Kate Bishop’s mom is a vampire in West Coast Avengers No. 10’s finale
By Alex Widen
Avengers, Image by Marvel Comics
The final issue of West Coast Avengers is here! Does Kate learn all she needs to know?
The signs were in the air for the last few months. Comic book solicitations have to be announced three months in advance, and no issue of West Coast Avengers as written by Kelly Thompson had been solicited since this month’s 10th issue. Then, solicitations for the second trade collection of the series implied that this issue was the finale. Yet within this issue, the finale editorial page by Thompson makes things crystal clear. This grand experiment to relaunch the Avengers‘ longtime secondary title has come to an end.
As such, Thompson has a heavy task at hand. She has to tie up both this arc as well as some dangling subplots. Chief among them is the fate of Kate Bishop’s mother, Eleanor Bishop. A leftover subplot from the finale of Hawkeye, Kate went to the west coast to find her dad. She found him, but also learned her mother was somehow alive and working with Madame Masque. Now, Kate’s learned an even uglier truth — Eleanor Bishop is a vampire, and working with a cult to suck the blood of her best friend, (Miss) America Chavez.
Image by Marvel Comics
Due in part to Kate Bishop’s ex, Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy, the team has stumbled onto a cult full of vampires in a ritzy California area. They’re obsessed with draining the blood of a legendary “chosen one” who will allow them to walk in sunlight. Such prophecies are old hat for Blade comic readers, and vampires used sunlight blocking amulets en masse in 2011’s Curse Of The Mutants. Regardless, that’s the plot, and Eleanor insists she’s only a half-vampire, and didn’t really want to kill Chavez. It’s all according to plan!
Image by Marvel Comics