Real-Life Cosplay Heroes: Meet the West Coast Avengers

By Sarah Rosenblum

With comic conventions like Mega Con ever increasing in popularity, the term cosplay—which refers to dressing up in a movie, book, or video game character costume and taking on that role—has become well known. Less known is the act of "cause-play"—unless you've encountered the West Coast Avengers.

A group of dedicated volunteers who use their passion of heroes and costuming to give back to the community, the West Coast Avengers cosplay for a cause. The group "serves as a collective identity for costuming fans who want to put their creativity, talents and energy to good use through fundraising, charity work and volunteerism," explained Bill Romanelli, a member who frequently cosplays as Hawkeye.

Visits to children's hospitals and appearances at charity fun runs and fundraising events are just some of the heroic acts the West Coast Avengers perform.

For children in hospitals enduring the kinds of health problems that are difficult even for grown men and women to handle, a visit from the West Coast Avengers means a chance to feel like a kid again—interacting with a real-life hero, maybe their role model, and imagining the worlds of their favorite movies.

"It's an amazing feeling to go into a hospital and see kids who are going through all kinds of health problems forget about those problems for a little while and smile," Romanelli explained. "It's great for their parents, too. As a father myself, I can only imagine the anguish many of these parents feel, so to see their child happy and being a kid again, even if only for a few minutes, must feel very welcome."

The West Coast Avengers was founded six years ago as a chapter of the national Avengers Initiative, which has regional chapters for the east coast, central US, west coast, and Hawaii. Since then, the west coast chapter has grown in size to more than 65 members.

Although free to join, each member has gone through a comprehensive application process that includes explaining why they want to join, listing the character(s) they portray, and submitting costume photos to ensure high quality, realistic costumes. Each application is then reviewed and voted on by the organization's executive committee.

Those who encounter the West Coast Avengers in action can expect to see superheroes from the Marvel Universe as well as Disney and Star Wars characters. Costumes from the DC universe can sometimes be spotted at events other than those officially sponsored by Marvel.

The volunteers get to choose which characters they dress as, but the group tries to ensure no more than one of each hero at any given event. This doesn't prevent two Iron Man cosplayers from joining the West Coast Avengers; since not everyone can make it to every event, two "Iron Men" means it's more likely that an Iron Man will be present at all events. And we hear Mr. Stark is in high demand these days!

Marvel heroes like the Avengers are popular in comics and the movies because they represent the very different faces, personalities, and quirks of "good" all coming together to conquer evil. The West Coast Avengers are real-life heroes—a group of very different individuals brought together by a shared interest in costuming who have teamed up in a valiant effort to make the world a better place for people to live in.

For more information or inquiries, you can follow the West Coast Avengers at their Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/WestCoastAvengers