Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Force Works is throwing a holiday party, little knowing that they are about to get a visit from an unexpected guest. As the team prepares for the other guests to arrive, Fisher Todd — the team’s resident technician — gives Rachel Carpenter a gift, a brand new hoverboard. This annoys her mother, Julia Carpenter, aka Spider-Woman, who is still not happy with Fisher after the incident in the Vroom Room.[1]

Seeing Todd hit himself in the head for being so stupid, the Recorder goes into the kitchen and asks US Agent if that’s a normal holiday tradition. Jack Daniels isn’t too interested in explaining things to the Recorder because he is busy spiking the punch. So he hands the Recorder a video camera and tells him to do what he does best and record everything for posterity.

Elsewhere, the Scarlet Witch is commending Amanda Chaney for the decorations when PLATO announces that the first bunch of guests have arrived. These guests turn out to be members of the Stark Enterprise staff including Erica Sondheim, Felix Alvarez, Abe Zimmer, Bambi Arbogast, Happy Hogan and his wife Pepper Potts, as well as Bethany Cabe and Phil Grant. Wanda heads off to find Tony Stark since he was the one who wanted to host this party so everyone could relax after their recent battle with the Mandarin.[2] She finds Tony in the coms room where he just learned that Jim Rhodes, aka War Machine, won’t be joining them.[3] He is disappointed that he won’t be coming particularly after the two men just made peace.[4] She tells Tony that the guests have arrived and asks how he is going to manage being both Tony Stark and Iron Man at the same time, Tony assures her he has it all figured out.

As it reaches 8:30 PM, US Agent is starting to worry why someone hasn’t shown up, unaware that the person in question is climbing up the side of the Works via a grappling hook. Jack is then greeted by Captain America and the two shake hands, putting aside their differences in the spirit of the season.[5][6] By this time, Tony has joined the party and is mingling with the guests. As he talks to Hank Pym, who expresses his condolences regarding the death of Wonder Man,[7] he suddenly notices that Iron Man is also attending the party. This is actually an automated suit of armor programmed to interact with the guests and maintain Tony’s secret identity. Also attending the party is the Living Lightning, who is still taking some down time to attend college.[8] As the Recorder continues to record the festivities, Rachel runs into the uninvited guest and goes and gets US Agent.[9] Jack follows Rachel into one of the other rooms where he discovers the intruder is none other than Hawkeye.

By 10 pm that evening, Captain America is commending the Scarlet Witch on the great job she is doing as leader of the Force Works,[10] remarking on how much Wanda has come along since she first joined the Avengers.[11] Wanda thanks him, although she admits that being team leader is difficult when Iron Man isn’t used to not being in a leadership role. In the other room, US Agent welcomes Hawkeye since he went through a lot of trouble to convince PLATO to let him in undetected for a surprise appearance. However, Clint isn’t so sure he wants to make nice with Tony Stark considering how things went down.[12] A lot has changed and he can’t just ignore it all, even if it is the holidays. US Agent can understand how Clint feels and tells him to stick around until at least when Tony gives a private speech to the former members of the Avengers West Coast, and that he’ll get PLATO to patch it in through one of the monitors. Although he doesn’t think this will change anything, the archer agrees to stick around at least that long.

Back at the party, Amanda Chaney is asking Century how he feels about the holiday. While he doesn’t have the same attachment that humans do, he admits it reminds him of his people’s Ud Gathion celebration. That’s when Amanda asks how Century can remember that when, up until now, his mind has been a blank slate. The Century realizes that he doesn’t know how he remember it at all and suddenly feels dizzy. As Amanda runs off to get some help, the Recorder stands by and continues taping the Century’s dizzy spell. The alien realizes that he must be remembering his past after being separated from Parallax. He struggles to remember his past and suddenly realizes that he has memories of having a child and wife but can’t remember anything else about them. When the Scarlet Witch comes in to check on him, Century tells her that he is not well because his past continues to elude him but vows to her that it’ll only be a matter of time before he remembers everything.[13]

By 11 PM that evening, Tony Stark has called a meeting with the former members of the Avengers West Coast. He wants to apologize for the way he deceived them all when he faked his death and wants to make it up for them. He also hopes they will attend Wonder Man’s funeral that he has planned in the near future.[14] When he begins talking about Hawkeye, he starts by referring to the archer as always being the clown and a loudmouth. Hearing this from the monitor, Clint gets furious and mutes the audio and misses hearing Tony admit that he misses the bowman’s presence and how he was the backbone of the old team. As the private meeting ends and everyone returns to the party, Rachel Carpenter tells US Agent how Hawkeye got mad and left, leaving Jack to wonder how he’ll ever get through to Clint. While most everyone else has accepted Tony’s apology at face value, Wanda really hopes that Stark has learned his lesson.

Meanwhile, Century has taken the video camera away from the Recorder and is playing back the portion of the video where Century is trying to remember who his family is. He keeps on playing back the segment over and over in the hopes it will trigger some new memory about his past.

Recurring Characters

Force Works (Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, US Agent, Spider-Woman, Century), Hawkeye, Amanda Chaney, Fisher Todd, Rachel Carpenter, Captain America, Giant-Man, Living Lightning, Agatha Harkness, Bambi Arbogast, Felix Alvarez, Bethany Cabe, Erica Sondheim, Abe Zimmer, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Phil Grant, Recorder RE-404, PLATO

Continuity Notes

1. Fisher was showing off the Vroom Room to Rachel when, unknown to them, the Recorder turned off the safety interlocks. See Force Works #5 for that calamity.

2. This of course is a reference to the then recent Hands of the Mandarin storyline. See Force Works #6, Marvel Comics Presents #169-171, War Machine #9, Iron Man #311, Marvel Comics Presents #172, Force Works #7, War Machine #10, and Iron Man #312.

3. Jim Rhodes isn’t present because he is heading to Philadelphia to visit his parents for the holidays. See War Machine #12.

4. Tony and Jim had a falling out after Tony faked his death between Iron Man #284 and 289, without telling Jim. The two were estranged for a time until they made peace during Hands of the Mandarin.

5. Here, Captain America is depicted wearing some kind of harness. At the time of this story, the Super Soldier Serum in Steve Rogers’ body was starting to break down starting in Captain America #425. At this point it has deteriorated to the point where he suffering from mobility issues. He had this new gadget harness rigged up for him in issue #431. Cap will continue wearing this until Tony builds him a suit of armor in Iron Man #314/Captain America #438. Cap will eventually be cured of his condition in issue #445 of that series.

6. Captain America and US Agent have had a long history of animosity toward one another that dates back to when “Jack” (aka John Walker) was the Super-Patriot circa Captain America #323. Walker took over the Captain America role from issue #333-350 before becoming US Agent in Captain America #354. The two more recently had it out when the Avengers voted to disband the west coast brand of the team in Avengers West Coast #102, a decision that the US Agent didn’t take very well.

7. Wonder Man seemed to be killed in Force Works #1 on the team’s inaugural mission. In reality, Simon Williams is now floating on the brink between life and death. The Scarlet Witch will begin pulling him back to the world of the living starting in Avengers (vol. 3) #2 until he is fully restored in issues #10-11 of that series.

8. Living Lightning was a member of the Avengers West Coast starting in issue #74 of their series. He later left the group in issue #92 to pursue a post-secondary education.

9. During the US Agent and Captain America’s conversation, it appears as though Steve is telling John about his deteriorating health condition. When John says “geeze, if I had known”, Cap quips “What could you have done? Staged a benefit concert?” This might be a jab at the time when Captain America and Super-Patriot fought backstage at a benefit concert where the Patriot was guest of honor. See Captain America #327.

10. Captain America is specifically referencing how Force Works saved Houston, Texas from an invasion of alien beings called the Scatter in Force Works #2-3.

11. The Scarlet Witch was one of the first new recruits into the Avengers way back in Avengers #16.

12. Hawkeye had been going solo ever since his wife Mockingbird was seemingly killed in action in Avengers West Coast #100. He took a leave of absence from the team unaware it would be disbanded shortly thereafter. He didn’t find out until Marvel Comics Presents #159-161. (BTW, Mockingbird didn’t really die it was a Skrull impostor see Secret Invasion #8 and New Avengers: The Reunion #2 for all the details).

13. When Century first appeared on Earth in Force Works #1, he had no memories of the past. This changed when he was separated from Parallax during the Hands of the Mandarin and he started suffering changes in personalities and memories that he did not recognize. As we’ll learn in Century: Distant Sons #1, none of these memories actually belong to Century himself. He was artificially created by the Hodomurians who created his mind out of a composite of 100 of its greatest warriors.

14. Wonder Man’s funeral takes place in Force Works #9-10.

Topical References

• This story is said to take place on December, 25, and everyone is celebrating Christmas. Per the Sliding Timescale, Christmas could not happen at the time of this story, however Christmas seems to break the Sliding Timescale more than anything else. I suppose you could consider the holiday being celebrated as topical and they are celebrating a generic holiday as opposed to something specific. Your milage may vary.

• Century is depicted watching A Christmas Carole on a CRT model television. This should be considered topical as this is an obsolete technology.

• Rachel Carpenter is wearing a Oakland Raiders football jersey. This should be considered topical as it is a real world sports team. Even more so since the team moved to Los Vegas in 2020.

• The video camera given to the Recorder by US Agent is depicted as one that records media on a VHS tape. This should be considered topical as it is also an obsolete technology.