Avengers West Coast # 52

By Mark Rodriguez

Iron Man returns to the Avengers West Coast but not everyone is happy to see him, and they're not sure if it really is Tony Stark under the armor. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch's children seem to vanish every time her mind is focused on something else, making people wonder if they ever real at all. The evil Master Pandemonium attacks the Avengers and after the fight, Wanda's children are missing once again. The heroes go into his lair and find the villain with the children fused with his arms! Now what will happen?

The issue opens as the heroes look on in horror as Pandemonium claims he is unbeatable. Wonder Man holds Wanda back since her unpredictable powers might accidentally kill her children. Pandemonium channels his hellflames through one of the children and Wonder Man jumps in the way to save Wanda. Iron Man blasts him with repulsor rays powerful enough to level a city block and it does nothing to the villain. Pandemonium explains that the children were actually parts of his souls stolen from him, and now that he has them back with Wanda's mutant powers, he is more powerful than ever. He summons an army of demons after the Avengers.

US Agent leads the Avengers into battle. Vision can turn intangible but one of the demons is still able to grab him and snaps his neck. Wonder Man decides to attack the main villain himself. He tackles him down, but the children fused with Pandemonium's arms now have a more demonic appearance and try to bit his face off.

I do wonder whatever happened to US Agent, or rather, whoever he is under the outfit. Yeah I know I can Google it but it's more fun when you guys comment about it too.

Meanwhile, the original Human Torch flies around and is caught off guard by a cat-like creature that runs past him. He decides to see what's going on as Agatha just stares into space. Torch explains to his friend Ann about how Pandemonium was a normal guy that lost his arms in a tragic car accident. Mephisto gave him back his arms but stole 5 pieces of his soul which is shown as a star shaped hole on his body.

Agatha explains that Wanda's children come from her own will to have children despite being married to Vision who is for all intents and purposes, still a robot. Even though the Scarlet Witch has amazing powers, she can't create life out of nowhere. Agatha goes back in her trance, assuring Torch that she is watching over the Avengers as well see that she's seeing the fight take place in form of a cat.

The Avengers lay defeated and the demon gloats. He has the demons bring Wanda over to him since he wants to how much more powerful he'll become if he combines the childrens' souls with hers. Hank Pym tells him that he must be lying since the children were born before Pandemonium ever met Mephisto.

Mephisto himself watches this and says that the story he told Pandemonium was another lie. Mephisto recalls how Franklin Richards, the son of Reed and Sue Richards with reality altering powers, destroyed the prince of lies himself. However, as long as their evil in the world, Mephisto will always exist and he came back but at one sixth of his power. Rather than waste his energy trying to seek the 5 remaining pieces of his power himself, he got a human to do it for him. Pandemonium was actually seeking out pieces of Mephisto's soul all along.

Back to the battle, Wanda remembers that her children were born way before the first time they ever fought with Pandemonium. Human Torch arrives with the last 2 pieces of the villain's soul. He gives them to him in exchange for letting the Avengers go.  Pandemonium places the last pieces of his souls inside his star-shaped hole and sees a piece is still missing. Suddenly the hole starts sucking Pandemonium into it, and he pops out of existence as he is sucked into himself.

With Pandemonium gone, they are in an empty space, all the demons and general surroundings are gone. Wanda asks for her children and Mephisto appears saying they are now a part of him where they belong. Just then Ebony, Agatha's cat appears and he attacks Mephisto. The rest is only mentioned by the Avengers as they look on in horror but without actually showing us the panels. Agatha speaks to Wanda telepathically and tells her that she must open her mind to her.

Suddenly Wanda and Mephisto both scream in pain at the exact time, and everyone re-appears back in their apartment in California. Agatha explains that Mephisto became linked with Wanda when he absorbed her children. She erased the memory of them from Wanda's mind and the sudden shock to Mephisto's system was enough to disperse him for the time being. Wonder Man demands to know what she means when she said she erased the children.


Agatha explains that Wanda's strong desire to have children and live a normal life created the children, but since she can't just create life, she unknowingly got two pieces of Mephisto's soul. Wasp says she'll be worried when she wakes up and asks about her children, but Agatha tells them she won't remember ever having children. US Agent says making a mother forget her children in inhuman but Agatha says it's the only way. For now Wanda needs her rest. Elsewhere, other bad guys are working on their evil plans.....


My thoughts

This was a decent read. It had a lot of decent action, most everyone (except Vision, who got Yamcha'd before he could do anything) had their chance to shine and show off their abilities, and it had interesting revelations. I'm not sure how many times the Avengers have faced Master Pandemonium but to find out that his new purpose as a villain was all a trick to serve Mephisto's purpose has to got to suck, and worse yet, he died without ever knowing he was a pawn. And yeah, it looks like he is gone for good, I see very little purpose for him to come back (if he ever did) since we know he was just a tool for Mephisto.

As for the babies actually being parts of Mephisto's soul... yikes! I would say poor Wanda but for the time being she's mindwiped of the whole affair. I'm gonna assume her somehow remembering what happened is what causes her to snap.

Back when Mephisto did demonic things before he started screwing up people's marriages

The part I found amusing was the 'fight' between Ebony and Mephisto in which all we saw was this one panel of the heroes watching in horror as they describe the events. Apparently the cat sliced Mephisto all over the place, but the demon would just heal his wounds, and then he'd grab the cat, jam his hand down his throat and turn him inside out....???? I guess it's a creative mix between the comics Authority censoring this, and also a good way to save space since the comic was basically wrapping itself up at this point. I don't know, I found it to be rather amusing. Almost like watching censored dubbed anime or something.

The comic will continue into the 'Acts of Vengeance' crossover storyline. It basically revolves around a group of several Marvel super villains including Dr. Doom, the Red Skull and the Mandarin with the idea of having the villains fight it out against heroes they don't usually go after. like sending X-Men villains after the Fantastic Four and so forth, hoping to use the confusion to their advantage. Of course this ties into Avengers West Coast because Magneto is involved.... and at least at this point in time, AXIS revelations aside, Magneto was still considered Wanda's father.