Synopsis
West Coast Avengers Vol.4 #4 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Iron Man and War Machine's latest version of West Coast Avengers includes Firestar and Spider-Woman plus some villains they're trying to rehabilitate. Currently those are a good Ultron robot and Killerwatt currently going by the name of Blue Bolt. But another 'good' Ultron has turned up leading a cult of incurable people who have opted to be turned into robots with human heads.
IM, WM, FS and BB are now video-linking with their Ultron who's keeping an eye on the other Ultron's 'cathedral' noting comings and goings. Tony Stark tells him that the (East Coast) Avengers will be keeping out of the situation for now. But Firestar wants to know why they're trusting 'any' Ultron. So the time has come for Tony and James Rhodes to explain how they 1st met him.
Months before any of the current team joined them Tony and Rhodey were rehabilitating Absorbing Man and Crimson Dynamo. During a recent (I believe previously undocumented) invasion of San Francisco by the Technarchy the 4-man team faced a black hole bomb guarded by technarch Shadram The Breaker who had defeated 3 of the 4 and now only Iron Man is left in action (at that time still in his Mysterium armour). Tony had sent out a call for aid and now Ultron arrives in answer. Obviously Stark thinks he's another adversary but Ulty shows him his source code to prove he's now good. He mentions how (as we learned last issue) Ultron split into different versions and this 1 wants to be a superhero.
While IM holds Shadram off U goes to stop the bomb releasing a miniature black hole that will destroy the Earth. He says he can't disable it but he can accelerate the black hole's evolution so much that it will 'die' before having much effect on the Earth. However he won't survive. IM doesn't try to escape but anchors himself with Absorbing Man's ball and chain. Then as Ultron and Shadram try to escape the black hole's pull Stark sends pieces of his Mysterium armour to encase Ulty and help him fly free, as Shadram falls in. And the end result is merely a large crater.
Ultron gives Tony his armour back and further explains that the 'original' Ultron spawned lots of software copies which all mutated to hold different 'philosophies'. The few that were judged good (coherent?) enough were given (metal) bodies. Now only 3 remain. (We've seen 2 so where's the 3rd?) Stark announces that Ultron will be on the team, but AM and CD quit and return to prison.
Now Rhodey tells us that they've had many prisoners in their scheme. A few have been to released to freedom but most quit. Then they get a message from Spider-Woman who'd sneaked *inside* the cathedral. She reports that the church is watching the good Ultron. Rhodey tells their Ultron to come back to HQ because they have drones up now watching the place. Tony asks Firestar if she's still worried about their Ultron. She replies yes because she's not protected by armour like they 2. She suggests he goes live on the Moon or something. Ulty arrives at that moment and says he's considered it. But he believes he can do much good to make up a *little* for all the people his bad predecessor killed. But Angelica Jones still thinks he'll try to kill them all eventually. And she takes a drink out of a hip flask to toast it. They all know she's got a drinking problem since going undercover in Orchis, but Rhodey protests her insensitivity at drinking in front of recovering alcoholic Tony. She points out that robots (Sentinels) have been trying to kill her since she was young, and Ultron doesn't look like an Avenger. Stark tries to change that by laser-burning an Avengers symbol on U's chest. Ultron adds to the look by morphing his metal body into the same shape as Stark's current Silver Centurion armour.
But Firestar just flies off saying if Ultron's on the team she's out. Iron Man prepares to go after her but Blue Bolt says *that* won't help but *he*'ll talk to her. He catches up to her in midair where she's still drinking. She claims that most people don't like her, even her teachers (in the Massachusetts Academy where we 1st met her as 1 of the Hellions), and 1 of them murdered her horse (White Queen in the 1987 FS miniseries). Chad Braxton is shocked and sympathetic, but tells her if she wants to continue talking she'll have to follow him to the prison because he's got to get back by curfew. On the way he comments that nobody knows what's true anymore. Like he doesn't know whether she really went undercover in Orchis for the X-Men or was she just positioning herself to be on the winning side whichever it was? But he doesn't care what it was. She says *she* knows why she did it, and he says that's all that matters. But then he can't resist asking anyway. She says she did it for the (future) children.
Then she takes him by surprise and kisses him as they reach the prison. He pulls back and gives her 2 reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea. 1st Stark would kick him off the team. 2nd he doesn't drink, because his dad was a total drunk. And then he's straight with her that she's got PTSD from her time in Orchis, living in fear of being found out while mutants who weren't in on her undercover role thought she was a traitor. As the prison guards come to take him away he suggests that she should take the time to sort herself out before sorting out the world.
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: Blue Bolt.
FlashbacksPlus: Crimson Dynamo (
Valentin Shatalov).