Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #28: Double-Crossed!
January, 1988
Happy New Year, West Coast Avengers!
Zero Hour for Zodiac!
Hal Jordan is going to try to reboot the universe on them?
Good.
Anyway, Zodiac. They’re still happening.
Last times in West Coast Avengers: the Zodiac comprised entirely of Life Model Decoys that aren’t decoying anyone killed the Zodiac that was comprised entirely of the Venn Diagram between crime lords and astrology nerds. Except human Zodiac Libra who faked his death by taking a nap. And human Zodiac Taurus who ran off to go get the (West Coast) Avengers to fight the LMDs for him.
The West Coast Avengers, on Taurus’ advice, interrupts LMD Zodiac’s robbery of a cattle auction. Hawkeye accidentally shot LMD Sagittarius in an archery duel because someone jostled his arm. Zodiac ran away and their leader Scorpio made a new Sagittarius that was identical to Hawkeye.
Zodiac ambushed Hawkeye when he was on his way back from seeing Wonder Man’s movie. He dunked on them for a while but he got coldcocked and LMD Sagittarius Hawkeye went back to the West Coast Avengers’ Compound to infiltrate the team.
Sagittarius Hawkeye learns that Taurus is working with the Avengers and passes the information onto Scorpio. But then he runs afoul of a subplot. Mockingbird killed Phantom Rider in the past times and lied to husband Hawkeye about it. But Sagittarius Hawkeye being cold to her (because he doesn’t want to have to pass as a devoted husband) has her convinced that Hawkeye suspects. She gets some advice from Nick Fury and decides to confess to Hawkeye. The LMD undersells the confession so Mockingbird slaps him - DISCOVERING HE’S MADE OF METAL!
Mockingbird and Tigra who shows up destroy the LMD Hawkeye but unbeknowst to Mockingbird, Tigra is ALSO an LMD, the new Zodiac Leo.
Hah, I like that Double is written over Star-Crossed.
Not knowing that Zodiac knows that the Avengers know their crime plan, the West Coast Avengers bust into the Denver Mint.
Bust in through the ceiling.
Iiiiiiii’m sort of wondering whether the cost to repair that giant hole in the ceiling is more or less than how much money the Avengers are going to prevent Zodiac from stealing.
Hank Pym even thinks that they’re going to have to pony up the rest of their operating budget for the year for the damages.
Leo (not Tigra, the dude Leo) crows that Zodiac outnumbers the Avengers two to one. But. C’mon man. You have twelve man team and get consistently stomped by smaller groups because you all suck so bad.
Iron Man flies right on ahead and tries to zap the Zodiac Key out of Scorpio’s hands before Scorpio can block the zap. But again fails.
And Mockingbird swoops right on ahead and demands Zodiac tell her where Hawkeye is.
Scorpio: “You mean Hawkeye’s missing, Mockingbird? What a shame!”
Mockingbird: “Don’t give me that! You kidnapped him and substituted one of your lousy LMD’s!”
Virgo: “Hey! We’re LMD’s!”
Mockingbird: “Yeah! And I’ll trash you the way I trashed your ringer unless you talk!”
Hah.
Fun interaction.
Virgo wishes people wouldn’t be so vitalist at her. Anti-vitalist? What do you call being racist but against robots?
Leo tells Scorpio to just admit that he kidnapped Hawkeye so Scorpio does but refuses to say where Hawkeye is now.
Mockingbird gets real angry at that but Scorpio don’t give a care and doesn’t scare... that easily. He’s been dead before so, like, whatever, lady.
And now that Zodiac has enough silver from the mint piled on their escape... ship? Scorpio decides to use the Zodiac Key to transport Zodiac away.
It. It, uh. It has a slow start up.
But it does kick in and Zodiac teleports out, leaving the Avengers to bemoan that they had been kicking ass.
Leo Tigra jumps in to say yes, she was kicking ass too, you bet!
Hah, if you look through the pages between the Avengers arriving and Zodiac leaving, Tigra is never really fighting anyone. Good touch.
As the narration reminds, Tigra has been replaced by a Leo LMD and the Avengers have no idea.
Leo Tigra suggests that the Avengers go consult human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt since he keeps predicting what Zodiac will do.
As the Avengers leave the mint, Iron Man complains that the problem is the Zodiac Key. And then makes the baffling comparison that when the team was lost in space-time, finding a second (working) time machine was how they won. But there’s no second Zodiac Key that will counter Scorpio’s.
Because. TWO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS, TONY.
The whole problem in the lost in space-time arc was that the Avengers were lost in space-time! Like it says on the tin!
If you’re bringing this up like this, then this story better end with there being an inexplicable second Zodiac Key, that’s all I’m saying!
Leo Tigra asks Iron Man to exposition dump about the Zodiac Key to her. Which Tony is happy to do!
I assume Tony is happy to explain a variety of things.
So he explains how once he, Daredevil, Madame Masque, and Nick Fury (what an odd collection) were sent to another dimension by the Zodiac Key, a dimension ruled by a group called the Brotherhood who created the Key.
And this is wild. The Zodiac Key thrives on conflict but their dimension became too peaceful so they yeeted it to Earth where there’s conflict to spare.
While the Avengers West Coast go into the Quinjet where Taurus is chained to a chair that’s just a little too small for him, Moon Knight hangs back.
He wants to use his own astrology knowledge to see if he comes up with the same answer.
And... yes! Both of them predict Zodiac went to Death Valley because of “the positions of the Moon and Pluto.”
Meanwhile in Death Valley, Zodiac teleports in.
Scorpio crows that he’s got the West Coast Avengers chasing his tail without their leader but non-Tigra Leo decides that its time to get on Scorpio’s case again. He decides that Scorpio sucks butts because his secret substitute Hawkeye was discovered.
Since Scorpio isn’t telling the other Zodiac about his also secret substitute Tigra, he tells Leo to stfu.
Leo: “That’s easy to say! But even though Scorpios like places called Death Valley -- death comes here through the power of the Sun, which is my orb!”
Virgo: “And it’s a Virgo sun, which empowers me -- and puts me on Leo’s side in this!”
These astrology nerds make me so mad.
Scorpio actually agrees, regretting that he made them all “so responsive to [their] particular astral influences” which means ‘base every thing they do on astrology. Every thing. EVERY THING.’
But just as he’s winding up to the ‘I brought you into this world, I can take you out’ the Avengers’ Quinjet shows up overhead.
Scorpio prepares to shoot down the Quinjet with the Zodiac Key... but Iron Man hopped out of the Quinjet on approach so he could fly in from the back while the Quinjet made an obvious appearance.
He finally traps the Zodiac Key in a grape-flavored magnetic beam before Scorpio can counter it.
The Quinjet lands and the West Coast Avengers rush out to start punching.
Non-Tigra Leo goes to fight Wonder Man, saying he’s been wanting a one-on-one with him. Scorpio, Virgo, Aquarius, and Capricorn attack Iron Man to try to free the Key. Libra and Gemini go to fight Mockingbird. Aries attacks Hank Pym and his amazing pockets of holding. LMD Taurus and Cancer attack Moon Knight. And Leo Tigra pretends to fight Pisces.
Despite being outnumbered four to one, Iron Man is Iron Man. In contention for strongest guy on team. Wonder Man can punch harder but Iron Man has a lot more variety. And with the Zodiac Key neutralized, he doesn’t have to be watching his back for it.
So he punches Capricorn into robo-goat chunks. Aquarius accuses Iron Man of being robo-racist and tries to short out his armor but Iron Man just throws him at Scorpio. And Virgo tries to sneak up on Iron Man with her energy siphon like she did when she was working for Quicksilver but he was expecting that.
Truly, Iron Man rocks.
I do wonder. These dudes are robots. Why do some of them have innate powers and others have external tools they need to work with? Fine and fair enough for the Zodiac Key. That’s a special case. But why does Virgo have a big blocky energy siphon she has to carry around? Why does Aquarius have a gun attached to a tube on his back?
Scorpio sucks at making Zodiac-themed Life Model Decoys.
Meanwhile, Wonder Man has no trouble fighting with Leo. Mockingbird beats Libra and Gemini by jumping out of the way so they run into each other... I swear, these guys suck so badly. Do these two even have any superpowers?
Leo Tigra shows up with a ‘defeated’ Pisces in tow and tells Mockingbird she’ll watch the defeated LMDs. Dr Pym kicks another one over - Aries in a big clear hamster ball. And Leo Tigra tells Iron Man she’ll grab the ones he beat as well.
But instead, she grabs Virgo’s energy siphon and connects it to Iron Man.
TREACHERY! Also, perfidy!
With Iron Man being drained, the magnetic beam holding the Zodiac Key dissipates and Scorpio is able to grab it and send the Avengers sprawling.
Since he loves a good gloat (and since the literal cat is out of the bag?), Scorpio gloats that Tigra is actually the new LMD Leo!
The old Leo isn’t thrilled to learn that he’s been obsoleted though.
Scorpio: “That’s right! I don’t have to take your abuse any longer! You’re finished!”
Abuse meaning any second-guessing whatsoever.
Also, this was a really stupid move of Scorpio, telling one of his allies he was going to betray him before he was actually ready to betray him.
But Leo isn’t going to sit back and just accept being replaced. He tackles Scorpio and wrestles over the Zodiac Key. And then Wonder Man jumps in too and now all three of them are wrestling over the key.
(Fucks sake Wondy, you’re supposed to be able to punch as hard as Mjolnir hits and you can’t win a tug of war?)
Scorpio keeps hold of the Key and tries to use it... but once again, the Key has performance issues and nothing happens.
Not-Tigra Leo: “Replace me, will you? Replace your backside!!”
Wonder Man: “Replace -- EVERYTHING!!”
And Leo and Wonder Man do a one-two combo, which voids Scorpio’s warranty.
Also, kills him. ‘Kills’ him?
Good thing we’ve already established that it doesn’t really count if you kill an LMD because they’re not Real People.
I love that Aries is still stuck in the hamster ball. That’s great. You’re doing an amazing job, Hank.
But the Zodiac Key suddenly floats into the air and resurrects Scorpio and the other LMDs that have been deactivated.
Dammit, Zodiac Key! People die when they’re killed!
Scorpio gloats that the Avengers can’t kill what isn’t alive. Which is more of a self-own, really. But the Avengers are ready to just never stop punching these dudes.
But Scorpio has a slightly different and much dumber plan in mind. He commands the Zodiac Key to transport them all to the Zodiac Key’s original realm.
The Key does not do this so Scoprio yells at it to get with the program.
The Zodiac Key: “It would not be a good idea, Scorpio!”
Scorpio: “What do you mean? You love conflict and you’ve taught me to love it! If we stay here, we’ll kill the Avengers eventually because we can’t be stopped, but it’ll just be the same fight over and over! Let’s make their murders interesting!”
The Zodiac Key: “Scorpio --”
Scorpio: “Listen, I’m tired of your balking! I know you saved my life, but I’m not your lackey! If you want some conflict with me, you’re going to get it!”
Never before have I seen a hoisted petard so laboriously foreshadowed and also earned by the one about to be hoisted.
There’s a special kind of hubris to talking over the magical reality-altering vaguely-Ankh shaped ‘key’ that gave you life.
They Zodiac Key does give into Scorpio’s whining and Zodiac and the Avengers both disappear from Death Valley.
Leaving human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt alone, unsupervised, and immediately ready to misbehave. The chain the Avengers chained him up with is long enough that he can reach the radio, so he uses it to call some of his old mob flunkies to come set him free.
Meanwhile, the Avengers (and also Zodiac) have a crazy-ass journey through the pink dimension.
The narration tries to sell it on being more trippy than that but, look, this isn’t the kind of wacky scenery that Kirby used to do on Fantastic Four. It’s a pink void with some debris.
Anyway, upon arriving in the Zodiac Key dimension, all the Zodiac LMDs immediately drop dead, like the Zodiac Key was trying to tell Scorpio.
The Zodiac LMDs can’t function in this dimension because they’re all so obsessively themed after the Zodiac, they can’t function in a universe without those same stars.
And nothing of value was lost.
God, Scorpio was an idiot.
The Zodiac Key goes on to say that the reason why it didn’t seem to work sometimes is that Scorpio was trying to get it to do something that would end conflict. And that the Key was not inclined to do.
(Makes you realize how shitty an ultimate weapon the Zodiac Key is. It won’t let you beat your opponent.)
But with the Zodiac stupided into nonfunctioning, there needs to be some new conflict. So the Zodiac Key blasts a mountain and reveals Hawkeye and Tigra fighting the Brotherhood!
So that’s where those two wound up!
Convenient that they were right nearby!
Dr Pym realizes that if they go to help the two Avengers, the Zodiac Key will assist the Brotherhood and decide to take out the Key first.
Leading to the embarrassing fight sequence of the West Coast Avengers failing to stop an inanimate object.
Wonder Man tries to grab it, it just zaps him. Mockingbird catches it through the hole with her stave and Dr Pym with an unshrunk net but it drags them into the sky. Iron Man tries to catch them but it CLANG!s into him hard. It dodges Moon Knight, who attributes his distance from the Moon as the reason he sucks.
After this whole page of embarrassment, the Zodiac Key flies over to the Brotherhood who immediately forfeit the fight.
The Key actually tips the scales too much. Hawkeye and Tigra gave them a good fight but the Brotherhood were better and had numbers. They let Hawkeye and Tigra live to get as much fight as they could.
As we just saw, the Key by itself just wiped the floor with most of the team. With the Key and the Brotherhood, they’d easily wipe out the team.
But then they wouldn’t have conflict again.
Mockingbird: “Only the Whackos could end up in a war where we win because we’re sure to lose!”
Iron Man: “I don’t accept that we’d lose -- !”
So salty, Tony.
The Brotherhood says they’ll return the West Coast Avengers to Earth. Annnnnd then sometime later, they’ll send another Zodiac Key to fuck with them.
Iron Man: “I don’t like that at all -- !”
Hawkeye offers to do some more fighting here if they can get a better deal than ‘someday we’ll fuck you over’ but no dice. The Brotherhood have made up their minds.
The Brotherhood: “Then let this Key open the door betwixt dimensions one final time -- and let the Avengers begone!”
The Zodiac Key: “And let them wonder -- ‘when and where will Scorpio return?’”
Hopefully never and nowhere!
Why can’t the Zodiac be interesting???
Which is to say, this is not the Zodiac story that finally wowed me. Its funny that Scorpio basically seized defeat from the jaws of victory and stupided himself to death. But there were twelve of the fuckers and they only got interesting when they started be imposter Avengers.
Anyway.
The West Coast Avengers return to Death Valley.
Mockingbird tries to tell him about the murder or manslaughter she did do to Phantom Rider but loses her nerve when Hawkeye praises her as “too good an Avenger” to be fooled by a fake him and that he knew she’d never let him down.
Oof.
Inadvertent guilt trip.
So she tells Hawkeye never mind about the thing she wanted to tell him.
Annnd. Yeah. Van Lunt Taurus bailed while they were gone, just like he said on panel that he would.
Moon Knight: “He swore his vow -- to the Moon -- ! The Fist of Khonshu must now show him his mistake...!”
The Zodiac drama continues... this time with the last meat Zodiac.
Except Libra, who faked his death by taking a nap.
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