AVENGERS WEST COAST #101 – December 1993

Genosha, Mon Amour

Credits: Roy Thomas (writer), Dave Ross (penciler), Tim Dzon (inker), Steve Dutro (letterer), Bob Sharen (colorist)

Summary

Hawkeye and the Avengers left in America protest the UN’s decision not to get involved in the Genoshan civil war. In Genosha, Scarlet Witch and Crystal search for Luna while the remaining Avengers fight Exodus. Professor Xavier, Beast, and US Agent discover a tunnel with hundreds of Mutates living in inhumane conditions, overseen by the Magistrate Elite soldiers. The other X-Men continue to fight Cortez’s mutant guards, and learn that Cortez was only speaking through a shapeshifter earlier.

Continuity Notes

Revanche was with the X-Men in the previous chapter but has disappeared. US Agent was shown secretly following Professor Xavier on a dirt road in the previous chapter, and now he’s openly joined him in the tunnels beneath Genosha.

The Genoshan Magistrate Elite soldiers claim to be working for Fabian Cortez, which can't be reconciled with the other chapters in the crossover. Human soldiers working for Cortez kind of goes against the whole "mutant/human civil war" idea.

Review

I can only imagine what a regular Avengers West Coast reader thought of this issue. Of course, the title was being cancelled with the next issue and relaunched as Force Works, so I guess they had lots of wonderful memories ahead of them. This is the weakest chapter of the crossover so far, as the story moves incrementally and the heroes just fight the same villains they fought in the last chapter. Roy Thomas, considered by many to be one of the best Silver Age X-Men writers, doesn’t seem comfortable with the characters for some reason. Beast is shown making a condescending remark about “non-mutants” that requires a scolding from Xavier. Of all the X-Men, Beast would be the least likely to say something like this, especially in the middle of a human/mutant civil war. It’s followed a few pages later with Rogue and Gambit talking about how proudly Southern they are. Uh, okay. It’s a weak comic, but I guess Marvel succeeded in their goal of getting me to buy a series I didn’t normally collect.