West Coast Avengers' "Lost in Space and Time" arc: What did you think of it?

[Gaastra]

So what did everything think of wca's "Lost in Space and Time" story? WCA, fantastic four, dr strange, firebird, two gun kid, rawhide kid, and phantom rider all had big roles in it. It also had the mockingbird / phantom rider plot and hank getting saved by firebird. And of course the green wonder man costume! (can't forget it!)


What did you guys think of this story?

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[Mike_Murdock]

I think the story itself is a ton of fun and full of interesting moments, but I recognize rape as a motivator is problematic to say the least. The story doesn't explicitly say that's what happened, but it's about as subtle as a jackhammer nonetheless.

[MajorHoy]

I wasn't really thrilled with turning Hank Pym into a Dr. Who-like character (at least in the way he dressed and all). But love stories where Marvel heroes wind up back in the Old West and meet up with Two-Gun Kid and the like!

[Prof. Warren]

One of my favorites. The Englehart era of WCA was a blast and this is pretty definitively the highlight of that time.

[XPac]

It was a lot of fun. I was a HUGE West Coast Avengers fan, and having Moon Knight show up and join was icing on the cake.

It was fun and a little weird, which I think in a lot of ways captured the spirit of the West Coast team. If the story was retold in modern times, I can imagine it could have went to a much darker place.

[gurkle]

I enjoy it, and it has a lot of interesting ideas, like deconstructing what it might actually feel like to be given a love potion. I think this may be one of the first mainstream comic stories to point out that forcing someone to love you through a potion, traditionally played as something cute or even romantic, is actually rape. And the story of how the time travellers get their message to the present day is a lot of fun.

It's not up to the standards of Englehart's 1970s Avengers epics though. Partly because it's trying so, so hard to be the latest, greatest Avengers epic, but mostly his writing (or the editing he got) had regressed since his '70s prime. He even reverted to the old-fashioned style of ending every sentence with an exclamation point(!) when he hadn't done that in the '70s and even Stan Lee had stopped writing comics like that.

I'm also not crazy about Al Milgrom's art and it didn't help that Joe Sinnott left as inker in the middle of the story.

So it's a fun story but maybe not as good as it wanted to be. The

[ARkadelphia]

The story was fantastic. The art, not so much. Well worth tracking down the hard cover edition though. Whereas time travel stories can often lead to a mess of plot holes and damaged continuity, englehart really thought this one through.

[Snoop Dogg]

It's a highlight of the WCA, but I really wish Hank's suicide plot was resolved in literally any other way than someone he doesn't really know showing up out of nowhere. And the whole thing gets a little too wacky with the reliance on contrivances via Firebird's ancestors.

[Muffin Crud]

“Drop dead.”


Classic.

Gives a comic/character defining moment for Mockingbird and catapulted her into one of my very favourites.

[Lee Stone]

I liked how it mixed with Dr. Strange #53, basically doing the same thing that Roger Stern did with Strange revisiting a classic FF story without changing anything.
Especially since Dr. Strange #53 was one of the first Marvel comics I ever bought.

[ed2962]

I remember enjoying it when it came out, but as others have mentioned, Milgrom's layout were at best functional and mainly saved by Joe Sinott's inks.

[K7P5V]

It was a lot of fun. I was a HUGE West Coast Avengers fan, and having Moon Knight show up and join was icing on the cake.

It was fun and a little weird, which I think in a lot of ways captured the spirit of the West Coast team. If the story was retold in modern times, I can imagine it could have went to a much darker place.

Agreed. Having Moon Knight join brought a rather enigmatic quality to the title. Too bad Daredevil wasn't allowed to join.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I have this story (and others) in the Avengers West Coast Omnibus #2, and I did enjoy it. Engelhart is second to Roy Thomas in terms of using history to spin new stories, but I generally prefer Engelhart, who is just a better and more inventive writer.

However, I agree that Milgrom's art doesn't allow this story to get to "classic" status. At least Don Heck didn't draw it, but geez. If Perez were still at Marvel and drew it, Lost in Space-Time would have been the seminal WCA story.

Unfortunately, WCA was always the redheaded stepchild of the Avengers line. It didn't get a decent artist until John Byrne, and then Byrne did his usual schtick of undoing other writers' stories that he didn't like. He basically ruined Vision and Scarlet Witch for me, but that's a rant for another day.

[OOTCS]

I hate when rape is used as a plot point to traumatize female characters, but looking at this specific story on its individual merit, this is the way it should be done, when it's done. Bobbi wasn't fridged to give Clint a reason to fight—it was something that happened to her, and she was the one who took action in response. She avenged herself and she refused to apologize for it. I think it's bull that she got thrown out of the Avengers for it when she'd done so much for the team and other people got much less for much worse, but that comes later.

Regarding the time travel story itself, of course it's totally implausible that all of the time machines would know to go to the exact moment and place where their friends were stuck, but that's comics for you. I do like how all of the characters' mini-arcs come together at the end.

Moon Knight was a good addition to the book; I wish he would have come back for guest appearances once he left the team.

And I have a huge soft spot for Two-Gun Kid ever since the first time I saw him in Slott's She-Hulk, so that's a plus.

[gurkle]

Unfortunately, WCA was always the redheaded stepchild of the Avengers line. It didn't get a decent artist until John Byrne, and then Byrne did his usual schtick of undoing other writers' stories that he didn't like. He basically ruined Vision and Scarlet Witch for me, but that's a rant for another day.

To be fair to Al Milgrom, I don't think he was considered a sloppy-second choice. He and Joe Sinnott had been the art team on Avengers for years before they were transferred to WCA, and Milgrom had worked with Englehart before (on "Captain Marvel").

I think Mark Gruenwald, as an editor, seemed to have a preference for rather old-school art, which explains his choice of Milgrom/Sinnott and Buscema/Palmer replacing them on the main Avengers book. But while John Buscema's art was also old-fashioned it had a timeless feel to it that Milgrom's didn't.

It's not from this storyline but I did like the one issue Kyle Baker inked over Milgrom's breakdowns, because it was so different from the usual Avengers style at the time. Maybe the book would have been better off with a less traditional inking style to contrast with the traditional layouts.