West Coast Avengers #36
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWest Coast Avengers #36 is the penultimate chapter of Steve Englehart's emotionally bruising late run on the title, serving as the direct setup for the team-fracturing 'Avengers Disassemble!' conclusion in issue #37. It revives the Silver Age villain the Voice (Jason Lorne Cragg) — an obscure Ant-Man foe originally from Tales to Astonish #42 (1963) — and delivers his first fully fleshed-out origin retelling in the Bronze/Copper Age, making it the definitive reference point for that character. More significantly, the issue pivots the entire Englehart run toward its climax: Hank Pym's discovery of his long-believed-dead first wife Maria Trovaya (here revealed as grotesquely mutated), which triggers Pym's departure from the team and sets the stage for the roster upheaval that would immediately precede John Byrne's consequential 'Vision Quest' arc. The story also foreshadows the Hawkeye/Mockingbird moral schism over lethal force — the ideological crack that would shatter the team one issue later.
In West Coast Avengers #36, Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom deliver a gripping tale as Hank Pym, the Ant-Man, returns to Bratislava to confront a desperate mission: locating his long-lost wife, Maria. Trapped in a prison where the Avengers stand in his way, Pym’s quest takes a shocking turn when he finally finds her—transformed in ways no one could have foreseen. With the team divided and the stakes higher than ever, Pym sets out on a new path, determined to find a cure. The issue’s cover by Al Milgrom and Mike Machlan captures the tension perfectly, a striking visual of a man torn between past and future.
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The issue was written by Steve Englehart, who had helmed the West Coast Avengers ongoing series from its launch in 1985, and illustrated by Al Milgrom on layouts with Mike Machlan on finishes — the core creative team that defined the book's visual identity throughout the late 1980s. It appeared under editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco with Howard Mackie serving as editor, cover-dated September 1988. The story draws directly on continuity Englehart himself planted earlier in the run and in Tales to Astonish, reflecting his characteristically long-game approach to serialized Marvel storytelling; notably, the conclusion of the two-part Voice arc in the following issue (#37) had Mantis's dialogue rewritten without Englehart's knowledge, an editorial intervention that contributed to his eventual departure from the title.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published September 1988 (cover date); written by Steve Englehart, penciled by Al Milgrom (layouts), inked by Mike Machlan, colored by Paul Becton, lettered by Bill Oakley.
- Features the origin retelling of the Voice (Jason Lorne Cragg), a mind-control villain who first appeared in Tales to Astonish #42 (April 1963) — this issue and #37 mark his first Silver-Age-character revival in the Copper Age.
- Central plot: the Voice, working alongside multiple Hank Pym/Ant-Man rogues and a manipulated Quicksilver, uses his sonic compulsion powers to turn the mind-controlled West Coast Avengers against Hank Pym in a trap set inside a Bratislava prison.
- Maria Trovaya Pym — Hank Pym's first wife, long thought murdered by Hungarian agents — appears alive but horrifically mutated; her mutated brain ultimately breaks the Voice's control over the team.
- Hank Pym departs the West Coast Avengers at the issue's conclusion, resolved to find a cure for Maria, directly setting up the team's near-collapse in the following issue.
- The full Englehart-era roster appears: Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra, Moon Knight, and Hank Pym, alongside supporting roles for the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, and an antagonistic Quicksilver — making it one of the largest cast assemblies of the era.
- The issue was reprinted in the West Coast Avengers Omnibus Vol. 2 (Marvel, November 2013) and in the Spanish-language anthology El Asombroso Hombre Araña Presenta #86 (Novedades, 1989); it is also collected in Avengers West Coast Epic Collection Vol. 3: Tales to Astonish (2020).
- Editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco presided over the issue; Howard Mackie served as the direct editor — the same editorial team that would oversee the controversial rewriting of Mantis's dialogue in the conclusion (#37), which contributed to Englehart's departure from the series.
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Reprinted in Titans #126 (1989), El Asombroso Hombre Araña Presenta #86 (1989), West Coast Avengers Omnibus #2 (2014), Avengers West Coast Epic Collection #3 (2020), Die Rächer #29
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