Force Works

Most Recent Roster

• War Machine
• US Agent
• Mockingbird
• Quake
• Gauntlet

Origin

After a number of failures, the main east coast Avengers decided that the Avengers West Coast were to be shut down and the active members (reduced to four at this point) were to be put on reservist status. This offended them, especially Scarlet Witch, who had a longer tenure as an Avenger than Vision, who seemed to be making all the decisions. Suddenly, Iron Man, on hiatus from both teams, showed up and announced his support for the west coast team. They called for a vote on whether to keep the west coast team or not. After a 5-5 vote (with one abstention), Iron Man surprisingly voted to disband the team. The shock was short lived as he immediately led a walkout of the west coast team because Stark had plans for a new team: Force Works.

Team Evolution

Force Works was composed of the remains of the West Coast Avengers.

Shortly after the death of Mockingbird, the West Coast Avengers disbanded. Understandably, Hawkeye left while in mourning the death of his wife, and War Machine went solo due to a feud with Stark. The rest were removed from the Avengers charter after the events of Crash and Burn. The team was reformed as Force Works by Iron Man, with US Agent, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, and Spider Woman.

Unfortunately, Wonder Man fell in battle during the team's first mission. Afterward, the alien Century replaced Wonder Man, and, off and on, War Machine would lend his help to the team when needed.

Long after the first team's disbandment and a short time after the events of the Civil War, the name Force Work's was given to The Initiative team from Iowa as part of the 50-State Initiative. The only member ever revealed was Suzi Endo. Later, it was used by a special SHIELD task force against the A.I. revolution during the second Iron Man 2020 event. U.S. Agent and War Machine were the only two members with ties to the original team. Their fellow members included Mockingbird, Quake, and Gauntlet.

Major Story Arcs

Proactive Heroes

Iron Man’s big pitch to the team was that they needed to be more proactive, something the Avengers were incapable of being in their current form. Stark welcomed them to The Works, his off-the-books R&D lab that he designated their new headquarters. Nominating Wanda as team leader, he introduced them to PLATO, the A.I. that ran their new HQ, and the hex mainframe, called the Chaos Computer, which would work in tandem with Wanda’s probability powers, determining where the team was needed most.

They were also joined by tech support, Fisher Todd, PR director, Amanda Chaney, and a Rigellian Recorder they rescued (but seems to have an ulterior motive).

While collecting their things from the West Coast compound, Force Works was attacked by Kree soldiers. They were looking for vengeance against Wonder Man and Vision for their roles in Operation: Galactic Storm. Simon was hit with a blast from an ionic cannon, turning him into a human bomb. To protect the Earth, Simon sacrificed himself to defeat the Kree. This opened the door for Century, an alien warrior conjured by Wanda, to take his place. He needed their help repelling an invasion from The Scatter, an alien race he had been tracking across space.

Hands of the Mandarin

After the Recorder messed with the Chaos Computer, Force Works never got the original distress call for an EMP attack on China. It wasn’t until Suzi Endo of Stark Enterprises’ Hong Kong lab sent out a personal distress call that they learned of the attack. With Stark and Rhodey missing, the team jumped into action, flying to China and facing off against The Avatars, enforcers for The Mandarin. In the midst of the battle, Century suddenly and inexplicably teleported away. Despite this, the remaining Force Works members were still able to defeat The Avatars.

While interrogating Lich of The Avatars, he explained that The Mandarin has transformed China into its medieval version and was currently torturing Stark at his mainland China fortress. Knowing full well that it was most likely a trap, Force Works could not deny the opportunity to rescue their friend. Unfortunately, as they entered airspace near the fortress, their jet lost power and started to plummet into the building. Surviving the crash, they make their way through the fortress and intervene on The Mandarin’s killing blow to a disarmed Stark. Using her hex powers, Wanda is able to cause all of Mandarin’s power rings to fire at once, allowing them to escape in the distracting chaos.

Free of the fortress and attempting to compose themselves, Stark tells the team that Century teleported to his location and tried to protect him and War Machine. But he failed, with both Century and Rhodey seemingly being disintegrated. Just then, a calvary approached with medieval Japanese weaponry led by Rhodey and Century. Century’s unique energy signature caused them to be teleported instead of disintegrated. However, Century left behind his weapon, Parallax, which was now in The Mandarin’s possession. It could be used to extend his anti-tech field to the rest of the world. To face him, Force Works needs to make it to the Hong Kong lab where they can coordinate with PLATO for tech with special shielding against this electric dead zone.

Luckily for Force Works, The Mandarin’s first attempt at extending his field of influence failed when the power proved too much for him to handle. Century could sense the various powers at his disposal. On top of his power ring’s and Century’s staff, he had an alien orb long thought destroyed. Century was cynical of their chances, but Stark had an idea. Stark faked surrender so that he could get close to The Mandarin and expose him to a techno-organic virus he had recently been cured of. This combination of science and sorcery caused an implosion that took out The Mandarin and his fortress.

The Recorder

The Chaos Computer got a hit that the Kree platoon that was responsible for Wonder Man’s death was breaking out of The Vault. When they arrived, Force Works learned that not only did the Kree start breaking out, but the security system completely shut down. Century teleported to the mainframe room and found the Recorder messing with the security. Stark took him out pretty quickly with an electric overload.

Force Works handed him over to Rigellians who were coming to Earth to collect the Kree, as well. The Rigellians made the mistake of reactivating the robot during their examination of it. The Recorder took over the Rigellian ship and claimed allegiance with the Kree, thus explaining its earlier behavior. Force Works teleported to the ship, and while the Recorder was monologuing, Wanda let loose and destroyed it.

The Crossing

Tensions were growing on the team as Stark continued to encroach on the leadership role that he originally gave to Wanda. This included but was not limited to forcing Suzi Endo (now going by Cybermancer) on the team as a replacement for Century, who was on a mission of personal importance, and setting the team against Hawkeye, who was being framed for the death of Yellowjacket and Marilla. It got so bad that Wanda had to take control of the team and force Stark out.

This coincided with the disappearance of the country Vietnam from the maps and collective memories of humanity. The only one who seemed to remember it was Moonraker, a mysterious new member of Force Works, who acted as if he was on the team since its inception. Their investigation into Vietnam revealed a connection to Kang, whom Moonraker was trying to stop and was placed on the team by warping history. Meanwhile, the remaining members meet with a select group of Avengers to talk about Stark’s recent behavior, determining him to be a threat.

Soon after, while under Kang’s control, Stark attacked both teams. At The Works, he killed Amanda Chaney and attempted to kidnap Rachel, Spider-Woman’s daughter. He was stopped by Century, who returned from space at just the right time. With the rest of the team and War Machine attempting to help Century, Stark used Cybermancer (revealed to be a variant of Suzi Endo) and his new evil A.I., VIRGIL, to keep them busy while he escaped. After defeating the villains, Force Works joined The Avengers to confront Stark.

When they are collectively attacked by Kang’s henchman, they fall into a time portal and recruit the help of a teenaged variant of Tony Stark. They bring him back to the present to force Stark out of his trance. Thankfully, it worked, and Tony sacrificed himself to push the enemies back. In his place, Iron Boy joined the Avengers.

Disbandment

While mourning the loss of their founder and deliberating on their future, Force Works was attacked by variants of Ultron and Wonder Man from Cybermancer’s timeline. Soon after they united, they started to degrade due to the temporal issues they were causing being away from their own timeline. Between losing Stark and watching Wonder Man die for a second time in the team’s history, many of the members decided to disband, much to U.S. Agent’s chagrin. Just then PLATO announced that the chaos computer had finally come back online and was reporting a disaster in Washington state.

Ever heroes, the team went on one last mission before packing it in.

Robot Uprisings

During Arno Stark's hostile takeover of Stark Unlimited and the crack down on the rights and liberties of A.I., the military sponsored a team taking the name Force Works to quell robot uprisings that were popping up around the world. Maria Hill commanded the team from HQ while War Machine led the team in the field.

When Mockingbird went silent during her undercover mission in South America, War Machine, U.S. Agent, and Quake were sent in to rescue her, only for all four of them to be kidnapped by an army of Deathloks created by MODOK. They narrowly defeated MODOK when Rhodey took control of the Deathloks command processor and became their leader.

The team was disbanded immediately after the missionwhen they refused to turn over the Deathlok schematics to Hill.

In Other Media

Iron Man Animated Series

Members of Force Works made up the supporting cast of Iron Man: The Animated Series, a 2-season Saturday morning cartoon that aired 1994 - 1996. The two-part season 2 finale was even based on the Force Works crossover, The Hands of the Mandarin. It was notable for crossing over with the Spider-Man and Hulk cartoons that aired around the same time.

The animated members included War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Century, Spider-Woman, and, replacing U.S. Agent, Hawkeye