MOCKINGBIRD: Page 4 of 9

Publication Date: 9th Apr 2020
Written By: Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

Biography - Page 4

Back in Palos Verdes, Mockingbird and Hawkeye remained heated with each other. The other Avengers tried to step in and mitigate, as their ranks included several married, divorced and even widowed members. Despite the counseling, however, Clint and Bobbi refused to reconcile. Clint felt he couldn't trust Bobbi as a spouse or as a teammate because of her actions, and wanted her gone. Bobbi felt she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at her core and, left alone in the Old West, she had reacted according to her training, not as an Avenger. On top of that, she felt the extreme circumstances she was under deserved more support from her husband than normal, not less. When Mockingbird declared her intent to leave both Hawkeye and the Avengers, though, she was surprised that Tigra and Moon Knight intended to come with her. Each of them felt killing was acceptable, even necessary, under certain circumstances, and chose to leave the West Coast Avengers with her as a show of support. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #37]

Mockingbird, Tigra and Moon Knight remained together as an unofficial team for some weeks. Still, without government support like an official Avengers franchise, they found themselves struggling to define their mission. When Phantom Rider openly attacked Bobbi and her friends after one adventure, Mockingbird realized she needed to resolve her feud with the spirit once and for all. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #38-40, Annual #3]

Bobbi and her allies reached out to exorcist Daimon Hellstrom to approach Hamilton Slade more peacefully than their last encounter. Mockingbird took the time to explain her situation with Lincoln Slade to Hamilton this time, and he agreed to offer whatever support he could. Daimon's exorcism revealed that Hamilton was actually possessed by TWO spirits without his knowledge -- the mad Lincoln Slade and his brother Carter Slade, his genuinely heroic predecessor as the Phantom Rider. The brothers Slade battled each other in spirit form while Mockingbird and the Avengers were forced to deal with the sudden arrival of the Heliopolitan army of death, targeting Moon Knight and his Egyptian god patron, Khonshu.

Once the antagonists were all dealt with, Carter Slade was prepared to allow Daimon to exile him into a nether-realm along with Lincoln, preventing his brother from ever returning. However, Hamilton Slade bonded with Carter at the last minute, preserving the spirit of the heroic Phantom Rider in a conscious partnership between ancestor and descendant. Mockingbird was satisfied with their assurances that Lincoln was gone forever, but could not bring herself to return to the Avengers. Moon Knight was shaken by the secondary conflict with Khonshu and left, while Tigra returned to Palos Verdes, shattering their burgeoning team. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #41]

Even with the Phantom Rider out of the picture, Mockingbird was at loose ends. A few aborted attempts to reunite with Hawkeye failed to make any headway. [Solo Avengers #14-16] In her off time, Bobbi was approached by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent representing an initiative called Project: Vigilance. The agent-in-charge Cameron Brock explained their mission. The Vision's term as Avengers chairperson when Mockingbird joined hadn't ended well -- the synthezoid had been unstable and made a benevolent attempt to seize control of the computer network of every nation on Earth. Vision was "cured" and stepped down from the Avengers as a result, with little lasting harm done, but the world powers were alarmed and Vigilance was formed to brainstorm contingencies in case this ever happened again. Recently, Vigilance went "active" when Vision returned to active status with the Avengers West, increasing the potential threat level as he now had access to the Avengers' super-computers again.

As a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Avenger, Mockingbird was in a unique position to advise on the matter. Brock appealed to her patriotism, and ultimately convinced Bobbi to contribute to Vigilance. She provided a layout and security assessment for Avengers Compound, which would allow two small teams to infiltrate the compound, extract the Vision and introduce a computer worm virus into the system that would wipe all data on Vision from their network. This was intended, Brock said, as a contingency plan activated only in emergency if Vision went rogue again. Bobbi was concerned with making sure minimum risk was involved for both the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., and so she revisited her tactical plan files even after submitting them to make further fine-tuning. In the process, she discovered new elements had been added to her plan, including a functional Ultron duplicate to distract the Avengers. Bobbi objected to these unnecessary and dangerous additions to her plan, so Brock had her thrown in the stockades.

Mockingbird only managed to escape Vigilance weeks later, making her way back to Avengers Compound to discover the plan had already been put into motion. It was hard to say whether Scarlet Witch or Hawkeye was more furious with her. Bobbi lent the Avengers her support in returning to Vigilance to rescue the Vision if possible, particularly since she was now convinced Vigilance had nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. at all. They were too late, however -- Vision had been dismantled and his memory files erased. Although they weren't S.H.I.E.L.D., Vigilance had been an international consortium authorized by the U.S. government to neutralize the Vision's threat, meaning there would be no punishment for the kidnapping and essentially the murder of Vision. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #42-44]

While Mockingbird and the Avengers were at loose ends trying to repair Vision themselves, the final straw came when the American government ordered a new leader onto the team named U.S. Agent, essentially a watchdog in exchange for maintaining their special government clearance. Hawkeye was furious and quit rather than accept this new addition. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #45]

Bobbi followed Clint, hoping for another shot at reconciliation now that the Avengers were no longer standing between them. They agreed to work together in investigating a group calling itself the Great Lakes Avengers out of Milwaukee. Looking to defend the Avengers franchise, Hawkeye and Mockingbird confronted the GLA and Clint surprisingly took a shine to the misfit heroes. Clint and Bobbi began working with the GLA in Wisconsin, helping them train in the hopes of one day receiving official recognition as an Avengers team. [West Coast Avengers (2nd series) #46]

Bobbi and Clint began seeing a marriage counselor in an effort to repair their relationship. During this period, their old enemy Crossfire took out a bounty on Hawkeye, leading him to run a gauntlet of mercenaries and past foes before facing Crossfire himself. It ended with a literal cliffhanger, and Clint had the opportunity to consider letting Crossfire fall to his death instead of letting him come back for revenge, again and again. Although he chose to save the villain at the last moment, Clint and Bobbi talked afterwards about how he had gained a new appreciation for what she went through with Phantom Rider. [Avengers Spotlight #22-25]

One day, the Olympian God of Love Cupid was tricked into believing Mockingbird was the reincarnation of his ancient mortal lover, Psyche. He attempted to steal her from Hawkeye to restore her lost memories, but Hawkeye managed to call in Avengers West and Hercules. Hercules convinced his nephew he was mistaken, and they learned Cupid had been tricked by Aphrodite, who was herself ensorcelled by the Amulet of Amuk. Mockingbird and the Avengers traveled to Olympus to prevent a coup, and Cupid apologized to Bobbi afterwards for his actions. [Marvel Super-Heroes (2nd series) #9]

Mockingbird and Hawkeye continued working with the Great Lakes Avengers in Milwaukee, training the group to reach Avengers standards. They also remained in contact with the Avengers, appearing as representatives during the Acts of Vengeance affair. Despite their efforts at reconciliation, however, Clint and Bobbi seemed to drift back apart. Hawkeye never got over being "kicked out" of Avengers West and returned to the team, essentially abandoning Mockingbird in Wisconsin to continue their responsibilities towards the GLA. While Bobbi took the Great Lakes team seriously, it became apparent Clint would always prefer the California group. [Avengers Spotlight #26-34,36, Avengers Annual #19, Avengers West Coast #48-49, 54, 60]

(Furthermore, at some point in their history, Bobbi and Clint became pregnant but ultimately lost the baby. They estimated out that the birth date would have been October 12th. If this event occurred during their reconciliation efforts, it certainly could have caused their relationship to falter once more.) [Secret Invasion #2]