists, evading when she could but pummeling when she couldn't. One of the Sons had managed to clip her with the butt of his rifle a minute ago, and blood was getting into her eyes. Worse, her vision was starting to swim a little bit. Stupid, stupid, rookie mistake. It was so easy to get cocky, considering the advantages she had now, but--

She heard the scream of rending metal, and just managed to backpedal out of the way before a giant, severed robotic arm crashed into the floor where she'd just been standing. She looked up, and saw Warbird tearing into one of the giant robots -- they looked like those loading rigs from the movie Aliens, Vagabond thought -- while the others circled around, bracketing Warbird in.

"One thing at a time, girl," Vagabond told herself. Warbird was certainly capable of handling herself, and Vagabond would be no good against those metal behemoths, especially if that jerk with the gun had given her a concussion, as she was beginning to suspect.

She put her elbow in another Son's face and pushed through the last line separating her from her team leader.

"Hawk, these guys are white!"

"You noticed that too, huh?" he asked, not missing a beat as he nocked an arrow and let it fly at one of the giant robots. The blunt arrow went wide... then did a 180-degree turn and shot straight through the robot's lowered defenses, hitting the rig's driver in the back of the head. The driver slumped in his harness and the robot came to a shuddering halt.

"What do you think it means?" he asked, leaping over a spray of gunfire as Vagabond followed him.

"I think it means we've been had. This is the same ol' Sons of the Serpent, doing the same ol' thing. Only this time, they're blaming the lower races so that when people start dropping dead, they've got a scapegoat."

"And they get to turn at least one of those lower races into the biggest mass murderers in history. Good. 'Cause that's what I was thinking too. Now if only we could--"

The ground shook, throwing off Hawkeye's aim so badly that the blast arrow he'd meant for a knot of charging Sons flew high and nearly hit Warbird. The blonde woman looked around. They all did.

The hole Iron Man had punched in the hangar was big enough that all of them could see it. Outside, right next to the largest of the field's three runways, the ground had opened up and given birth to a gigantic, roaring missile. It was its liftoff that was still causing the ground to shake.

"Oh my god," Vagabond said at Clint's elbow.

Possibilities raced through his mind. Whatever was on that rocket--explosives or plague--it was bad news either way. Iron Man could handle it, but he wasn't here right now. Which left only one option, really.

"Warbird! Go!"

She was already on her way. Weaving in between the flailing arms of the giant robots and shooting out over the tarmac, she angled upward and chased the rocket into the Southern California sky.

Leaving Hawkeye and Vagabond alone against a couple hundred angry Sons of the Serpent and four walking tanks.

Hawkeye nocked an arrow and drew the bowstring back slowly, deliberately, hoping all the while that Vagabond had her poker face on.

"Step right up, boys," he said. "Who wants the first whuppin'?"

The Sons of the Serpent rushed them as one.

Iron Man was turning away from Darkhawk when the ground began to shake. He, too, saw the missile leaving its underground silo, and he was just about to chase after it when his audio receptors filtered the sound of Seth's laughter out of the general cacophony. Seth, who was standing on top of the beam they'd left him on, high overhead, and shaking his fist in triumph like a villain from an old movie serial.

Warbird was already chasing the rocket, which made Iron Man's next decision easier.

"What are you laughing about, you maniac?" he said two seconds later, and Seth wheeled around, reaching for the gun at his hip. Iron Man crushed it, tossed it aside, and seized the man by his tunic.

"Stop that missile," Iron Man said. "Do it now." He moved backward so they were both hovering over empty space. He didn't have to outline the implied threat, but Seth didn't seem concerned. In fact, he was still laughing.

"I can't! It's all in the hands of God now! Let Him decide who lives and who dies!"

Iron Man shook him. Hard. He was beginning to understand why Darkhawk had lost it so easily with this guy. "There's got to be a way, damn you!"

"Even if there was, it wouldn't matter! The missile is a low-grade nuclear device, Iron Man. It will decimate Los Angeles. And all over this country, hundreds of my agents are primed to release the Copperhead Strain in public places at the same moment! It's over! There is no recall switch, nothing you can do to reach all those people in time!"

"We'll see," Iron Man said grimly. He cut power to his bootjets, enjoying Seth's frightened scream as they both plummeted toward the concrete, then fired them again at the last moment before impact, shooting them over the floor, over the heads of the Sons. If he could convince the other Sons what their leader had done, try to appeal to their reason... surely all of them couldn't be as insane as this--

Someone peeled open his armor, sliced his naked back open, and dumped hydrochloric acid down his spinal column. At least that's what it felt like. A black corona of energy engulfed him, and he couldn't help himself... he pinwheeled into the floor, losing his grip on Seth as he skated across the tarmac like a crashing jet.

The agony vanished, along with the crackling energy. Gasping, Iron Man pushed himself up to his knees. God, what was that? His HUD was telling him the armor had no idea what had just penetrated it. Something he couldn't detect, which made the possibility of fighting it all the more remote. Who were they up against now?

The energy corona sprang to life around him, and he screamed once again. Razor blades across his nerve endings, white hot pins in his eyes and boiling water in his veins. He began to crumple, but caught himself before he could fall all the way to his belly again.

The Sons were all around him. They had begun to close in before the strange energy effect engulfed him again. Now they were keeping a cautious distance, their guns at the ready.

"I hate doing that," a new voice said. Iron Man looked up as the crowd surrounding him parted. Through the gap stepped a man so pale he might have been wearing mime's makeup. His hands were stuffed casually into the pockets of his black trenchcoat, and white energy, surrounded by the same black crackle consuming Iron Man, bled from his pupil-less eyes. He ran a grey tongue over black lips.

Iron Man wasn't going to wait to hear this guy's story. He raised one hand and released a repulsor in the albino's direction. The beam passed right through him, like he was a ghost.

"I'd much rather eat your hatred than spit it up and use it against you," the albino man said, ignoring the failed attack. "But I can't have you talking reason to these people, Avenger. Reason is the enemy of hate after all, and if the Hate Monger has his way, there won't be any reason left in all the world by nightfall."

The corona intensified, and the agony was so great this time, Iron Man couldn't even scream.

Warbird sliced through the sky, pushing herself to her limits as the rocket roared northward.

She wasn't going to be fast enough.

There had been a time, when she'd possessed the powers of Binary, that she could have swatted the ICBM out of the air with little more effort than it took to think about it. But her powers had been sapped drastically, and while she was still quite powerful by Earthbound hero standards, she wasn't powerful enough to do anything about this.

People were going to die, probably a whole lot of people, because she was weak. She was going to let her friends and her team and the entire world down. Again. And she wouldn't even be able to blame this failure on the booze.

"Nnnnoooo," she groaned, tears streaming from her eyes. The rocket drew closer to her outstretched hands with painful slowness. It wasn't going to be enough.

Despite their enemies' vastly superior numbers, the real trouble hadn't started until Hawkeye lost his bow.

With so many unarmored Sons swarming around the Avengers, the giant robots didn't quite dare to move in for the kill, worried about stepping on their own comrades, and nobody present seemed to have the authority to order the infantry back.

Hawkeye didn't like fighting in such close quarters--his expertise called for a little distance--but he'd been taught hand-to-hand by Captain America, so he could hold his own. Vagabond was still a little wobbly from a shot to the head she'd taken earlier, but the girl was a trooper.

And then one of the bastards got in a lucky shot and vaporized the top half of Hawkeye's bow.

Cursing, He tossed the remains aside. There was a spare, a collapsible rig hidden in his belt, but he doubted he was going to get a chance to put it together. He drove a fist into the bow-killer's face with all the upper body strength that years of tugging a bowline had earned him, and was so happy with the audible crunch the jerk's nose made that he almost didn't hear Vagabond's cry from behind him.

She was being overwhelmed. There were just too many of them. They had her by the hair, the arms, the jacket. Hawkeye tossed a Son aside and began fighting his way toward her.

That was when the rifle butt came down on the back of his skull. Hawkeye collapsed to his knees right beside his still-struggling teammate.

Warbird could see the smog-shrouded spires of LA rising to the north. The rocket was making a bee-line for the city, just as she'd thought. She reached deeper, found she had just a little more speed to give, and fought her way through the rocket's slipstream. Reaching, reaching.

A beam of sparkling photonic energy slashed down from somewhere above her, vaporizing the nose of the rocket. Warbird covered her face, just barely curling her flight path out of the way of the beam, and therefore missed the second blast that annihilated the roaring engines pushing the rocket through the sky.

It took Carol another half-mile to slow enough to turn around and head back. She half-suspected what she was going to see even before she saw it. She knew that energy signature, after all.

A man was hovering in the spot she'd left the rocket, holding the remaining, central portion -- the part containing whatever nasty payload the Sons had stuffed it with -- above his head with one hand. He was covered in black, which was in turn covered with tiny white pinpoints of light. She knew him immediately, though they'd never met.

"Captain Marvel," she said, with a relieved smile. He was the Universal Protector, Genis-Vell, bearer of the Nega Bands and the mixed blessing of Cosmic Awareness. Warbird had a feeling this mission was going to get a lot easier from here on out.

She expected a smile in return--she'd heard the kid was an easygoing sort--but all she got at first were those coldly blinking, pupil-less eyes.

"If you humans can't play nicely with your toys," he said, "I'm going to have to take them away."

A hand slammed Hawkeye roughly against one of the hangar's surviving walls, the massive barrel of a gun pressed into the side of his bruised face. He didn't know where Vagabond was anymore. Wouldn't have been much help to her even if he had known.

"What's wrong with you?" the gunman was asking. "You're white! You should be on our side!"

"Nah," he muttered, "I scored too high on my SAT's to be a Son of the Serpent. You guys are even lower than the Lethal Legion when it comes to IQ stats."

A fist slammed into his stomach, blasting the air out of his lungs. He doubled over...then drove his head forward, taking one of his attackers in the sternum and falling over with him, sandwiched between five or six Sons. There was a brief, pointless struggle, and then he was yanked roughly back to his feet.

"Just shoot this nigger-loving asshole," somebody said, and the Son he'd just headbutted showed his mute agreement by getting to his feet, unslinging his own rifle, and raising it to Hawkeye's face.

There was a sharp duet of pistol reports -- BANG! BANG! -- and for half a heartbeat, Hawkeye thought the sound had come from the rifle aimed at his head. He hadn't yet put together that it couldn't have been that gun, since he was still alive, when large, black-rimmed holes appeared in the right arm of the man holding him at gunpoint. The gunman screamed and the rifle fell away from Hawkeye's face, hitting the floor with a clatter.

"I suggest," a familiar Texas drawl cut in from somewhere behind Hawkeye, "that you boys step away from that man. He happens to be a friend of mine."

The Sons turned, and Hawkeye nearly threw out one of his vertebrae swiveling his neck around to look. Because there was just no way that voice could belong to who he thought it did.

His savior was standing in the hole in the wall the team had made coming in. A black bandanna was tied around his eyes, with holes cut out to see through, and a black cowboy hat was perched jauntily to the left on his head. Jeans, a long-sleeve denim shirt, and an orange and black vest completed the outfit, complemented and defined by the gunbelts slung low on his hip.

"You're not..." Hawkeye began.

"What'sa matter, Hawk?" the gunman said, thumbs ticking eagerly at the pistols waiting in either holster. "Don't you recognize yer old buddy, the Two-Gun Kid?"

First issue seems to have gotten an overall positive response. First review is from Alex Cook (writer of Fallen Angels over on the X-Men branch).

WEST COAST AVENGERS: M2K #1 Plotted by Chris Munn & Russ Anderson,
Written by Russ Anderson

Billionaire Tony Stark / Iron Man funds a new round-up of West Coast Whackos lead by old-timer Clint Barton / Hawkeye. Add one more known Avenger to the cast of five shown in this time-jumping initial offering and you have a different mix of Avengers then any other out there. Throw in a white supremacist group acting decidedly anti-white, bake at three hundred and fifty degrees until Munn swears he's not McGee five times in a chat room (or roughly forty five minutes), and enjoy the launch of a damn interesting title.

Could use more salt though, don't ya think?

The good about this first issue is the way the story is constructed. By using a plot that moves quite fast set in present time, Russ flashes back to slower tempo scenes showing Iron Man gathering his new band of Whackos. Some of these scenes are in fact the best parts of this issue. The villain is also a treat due to how different they are acting, but once the why is shown it makes eerie sense. That same twinge of the eerie also makes it a little more unsettling, which gets more marks on Mister Anderson's scorecard.

The time-jumping wasn't to everybody's taste (as you'll see when we get to Cory's review below), but I'm glad it worked for you. Trust me... it wasn't easy making the Sons of the Serpent come off as threatening.

The bad here is hard to describe. I almost felt like it ended too soon. In Russ' closing notes he says more will come before the end of this initial arc, which is good. But for some reason the cast shown in this issue didn't 'hook' me as much as I'd have expected. Sorry I can't articulate it any better for you though.

Completely understandable, Alex. Hopefully the new additions at the end of this issue roped you in a little more effectively. Keep your eye on some of these new guys though (Darkhawk and Vagabond, especially). We'll make you dig them yet.

Next one is from question maestro, Jason Trenner:

Awesome issue. I wonder why the Living Lightning wasn't asked to join the team. Darkhawk being a bad choice.. I wonder if Iron Man knows about Satana being a part of the team now. Now on to the questions:

I can't speak for Chris, who chose every member on this roster, but I'm guessing Lightning wasn't asked to join because we still haven't found out what happened to the kid over in Thunderbolts. Hopefully this doesn't bode ill for the guy, but we'll see.

And Iron Man is aware of Satana being on the East Coast team. We'll be dealing with some of the Whackos' reactions to the current bunch of Easterners in issue #4.

1) Is there any chance of the Original Human Torch rejoining the team?

No plans for any new members yet, but after reading Derrick Ferguson's take on Jim Hammond in recent issues of Hulk, I'd put the guy on the short list of characters I'd like to see on the team eventually.

2) Will the Whackos and Force Works cross paths?

Probably not anytime soon. Besides, the Works are currently heading into a crossover with Hulk (there's that title again... wonder if I enjoy it... :)

3) Is there any chance of Fastforward joining the team?

Nope. Don't even know who that is (tho I'll bet Chris does... boy is a walking Marvel U encyclopedia).

4) Is there any chance of the Orphan joining the team?

Not a big fan of Milligan's X-Force (tho it beats the pants off the previous version), so don't hold your breath on this one.

5) Will the Avengers fight Oort the Living Cloud and his Solar Squad?

If I had any idea who that was, I think I'd have to build a story around them. Keep an eye out for my next arc, though, which will feature an old Marvel monster with a similarly goofy name.

6) Is there any chance of the Whackos fighting the Omnivore?

See answer to number 3.

7) Is there any chance of Moondragon joining the team?

If Chris wants her. I've never cared too much for the character, myself. Her buddy Captain Marvel will be here for the foreseeable future though, so a guest-appearance probably wouldn't be out of order.

8) Is there any chance of the Avengers fighting a new Heavy Metal?

See answer to number 6.

9) Will the Whackos tell the East coast team what they think of Satana being an Avenger?

The Whackos will probably be running into Thor's Eackos sometime, but there aren't any firm plans at the moment.

10) Is there any chance of Sandman joining the team?

Probably not. We're going to try to give ourselves time to flesh out this roster before adding anymore warm bodies to it.

11) Is there any chance of the team fighting Ravage?

As in 2099? Isn't he in the future? Chris! A little help here...

12)Is there any chance of the Whackos fighting the Night Shift?

That has definite possibilities. No plans, though.

13)Is there any chance of any of the members Dr. Druid's Shock Troop showing up?

You are very close to unveiling the plot for our fourth or fifth arc here. Say anymore, and we may have to silence you.

14) Is there any chance of the Whackos visiting the Ultraverse?

Not on my watch...

Thanks for your interest, Jason.

Third and final letter is a review posted to the M2K message board by our Writer of the Year, Cory Weigel. Cory is current pinch-hitter on X-Men Alpha and full-timer on Iceman.

Death to whitey!

Err... I mean...

You have no idea how badly I wish I had thought to title the first issue that.

West Coast Avengers #1
by Russ Anderson and Chris Munn.

The concept of this title sounds sort of like my original proposal for the Champions way back (which I sadly dropped). Tony Stark funds and recruits a mixed group of experienced and inexperienced super heroes to stand in the public's eye as the West Coast's very own super hero team. I'd say they ripped me off, but it becomes pretty apparent after reading the first issue that this is more their ball park then mine. And so far, I like it.

Wasn't even aware you'd ever written a Champs prop, Cory. Maybe Chris read your mind. :)

In any case, I'll bet you were at least smart enough not to put Darkhawk on your team...

Iron Man and Hawkeye are instant favorites as I'm sure they are with everyone, and they end up getting most of the spotlight throughout this issue. The two have always had a pretty solid chemistry about them, but as should be expected with Tony and Clint, there's more then likely going to be some problems down the road.

It should be apparent by now which Whacko Iron Man's going to have problems with... and it ain't Hawkeye.

Also, the first story-arc plotted by Chris Munn looks pretty fresh and promising, though I'm not gonna leak anything else out about it aside from those comments and the opening battle cry I issued.

A couple of bad things about this ish? Well... for starters, the structure of the story. It's not that the choice of the "Now and Then" alternating style keeps from the story, it's just that I think the simple and easy story used would have flowed better if the scenes were all put in order. To me, "Now and Then" has fast become a tired way of telling a casual story and there was really nothing special accomplished by using it here.

Tried yet true, I think if the first "Now" scene was put at the beginning of the story, then followed by all of the "Then" scenes, and then wrapped up with the last of the "Now" scenes, it would have allowed the story to flow with more spark and drive. Just my opinion, though.

I do tend to overuse this storytelling device... but I still think it worked in keeping the recruitment scenes from dragging the pace of the story down. Sorry it didn't work for you.

Second, I'm not sure about how I feel about some of the characters chosen to represent the Avengers. After some of his previous commitments fell through, I'd much rather see Russ continue his work on Scarlet Spider when it comes to making lame villains and dry second stringers kick ass then to just start all over with some new ones.

I mean, geeze... Warbird, Darkhawk, and Vagabond? The jury's still out, but who else is thinking these guys lack any real flavor to them? It's not that they're lame or anything, it's just there's nothing too unique and new character wise to grab your attention. I can see some potential in Darkhawk, but the scenes with Warbird being kinda bitchy and Vagabond being chirpy about at the idea of being a super hero left me with a "whoop-dee-do, like we haven't seen this done with characters before" kinda feeling.

I'm not sure I understand this mindset. I mean, would you rather see the same old type of roster? Everybody knows Captain America and Thor and Photon and Quicksilver can be cool in their own ways (no smart-ass remarks from the peanut gallery, please), but nobody's ever really explored Vagabond. And while Darkhawk has been pretty thoroughly explored, I'm of the opinion that he wasn't handled very well for nearly the entire run of his solo series. I don't gravitate toward second-stringers and 'lame' characters just for the sake of being different... they're really the ones that are the most interesting to me as a writer.

As an example, nobody hated Feral and Shatterstar more than me when I started writing Fallen Angels, but by the time I finished my run on the title, they were two of my favorite characters in the book. Half the fun of fanfic--for me anyway--is finding out why these characters aren't lame.

Warbird, however, has never been nor will ever be 'lame'. How could you think such a thing when she wears an outfit like that? :)

But since Russ and Chris got a knack for making characters you can care less for interesting, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt this time around. My final stand? Check these guys out, if for nothing else but to read Russ Anderson write Iron Man again, and to see the start of a fresh and different kind of story by Chris Munn.

Hope this issue was more to your liking, Cory. Thanks for the in-depth review!

- Russ Anderson
February 11, 2003

- Hawkeye joined the Thunderbolts as team leader in Marvel's Thunderbolts #21. He was kicked out of the team later, as detailed in M2K's Marvel Fanfare #4.

- Warbird was court-martialed and ejected from the Avengers for negligence brought on by her alcoholism in Marvel's Avengers, vol. 3 #7.

- JC Pennyworth's stint as leader of the Sons of the Serpent happened in Marvel's Defenders #23-25.

- Iron Man's battle with the Enchantress happened in M2K's Iron Man #10-13.

Story © 2003, Russ Anderson and Chris Munn. Most characters presented are property of Marvel Entertainment Group.