Avengers West Coast #60
Personal Magnetism
Dallas, Texas: November 22, 1963
History is in the making as President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade is driving down Dealy Plaza. Across the way in the local book depository, Lee Harvey Oswald has the President in the scope of his Carcano bolt-action rifle.
However, things would turn out differently this time. Before Oswald can pull the trigger, the authorities ambush Oswald, and he is shot in the back of the head by an FBI agent.
Despite their efforts to stop the President assassination, they hear shots ringing out. These ones coming from the grassy knoll on the other side of the plaza. JFK is struck by the bullets and the motorcade speeds off.
Witnessing all of this from the street is Immortus. He is amused that in this reality, there was a second shooter and this world will know it to be true. However, they won’t know it for very long as this is yet another alternate reality that needs to be pruned from the multiverse.[1] It is erased from existence as Immortus returns to his domain in Limbo. He then turns his eyes to his monitors so he can watch events unfolding in the prime reality. Observing the Avengers West Coast in action, he is pleased that his end game is now at hand.
Now
The Avengers West Coast have been dispatched to shore up the Point Vincent Lighthouse in Palos Verde. The structure had been compromised in a recent earthquake, and the team is now racing to prevent it from toppling on nearby tourists.[2] While Wonder Man, Iron Man, and Hank Pym work to stabilize the structure, the Wasp, Hawkeye, and US Agent deal with falling debris and getting people to safety. When the danger is over, the Wasp asks Hawkeye what has brought him back west. He explains that he got bored training the Great Lakes Avengers and decided to come back to the west coast team because he feels that this is where he belongs.[3][4] As repairs are being made on the lighthouse, Hawkeye makes a quip about how Tony Stark is going to pick up the tab, and alludes to the fact that Iron Man is Stark. The Wasp quickly hushes him, reminding Clint that they aren’t sure if Tony is still wearing the armor after there were reports that the original “Iron Man” died. More over, she reminds him that US Agent doesn’t know Iron Man’s secret identity.[5]
With the lighthouse temporarily stabilized, US Agent warns the tourists to stay away until full repairs can be done and the team head back to base. Along the way, Wonder Man expresses his growing concern over the Scarlet Witch, who has gone bad and joined up with Magneto.[6] Hank agrees, and fears what Wanda will do with her unchecked power, noting that she has been pushed over the edge by all the tragedy she has suffered recently.[7] That when the Wasp asks what Quicksilver’s role is in the revival of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Certain that Magneto cannot be listening in on their conversation, he decides to tell her what happened when Quicksilver appeared in his lab.[8]
At that moment, on Asteroid M, Magneto and the Scarlet Witch explain their plan for an upcoming war with humanity. Magneto intends to use Wanda’s hex powers to alter weather patterns on Earth to cause massive natural disasters. When Magneto reaches for the button to trigger this global catastrophe, Quicksilver tries to stop him. As it turns out, Pietro was only pretending to want to rejoin the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in an effort to protect his sister and thwart Magneto’s made schemes. Pietro quickly ties up Magneto with an electrical cable and tries to reason with Wanda. However, she refuses to listen to him and uses her hex power to cause the floor under his feet to buckle, sending the speedster falling a few floors down and injuring his ankle. When Magneto and the Scarlet Witch go down to confront him again, he reveals that he has had Lockjaw — the Inhuman’s teleporting dog, shrunken down by Pym Particles — hiding in his pocket this entire time. Lockjaw then resumes his normal size and teleports them all onto a movie set on Earth where the Avengers West Coast are waiting for them.
When Magneto begins engaging the Avengers in battle, he orders his daughter to attack her former teammates. When the Wasp is knocked to the ground, Wanda is about to step on her when a voice telepathically orders her to stop and she suddenly becomes immobilized. Seeing what happened to the Scarlet Witch, Magneto tries to pull her away with his magnetic powers, but some kind of force field prevents him from doing so. With the battle tipped against him, the Master of Magnetism tries to flee the scene, but the Avengers follow after him. The chase leads them to a nearby refinery where Iron Man tackles Magneto, knocking both into a smokestack which promptly explodes moments later. When only Iron Man emerges from the wreckage they briefly wonder if Magneto died in the blast before dismissing the idea outright.[8]
With the battle over, the Avengers are able to get the Scarlet Witch back to the compound thanks to Lockjaw’s teleportation powers. Otherwise, they cannot penetrate the strange force field that has immobilizes Quicksilver’s sister. When they try to reach out to Wanda, their hands disappear before they can touch her. That’s when Immortus appears before the Avengers and reveals that he is responsible for Wanda’s current condition.[9] He reveals that the Avengers have been his pawns this entire time and that he will make the Scarlet Witch his queen!
Recurring Characters
Avengers West Coast (Iron Man, Hank Pym, Wasp, Wonder Man, US Agent), Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Immortus, Lockjaw
Continuity Notes
Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3, this alternate timeline has been designated Reality-9007. Does the Earth-616 universe have its own JFK conspiracy theories? It’s ambiguous, in case you’re wondering. Marvel: The Lost Generation #4 states that it was Lee Harvey Oswald who killed JFK in universe. However, there have been other possibilities alluded to:
Wolverine (vol. 2) #49: In a flashback set a few days after the JFK assassination, Sabretooth makes some cryptic statements about how he might have been involved.
Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #18: General John Ryker hinted at being connected to the JFK assassination. However, as Ryker is a character rooted in the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe, these references are now topical.
Lastly, we got Moon Knight (vol. 4) #2: In this story, it is suggested that Lee Harvey Oswald was subject to mind control experiments conducted by the CIA. Probably some MK-Ultra level shit.
This earthquake was caused by Vibro in issue #58. He burrowed into the fault line and created an 8.2 magnitude quake to teach Los Angeles a painful lesson about building codes.
Angry at being supplanted by US Agent in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #45, he and his estranged wife discovered and decided to help train the unauthorized Great Lakes Avengers in the following issue.
Janet is also happy to see US Agent back on his feet again. The Agent was injured during their battle with Magneto back in Avengers West Coast #57.
At the time of this story, Iron Man had recently gone on a mission to neutralize a bunch of Iron Man tech that was stolen from his company, including that used by the American government. This made Iron Man a fugitive, forcing Tony — whose double identity is still secret at the time of this story — to fake Iron Man’s death. He then tricked the public into thinking that he hired someone new to wear the armor. This all happened in Iron Man #225-232. Stark has also been trying to maintain this ruse among his fellow Avengers, and doing a piss poor job about about it. He’ll drop all pretenses in Avengers West Coast #72.
Iron Man notes that Simon has come a long way since the days that he blamed Tony Stark for the failure of his business. Before becoming Wonder Man, Simon Williams was caught in an embezzlement scandal. With his business failing, he blamed Tony Stark for being too tough to compete with. It was this hatred that led to Williams agreeing to be experimented upon by Baron Zemo. See Avengers #9 for that classic tale.
There is a fucking lot going on with the Scarlet Witch in this story. I might as well get it all out of the way here:
First of all, she and her brother Quicksilver are referred to as mutants. Years later this will be revealed to be false. As it turns out, the High Evolutionary kidnapped the twins as infants and experimented upon them. In order to cover up his work, he made it so they would always register as mutants. See Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5.
They are also referred to as Magneto’s children in this story. Everyone was led to believe this in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4. However, this was likely another falsehood perpetuated by the High Evolutionary to sell the story that they were mutants. It’s later revealed that their biological mother was Natalya Maximoff in Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3. As of this writing (September, 2022) their biological father is still unknown.
More recently, the Scarlet Witch had witnessed her husband, the android known as Vision, get disassembled by the government. Although he was put back together, he no longer had an capacity for emotion, as seen in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-45.
Not long after this, Wanda’s children were revealed to be nothing more than a product of her imagination and were wiped from existence, as seen in Avengers West Coast #51-52. The Vision abandoned her for the east coast team in Avengers #312 shortly thereafter.
Wanda was later kidnapped by her “father”, Magneto, in Avengers #313 who converted her over to the dark side. She attacked her fellow Avengers in Avengers West Coast #56-57. When they team tried to rescue her from Asteroid M, Magneto sent them back to Earth before they could succeed.
They aren’t wrong as Magneto will turn up alive again in Uncanny X-Men #269.
Hank, notes that this is the first time Quicksilver has encountered Immorts, saying most the the rest of the team has encountered the time master in the past. Immortus has had a long history interacting with the Avengers as seen in Avengers #10, 129-135, Giant-Size Avengers #2-4, Avengers #141-143, Thor #281-282, and Avengers #267-269. His current scheme which started in Avenges West Coast #48 and ending in issue #62 is to use Wanda’s hex powers to master all of time. All of these plots are part of a grander scheme to manipulate the destiny of the Avengers, as will be detailed in Avengers Forever #1-12.
Topical References
When the Avengers West Coast are saving the Point Vincent Lighthouse, Wonder Man states that it has been standing for more than 60 years. The lighthouse was originally constructed in 1926. Statements to how old the structure is in this story should be considered topical as they are relative to the date of publication.
