I pointed this out in the Hawkeye thread. I really think a West Coast Avengers relaunch could've been good, but it suffered from a bad premise and executive meddling.

To begin, the biggest fault with the premise itself is the Reality TV slant. Nowadays, reality television is but a minor niche and widely mocked with even those who watch it considering them to be guilty pleasures. It would make sense a decade ago, when it was in, but why did that become the premise of the 2018-19 series?

Second, the executive meddling. I remember reading the original plan was for it to be a more serious comic, with the roster being the Hawkeyes both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, America, She-Hulk, Tigra and Hazmat from Avengers Academy. I get the sense it would've been like a modern take of the WCA property, with members both old and new, but keeping a similar style. It also would've put Clint in a harem with five other women, and that would've been interesting to see.

The editors forced writer Kelly Thompson to shuffle out the roster for Gwenpool, Quentin Quire, Fuse (Kate's boyfriend from her series), and later Noh-Varr and Fuse's sister Alloy, and make it a soft relaunch of Young Avengers. The youth-oriented cast and snarky, surreal, Generation Z type writing style, teen romance subplots, and LGBT themes was a very clear riff on Kieron Gillen's Young Avengers run, and had more in common with that than the West Coast Avengers as a whole. It also meant that Clint was the member of the old WCA to be here, and he felt rather tacked on.

That's the very sad thing. I really wish we could've seen the WCA relaunch Kelly Thompson originally planned. She didn't even want Gwenpool by way of not liking her (though Gwen did grow on her over time admittedly). I would rather have the more serious WCA comic with members both old and new, and the funny situation of Clint being the one guy on a team full of women, rather than not-Young Avengers. Why didn't they just relaunch the Young Avengers title by that point anyways?

So really, was this a wasted opportunity? Knowing what was originally planned, I wish that could've seen the light of day over what we got.

Discuss.