After their conflict with The One in the previous issue, the West Coast Avengers take a beat at HQ to work through some interpersonal issues that threaten to tear the team apart — namely, Firestar’s reluctance to accept even a humanitarian and self-sacrificing iteration of Ultron onto the team.
West Coast Avengers #4 makes itself a necessary read for those enjoying the series thus far by detailing Iron Man and War Machine’s first encounter with this benevolent version of Ultron through a flashback that takes up a decent chunk of the issue.
The encounter happens when Ultron rushes in to save the day during an alien attack that, although somewhat generic and inconsequential to the greater story of the series, is saved from feeling disposable by Gerry Duggan’s great character writing.
Apart from nailing Tony’s personality and humor, Duggan understands that slapping a world-ending threat into a flashback scene with no preamble isn’t conducive to any feelings of real tension. Instead, he uses this time to highlight both the extent to which Ultron is willing to sacrifice itself — making it an easy character to like — and Tony’s mini-arc of learning to trust this once-murderous robot.
Unfortunately, it does feel like Iron Man comes to accept Ultron a little too quickly given the sheer menace the villain has proven to be in the past. We get a good understanding why, logically, the West Coast Avengers should trust the robot, but an emotional beat from Tony on the matter might’ve been nice.
Shradram The Breaker is here to destroy the world… and never be heard from again, I’ll bet. Credit: Marvel
Nevertheless, there’s some really creative work done with the artwork here as the threat of a ‘black hole bomb’ squeezes and distorts the shape of the panels. It’s a pleasing effect that works hand-in-hand with the pace of the action and makes for enjoyable reading, even if the nature of this being a flashback does rob the scene of some stakes.
The artwork by Danny Kim is generally pretty good. Action scenes and character designs both look great (especially Ultron’s spiffy new visual upgrade), but it’s hard to avoid noticing the occasional wonky perspective in his figure work. Then there’s the matter of the totally lifeless, blank backgrounds — especially at the West Coast Avengers HQ — that somewhat ruin immersion in the story.
Despite much of the issue being the Ultron-centred flashback, this is very much a Firestar story. She’s the character that prompts the flashback in the first place, and she’s very much the problem-child of the team right now. She’s belligerent, drinking on the job, and being a general stick-in-the-mud. I admire Duggan’s willingness to make the character unlikeable; hopefully it’s setting up a moment of satisfying change later on in the series.
In a way, this series is serving as a pseudo-sequel to Gerry Duggan’s recent run on the X-Men, which heavily featured Firestar. Duggan is clearly a fan of the character — she’s getting more of the spotlight through Duggan than she’s had in decades — and is using West Coast Avengers to explore the fallout that the events of his X-Men run had on her, specifically the trauma she endured at the hands of the anti-mutant group, Orchis.
Prior reading of said X-Men run isn’t necessary to understand the story, though. The roguish Blue Bolt is more perceptive than he appears, and through him we come to understand Angelica (Firestar) a little better. In fact, Blue Bolt might the character that readers will be most excited to see more of in the future after reading this issue as Duggan effectively peels back a layer of his childish personality to reveal something unexpected underneath.
West Coast Avengers #4 provides some decent action and some much-appreciated character moments that serve to underline the tensions present in this patchwork team. Uneven artwork, a lack of overall plot progression, and an absence of strong tension or stakes detract from the quality of the story, but Duggan’s affinity for Firestar serves him well, as does his confidence in handling characters like Iron Man and Blue Bolt. Fans will enjoy this issue, but most will be more interested to see what comes next.
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