Avengers West Coast #77
Infamous Monsters of Hollywood Part 2: Hurray for Hollyweird!
At a California Penitentiary, the criminal known as Digger has escaped from his cell.[1] Fighting past the guards and getting out to the courtyard, he spots a shovel — his trademark weapon — and uses it to vault over the prison walls. Little does Digger know is that his escape was allowed so that the Avengers West Coast can track him back to the Night Shift’s hideout.
Following him from the air are Iron Man and the Living Lightning.[2] Miguel has decided to tag along even though he just recently found out that his sister was murdered in a drive-by shooting. Although Iron Man is concerned about this, the Lightning assures him that he’ll process his grief in his own way.[3]
Sure enough, Digger leads them to the Tower of Shadows, headquarters to the Night Shift. Sneaking inside, Iron Man and Living Lightning follow Digger into a room where their fellow Avengers — Hawkeye, US Agent, and Spider-Woman — are being used as sacrifices in a mystical ceremony to summon the demon known as Satannish. This scene confirms to Iron Man that there is some connection between Night Shift’s new leader the Hangman and missing actor Jason Roland. Satannish is furious that the ceremony is being interrupted but the Hangman assures his master that his group can take the souls of five Avengers as easily as three. Unfortunately for him, Iron Man and the Living Lighting are able to blast the shackles keeping Hawkeye and the others pinned to a mystic circle. Furious by this failure, Satannish tells Hangman not to summon him again until the Avengers are destroyed and vanishes.
After the demon is gone an all out brawl breaks out between the Avengers West Coast and the Night Shift. While the villains have been pushovers in the past, they are more of a challenge now that their powers have been boosted by Satannish. However, as the tide of battle begins turning against them, Dansen Macabre is ordered to get the Night Shift out of there. Using her enhanced teleportation powers she makes the whole Tower of Shadows disappear, leaving the Avengers to fall a few stories in the air. Luckily, Hawkeye is able to connect a grappling arrow to Iron Man’s armor so he, Spider-Woman, and US Agent can safely climb to the ground. With no other leads, Iron Man suspects that the Night Shift might attack the set of The Demon that Devoured Hollywood, a Jason Roland film that is currently being finished with Wonder Man playing the role of the titular monster.
At Mammoth Studios, Simon is wrapping up the shoot for the day. The director is pleased with Simon’s work saying that he is better than Roland and Wes Nelson, the actor who took over the demon role and quit the previous day. However, is soured that he’s playing a movie monster instead of a real acting role and when the lead actress, Felicia Fawn, invites him out on a lunch date, the Scarlet Witch — who has been standing guard all day — notices Simon is disinterested and tells the starlet that she and Wonder Man already agreed to go to lunch together. As they sit down to lunch on the set, they are joined by Felicia anyway and she discovers that Wanda is a big fan of her previous films. Suddenly, both Felicia and the Scarlet Witch become immobilized and Simon notices that everything around him has been frozen in time except for himself.
He’s then ambushed by the Night Shift who have returned. As it turns out, the time freeze around him has been caused by the Night Shift’s Tick Tock, whose powers over time have been greatly magnified by Satannish’s magic. With their increased powers, the Night Shift are able to overpower and kidnap Wonder Man just as Tick Tock’s time freeze is wearing off. Seeing the villains making their escape, the Scarlet Witch tries to blast them with a hex bolt, but she’s too slow and they manage to teleport away. Wanda is appalled when the director is more interested in finishing his film than Simon’s well being.
Meanwhile, Simon Williams wakes up inside the Tower of Shadows. He has been restrained by a yellow ectoplasmic goo to prevent him from escaping. The Hangman then shows Simon that he has stolen a bunch of film equipment. Removing his hood, the Hangman reveals that he is the long lost actor Jason Roland and that he kidnapped Simon so he can make his final film which will feature the Hangman and the Skeleton Crew. Roland explains that his sudden rise to stardom was because he optioned his soul to a demon in exchange for movie stardom. It was this demon who was able to create Roland’s monster make-up effects that made him famous. However, Jason tried to renege on his deal and was trapped in the form of the demon he was portraying.[4] He fled Hollywood and lived in seclusion until he was approached by the demon Satannish who offered him a second chance.
The demon restored Roland to normal just around the time that his unfinished film was going back into production. Granted new powers, Roland became the new Hangman and set out to make himself and the Night Shift movie stars. Hearing all of this, Simon tells Roland that rather than completing the Demon that Devoured Hollywood, he has a much better idea.
At that very moment, the Avengers West Coast have returned to their headquarters to compare notes on what has gone down. That’s when their maid, Consuela Sanchez, tells them to turn on the TV to channel 11. They are surprised to see that Hangman has disrupted the regular broadcast to announce that he will be working on a new film called The Night Shift Takes Hollywood, which will star the Night Shift and Wonder Man. Surprisingly, it appears as though Simon Williams is going along with this and tells the live viewing audience that this role will prove that he is worthy of being a real actor. With the crew of The Demon that Devoured Hollywood taken hostage and being forced to work on this new film, the Scarlet Witch hopes that Simon is ultimately planning on betraying the Night Shift. Iron Man hopes Williams knows what he is doing since there are many lives on the line.
Recurring Characters
Avengers West Coast (Iron Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, US Agent, Living Lightning, Spider-Woman), Satannish, Night Shift (Hangman, Brothers Grimm, Dansen Macabre, Digger, Gypsy Moth, Misfit, Needle, Tatterdemalion, Tick Tock), Consuela Sanchez
Continuity Notes
Digger has been incarcerated since he was defeated by Mockingbird back in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #40.
When discussing how Mockingbird took down Digger, Iron Man states that she is Hawkeye’s soon-to-be ex-wife. This is a premature assessment of a complicated situation:
Clint and Bobbi got married back in Hawkeye #4. It was all marital bliss until the time when the West Coast Avengers were struck going backward in time circa West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #17-24. As seen in issue #18, while in the 1800s, Bobbi was kidnapped by the Phantom Rider just as the rest of the Avengers were going backward in time.
Bobbi was forced to drink a love potion that made her loyal to the Rider. Eventually, she shook off the effects of the potion and, in a battle with her captor, did nothing to prevent him from falling off a cliff to his death, as seen in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #23. Because of Clint’s staunch belief in the Avengers rule about killing, Bobbi kept the truth of what happened a secret for months.
Things went south when the the spirit of the Phantom Rider possessed his modern day descendant and revealed the truth to the rest of the Avengers. As seen in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #34-35, Hawkeye didn’t take it very well either and this put a strain on their marriage.
From issue #37 on, Clint and Bobbi split up. However, Mockingbird came back in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #46 and convinced Clint to help her train the Great Lakes Avengers and work on their marriage. Although Clint agreed, the two could not reconcile and Clint returned to the west coast team in Avengers West Coast #60.
Although Iron Man believes their marriage is doomed to end in divorce, it will appear that Clint and Bobbi reconcile in Avengers West Coast #92. However, by that time Bobbi will have been replaced by a Skrull impostor as we’ll learn in Secret Invasion #1-8. Their marriage won’t be reconciled until many years later New Avengers: The Reunion #1-4.
The death of Miguel’s sister Amy was revealed in Avengers West Coast Annual #6. It happened while Santos was away fighting the Pacific Overlords with the Avengers in Avengers West Coast #70-74.
Jason Roland’s deal with the devil happened back in Tower of Shadows #5.
Topical References
The character Gypsy Moth has a problematic name. Specifically the term gypsy, which was a term used the Romani people. Many now consider it to be a pejorative and it is no longer part of common usage. Even the moth that was originally given that name is now referred to as the spongy moth in the scientific community. Its usage here can’t really be changed because this is what the character called herself. One could argue that the character herself gets a pass as Gypsy Moth’s alter ego is Sybil Dvorak, a person of Romani descent.
When lamenting about Wonder Man’s presumed demise, his director says he wants to make The Demon that Devoured Hollywood a final monument to Simon Williams’ acting career. He likens it to the final film roles of James Dean (who died in an auto accident 1955), Dorothy Stratton (who was murdered by her husband in 1980), and Fenton Feinberg (a made up character). These name drops wouldn’t be considered topical references as he is referring to actors who died tragically while still in their prime and achieved iconic status because of their short lives. Mind you James Dean is better remembered than Dorothy Stratton, her I had to look up.
When questioning Jason Roland’s motivations for going criminal instead of capitalizing on the publicity generated from his miraculous return he quips that he couldn’t have better PR unless he was “Julia Roberts’ good-looking sister.” This is likely in reference to Roberts’ sister Lisa Roberts. Julia Roberts was at the height of her fame at the time this story was written. These references should be considered topical.