The West Coast Avengers formed in 1984, and the comic book series based on the team was unique in that it gave Hawkeye a chance to rise above his role as a malcontent and show he could be a legitimate leader in Marvel Comics. It also took some iconic heroes and sent them to California to have a new setting for adventures, while the main Avengers remained in New York City, giving the team a face on both coasts of the country. After a successful four-issue miniseries, the West Coast Avengers got their own ongoing series that lasted for nine years and running for 102 issues (with a name change to Avengers West Coast halfway through).
The team gave Hawkeye a chance to put together a great lineup of heroes who had their own incredible difficulties along the way, culminating when the government sent in U.S. Agent to get them under control, and Captain America finally showed up to shut them down. However, before either of those events happened, the West Coast Avengers was one of the most entertaining teams in Marvel Comics.
10) Hawkeye
Hawkeye founded the West Coast Avengers, and the long-time Avengers member served as its first field leader alongside his wife Mockingbird. While Hawkeye was a great tactical leader, he failed to stop several things from fracturing the team from within. He eventually soured on leading the team at all. He has no superpowers, one of two of the original members who only rely on his fighting skills. However, he is the greatest archer in the Marvel Universe, and has almost perfect accuracy, including a variety of trick arrows. He has beaten everyone from Taskmaster and Crossfire to members of the Masters of Evil on his own.
9) Tigra
Tigra was Greer Nelson, and she gained her form as a cat-person thanks to a mystic ritual when she almost died from a gunshot wound. Before taking on the Tigra identity, she worked as the Cat, and fought with enhanced agility and strength. As Tigra, she is strong enough to bend steel, is superfast and agile, and has the heightened senses of a tiger. She also has retractable claws that can cut through most conventional materials. During her time in the West Coast Avengers, she battled not to lose control and become feral, which became a problem. She left the team partially because of the Avengers no-kill rule.
8) Mockingbird
Mockingbird was one of the West Coast Avengers founding members, helping set up the team with her then-husband Hawkeye. While not as superhumanly fast or strong as Tigra, Mockingbird has a lot more control and is a trained SHIELD agent and spy. Just like Hawkeye, she has no superpowers, but she is at peak human conditioning and is an expert at hand-to-hand combat and is a tactical genius. Eventually, she received a version of the Super-Soldier Serum mixed with the Infinity Formula to make her even harder to beat. Regardless of her strength levels, she is almost always the deadliest person in the room.
7) Moon Knight
Like Mockingbird, Moon Knight is another highly trained government assassin, as he initially worked for the CIA as an operative and mercenary. However, unlike Mockingbird, Moon Knight has superpowers. After Marc Spector almost died in Egypt, the moon god Khonshu granted him divine strength, which grows stronger when the moon gets fuller. He almost didn’t get added to the team thanks to people believing he was psychologically unstable, and he proved not to be a trusted member because he didn’t agree with the Avengers no-kill rule.
6) Hank Pym
Hank Pym was a founding member of the regular Avengers when he was Ant-Man, and he went through a lot of struggles over his life, including changing to Giant-Man, Goliath, and Yellowjacket. Hank Pym eventually suffered a mental breakdown and retired. With the West Coast Avengers, he came onboard the team as a scientific advisor and Avengers Compound manager, rather than as an actual superhero. However, his genius-level intellect makes him the smartest member of the West Coast Avengers, and his use of the Pym Particles when needed makes him a solid warrior when his teammates needed him.
5) The Wasp
Janet Van Dyne is another founding member of the main Avengers team, and she has proven more than once that she is also one of the best team leaders the Avengers ever had. She even helped name the original team when they first started out. Just like her ex-husband, Hank Pym, Jan uses the Pym Particles to shrink down and she can deliver stinger blasts that can take down even superhuman villains. She joined the West Coast Avengers when Hank suffered a mental breakdown and he was considering suicide. Her leadership skills worked to pull the team together whereas Hawkeye always struggled in that role.
4) Iron Man
The Iron Man who was a founding member of the West Coast Avengers was not Tony Stark. At this time, Tony Stark had retired and James Rhodes had taken on the role of Iron Man. The interesting thing about this was that he refused to let any of his teammates know his secret identity, and for a while, he didn’t seem to know that they knew Tony Stark was Iron Man. Eventually, he revealed the truth and became a trusted ally. Tony Stark finally returned and took his role back while Rhodes became War Machine. While Rhodes was a founding member, Stark was one of the team’s final members. No matter which version, Iron Man has always been one of Marvel’s most powerful Avengers.
3) Vision
Vision is a synthetic android that Ultron created to serve as his “son.” However, Vision eventually betrayed his “father” and joined the Avengers, becoming one of their most powerful members. After an incident where he tried to take over the world to create world peace, he left for the West Coast and joined the team there. However, this led to one of the West Coast Avengers best storylines, “Vision Quest,” where the U.S. government captured and broke down Vision, allowing Hank Pym to rebuild him without his personality or memories. Vision can alter his body density at will and is strong enough to fight Thor blow-for-blow.
2) Wonder Man
Wonder Man is Simon Williams, and he was a wealthy young man who faced prison time for embezzling money before Baron Zemo gave him superpowers. He was one of the founding members of the team, as he was already in California working as an actor at the time. However, this also led to a lot of conflict since Vision was created using Simon’s brainwaves, and in “Vision Quest,” Simon refused to allow them to use his brainwaves again, leading to tension between him and Scarlet Witch, who wanted her husband back to the way he was before. Wonder Man’s strength is at Class 100 levels, which is the same tier as Hulk and Thor, and he is basically immortal and almost always returns to life after he dies.
1) Scarlet Witch
Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, and was the most powerful ever to serve with the West Coast Avengers during their run. She used to believe she was a mutant, but she is actually the daughter of Natalya Maximoff, who was also previously known as the Scarlet Witch, and she possesses her mother’s chaos magic as a nexus being. She can alter and reshape reality itself, which she did more than once, including creating House of M. She also almost turned bad in West Coast Avengers thanks to losing the love of her husband, the Vision. She might be the most powerful Avenger of all time, and she took over as Marvel’s new Sorcerer Supreme in 2026, following the events of One World Under Doom.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!