Synopsis / Summary / Plot
A bank is being robbed in Milwaukee and hostages have been taken. A red & blue-clad hero descends from the ceiling on lines and attacks the 2 thieves with jokes and acrobatic moves but it's not Spider-Man. He has a white vertical rectangle on his chest with 'Mr' written in the top. And then 1 of the bad guys shoots him with his sawn-off shotgun full in the chest so they're sure he's dead.
But then a long flexible 'limb' in a black & blue uniform wraps around the hostages to take them out of harms way. And an extremely fat woman smashes through a wall from outside. Meanwhile a white human shape outlined in black dots forms on another wall and a flying female 'dinosaur' soars through it. The dinosaur flies rings round 1 thief while the other guy fires at the big woman, whose body absorbs the bullets and then expels them back to the shooter. The flexible body captures that thug while the 'dead' hero rises up and starts stomping the other.
He (apparently the leader) has to be restrained by the flexible man, who despite the 'F' on his chest isn't Mr Fantastic - instead he's called Flatman. The superlarge woman is Big Bertha and the other female is Dinah Soar who emits a hypersonic sound which calms their boss down. Then a man in a black suit with white eyes (who's also not Spider-Man) enters through the front door and says the cops are holding back reporters who want to see them. The bossman walks out and tells the world they are the Great Lakes Avengers,
In a motel room in Malibu Clint Barton (Hawkeye) rushes out of his shower when he hears this on the TV and immediately thinks of calling the West Coast Avengers about it. But then he immediately doesn't because he quit that group (last issue) when the Government replaced him as leader with U.S. Agent. And further then he answers the doorbell in his bathtowel to see his estranged wife Bobbi (Mockingbird) at the door.
She says it's taken her 3 weeks to find him since he stormed out of the WCA Compound (but it must be said that she stormed out too). She says she's here to talk about their marriage but Clint thought they'd agreed to divorce (#35). Bobbi admits that their previous attempts at reconciliation didn't work (I can only recall Solo Av #16) but she willing to try again.
Clint thinks she's just taking pity on him because he got fired, and now they're back to arguing. Bobbi hits back by rehashing her complaint that he wasn't supportive after he learned how she was kidnapped, drugged and raped by Phantom Rider (missing out the bit about her letting PR die). Instead of bonding them together it split them apart ... but she still loves him.
In the WCA Compound US Agent is enjoying a hearty breakfast, which the cook likes because most of the team just grab toast and OJ. Then slightly-feral Tigra bounds in chasing a mouse to eat. He tries to stop her but she goes more feral and attacks him. He slaps her and she runs off. The cook explains that she's done it several times but she didn't say anything about it because she thought it was part of Tigra's job ... and it kept the mice out of the larder. USA thinks something should be done about this.
We now see Clint and Bobbi flying in a passenger plane to Milwaukee. Clint's still grumpy about it even though it was his idea. They arrange with the police to put out a fake APB to lure the GLA to the Germania building where there are strange lights on the roof. The leader sends Dinah Soar up to investigate, and he gets the black-suited man, named Doorman, to turn into a human-shaped doorway which Flatman can use to get inside at ground level. FM muses that it always seems like he passes through a strange other dimension when he does that.
On the roof a shadowed figure fires an arrow which tangles Dinah in netting. She pulls out a whistle and sounds a note which tells her teammates she's in trouble. Big Bertha takes the boss, who she calls Mr I, on her back and bounces so high she can grab the roof edge to let him leap to confront the archer. Then she lets go and hits the ground laughing.
The archer is of course Hawkeye but the GLA leader thinks he's a fake, especially when he manages to nail him with a flying double-foot kick. But he doesn't do so well against Mockingbird who's more used to physical combat. However he still thinks she's a fake too because everybody knows Hawk and MB have split up and she's quit the Avengers (in #37). (Presumably Hawkeye's later exit isn't common knowledge yet.)
But his next move astonishes them as he back flips off the building to fall many stories to his death. Bobbi ricochets down between 2 walls to try to save him and the pliable guy is astonished that the 'villain' cares. He introduces himself as Flatman, deputy leader of the GLA. When Hawkeye joins them via an arrow line he tells them that the 'victim' isn't dead - he's Mr Immortal and he always recovers.
The gang take the duo to their HQ in Big Bertha's palatial apartment. Dinah Soar, Doorman, Flatman and Mr I hang out with our pair, and Hawkeye asks how Bertha can afford this place. The answer arrives in the shape of a tall slender blonde who Bobbi recognises as top model Ashley Crawford, who claims to *be* Big Bertha. FM explain that they based the group in Milwaukee because they wanted to be a 'North Coast' Avengers. Mocky objects that they can't just call themselves Avengers. But Hawk suggests that they might have the makings of a good team here, under his management of course.
In our final scene Wanda Maximoff gets a letter from Jeremiah Random at the Absolom College Of Robotics offering to help with Vision's situation.