Marvel Now 2017 & IVX Spoilers & Review: Inhumans Vs. X-Men #5 Has Mutants Turn Against Their Own On Road To ResurrXion?

Spoilers, Top Story

Marvel Now 2017 and IVX Spoilers and Review for Inhumans Vs. X-Men #5 follow.

We open with the usual dramatis personae and…

…summary page to get readers caught up on he Inhumans vs. X-Men aka IVX event series so far.

We open in “The World” a base for something called Weapon X Weapon Plus; no explanation is provided to newer or lapsed readers like me who are just here for the event on what Weapon Plus is. Anyhow, Inhuman Karnak has escaped his bonds and is up against X-Men Fantomex and a young time-displaced Jean Grey.

Karnak is an able match for the two of them and even in the midst of battle is able to find and free the Inhumans’ teleporter Lockjaw.

At “X-Haven” in Limbo Inhuman Gorgon goes up against X-Men Colossus; that’s a dream match up that Colossus wins later in the issue.

Inhuman Queen Medusa is looking for her husband Black Bolt who is trapped by jailer X-Men Havok. He is Cyclops’ brother and is angry that he believes the Inhumans have made him out to look like Hitler whereas, but as readers know, that was Emma Frost in a weird way to honor the older Cyclops and give his death purpose.

And, as in an earlier scene where Weapon Plus isn’t explained for newer or lapsed readers nor here is Havok’s Beauty-and-the-Beast / Two-Face scarring explained to readers either.

In the end, Havok is not keen on violence and lets Medusa take Black Bolt.

In New Jersey former captive X-Men Forge is now working with the younger Inhumans to find a way to contain the Terrigen Mist cloud that gives Inhumans their powers, but is fatal to some X-men / Mutants. Forge comes up with device to do just that which…

…Inhuman Moon Girl miniaturizes to Forge’s amazement.

The New Jersey contingent head to Iceland. On the way Inhuman Mosaic wants to have a word with young X-Men Cyclops whose body he stole along with the X-Men’s blackbird since he needed Cyclops to fly the plane to allow Mosaic to escape the X-compound he had broken into.

They are met by Emma Frost and a contingent of X-Men plus a docile Sentinel. As with Weapon Plus and Havok’s facial scarring, readers are not caught up why this Sentinel is fighting alongside the X-Men.

Young Cyclops sides with the young Inhumans and takes on Emma Frost who was the older now dead Cyclops lover. In the issue, he seems to a Champion (his new team) first rather than an X-Men (currently, well at least until his new ResurrXion team X-Men: Blue launches).

We get a break from the Iceland battle where we see the Inhumans in the Philippines freeing Black Bolt while…

…back in Iceland X-Men Magneto wants to fighting to end and finds a dramatic way to stop it and get the X-Men’s and Inhumans’ attention!

So…

A lot of great action alongside erratic switches between various locales. Awesome pencils and ink art along with vibrant colors and lettering. Sometimes though a story can be too fast-paced which I felt this issue was. However, in this era of decompressed storytelling and writing for the collected edition this literary approach may in the end work as many of the previous issues in this mini-series were slower paced. We finally have the big confrontations in this issue which were satisfying. Next issue is the end and then ResurrXion begins. While I had three nitpicks above about unexplained jarring developments in the era of google the question is whether a comic book read should be self contained or whether aspects should be explained by one’s pwn online research; not sure I have the answer to that. All that said, this issue gets a 6.5 out of 10.

John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!