Avengers Vs. X-Men #11
Story by Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Jonathan Hickman
Script by Brian Bendis
Art by Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales, and Laura Martin
The short of it:
Captain America goes and calls in help from someone that, frankly, has no real dog in this fight and whose appearance screams ‘catering to movie fans’. Meanwhile, Rogue takes all of the X-Men to go join Xavier and the Avengers and their fight against the evil tyrant known as Cyclops. Speaking of mad despots, Scott is busy on Utopia doing everything he can to not cave in to the power that the Phoenix is offering him while Emma has no such problem. He is battling for his very soul against absolute power and seemingly winning after having watched everyone else fall to corruption. So, of course, Professor X shows up to try and mind rape him while everyone else goes to fight Emma.
Scott proceeds to whine at Xavier, who yells at him like an angry step-parent, and there is a temper tantrum. Followed by our mystery “We need your help” arriving to hit Emma once and then vanish into the background of the issue from there. Magneto shows up, jobs real quick, and then Hawkeye does a replay of his own book and outs an arrow into someones neck. Iceman shows up to insult his best friend for no apparent reason, I assume he drank the Avengers kool-aid. Cap talks big, and douchey, but Scott uses his hail mary…and takes out Emma to gain full Phoenix power. Now, fully powered, betrayed by everyone he considered his friend, the entire heroic community waging war on him for trying to save the world, Scott finally allows himself to slip in the corruption for just a moment…just long enough to kill the one person that could begin his spiral.
By this point it’s too late to stop him, as Cyclops has already defeated himself. He feels the power, the corruption, the pure taint of darkness. Cyclops finally becomes what Marvel has been screaming he is for months now, and it breaks my heart to say it.
What I liked:
- It was nice to see Xavier emphasized as a big deal, because he should be. It’s a shame it took this long for him to take prominence in this series, or really the X books as a whole, but at least it happened. Somehow it got really easy to forget that he existed.
- Olivier Coipel returns to art duties and does a really great job here. For as much of a mess as it was to read, the issue looked fantastic.
- Seriously, can I put over the art again? There are some amazing looking splash pages that help deflect from how vapid the writing was here.
- You know what I liked? Realizing this series is just about over. FINALLY. Fear Itself boiled my blood less than this.
What I didn’t like:
- Where do I start?
- Calling in the Hulk for help was just lame. It felt like a move done just to ease confusion on new readers who don’t understand why Hulk has been red for this whole over hyped series. Especially since he only got two pages to appear on.
- All these heroes who refuse to kill are in assassination mode. If Kang the Conqueror were taking over the world they’d be trying to stop him without bloodshed, but Cyclops they try and kill. If Dr. Doom were to launch nukes, they’d bring him to justice. Cyclops they try and kill. Norman Osborn is sitting in jail, again, after once again being a crazy outrageous bastard, and CYCLOPS THEY TRY AND KILL.
- The X-Men all up and quit being X-Men in this big dramatic moment where only one of them gets any dialog and it’s Rogue. Wait, no, Iceman got to talk too, though all he did was say “I love Scott” and then when he saw Scott he told him that everyone hates him.
- The X-Men are really just running jokes in this book, they look like idiots at every turn. Then, the ones who don’t look stupid, are just evil for the sake of being evil. Because these architects can’t seem to find a way to make the Avengers into the good guys without villainizing the mutants in the process.
- The complete and utter lack of respect shown for Cyclops in this series is as offensive to me as a fan of the X-Men as this issue is an insult to me as a fan of well written books. It reads like an editorial list of bullet points on how to shake up the franchise with shock value.
- Chuck Austen wrote better X-Men than this.
Final Thoughts:
So this entire time Scott Summers has been the only good person with the Phoenix Force, can we all agree to that? Even in this issue where he talks about the temptation that the corruption of power brings, he refuses to give in to it. Where Namor, Colossus, Magik, and Emma all gave in, Scott has held strong with not turning piss evil. So of course everyone treats him like a super villain, even Xavier who is reading his mind can only see that he’s evil. Scott is evil because they keep telling us he’s evil all the way up until he actually does something evil. But then again, if I just spent the last few weeks trying to be a good person and doing good things while a bunch of people kept trying to KILL ME, and then got the closest thing I have to a parent to try and destroy my mind…yeah, I’d fight back to. Possibly even cross a line. Why? Because Cyclops has been PUSHED TO THIS POINT.
Captain America deserves to be shunted off to another dimension or timeline and left for dead. He’s been a terrible human being this entire story, just an unforgivable asshole that refuses to admit that anyone could know better than him about things he’s the expert in. Even when they try to take Scott down, Storm still wants to treat him like a person and talk to him, Cap makes snide comments. He’s a prick.
Does Olivier Coipel know that Hope is sixteen-seventeen years old? Every time he draws her she looks like a little kid.
Speaking of Hope, what is she even good for? She has done nothing but be a plot point this entire series, and unless she doe something crazy next issue than she’s just a complete waste of all of our time. Like, unless she fights Scott and wins next issue, waste of my time. Hell, unless she turns into Jean Grey, waste of my time. And I like Hope! This series has just ruined her!
I’m afraid of Bendis on the X-Men now if this is his grand vision for the current iteration of the franchise. He gets Wolverine and that’s it; his Cyclops has been one of the most unfortunate portrayals Scott has ever received (I’m including the time he became Apocalypse), his Xavier is just an angry step-dad, and everyone else is quick to say “I love Scott” before trying to kill him the next page. It’s painful. Like, I can see why he wants to use the silver age versions, because he obviously doesn’t respect the current versions.
This entire series is a Michael Bay movie.
Overall: 4/10
