West Coast Avengers [2024] #8 - Marvel Comics

WEST COAST AVENGERS No. 8, August 2025

Faced with a seriously deranged incarnation of Ultron who seems more than capable of finally destroying the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gerry Duggan’s narrative for Issue Eight of “West Coast Avengers” should have kept the vast majority of its readers delightfully entertained. In fact, this particular twenty-page periodical is arguably a perfect mix of super-powered fisticuffs and pulse-pounding sub-plots – such as Blue Bolt’s rather impulsive prison break so he can rescue his father from the deadly sharpshooting sights of the Scourge.

Furthermore, the American author does a good job of imbuing this comic with a genuine sense of vulnerability to its titular characters, whether it be James Rhodes' heavily armoured War Machine getting his clock cleaned by Hank Pym's merciless creation, or the 'virtually invulnerable' Simon Williams being turned into a devastating ionic energy bomb. Such palpable jeopardy is especially difficult to achieve when it comes to the ordinarily near-omnipotent Iron Man – a protagonist often “cited as [being] a top five superhero alongside giants like Batman and Spider-Man." Yet in facing a robot who has already survived flying into the Sun, Shellhead certainly seems to have bitten off far more than he can chew; "The final tally wouldn't be calculated for days. But the deaths were in the hundreds."

Similarly as engaging though is the aforementioned plight of Thomas Watt, who despite all his best intentions to go straight, ends up assaulting a detention centre official and subsequently getting shot whilst en-route to save his elderly dad/team-mates. The former villain’s desperate dilemma really does pull at the heart-strings, and seems so utterly unfair considering just how far Flag-Smasher’s stooge has come since first joining the Avengers work-release programme.

Likewise, artist Danny Kim also appears to be at the top of his game for this publication, providing the battle sequences with all the fast-paced, adrenalin-fuelled dynamism a reader might expect from so cataclysmic a confrontation. The illustrator is especially good at giving Wonder Man a terrific moment in the spotlight as the human mutate brutally batters Scorched Ultron through several floors of its predecessor’s Church, only to then be completely overpowered by his opponent’s malicious code infecting chain weapon.

The regular cover art of "WEST COAST AVENGERS" #8 by Ben Harvey