Avengers West Coast #88
The Second Cold War
While investigating a radar site in Northern Canada the Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, US Agent, and Wolverine have discovered that it has been taken over by a Russian terrorist group called the Bagatyri. They are attempting to activate a device that will turn all of North America into an uninhabitable iceberg in the hopes it will create a new Cold War and restore the former Soviet Union. Bagatryri’s leader Doctor Vladimir Volkh orders his teamates — Svygator, Mikula, and Morning Star — to eliminate the intruders.
At first, the battle is working in the heroes favor as the Scarlet Witch’s hex powers short out Mikula’s telepathy. However, Volkh quickly realizes that she is a bigger threat to them than the others and knocks her out.[1] This distracts Wonder Man, who is struggling to keep his temper in check.[2] This allows Morning Star to blast him at full power, but Simon shrugs it off and knocks her out. Fearing he seriously hurt his opponent, Wonder Man checks to see if she is ok, but it turns out she was only playing possum and blasts him in the face. The beams of energy cleave through Simon’s head, seemingly killing him.
Meanwhile, US Agent and Wolverine are still scrapping with the others when the contingent of Russian soldiers brought with the Bogatyri join the firefight. Realizing they are outnumbered, the pair reluctantly agree to make a strategic retreat. While the other members of the Bogatyri want to finish them off, Volkh decides against doing so as Wolverine and US Agent are no longer a threat and they still have Operation: Polaris to activate. Not far away, US Agent and Wolverine are regrouping when they discover a coalition of American and Canadian soldiers have arrived to provide them back-up.
Back in California, Hawkeye is giving a status report to Captain America when he discovers that the tracker on the Quinjets used by Wanda and US Agent have gone offline. When Cap offers the assistance of the east coast team, Clint declines the offer as he wants his team to investigate instead. As he ends the call, Mockingbird shows up and Clint asks why she wasn’t at Tony Stark’s funeral.[3] Bobbi explains that she can’t handle funerals since the death of her parents. Bobbi then changes the subject as she has something important she wants to talk to him about.[4] However, that’s when Rachel Carpenter — Spider-Woman’s daughter — comes running into the room. Spider-Woman quickly catches up with her daughter and scolds her for running around a restricted area. She apologizes for it and promises to keep a tighter reign on her daughter now that she plans to move her in to Avengers Compound following the death of her ex-husband. This is new to Hawkeye and Mockingbird who are uncomfortable with the idea of a child living at their headquarters.
Hawkeye heads out to go talk to Spider-Woman about this. In the den he finds the Living Lightning standing in the living room lost in thought. When Clint and Bobbi ask him what’s the matter. Miguel has been re-evaluating his position in the Avengers given the number of deaths — particularly that of his sister Amy — that have happened around him recently.[5] It has him thinking about his own mortality and has got him thinking that perhaps he could be doing something more with his life. He has decided that he is going to resign from active duty in the Avengers West Coast so he can start attending classes as the University of Southern California. Finally, Bobbi gets down to business about what she wants to talk about, she really wants to talk to him about their marriage as she recently filed divorce papers and they will become final in two weeks unless they can reconcile.[6]
While in Canada, the Bagatyri members are squabbling with each other until Volkh orders them to compose themselves. With the two captive Avengers awake, the Doctor decides to show off Operation Polaris, a special “quick freeze” crystal that — one unleashed — will rapidly freeze everything around it and turn North America into a giant uninhabitable iceberg. Volkh then activates his doomsday weapon, causing the radar station to rapidly freeze. As it begins encasing the Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man in ice, Wolverine and US Agent arrive with reinforcements. While the American and Canadian soldiers keep the Russians busy, Logan and the Agent rush inside and free Wonder Man and the Scarlet Witch. With the ice spreading like wildfire, Wanda braves the extreme cold to get to the quick freeze crystal and bombards it with her hex powers. Doctor Volkh attempts to stop her, but he is too late and the crystal’s abilities are inverted. This causes the crystal to become too hot to touch and it melts. This stops the expansion of ice, which also rapidly melts as well.
With their plan in shambles, the Bagatyri grab Volkh and make a hasty retreat just as the crystal hits critical mass and explodes. By this time, their foot soldiers have been defeated by the American/Canadian coalition. Although they are down a radar station, US Agent is able to look on the bright side, with current relations with Russia they don’t have to worry about a nuclear strike before the station is rebuilt.
Recurring Characters
Avengers West Coast (Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Mockingbird, US Agent, Living Lightning, Spider-Woman), Wolverine, Bagatyri (Doctor Volkh, Svygator, Mikula, Morning Star), Captain America
Continuity Notes
The Scarlet Witch is referred to as a mutant here. However, years later, it is revealed that she actually isn’t. She was kidnapped as a child and experimented upon by the High Evolutionary. In order to hide his work, he made it so future genetic testing would have Wanda register as a mutant. See Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5.
Wonder Man’s powers have been going haywire since he was exposed to a nega-bomb explosion in Wonder Man (vol. 2) #9. This has caused his tempter to be regulated by the flow of his ionic powers leading to fits of rage. He’ll eventually be cured in issue #25 of his series.
Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, faked his death in Iron Man #284 in order to go into cryogenic stasis until a cure for his medical condition was found. He will ultimately be cured in Iron Man #290. Hawkeye and some of the other Avengers attended Tony’s funeral and ended up defending Stark Enterprises as seen in Iron Man #285-286.
Spider-Woman’s ex-husband Larry was murdered during the Avengers battle with Deathweb as seen in Avengers West Coast #84-86.
Miguel’s sister was killed in a drive-by shooting as revealed in Avengers West Coast Annual #6.
How Hawkeye and Mockingbird’s marriage came to be on the brink of divorce is a long and complicated set of circumstances. The details:
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.
Topical References
The majority of this story takes place in Bathurst Inlet which is stated as being part of the Canadian Northwest Territories. This should be considered topical due to the fact that the NWT was divided into two territories starting in April, 1999. Bathurst Inlet is now part of what is now called Nunavut.
The motivation of the Bogatyri is to restore the former Soviet Union and restart the Cold War. This story frames the fall of the USSR as happening recently. The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union both happened in 1991, a year prior to this story being published. References to the USSR collapsing recently should be considered topical.
When commenting about Svygator’s low tolerance for horror films, Mikula states that the last one he saw causing him to trash the McDonalds in Moscow. This should be considered a topical reference, not only because McDonalds is a real world corporation but also because McDonalds pulled out of Russia following the 2022 invasion of the Ukraine.
