Why, yes I have ever observant reader. I reviewed the first issue of this miniseries way back when it premiered, and you know what, I gave it a pretty solid review. You can check it out here for my extended thoughts on such.
For those who did not know what, then yes, I did review the first issue, and I won't be including it in this little run we've got for us this month. That would be redundant, and we're not about that.
*looks awkwardly over to both Fate/Zero reviews and Top 10 Villains lists*
Anyway, for the whole month of November, my Wednesdays will be dedicated to bringing you my thoughts on last year's mega-Marvel event, Avengers & X-Men: AXIS, focusing on the heroes battles against Red Skull, themselves, and various other plot things that get really confusing really fast. And my thoughts still haven't changed on the matter: the best part about the whole miniseries is the inverted/ mirrored logo. That is still awesome.
Anyway, "AXIS" wasn't the first idea I had in mind when coming up with review material for the month. I really wanted to look at Original Sin, as it has both had a greater impact and was just more of a mixed bag for people than this one. Then I realized that the material I have here is far better for a review than with Original Sin. And besides, I reviewed the third issue of that series (as my first comic book review, no less). How weird would that be? Do Issues One, Two, then Four? Nah.
Today, we have the final two chapters in the first of three "Acts" that comprise this book. Act 1: is titled the "Red Supremacy," based off of the Red Skull's new name given his powers.
And now, we can do a proper previously on:
Red Skull stole Charles Xavier's brain, sucked his powers out of it like a kid with a Capri-Sun, then somehow evolved into Red Onslaught and declared war on all mutant-kind despite having the powers of a mutant. The Avengers--without female Thor but with Sam Wilson Captain America--advanced on Red Skull on the island of Genosha at one of his reeducation camps where he kept several members of the X-Men. Their battle began until Red Skull whipped out two Super Sentinels designed for the extinction of all Avengers and X-Men, designed by Tony Stark. Hooray!
And now, on with the review!
The cover of the second issue is okay, not nearly as interesting as the first. I get that the whole miniseries is supposed to have a divided cover, but, this one is just confusing. For one, it's supposed to mirror heroes and villains, but all of the heroes featured here are working together. And who is Cyclops and Havoc shooting at? Okay, it's obvious Red Skull but it makes it seem like they don't know what they're doing.
The book truly opens up with Tony Stark being screamed at by Sam, telling him to get up and tell everyone how to stop the Super Sentinels.
What? You don't wake up like this normally?
The two of them narrowly dodge all of the Super Sentinels attacking them, with Tony repeating that he has no idea when he created them, how he created them, but that he created them to defeat super-heroes. He explains that they use Pym Particles to essentially zap their foes away, and does so when Sam blocks Tony from such an attack. Tony also continues a pretentious narration. Great.
If the situation doesn't already seem familiar, allow me to point out the similarity: the Justice League's "Tower of Babel" story-line, in which Batman's data on all of the League's weaknesses were exploited against them. To be fair, this is the best way to take down a large group of heroes and the Sentinels have already been pre-designed for mutant extinction. My issue is that Tony keeps bringing up his list and how he continually kept track of their powers and weaknesses. Apparently, Red Skull managed to hack in and find this, when there's quite the easy solution for this:
Write it down.
In several dire situations where an AI is coming after the heroes, it's typical for the solution to come from someone writing something in pen and paper. There's no way to track it. Sure, there's a lot to write down but at least Tony would have it all on his own. Granted, the Super Sentinels had already been developed, but still.
Tony, having met up with new arrivals Rogue, Magneto, Dr. Strange, and Scarlet Witch, knows it's up to them to stop Red Skull, and the best way to do that is to invert Red Skull so that what little sliver of Xavier is left can come alive and take over.
A surgeon, German, witch, Southern Bell, and drunk walk into a bar...
After flying away with Magneto to set the plan in motion, Tony explains that the greatest flaw in their design was that they were made only to stop heroes, not villains, as villains would never work together in a coalition that would require such behemoths.
Except, you know, the Masters of Evil, Brotherhood of Mutants, Sinister Six, the Cabal.
Yeah, nothing like that. That'd be stupid.
They're attack goes smoothly until freaking Nova--Sam Alexander--comes in and knocks one of the Sentinels away from Tony and Magneto, who were doing so well on their own. No, really. They were.
The Sentinels manage to regroup, blast the sorcerers, and knock Iron Man out of the sky and into a page that has some pretty good tension in it.
Should've used Energizer batteries, Mr. Stark.
You're already aware that most of the heroes have fallen. Tony is losing power to his suit and he's one of the only heroes left to fight. If he goes down, it's pretty much over. Who else is left to stop his own creations? Now, this is somewhat ruined when he wonders how long it took him to build these things. Maybe all of the reboots since he did build them have clouded his memories.
Zing.
Magneto notices him, and when Tony calls for help, he just floats away because he's kind of a jerk like that. Nightcrawler appears and saves Tony just as he is about to be crushed, and he arrives at the last remaining hope for the Earth, with a group of X-Men, and Inhuman, Sue Storm, and himself. Weird.
They decide to put Cyclops in charge--that's always a great idea--and make one final stand against Red Skull to get Xavier back and man this book is just not ending, is it?
They attack, with Havoc now giving his own little pretentious narration about Cyclops and how he's still a good guy despite the messes he's caused, and we see them doing some pretty decent damage, working well together. Much better than the actual teams that fought before them. Again; weird.
However, like all good things, it comes to an end, and all but Iron Man are easily wiped out once the Sentinels get a lock on them. But, hopes rises from off-panel as a brand new batch of heroes bursts onto the scene, ready to give it their all, and save the Earth as they've tried so many times before:
The Super-Friends?!?!?!?!
This issue has its exciting moments, but nothing too spectacular. For the most part it just shows how Tony basically screwed everyone over, and that there is still a possibility for them to defeat Red Skull. It ends on an odd glimmer of hope, though how some of those villains agreed to fight alongside Magneto is beyond me. Sabretooth, Doom, Mystique? I get it. But Carnage and the Goblins? Well, I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. Still, it ends on a high-note.
Issue Three's cover is at least far better than the second issue's, too!
Why is Deadpool with the villains?
While most of the heroes don't show up until the end of the book, this does have that classic divide between hero and villain that most of the other variant covers had been going for, and it does have every major villain-hero on it as well. The only character that's missing is Red Skull.
We open with the best character to open any Marvel comic book. Deadpool!
Tony x Wade friendship confirmed
Deadpool does a little exposition for us on who the heck Hobgoblin and Carnage are, which I would normally be against, but the more Deadpool the better! While I still don't get why these two are there, or even how they are around given the events over in Spider-Man at the time, I also don't care, because they are a ton of fun.
Well...fun in that weird, twisted sort of way...
Really, they make this issue half-decent. Or, at least, some of them do. The banter between Doom and Loki is fun at first, but it goes on for a page too long. Enchantress is rather dull in her captivation of Red Skull. It does show how strong she is to take over his mind, using love over hate no less, but it's still mostly just there to remind us that she is there.
Things do get a little more interesting when Iron Man's restraints on Red Skull are off and all of the villains suddenly begin attacking Quentin and Genesis/ Evan, who were trying to pry into Red Skull's mind. Luckily, Deadpool gets in the way and stops some of them.
This also gives Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom enough time to use the Inversion Spell, and Dr. Doom escapes--oddly enough with Dr. Strange *looks over to Secret Wars*--leaving everyone to wonder what is really going on here. But, hey, Red Skull is back to normal! Now the question is, who does he go with? And...yeah, this is where the begins to roll downhill...
No, seriously, we're here again?!
I don't even understand why they're having the debate if many of those people are part of the Avengers Unity Squad. That team's whole purpose was to be a gap between the X-Men and the Avengers, for times like this! It's also pretty clear that Red Skull should go back to the X-Men. It almost seems as if Sam Wilson is telling Cyclops off just to make him mad. The X-Men have every right to the body and then some over it. The arrival of Steve Rogers doesn't help things either
But, we do get to see the first immediate effect of the Inversion wave:
He's a big kid now!
Yup, Genesis is now Apocalypse. But, he doesn't seem as outright evil as his future counterpart, and hey, Deadpool's happy to see him. That's good, right? At least there's a funny scene to break up all this nonsense.
And so, our book ends with Havoc and Cyclops skulking off, claiming there is no longer to be any work between the X-Men and Avengers, as this was the final straw.
Welp, that was fun.
It's difficult to give an outright opinion on this opening "act." On the one hand, there are some pretty good elements. For starters, the art by Kubert and Yu is consistently good, grasping all of the characters well and showcasing tons of background detail and characterization. The action isn't half-bad and the villains arrival is tons of fun.
But it's the squabbling, pretentious dialogue, and repetitive fight sequences that sort of bring this down. I wouldn't say that the opening three issues are any bad, but I won't call them great, either. I stopped reading "AXIS" in full after this, as it felt like it's own miniseries and that it could just stop right here. The villains came and fought as heroes, and now the Unity squad was broken up. This could have been it.
Unfortunately, though, it was not meant to be. Next week, we'll examine the full Second Act, "Inversion," and see just how fast this story can fall by the wayside.
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