West Coast Avengers Annual 3 - The Evolutionary War

The West Coast Avengers have split in two as the High Evolutionary's plans step up a gear.

West Coast Avengers Annual #3

This annual is unusual in that instead of one big story focused on The Evolutionary War followed by some shorter back-ups it has two separate stories from the war. This is because it came out at a point where the West Coast Avengers had split with Mockingbird, Tigra and Moon Knight leaving the others amidst the break-up of Mockingbird and Hawkeye's marriage. It's notable that all three of Steve Englehart's annuals are set very specifically between issues of the relevant ongoing titles which helps continuity and those constructing chronologies but it can also present a slightly confusing status quo. Here the details of the split are not gone into and instead we have two tales of the separate factions that both end with the same scene of Hawkeye's team discovering a hole in the Savage Land.

1st story: Head you lose --!
Story: Steve Englehart
Layouts: Al Milgrom
Finishes: Gerry Talaoc
Letters: Bill Oakley
Colors: Marc Siry
Editor: Mark Gruenwald
Chief: Tom DeFalco

The first story focuses on the High Evolutionary's attempts to steal a supply of vibranium from the Black Panther's kingdom of Wakanda. One of his technicians turns out to be Bill Foster, the former second Giant Man, who hides a note on one of the Gatherers who are easily defeated by the Wakanda forces. The note informs the Panther there is a much bigger scheme afoot and to call in Hank Pym. Pym himself is unavailable but the rump of the West Coast Avengers arrive and face down another squad of the Evolutionary's called the "Sensors" - Sight, Touch, Sound, Smell, Taste and Intuition - who battle the team whilst the vibranium is stolen.

This story is particularly notable for making use of previous chapters and we see there was a purpose to the High Evolutionary's restoration of the Savage Land back in X-Men Annual #12 as he is now operating out of a base there so it's good to see later chapters of the saga building on earlier events. It's also notable for the odd way Mantis is written with very little dialogue even in panels when she is the main focus and clearly drawn to be speaking. This was reportedly another effect of the breakdown in relations between Englehart and his editors with Mantis at the centre of the storm.

Unfortunately the short length of this story combined the initial scenes set in the Evolutionary's base and the battle between the Gatherers and the Wakandan forces means the official West Coast Avengers are only seen for eleven pages of their own annual. The split nature of the team and the story may have created such a constraint but the outcome is a rather slight contribution by one side.


2nd story: Tales you win!
Story: Steve Englehart
Layouts: Al Milgrom
Finishes: Chris Ivy
Letters: Bill Oakley
Colors: Marc Siry
Editor: Mark Gruenwald
Chief: Tom DeFalco

The breakaway team have travelled to the Savage Land for reasons not given here and spend the first part of the story meeting with Kazar and learning how the Savage Land was restored before deciding to investigate the Evolutionary and his base. They just knock on the door and are surprised to be let in and taken to the Evolutionary himself who calmly announces his plan as, "I'm building a bomb which, when detonated, will mutate everyone on Earth!" He subdues them with gas and puts them into a hi-tech maze to test their suitability for genetic experiments. All three quickly overcome the respective robot sent to deal with them but Tigra and Moon Knight seem to spend too much time interested in each other's company to advance far through the maze and so only Mockingbird reaches the Evolutionary who expands in size. But so do does Bill Foster who resumes his role of Giant Man (although not the costume despite what the cover shows). With the vibranium captured in the other story the Evolutionary opts to relocate to build his bomb and so abandons the base, blowing it up.

The return of Giant Man is clearly meant to be a big thing in the annual with both stories quickly summarising his origin (and his original risky name of "Black Goliath) and also how he contracted cancer but was cured by a transfusion from the original Spider-Woman; however his body could no longer stand the strain of size changing. However he infiltrated the Evolutionary's operations to use the equipment to develop a serum to restore growth and use the gained mass to cleanse his body. There's a bit too much technobabble about how it works but the result is that a real life terminal disease is cured through fantastical elements which is a bit insensitive (although up to the transfusion the detail was first shown in earlier comics rather than here).

This chapter is more focused on the series's actual characters and provides some good action scenes. Unfortunately it fails to explain just why they happen to be in the Savage Land in the first place and the way Tigra and Moon Knight seemingly hook up in the middle of the maze does neither character any favours. But it does take a strong step forward to advance the Evolutionary's plans rather than being yet another side element in the overall scheme. The split narrative allows for different elements of the story to be given equal weight but it comes at the effect of atomising the individual strands so that neither feels too satisfactory. This is an innovation in story telling that doesn't work.

3rd story: The High Evolutionary: The Final Frontier
Story: Mark Gruenwald
Pencils: Ron Lim
Inks: Tony DeZuniga
Letters: Ken Lopez
Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The saga has now reached the original stories featuring the High Evolutionary. Curiously very little of his first appearance in the pages of Thor is retold here and instead the chapter opens with the Citadel of Science launching for the stars at the end of his encounter. Then we see how out in pace the Evolutionary found a new planet and settled there with the New Men, mutating more animals to provide them with wives and leaving them to build the world whilst he continued with his experiments. But instead the New Men devolved into savagery and he had to find a being to bring order to the planet - who turned out to be the Hulk. But the Evolutionary was mortally wounded in battle and could only survive by submitting himself to the genetic accelerator becoming a being of pure thought.

There's less to say about this chapter as it's recounting mid Silver Age stories that had the same writer and a greater element of consistency compared to the massive accumulation of back story the first eight chapters had to wade through. It's a pity the Evolutionary's first appearance is not recounted in more detail as it would be interesting to see how readers first encountered him. Also omitted is an explanation as to how he managed to stay looking so young when he would have been in his 60s or even older at the time of these tales. Instead we get the first big sign that the Evolutionary has made mistakes with his New Men not proving the successful new race he hoped for and the first sign of how he would repeatedly have to turn to outside help to get the products of his experiments under control.

Also included is a pin-up gallery which takes a more whimsical approach than most. There's also the unused cover for issue #14 (which was replaced by the line-wide 25th anniversary format of a headshot of a single character in a uniform frame).

Overall this annual is aiming high but rather misses the target. It's trying a different formula for telling the story but it results in two separate chapters that each feel in substantial when a combined single tale could have felt much stronger. This also pushes out any back-up stories that could have enhanced the overall feel of the special and the result is a bit of a disappointment.