Monday, March 15, 2021

READING THE CLASSICS: THE WEST COAST AVENGERS #46





 Published on July 10th, 1989

     The first comic book that I have a vivid memory of buying is The Amazing Spider-Man #361. It wasn't the first comic book I bought, but I remember it for a number of reasons. It came out on a Wednesday, but I do remember buying comics when they used to come out on Fridays. Anyway, that issue was the first full appearance of Carnage and was obviously a popular book because it was sold out when I went to Comic Universe at Bazaar (this was before the shop moved to a larger location in the building). The shop used to put some of the new books in the window to show off to passing customers and they had one of the ASM issues up there so I asked if I could get it and I could so I bought it. Glad I did, as that book on Ebay is for sale from $250 up to a few thousand bucks (it cost $1) these days, and I still own it. I was thinking of this because I was kind of wondering if I was reading comics when The West Coast Avengers' "Vision Quest" was going on. I probably wasn't yet, though I never did read any Avengers books back then for whatever reason (I remember reading all the Image books when they started in '92...and I used to read The Punisher, Darkhawk, and Sleepwalker from Marvel). I doubt I would have enjoyed The West Coast Avengers back then anyway. While this particular issue, #46, is kind of silly, a lot of it is pretty adult and soap opera-ish (Hawkeye and Mockingbird argue about their divorce in this issue). This issue also doesn't really have much to do with the "Vision Quest" storyline, either, save for the last page where Wanda gets a letter from some scientist about getting Vision's old memories back. The rest of the book has Hawkeye and Mockingbird going to Milwaukee to check out a new superhero team, The Great Lakes Avengers. I guess this new team is supposed to be so dumb it's funny. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure what the point of their existence is. The one interesting part of this issue is when Mockingbird says to Hawkeye: "I got mixed up with The Phantom Rider because he drugged me, used me, and when you found out, did you react like a husband whose wife has been assaulted? No!!" I wonder when that happened? Also it's noted that The Phantom Rider jumped to his death. Sounds like it was an interesting issue. More interesting than this one. **

No comments:

Post a Comment