Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #12

We’ve finally made it to the end of this long, long, long, series. I’m really late to the party on this because fans have already moved on to Avengers vs. X-Men: Consequences and Uncanny X-Men #20, which continues deals with the aftermath. Still it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t do this last review.

Avengers vs. X-Men #12 was written by Jason Aaron with art by Adam Kubert (Pencils), John Dell with Mark Morales & Kubert (Inks), and Laura Martin with Justin Ponsor (Colors). I got most of my rage about Cyclops’ treatment last time so I think I can keep this from being a rant. I’ll discuss the issue itself and then conclude with my final thoughts on the series as a whole. Past reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Final AvX review after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #11

Avengers vs. X-men #11 is written Brian Michael Bendis. The art team consists of Oliver Coipel on pencils, Mark Morales on inks, and Laura Martin on colors. Previous reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

There’s not much to say in today’s intro. Instead of talking about the comic I want to briefly talk about Cyclops. When I was a kid, in the single digits, I was a big fan of the pilot X-Men cartoon “Pryde of the X-Men” which is my earliest recollection of comic book superheroes and Stan Lee (who narrated the thing). I’d watch that thing over and over. Of all the characters I found myself relating to Cyclops the most. Stiff, uptight Cyclops who no one else seemed to like. So responsible, so smart and yet he was always depressed because of his powers, the very thing that made him special. That was me; I was lonely, I always tried to do the responsible thing, no one seemed to like me for it and I was always depressed from childhood pretty much until today. I didn’t relate to badass Wolverine or even Storm, the first black superhero I ever saw; it was always Scott Summers. As I got older my love of the character only grew and I began seeing as representing everything I thought superheroes should be, even though his comic wasn’t really conducive to proper super heroic actions. I love Cyclops.

Why is Cyclops always trying to blast the sky in these pictures?

But being a Cyclops fan is tough. It seems like the whole world dislikes him. His appearances in the live action films were pathetic. He’s constantly playing second banana to Wolverine in ALL the cartoons. And worst of all it feels like the writers have been purposely writing him terribly for the last twelve years or so, ever since he merged with Apocalypse in The Twelve storyline. Since then he’s been a cold, distant outsider, a cheater, a militant, a dictator, and now in this series, a mad god. The only time he has been written well these past twelve years seemingly was during Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men, because Whedon got what the character was all about. But even in the years since that run ended things have been awful. I’m mentioning all this because this is the issue where Scott Summers both doesn’t die like I was afraid he might but also dies in the worst possible way.

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: Full spoilers ahead.]

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #10

[So apparently my scanner picked this week to stop working and pretty much delayed me in doing AvX reviews. It’s working now so hopefully I can get back to it.]

I keep falling behind when doing these Avengers vs. X-Men reviews and I think I’m starting to understand why: I’m not super into it. It’s probably because of how many there is too it; twelve issues is a lot. However I like to finish what I start (that’s probably mostly true) and there’s three issues left so I can see the finish line. In theory I could get these all done this week [Nope. My wonky scanner saw to that not being the case]. And in theory were heading into the climax, and Marvel has a great history of ending their crossovers strongly, right? Right? Anybody…? Anyway I need to review Looper and a new anime and this crap is in the damn way!

Avengers vs. X-Men #10 is primary written by Ed Burbaker. The art team continues to consist of the same people: Adam Kubert on pencils, John Dell on inks and Laura Martin with Larry Molinar on colors. Previous AvX reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: There are some spoilers in this book, but it's a pretty old issue at this point so it shouldn't be a huge deal]

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #9

My catch up of Avengers vs. X-Men continues. Before I get into it I want to point out that the length of this series is a bit ridiculous. I mean really; twelve issues? That’s twice as long as the average modern crossover event.\ This is in line with the old school twelve issue maxiseries of the 1980s (The Secret Wars, Crisis on Infinite Earths) but those books came out over the course of a year. AvX came out in half that time. It feels kind of like I’m drowning in issues of this book. That said DC has released fifty-two issues or so of book over a year (52, Countdown) and in comparison Marvel is almost being restrained. Of course 52 is considered one of the best superhero comics of the 2000s but I’m not convinced people will be calling AvX one of the best comics of the 2010s eight or nine years from now.

Anyway Avengers vs. X-Men #9 was written by Jason Aaron, whom I’m not overly fond of, and the art team remains the same as last time: Adam Kubert on pencils, John Dell on inks and Laura Martin with Larry Molinar on colors. Previous AvX reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

By the way; I've finally read up to issue 11 so  there's no need to protect myself from spoilers in the comment section; it's unlocked now.

More agony AvX after the jump.

[WARNING: Some minor (in my opinion) spoilers ahead]

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #8

Another issue of Avengers vs. X-Men, another dollar. Nothing new to report, just remember that I’ve disabled the comment section temporally so no one accidentally spoilers future issues for me. For the previous reviews click the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

This time Brian Michael Bendis is on writing duty while a new art team of Adam Kubert on pencils, John Dell on inks and Laura Martin with Larry Molinar on colors. So let’s get on with Avengers vs. X-Men #8.

Full review after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #7

I’ve greatly slacked on reviewing Avengers vs. X-Men and by now the series is pretty much wrapped up. So I need to work my ass off to catch up. As of this writing I own AvX through #10 (but I haven’t read #9 and #10 yet) and I will do my best to write them up. They will likely be quick and dirty, but I don’t want to do mini-reviews if I can help it.

By the way according to every nerd source on the internet Issue #11 involves [Spoiler] an important death. Now I don’t know who because I’ve tried to avoid finding out until I actually get to read the book. My first thought is of course Cyclops (for reasons I discussed last last time) I may be temporally locking the comment section for these reviews so no overzealous reader tells me. 

The art team remains Olivier Coipel on pencils, Mark Morales on inks, and Laura Martin on colors and Matt Fraction returns as writer. Previous reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Full review after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #6

By now you’ve likely heard of the upcoming project called Marvel NOW! If you haven’t basically it’s the Marvel Comics’ answer to DC’s New 52, or The Great DC Reboot of 2011, with the difference that instead of being a huge continuity reboot it’s supposedly a new wide spread status quo with new #1s and new costumes for many characters. I’ve heard some people saying it’s more of an equivalent of the “DC Explosion” from the 1970s. It’s really hard to tell right now, especially since the new line will supposedly be the follow-up to Avengers vs. X-Men.

Anyway I bring this up because, just like I was with X-Men: Schism, I’m a bit worried that Cyclops may not survive. Mainly it’s for two reasons: 1) During crossover, and really just the last couple of years, Cyclops has been portrayed in such a way that he needs redemption but I’m worried it will be at the cost of his life due to how low he seems to keep falling. I can totally see, from a storytelling perspective, Scott at the climax of this series as gesture of his him making up for everything he’s done. 2) One of the upcoming Marvel NOW! titles, All New X-Men, features the original X-Men (from the 60s) pulled the past into the present, meaning that there’d be duplicates of Iceman, Angel, Beast and Cyclops. I’m one of the biggest Cyclops fans you’ll talk to and even I don’t see the point of having two Scott Summers running around the main Marvel Universe. Killing off the main one would sure solve the problem. We’ll see.

If you want to catch up on my previous AvX reviews check out 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. This issue features Jonathan Hickman on writing duties and different art team of Olivier Coipel on pencils, Mark Morales on inks, and Laura Martin on colors; the artwork changes up starting this issue.

More Phoenix Force hijinks after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #5

As promised here’s the next issue of Avengers vs. X-Men. Yes, it’s later than what I said but if it’s any consolation I learned how to make fried catfish. Thus I’m a better person.

Anyway this issue promises that something of substance must happen because, finally, the damn Phoenix has arrived to Earth. In any event let’s talk a little bit about the covers. The main covers I’ve been using on this blog have been fine for the most part. But there have been a lot of variant covers being shipped out and they’re not as good. I’ve mentioned this before but some of these covers feature character fighting who don’t fight each other at all and in some cases aren’t even in the comic. But they take it a step further by having variant of the variant cover with the gimmick of picking sides. What I mean is that they have these “I’m With the X-Men/Avengers” versions where only one character is colored in, depending on which side you picked. I think it makes the already annoying cover look worse but the only reason I care is because by the time I was able to actually buy this comic that variant of the variant was the only one left. So I’ve spent the last few weeks grumpy about it, mainly because I’m such a sensitive young man.

Matt Fraction tackles writing duties in this issue and the art team consists to consist of John Romita, Jr. (Pencils), by Scott Hanna (Inks) and colors by Laura Martin (Colors).

Full review after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #4

I am really sorry that I’ve gotten so far behind on the Avengers vs. X-Men reviews. Hopefully no one has been realigning on this blog for information about that series. I’m going to attempt to knock the rest of the issues I’ve missed this week/weekend (And because I need to push back my review on Brave and as of this writing I still haven’t seen Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter I don’t have a giant amount of things to post right now anyway). Make you sure you check out issues 1, 2, and 3.

Last time we saw Captain America do what I’ve been waiting for him to do to Wolverine for what feels like forever, in what was almost certainly the high point of the comic. Jonathan Hickman takes over writing duties while the art team, John Romita, Jr. (Pencils), by Scott Hanna (Inks) and colors by Laura Martin (Colors) remains the same.

More silliness from the “House of Ideas” after the jump.

[WARNING: There are spoilers in this review]

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #3

Here we are with another issue of Avengers vs. X-Men. One unfortunate trend I’ve been noticing about this series is that apparently a lot of stuff has been happening in tie-in issues. Specifically a really cool thing happened in (I believe) Uncanny X-Men #11 where Cyclops releases “The Avenger Protocol”…which turns out to be the X-Men’s PR rep sending out an e-mail detailing the situation from their point of view, depicting the Avengers as an invading, hostile American force come to kidnap Hope Summers because she’s a mutant. Which means Cyclops is awesome because he just destroyed the Avenger’s good public image. Depressingly this doesn’t happen in the book I’m actually reading. Again, I’m not reading tie-ins because Marvel is releasing this main series, so anything necessary to get the whole plot should be here and anything else should just be there to enhance the story. My friend who’s been more proactive in checking out various tie-ins tells me that certain Avengers are now picking sides, which hasn’t happened in the main book yet (Although that may change with issue four). Should this continue and more interesting and important details come out outside of this book this miniseries will be a failure simply because it would mean I would have to spend an unreasonable amount of money a completely story.

Anyway the artwork is again done the team of John Romita, Jr. (Pencils), by Scott Hanna (Inks) and colors by Laura Martin (Colors) but this time Ed Brubaker takes the reins on the script.

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: Lots of spoilers in this review] 

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #2

Last time we did a review in this series I forgot to mention that Marvel is releasing the issues every other week instead of on the normal monthly schedule. This means, despite being twelve issues, we won’t be here all year. Of course that also means you get to look forward to dropping an extra $3.99 to your normal comic book buying list every other week and that’s never fun.  For the review of issue one click here.

Anywho Avengers vs. X-Men #2 picks up exactly where the last one left off. This time Jason Aaron takes over script writing duty while the art team remains the same: John Romita, Jr. on pencils, Scott Hanna on ink, and Laura Martin on colors.

AvX Round Two after the jump.

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #1

This is a comic that in one way is a cool idea and in another way a completely superfluous concept. On paper a comic that puts the X-Men against the Avengers seems awesome. What plot device could possibly force these two teams against each other? Well decades ago when the X-Men battled the Avengers it was over Magneto (And in the 60s every superhero pretty much would fight any other at the drop of a hat; no reason necessary). This time it’s over the Phoenix Force. And also, you know, Cyclops being a dick. Because it’s 2012 and Cyclops hasn’t been a nice guy since 2007. For a little bit of background on the Phoenix click here.

Anyway Avengers vs. X-Men, or AVX for some reason, is a twelve issue maxi-series that obviously pits Marvel Comic's two premier superhero team against each other. At this point the X-Men are pretty much where we left off in X-Men: Schism; the team is still split between Utopia, where Cyclops continues to run the mutant race like an army, and Xavier’s Mansion, where Professor Logan imparts his wisdom on the next generation of X-Men (God help them). Meanwhile the Avengers, after lengthy period of overly dark storytelling, have pretty much finally gotten back to their status quo from before Civil War meaning that Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor are all alive and back to being friends again and the team is unabashedly a force for good. This series is set to be more of a slugfest between the two sides rather than a complex series of story events…and I’m strangely okay with this.

Anyway this book was written by Brian Michael Bendis, the man responsible for revamping the Avengers into the darker, less fun team they became during the 2000s and also Ultimate Spider-Man. Artwork was done by John Romita, Jr. with inks by Scott Hanna and colors by Laura Martin. With my well-publicized disappointment over X-Men: Schism on the table did AVX do anything to win me back to Marvel’s side?

Click below to find out.