Kicking myself w/ Target specific variables on gmake 3.79.1

[chorn]

Consider:

VAL := $@
LIST := a b c
$(LIST): echo-val
echo-val: ; @echo VAL = $(VAL)


> make a
VAL =


It appears to be equivalent to:

%: VAL := $@
LIST := a b c
$(LIST): echo-val
echo-val: ; @echo VAL = $(VAL)


This is boiled down from a much larger make file, which is requiring more
or less that sequence of events.  If I take out the "echo-val" chain it
works fine, but that's unfortunately a requirement for the rest of my
makefile.  I've tried a multitude of other approaches, including playing
with .PHONY and ifndef, but they did not seem to be the right path.

Any help will be appreciated, even if it's just, "No can do."

-chorn