Avengers West Coast #78
Infamous Monster of Hollywood Part 3: There’s No Business Like…
The Night Shift have kidnapped Wonder Man and the production crew of The Demon that Devoured Hollywood so that their leader, the Hangman, can make a movie of his own. Titled The Night Shift Takes Hollywood, Wonder Man is forced to play the starring role in order to keep the rest of the crew safe. While shooting on a set mocked up to look like the Hollywood Hills, Simon is hung by the Hangman’s noose and then pummeled by the rest of the Night Shift. The villains don’t pull their punches but even though the experience is painful, Williams is able to withstand the torment.
After calling cut, the Handman — formerly the actor Jason Roland — boasts that this film will be his crowning achievement. That’s when the Night Shift’s Misfit tries to get touchey-feely with one of the female crew. This is not welcomed attention and she tells Misfit to keep his hands to himself. Wonder Man then steps in and the two almost come to blows. Hangman breaks it up and decides to call it quits for the day so he can go over the daily’s and orders the set to be struck so they can set up for the next scene. Simon reminds himself to keep his cool as he is in a stalemate with the Night Shift. They know that he will betray them at the first opportunity but he still has to bide his time in order to make sure none of the kidnapped film crew gets hurt.
Meanwhile, the Avengers West Coast are organizing a search for Wonder Man and the Night Crew. This leads to another argument between Hawkeye and US Agent over how they will go about this mission.[1] Iron Man has to pull rank, but the US Agent decides to go off on his own anyway, saying that he has his own ideas on how to handle this situation.[2] That’s when Mockingbird arrives from Detroit. Although she came hoping to reconcile her marriage to Hawkeye, she has heard about the Night Shift’s return and wants to help. Clint introduces Bobbi to Spider-Woman and learning how Clint helped Julia follow a lead on the Night Shift case, Mockingbird throws shade at her husband for lying about helping a male Avenger when they last talked over the phone. Spider-Woman is glad Mockingbird has come since she has to step away to check on her daughter, Rachel. The Avengers then split up to go looking for the Night Shift. Hawkeye takes the Scarlet Witch on a sky-cycle with Mockingbird following on her own.
After they are gone, both Living Lightning and Iron Man commend Spider-Woman for playing it cool around Hawkeye’s wife. As it turns out, Julia has been completely oblivious to the fact that Clint has been hitting on her ever since she joined up with the team. When the pair leave, Julia goes back into the compound to change out of her costume. The talk about Hawkeye gets her thinking about maybe dating again, something she hasn’t really thought about since getting divorced from her husband, Larry.[3] That’s when she gets a call from Stella Houston, the former girlfriend of Jason Roland — aka Hangman — she has something important she needs to talk to Spider-Woman about. Realizing that she can’t abandon Stella, Julia calls her ex-husband Larry and tells him that something came up. Since she has to keep her double-identity a secret, Larry gets upset that Julia is cancelling on Rachel again, once more accusing his ex-wife of shirking her duty as a parent. This is a deeply upsetting to Julia who hopes her daughter can understand now that she knows that her mother is secretly Spider-Woman.[4]
Meanwhile, US Agent is putting his own plan into action. He has offered up his services to take on the roll of the titular monster in the unfinished film The Demon that Devoured Hollywood. Sure enough, the news that US Agent is taking over the role from Wonder Man generates a lot of buzz in Hollywood making it a big story in the media. Sure enough when the news reaches the Hangman he is furious to learn that Mammoth Studios is still trying to finish his last film. Wonder Man reminds Hangman to stay focused on their own film project. This reasoning mostly gets through to the Hangman who decides that their next move is to kidnap the director working in The Demon and force him to work on their film instead.
At that same time, Iron Man has flown to New York City and seeks an audience with Doctor Strange at the sorcerer’s Sanctum Sanctorum. Unfortunately, Strange’s servant Wong informs Iron Man that his master is busy. Having no time to waste, Iron Man barges into the Doctor’s study, interrupting a spell. This causes six wraiths to run wild in the chamber until Doctor Strange is able to wrangle them back to their dimension of origin. Iron Man quickly explains that he has come for assistance in dealing with the Night Shift’s magically enhanced powers, saying that it is the work of the demon Satannish. Strange agrees that this is a serious matter indeed, but cannot commit himself to help the Avengers West Coast until he has finished examining the origins of the spirits that he found.[5] He tells Iron Man that he will return once he is finished and leaps into a dimensional portal. Iron Man is flustered by all of this and when he asks Wong to explain what’s going on, he is ordered to leave instead.
Back out west, the Demon crew have traveled to Mount Lee so they can do their next set of shoots near the Hollywood sign. There, the director of the film speaks to the media about the progress of finishing the film and Wonder Man recent departure from the film to work on a movie with the Night Shift. He presumes that the Hangman and his goons have somehow brainwashed Simon Williams. The shoot is then interrupted when Wonder Man suddenly appears suspended over the Hollywood sign with the Hangman’s noose around his neck. That’s when the Night Shift arrive on the scene, prompting US Agent to strip off his monster costume to fight. This sudden appearance appears live on television and is seen by the other Avengers who begin mobilizing to help their friends.
Meanwhile, US Agent is overpowered by Hangman and his cronies. Hangman then challenges the Avengers to a battle to the death vowing to kill both Wonder Man and US Agent if the heroes don’t show as soon as possible.
Recurring Characters
Avengers West Coast (Iron Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, US Agent, Living Lightning, Spider-Woman), Mockingbird, Doctor Strange, Night Shift (Hangman, Brothers Grimm, Dansen Macabre, Digger, Gypsy Moth, Misfit, Needle, Tatterdemalion, Tick Tock), Wong, Rachel Carpenter, Larry Carpenter, Stella Houston
Continuity Notes
When Hawkeye threatens to have US Agent kicked off the team, the Agent mocks Clint over potential candidates, making a point to mention the archer’s estranged wife Mockingbird. This is a very 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.
Here, Hawkeye refers to US Agent as “Jack Daniels”, this isn’t the Agents real name, which is John Walker. See, after John’s failed stint as Captain America (which ran from Captain America #333-350) his secret identity had been exposed. After Steve Rogers reclaimed the role of Captain America, the government still had a use for Walker and faked his death. They then set him up as the US Agent under the Jack Daniels alias, even brainwashing him into thinking that was his real name in Captain America #354. Although Walker’s true memories were restored in Captain America #380-382, he still uses the Jack Daniels name.
Spider-Woman was revealed to be divorced in Iron Man #214. Since then she has had issues with her husband over joint custody due to her double identity. Since her activities as Spider-Woman have to be kept secret Larry has often accused Julia of not being there for their daughter Rachel.
Julia revealed her secret identity to Rachel in Avengers West Coast #75.
These strange spirits turn out to be the souls of the Night Shift which were forfeited to Satannish in exchange for their power boosts. This will be explained next issue.
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 shooting a scene, Hangman refers to the Night Shift as “Munster rejects”. This is in reference to The Munsters a sitcom about a family of monsters that ran from 1964 to 1966. While the series has experienced a few revivals including a recent film by Rob Zombie in 2022, its reference here should be considered topical.
When squabbling over who would replace the US Agent on the team if he is kicked off, Hawkeye quips that they could sign on Mighty Mouse if they wanted to. Mighty Mouse was an anthropomorphic mouse superhero that first appeared in short cartoons produced by 20th Century Fox back in 1944. Think Mickey Mouse meets Superman. This reference should be considered topical as well.
The televisions in this story are depicted as CRT style models. This should be considered topical as this is an obsolete technology.
When suggesting that Wonder Man has been brainwashed by the Night Shift, he likens the situation to what happened to Patty Hearst. Hearst was the grandaughter of publishing magnate William Rudolf Hearst. In 1974 she was kidnapped and indoctrinated by the Symbionese Liberation Army and committed various crimes on their behest before being arrested. During her trail, one of her defenses was that she was brainwashed into becoming loyal to the SLA. Despite there being strong evidence of this she was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to 35 years in prison. However, she was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. When Hurst is mentioned the reporter doesn’t know who she is, prompting the director to tell her that Patty Hurst was “before your time.” Since this is referring to a historical event its reference here would not necessarily be considered topical.