AvX Review: AvX Vs. #1 By Jason Aaron, Andy Kubert, and the Immonen’s

Reviews, Top Story

AvX Vs. #1

Written by Jason Aaron (Iron Man vs Magneto) and Kathryn Immonen (Thing vs Namor)

Art by Adam Kubert and Morry Hollowell (Iron Man vs Magneto), and Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Jim Charalampidis (Thing vs Namor)

 

 

The short of it:

 

Two fights, one issue, no real story to bog us down!

 

Iron Man vs. Magneto is a battle of two ridiculously over powered characters fighting written by someone who fully embraces just how ridiculous they are. In the opening pages we have Magneto crush Iron Man under a hundred and seventy tons of tower while Iron Man remains immune to Magneto as there is no metal in his suit. Iron Man tries to have plans for everything, and Magneto fights like an old veteran who, frankly, knows how to win. The end of the fight comes due to one of them becoming temporarily distracted, and I’ll leave it at that.

 

Namor vs. Thing is entirely under water and is just a fun brawl between two characters with a lot of history. Lots of punching, lots of clobbering, giant sea monster, but an all around weak ending. Visually it’s quite a fun fight though, very evenly matched.

 

What I liked:

 

  • The fight only approach works really well here. I mean, sure, story is always fine, but the purpose of this mini is to show us the fights that get glossed over in the actual mini, and it does a great job thus far.
  • The AvX fun facts are great, not unlike Jason Aaron’s captions in Avengers vs. X-Men last week, they really bring it all together.
  • Iron Man vs Magneto was a lot smarter than I was expecting. I mean, I was figuring that Tony would have some non-metal suit and they’d just brawl, and yeah, that much did happen, but the over the top elements I never would have seen coming, and I adored them.
  • The art for the entire issue was stellar. Andy Kubert gave en epic feel to Magneto vs. Iron Man, and Stuart Immonen went into Thing vs. Namor and did what he does best. It’s a VERY pretty issue.
  • Jason Aaron’s dialog and captions were some great storytelling.

 

 

What I didn’t like:

 

  • So does Thing only have to breathe once very dozen or so times he open mouth screams under water?
  • I understand not showing clean victories, but both fights in this issue ended awfully. One ends with someone distracting themselves, and the other ends with someone being incapacitated for all of three panels before clearly being free. Kinda weak.
  • I can’t help but feel like Namor vs. Thing would have been better had they been able to quip at each other, instead of Namor yelling things and Thing internal monologuing.

 

Final Thoughts:

 

I’m sorry, but the second fight I can’t excuse. The way Thing/Namor ends is terrible, and the complete and total wrong decision.

 

So Thing is involved here because he’s a New Avenger, but where do the rest of the Fantastic Four side? I’d assume Johnny would be with the Avengers due to the Spider-Man connection, but I’m not sure with the rest. I could see Reed being more intrigued by the Phoenix Force and its relation to Hope and not wanting to disrupt it, while I could see Sue being like “you’re not kidnapping that little girl and tossing her in Gitmo”. I kinda hope we see these questions answered.

 

Magneto’s battle armor would make a great action figure.

 

I can’t believe I was ever on Jason Aaron, he’s just been absolutely killing it lately.

 

For as enjoyable as this issue was, nothing really happened, and I can’t see myself coming back to it looking for more like I have with the actual issues of Avengers vs. X-Men. I imagine this mini is going to be amazing in trade, especially if they wise up and do an edition splicing it between issues of Avengers vs. X-Men instead of hoping it will stand alone. That said, it was still a ton of fun.

 

Overall: 6.5/10

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.