Friday 10 January 2014

Hot Pink Megalomania...


West Coast Avengers Annual #3 is just plain awesome man. You wanna know why? There's two reasons. The first is something my beloved West Coast Avengers series did so well throughout it's much too short existence - it took D list characters and made them great.

Seriously, go back and read that series, Roger Stern & co took every reject Avenger (Hawkeye, Hank Pym), every forgotten gem (Moon Knight) and every D list nobody (Tigra, Mockingbird) that he could scrape from the bottom the Marvel barrel and made you love them. This annual, is just more of the same baby.  Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom & the guys shine these losers up like they're your Grammy's prize silverware.

What's that? What's the other reason you ask? Oh yeah, I said there was two reasons didn't I?

Well the other reason is simple. This guy is in it:



Yup, yup, that's the High Evolutionary baby! That guy is one of the greatest Marvel super-villains of all time.

Hey! Who's that sniggering? You don't think so? Well allow me to drop some H.E. Science on you.

Name another super-villain who has all this going for them: He lives in a mountain that is also a spaceship that's also possessed by the spirit of an evil Elder God. He likes to try to conquer the world with an army of anthropomorphic sheep and goats in armour. Once he saw a Celestial being born and went cuckoo-bananas. His real name is Herbert. He's surrogate dad to Magneto's kids, Victor Frankenstein to Spider-Woman and has been best pals with the Hulk, Thor and Adam Warlock. Plus the dude rocks hot pink armour and a helmet with a handle!!

That's a resume that can't be beat. So you can take your Doctor Doom and suck it.

Anyway, in this issue H.E. spends what little time he's not straight pimping in his hot pink armour getting his ass handed to him by loser-ass super heroes:


Sure she's just Hawkeye's bit of stuff, not to mention a Sharon Carter rip-off toting Daredevil billy club rip-offs, but this scene almost made me like Mockingbird. 

Incidentally while Mockingbird is fighting for her life against His Hot Pinkness, her team-mates Tigra & Moon Knight have decided to suck face rather than mount a rescue. See what I mean people - taking those D-listers and making you love 'em.

As if that's not enough, just when The H.E. is about to pulverise Mockingbird for staving him in the hot pink chops - this guy shows up:




Oh my lord, it's Bill 'Black Goliath' Foster, the man whose only claims to fame are being the least popular shrinky/growy Marvel hero ever and being shot to death by the Mighty Clor. Damn did the barrel get one hell of a scraping for this one.

Yet, check it out. The West Coast Avengers magic combined with H.E,'s ability to get his Big Pink on makes this the most enjoyable Bill Foster appearance in the history of the Marvel Universe. In the end I was kinda rooting for the guy. Suck it Clor!!

Anyway, that's me done telling folks to suck it for today. I'll leave you now to hit up Comixology to complain about their lack of Black Goliath back issues.

Me? I'm off to read about how Master Pandemonium's arms are secretly the Vision and the Scarlet Witch's kids. That shit be crazy!!