Avengers West Coast Annual #7 (Story 1)

Background

Julia Carpenter aka Spider-Woman II has recently joined the Avengers West Coast. She has some reservations about her abilities as an Avenger and how they are affecting her relationship with her daughter Rachel.

Story 'Locate'

Knowing that she will have an hour layover in Denver's Stapleton airport, Julia contacts her college friend Yvonne to meet her and catch up. An excited Yvonne meets Julia and they go to the airport lounge.

Without actually telling her friend she's an Avenger, Julia mentions that she's at a crossroads with her "job". She likes her "co-workers" but the hours are somewhat unpredictable. She wants to be in a position to spend more time with Rachel.

On that note, the ladies exchange pictures of their families. Julia mentions that Larry has custody of Rachel and they live in Newport Beach. Yvonne shows her pictures of her successful lawyer husband and 2 kids. Julia comments that just like in college, Yvonne seems to have everything she could want.

At that moment a security guard rushes into the lounge and explains to Mr. Chadwick that one of the inbound planes has two malfunctioning engines and the landing gear won't lower. They quickly leave the lounge.

Julia makes an excuse to Yvonne and changes into Spider Woman. She breaks through one of the security doors and goes onto the tarmac. She watches the distressed plane coming in and weaves a giant psi-web to slow their descent.

The plane eventually stops thanks to her help, but now the passengers are in danger from the flames resulting from their skidding to a halt. Spider Woman rips the doors off the plane and creates emergency slides out of her psi webs to get the passengers to safety.

Julia returns to Yvonne who is noticeably shaken by the event even though she was not in danger. Since Julia's plane has obviously been delayed, Yvonne insists on waiting with her until she leaves. When the plane is boarding they say their goodbyes and Yvonne informs Julia that she's got inoperable breast cancer. Julia promises to keep in touch.

Once she's in the air, she decides to continue with the Avengers for now. Her visit with Yvonne has helped to put one thing in perspective: nobody can have it all.

General Comments

I was impressed with the story. Not a lot of space, but they made the most of it. To top it off, they included a bit of wisdom that didn't come across as forced. From time to time we all get a bit too focused on our own problems to realize that things could be worse.

Overall Rating

3 webs. A fairly solid character-driven story with a real world lesson.

Footnote

This story takes place at some point before the events in Avengers West Coast #84.