Was the West Coast Avengers relaunch a wasted opportunity?

[Riv86672]

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.

A little late to this party; ran across this thread searching for something else entirely.

Some good behind the scenes Info here, which made me look back on the series. I...kinda liked it. The reality tv thing was a bit played out, like you said, but it did make for some funny scenes especially in the first issue. The line up was strange af, but i kinda felt it was about to hit some kind of stride right as it got cancelled.

That said, this could easily have been called something else and still worked, while saving the WCA name for something more applicable to the original premise (I feel the same about The Champions name).
The line up as originally intended of Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, America, She-Hulk, Tigra and Hazmat, seems pretty interesting. I wouldn’t have been averse to seeing that as a WCA team at all.

[Hypestyle]

I would say it makes more sense now for there to be a street level team in California. The Quinjet-using, space-flight-adjacent team concept is kind of a moot point for limiting them to California.

[Chris0013]

Yes...yes it was. I would have preferred a more serious West Coast spin off.