Avengers West Coast #62
The Witching Hour
Immortus has kidnapped the Scarlet Witch for some nefarious purpose and absconded with her and the Avengers West Coast to his domain in Limbo. After fending off the latest incarnation of the Legion of the Unliving, the Avengers demand to know what the time master is up to this time.
Immortus reveals that the Scarlet Witch is a Nexus Being, an individual of unimaginable power that is unique to the multiverse and by harnessing her power he can reshape all of time to suit his whims.[1] He also reveals that he was the architect behind Wanda’s many tragedies of late in order to push her to reach the full potential of her powers, namely the disassembly of the Vision and the destruction of Wanda’s twin children. Quicksilver and Wonder Man find this ghoulish, but Immortus is unphased pointing out that the Vision was merely an android and the children were not real.[2] By this point, Quicksilver had heard enough and tries to charge at Immortus, but a force field blocks his path. The other Avengers soon join him in trying to shatter the barrier, prompting Immortus to summon his minion Tempus, a massive crystalline entity that is the embodiment of time itself. When Tempus grabs hold of Wonder Man, the hero begins to rapidly age until he is a withered old man.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the witch known as Agatha Harkness has compelled an astral projection of Immortus to reveal his master plan to her. Needing to stop him before it is too late, the old crone tries to figure out a way to get to Limbo. Since Lockjaw — the Inhuman’s teleporting dog — is unable to send her there, he instead sends her astral projection there even though she can only remain a casual observer in this form.
She arrives as the Avengers battle with Tempus continues on. Having tossed Wonder Man aside, Tempus is soon swarmed by the heroes. Annoyed by their attacks, Tempus unleashes a powerful timestorm that makes each Avenger relive tragic moments from their past lives. For Quicksilver, he witnesses the time that he and his sister were chased by villagers who feared their powers,[3] while Hawkeye relives the moment when he discovered his mentor, the Swordsman, was a thief.[4] Hank Pym is forced to relive the time he learned that his first wife, Maria Trovaya was murdered.[5] Wonder Man experiences the moment that he seemingly died shortly after gaining his powers.[6] For Tony Stark, it was getting caught in the explosion that imbedded shrapnel into his heart that led to his becoming Iron Man in the first place.[7] US Agent, meanwhile, is forced to relive the moment that his parents were gunned down by the homegrown terrorists known as the Watchdogs.[8] Lastly, the Wasp re-experiences the moment that her father was murdered by the Creature from Kosmos, just prior to her becoming the Wasp.[9]
Witnessing these torments herself, Agatha Harkness can’t do anything to help the Avengers. Instead, she turns her attention toward the Scarlet Witch who is still trapped in a catatonic state by Immortus. She establishes telepathic contact with Wanda and tries to snap her out of her trance. When images of the Vision and her children registers a minor response, she points out to Wanda that if she does not act, Immortus will kill her fellow Avengers. She pleads with Wanda to wake up but her efforts are soon detected by Immortus. Finally seeing Agatha’s astral form, Immortus banishes her from Limbo. However, he does so too late as Agatha finally got through to the Scarlet Witch and she is now awake.
Finally free, the Scarlet Witch unleashes the full force of her power. This impacts the nightmares that the Avengers are being forced to relive. Her hex powers then creates new divergent timelines where things went differently: In one timeline, Wanda and Pietro are captured by the villagers and burned at the stake. In another, Hawkeye catches the Swordsman stealing from the box office and convinces him to stop. In the next, Wonder Man’s body flares up with deadly radiation at the moment of death, killing all the Avengers present except for Thor. In yet another, Tony Stark dies from the shrapnel in his heart and Iron Man will never come to be. In the next, Janet Van Dyne is also killed by the Creature from Kosmos. In Hank Pym’s alternate reality, Maria impossibly comes back to life in the morgue. While in another reality, US Agents parents are saved from the bullets that would have killed them by ducking behind a wooden crate.[10]
Immortus is horrified that these new realities have been created, undoing all the work he has done pruning the multiverse of divergent timelines.[11] As Wanda is creating these new divergencies she also feels her newly acquired nexus powers draining away from her. Hearing Immortus speak of a comic cosmic calamity she tries to drawn back these draining energies, but she is told to stop by the Time-Keepers, the entities that first enlisted Immortus to guard 7 centuries of history.[12] They reveal that they were the ones guiding Immortus to seek out the Scarlet Witch, so that they could use her abilities as a Nexus Being to ensure certain outcomes in all timelines came to be in order to preserve order in the multiverse. However, Immortus overstep his boundaries by trying to usurp Wanda’s powers to master all of time, instead of safeguarding the 7 centuries he was charged with protecting.
Getting annoyed by all of these manipulations, both Hawkeye and US Agent try attacking the Time-Keepers. Amused, they slow time around Clint’s arrow and John’s Shield so that it will take the projectiles centuries to reach them. They then decide to mete out punishment for Immortus for his crimes. They force him to absorb the nexus power that the Scarlet Witch disbursed transforming him into a Nexus Being himself and render him immobilized much like he had done to Wanda earlier. While the other Avengers think that this is a just punishment, Wanda can’t help but feel sorry for Immortus, noting that despite his intentions he had an air of nobility about him. With the matter settled, the Time-Keepers send the Avengers back to their proper time and place.
There, Agatha Harkness congratulates the Avengers for defeating Immortus. While most of the team rejoice, Hawkeye falls asleep on the couch. While the others don’t have a care in the world, Hank Pym’s mind is on other unresolved matters: namely finding Tigra and restoring the Human Torch.[13][14] However, given the epic battle they just endured, he figures that it can wait until tomorrow.
Recurring Characters
Avengers West Coast (Iron Man, Hank Pym, Wasp, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, US Agent), Quicksilver, Agatha Harkness, Immortus, Tempus, Lockjaw, Ebony, “Time-Keepers” (“Vorth”, “Ast”, “Zanth”),
Continuity Notes
This story refers to both the Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver as mutants. However, it’s discovered years later that this is not the case. As explained in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5, the pair were kidnapped as children and experimented upon by the High Evolutionary. In order to cover up his work, he made it so future genetic testing would have them register as mutants. As a master of time, Immortus should know this, so I’m assuming that he’s maintaining the ruse set out by the High Evolutionary for his own game since manipulating the Avengers is kind of his shtick.
While Immortus claims ownership to these two tragedies, he is more involved in at least one of them than he lets on. The details:
The first was the deconstruction of the Vision, as seen in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-45. In that story, the Vision was disassembled by a government agency. When the Avengers rebuilt him, he was bereft of his emotional capacity effectively ending his romance with the Scarlet Witch. Also at the time, they were told that the Vision wasn’t really constructed out of the body of the Human Torch as they had long believed. As it turns out, this “revelation” about the Vision’s origins was later revealed to be a grand manipulation created by Immortus to further manipulate the Avengers. In reality, he created a chronal duplicate of the Torch and sent them on two different paths. One was rebuilt into the Vision, while the other was buried and recovered years later to sell the lie that they were two different beings. See Avengers #134-135, Avengers West Coast #50, and Avengers Forever #8.
Wanda’s children were born of magic when Wanda used her hex powers to make herself pregnant in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3. She later gave birth to Tommy and Billy in issue #12 of that series. The children were revealed to be figments of her imagination and destroyed in Avengers West Coast #51-52. However, this won’t be the end of the children, they will later go on to be reincarnated, as explained in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6.
When they were much young, Wanda’s powers accidentally went off setting a village aflame, prompting the villagers to run them out of town. They were rescued by Magneto who recruited them into his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. This was originally told in X-Men #4.
As a teenager, Clint Barton ran away from home and joined the circus. There her was mentored by the Swordsman who trained him. Clint was let down when he discovered that his mentor was stealing from the box office. This betrayal was first told in Avengers #19.
The tragic death of Hank Pym’s first wife was originally told in Tales to Astonish #44.
When Wonder Man first got his powers circa Avengers #9, he was told that they would eventually kill him if he did not get an antidote in time. He was used as a mole to get into and betray the Avengers for Baron Zemo, but he ultimately turned against his master and seemingly died as a result. In reality, he actually entered a death-like state as his body was transformed into pure ionic energy. He would later return to live in Avengers #151. See issue #164 for the explanation on how that was possible.
Tony Stark was caught in an explosion in Tales of Suspense #39, the resulting injuries led to his becoming Iron Man for the first time.
During the period in which John Walker took over as Captain America (circa Captain America #333-350), two of his former allies — Left-Winger and Right-Winger — exposed his true identity on national television in Captain America #341. As a result, the Watchdogs kidnapped and murdered John’s parents, as seen in issue #345 of that series.
Janet’s father, Vernon was killed by the Creature from Kosmos when he accidentally brought the monster to Earth with his latest invention. This was also originally told in Tales to Astonish #44.
All of these divergent timelines have been indexed in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2 and 3. They are Realities 909 (Wanda and Pietro die), 9090 (Clint convinces Swordsman to repent), 9091 (Tony Stark dies), 9092 (Wonder Man kills the Avengers), 9093 (Janet is killed by the Creature from Kosmos), 9094 (Maria Trovaya survives), and 9095 (US Agents parents survive).
Immortus has been pruning the multiverse since Avengers West Coast #53.
Immortus explained his connection to the Time-Keepers last issue, and that reliationship is expanded further in Avengers Forever #8. However, these are not the real Time-Keepers, but instead their evil counterparts the Time Twisters as explained in What If? (vol. 2) #35-39. See, the Time-Keeper and Time Twisters are constantly at war with one another to make sure that they are the last beings to live at the end of time. As they struggle for dominance sometimes the Keepers are replaced with the Twisters and vice versa. At the time of this story, the Time Twisters were in dominance and are posing as the Time-Keepers and are manipulating Immortus to do their bidding to maintain their dominance. Also check out Thor #282 for more on the Time-Keepers.
At the time of this story, Tigra had gone feral starting in Avengers West Coast (vol. 2) #42. Attacking Hank, he was forced to shrink her down in size in order to contain her in issue #49. She later broke out in issue #52. Hank discovered that she had escaped in issue #56. Tigra will ultimately be found by Agatha Harkness who will restore her humanity in Avengers Spotlight #38.
The Human Torch was shut down by Wanda’s hex powers in Avengers West Coast #57. He will eventually be reactivated next issue.
Topical References
When describing the time when Hank Pym’s first wife was killed, the narration states that this happened “behind the Iron Curtain”, suggesting that the Cold War was still on going at the time of that flashback. This should be considered a topical reference as it is relative to the date the original story was published. Modern retellings of Hank Pym’s origins will later remove all references to the Cold War (since it ended in 1991) and instead states that Maria was murdered by her father’s political enemies.
