Avengers vs. X-Men #2
Story by Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman, and Matt Fraction
Script by Jason Aaron
Art by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, and Laura Martin
The short of it:
All hell breaks lose and people start pairing off with their fight partners! Colossus vs. Rulk! Namor vs. Luke Cage! A lot happens here, and most of it is going to be handled in other titles, but we get a lot of real nice fight teasers here. A lot of people are pissed at Wolverine, and quite a few X-Men I completely forgot about are living on Utopia, and the issue is just pure chaos. Lots of fights, few surprise entrants, Hope doesn’t handle it all being over her too well, and we end the issue with two “oh shit!” moments in a row.
What I liked:
- For every fight there’s a sentence or two to set up what the fight is in some sort of epic terms, and they’re all awesome. Aaron perfectly conveys the epic nature of each encounter while successfully bringing the funny every single time.
- Cyclops is just an unquestionable badass in this issue, just like last issue, and I imagine for the rest of the event as long as he’s not KO’d.
- The narration, I can’t say enough, it sells the issue. Despite the issue being like, seventy percent fight teasers, the delivery is just perfect enough to make you alright with that. Right now I’m looking forward to the books with those fights as much as I am the next issue of this one. That’s how you make a tie in work, you make people want to read it. Not just have to read it.
- Romita continues to remind me why I’m a fan of his. This is the John Romita I grew up with, not that shell of himself that we saw on Avengers recently. This book looks awesome.
- Jason Aaron writes a fun Spidey. He doesn’t get a lot of lines, but the ones he has are memorable.
- Black Panther and Storm having marital issues aired out in a fight. Epic.
What I didn’t like:
- Much like Civil War, one side is clearly the good guys, and one side is clearly the bad guys, and since the writers want to make it seem balanced we can expect the bad guys to get the lead as ‘underdogs’. Because, really, how the hell do you sympathize with the Avengers in this at all?
- Hope takes out her team rather than trusting them to stand by her in whatever she’s going to do. Now, sure, maybe she just wants to go it alone, but wouldn’t that be interesting? Hope and Teon against everyone?
- Too many X-Men seem to have just been there as fodder. It seems like too many just got blown past because they aren’t in monthlies.
- Man, how big of an asshole can Captain America be? “Let me tell you about your dead wife!”
Final Thoughts:
Does Dr. Strange really think that he can take Illyana in Limbo? I mean, I understand that he’s arrogant, but he knows that she’s the ruler of that realm and he honestly thinks he can do anything?
Man, Warpath went from practically forgotten to on almost half of the pages in this book.
I want a “Cyclops was right” shirt, or I’d also be fine with a “Captain America is a dick” shirt.
Why is Ms. Marvel in a space suit? I could have sworn space travel was on her powerset.
Awwww, I wanted to see Magneto vs. Iron Man!
Spidey is right. Helicarriers only show up to get brought down.
Is the all fights mini launching next week? I want that.
I also want a master list of who gets hurt, how they were hurt, and who hurt them. Blame the numberings of concussions and broken noses. Now I want fight stats, damnit!
Overall: 8.5/10
