Aright! I’m back again! Yeah, I have nothing better to do. Sad really.
This week’s book is a true dumpster book, namely
Force Works No #1 from Marvel. Actually, I’m also gonna touch on
West Coast Avengers #102 while I’m here. I picked up FW #1 and 2 along with #4-10 and AWC #102 all out of the same quarter box at WW Chicago this year, and the only reason I got them at all was I figured “how could ten books for $2.50 be a waste of money?” Yeah, I was wrong. I managed to read through issue six of FW, but I’ve given up the ghost. I never did find issue three, but I don’t seem to have missed anything, so I guess it didn’t matter.
Of course, I have to give a little personal back story first. When I was growing up, the Roger Stern/John Buscema/Tom Palmer run on Avengers was in full swing, and I was in fanboy heaven. Still one of my favorite runs of all time. Marvel, looking for a quick buck, spun off a second Avengers series, West Coast Avengers. It started with a Hawkeye mini-series, written and laid-out by Mark Gruenwald and was followed up shortly thereafter with A WCA mini-series by Roger Stern and (I think) Bob Hall.
Digression time again: I bought the original Hawkeye mini off the rack at the local candy-store and automatically fell in love with the character. It was one of the earliest comics I bought for myself and I’ve gone through two copies of the original issues and a trade paperback (which I even got signed by Mark Gruenwald at a Chicago Comicon years and years ago. It remains one of my favorites in my collection.) The Hawkeye mini did so well, they decided to do a second mini which morphed into WCA when it was decided to tie it into the current “Vision takes over the world” story-line that was running in the main Avengers book. This was also seen as a trial to see if the market could support a second Avengers book, which is, of course, what happened shortly afterwards. I really, really enjoyed the ongoing book when Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom started it up also, even though I skipped its companion book, the second, 12 issue Vision/Scarlet Witch mini-series. Englehart had a time traveling story that ran through the book for about a year, and I’ve always been a sucker for that stuff. Looking back on the series though, it probably wasn’t anywhere near as good as I seem to think it was, but still, I was happy. I stayed with the book until about halfway through the John Byrne run (about the time they switched the title to Avengers: West Coast) and dropped it after what John Byrne did to Vision. I hadn’t kept up with what was going on in AWC or the main book for years. West Coast Avengers (or Avengers: West Coast) had a pretty healthy run of 102 issues, then in the mid-nineties was cancelled and started over again with a new number one to attract more readers. Instead of calling it Volume two though, they decided to rename it Force Works and give the team an international focus.
At the time, Marvel had spread itself thin. Really thin. Just about any character that had ever appeared for more than one panel in a Marvel comic book had their own series. Those that actually did appear for only one panel had to settle for one-shots. Bob Harras was writing the main Avengers book and in an attempt to emulate the success of Jim Lee’s X-men, had them all wearing leather jackets so they would all “look cool.” Look through any quarterbox at any shop and you’ll find tons of books from this period. Clunkers like
Fantastic Force,
War Machine and the entire Marvel UK line. It was probably the lowest point, creatively at least, for Marvel since their inception (and not to just keep dumping on Marvel, DC was just as bad during this period, but that’s a discussion better left for another time.)
The whole Force Works concept kicks off in the final issue of AWC when Black Widow (I think it’s Black Widow, because they never actually identify her and the art is so terrible that you can’t really tell), acting in her position as Chairperson of The Avengers calls both teams together for a pow-wow. Apparently, the AWC compound had been recently destroyed (I don’t know how or why, but I’m sure it had something to do with their anniversary issue which would have been two months prior.) And Black Widow and Captain America decided that maybe it was time that the west coast team was shut down, with the current members being allowed to petition for membership in the main team when an opening became available. This was precipitated by the “Operation: Galactic Storm” crossover which had sucked up all the Avengers ancillary titles a few months before. All I remember about the crossover was that it was supposed to be really big and important and that it had something to do with the Kree/Skrull war. Apparently something happened between the two main teams that showed that they had different ideologies about “avenging” that could not be reconciled. Apparently, somebody on the west coast team decided to kill the Supreme Intelligence instead of letting it live to terrorize again and this got under Captain America’s skin (I think it was Iron Man, but I’m really too scared to go back and look at AWC #102 again because my psyche hasn’t healed yet from last time I read it. At the end of the AWC #102, all the west coast team members tell Cap and Widow to go take a flying fuck and move out on their own, Which finally brings us to…
Force Works #1!!! That’s a hell of a lot of build-up for such a piece of crap. The book was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, drawn by Tom Tenney and Rey Garcia and edited by Nel Yomtov, so I guess you can blame him for this pile of tripe. The team remains pretty much the same from WCA, with Scarlet Witch, The Captain, Iron Man, Wonder Man and Spider-Woman (the one with the black costume.) They also introduce a new character called Century, who’s supposed to be some kind of mysterious other dimensional freak. Plus, one of the Recorders shows up for some reason or another and hangs out, but I have no idea why. I think it’s supposed to be an evil Recorder, but I didn’t really care. Of course, since this was the early nineties, the book had to have a cover enhancement, which was some kind of foldout cover, but since the glue is so old on the copy I’ve got, I can’t get it open without tearing the hell out of the cover. Actually, I don’t know what I’m so worried about. Okay, I just tore it open. It’s some kind of crappy fold-out picture. Big whup.
Anyway, time to get the story. I’m not really sure what was going on. The team decided to reform with a new, global focus, handling the things that The Avengers can’t handle because of politics. In typical Marvel style of the day, they would strike before being struck. Whatever. Iron Man wanted to keep the group together so he brought them to this abandoned research facility called “The Works” that he just happened to have lying around. I’ll let Iron Man describe it to you himself: “The building state-of-the-art. It has integral defenses and sensors, self-repair systems, self-sufficiency options, almost anything imaginable. I call it a smart building.” Pretty convient. Plus it has holographic computer system that manifests itself as a humanoid “Piezo-Electrical Logistic Analytic Tactical Operator” or PLATO. Somebody’s been watching too much Star Trek. After another brief argument with Black Widow and Vision, their first mission starts right away when a space ship full of Kree soldiers shows up, dragging along the aforementioned Recorder. During the ensuing battle, Wonder Man dies (“Anything can and will happen!”) and a new character called Century pops up out of nowhere to save the day. Unfortunately, he has now idea who he is or where he came from. Besides The Captain getting a new uniform that shoots crap from his wrist, that’s pretty much it for the first issue. Not much there.
I can’t remember ever really enjoying anything written by “DnA” except for an issue of
Resurection Man that I once read. I’ve got their run on
Legion, but that’s only because I didn’t want to break my run of the book. It wasn’t too bad, but this was really terrible. As bad as the story was, the art was even worse. Back when this was published, Marvel was putting out over sixty books a month, and would hire anybody who owned a pencil. Thankfully, he only stuck around for a couple of issues. I have no idea whatever happened to him and could honestly care less. The best way I could describe the art style is Jim Lee trying to imitate Travis Charest and Rob Liefeld. Lots of people grimacing. I think all the characters were constipated or something. Maybe The Works cafeteria served some nasty food.
The costumes and design works on this book were terrible. The Captain’s new uniform is a Rob Liefeld reject, and they have Scarlet Witch running around in some kind of one piece bikini that looks absolutely ridiculous. Tenney’s grasp of anatomy is tenuous at best, with the veins on all the male characters actually visable on the outside of uniform. I don’t mean bulging veins, but what appears to be the whole circulatory system.
After reading these issues, even though they were only a quarter, I still feel ripped off. This period was a low point across the board for Marvel, which was pretty much validated by looking at some of the other books listed in the Bullpen Bulletins for that month (July ’94.)
Darkhawk (a regular issue and an annual!),
Midnight Sons (ashcan! Ooooh pretty!),
Namor and
Ren and Stimpy. The subscription page features even more winners! The whole 2099 line, two Barbie books,
Guardians of the Galaxy,
Silver Sable,
Thunderstrike,
War Machine,
Nova,
Sabertooth Classics,
Night Thrasher and
Nightwatch,
Secret Defenders and
Hellstrom. This list goes on and on, but you get the gist. I counted sixty-six separate titles that they offered subscriptions for, and that doesn’t even include mini-series and one-shots. It looks like things were a little out of control at the time.
Actually, writing this post has been pretty painful. This is something I should just put behind me with hopes that it never comes up again…
