A+X #1
Captain America + Cable by Dan Slott, Ron Garney, Danny Miki, Cam Smith, Mark Morales, and Wil Quintana
Incredible Hulk + Wolverine by Jeph Loeb, Dale Keown, Danny Miki, and Frank D’Armata
The short of it:
Back in 1943 Cap and Bucky are briefed on a new mission involving some new Nazi genius named Atticus Trask that is working on Contingency X, which the Allies believe to be a sleeper robots project. Getting in isn’t much of a problem, but the robot they see….it’s a Sentinel with a swastika, and Atticus? He’s definitely not native to that era, but before our heroes can figure out what to do…in jumps another man not native to that era. Big gun? Metal arm? Shiny eye? Check, check, and check. Cable drops in to raise hell This leads to our heroes taking on nazis and nazi robots and even the Nazi Sentinel before Cable goes back to where he came from, leaving our heroes to resume their destinies without too much interference into their timeline.
Next up we have Wolverine and the Hulk fighting over who gets the last piece of cake in Avengers Tower when Maestro and Days of Future Past Wolverine show up and attack them. No, I’m not skipping ahead or over selling, that’s literally what happens. Maestro and DoFP Wolvie are there to kill a Hulk not named Bruce, and our present day heroes aren’t about to give them a chance. When it’s all said and done, Hulk and Logan are back to fighting over cake, and a look in the future teases the true meaning of this story to be told in the future….
What I liked:
- I was wary about the format of this book turning into something phoned in and purely for the sake of marketing, but one issue and two stories in…I’m sold. This book was a lot of fun. It’s like a Marvel Team Up version of the AVX: Vs. mini, which really just makes it work. There’s not a ton of substance, but the stories move quickly from start to resolution, and there’s teases of things to come.
- It’s really easy to forget that Dan Slott can do more than just write the best Spidey since the 90’s, but then he went ahead and tackled Cable and Captain America teaming up and I want to see him write both of them more going forward. Not just because they are two of my favorite characters, but because he was able to give them personality and motivation pretty much instantly without forcing readers to draw on their feelings of the characters from previous titles.
- If there is one thing Jeph Loeb does well it’s push together a fight scene, make it work, and then wrap it up as quickly as needed without making the reader feel cheapened. The fight is less than five pages, but it’s paced in a way where you get just enough.
- Dale Keown needs more interior work at the big two, his work in this issue is absolutely incredible.
- Same with Ron, actually, I’ve seen his work recently but this reminds me of why I was such a big fan of his back in the 90’s. I bet it’s Danny Miki inking over both artists coupled with how great they are on their own.
- NAZI SENTINEL.
- I can’t get over just how funny this book wound up being, sure, both stories were big time action, but they were just loaded with one liners and funny moments. Not that surprising coming from Dan Slott (whom I recall first discovering on an Arkham Asylum mini that had this deliciously dark humor that made me an instant fan of the future Spider-Man writer), but Jeph Loeb generally fails to get me laughing. Wolverine and Hulk arguing over cake? It worked.
What I didn’t like:
- I’ll go into it in a minute, but I had wanted to get this title digitally, but upon seeing the price I bought the hard copy and have no regrets.
- That’s it, I’m not even going to whine about wanting extra pages, this is the perfect length for this title. Maybe a dollar cheaper, but again, getting to that.
Final thoughts:
So this book was $3.99 to buy in stores, which I get, it’s whatever. Marvel does this thing where you get a free digital copy of the book if it’s $3.99 to try and ease up on the readers a bit. Essentially give them two copies for the price of one, you know? It makes a four dollar comic feel like a two dollar comic for a few moments. What doesn’t feel like that, however, is that this book that is four bucks to get in print with a free digital issue is also four bucks to get digital, with no freebie second copy. So essentially, buy a $3.99 book from Marvel via Comixology and get screwed.
Seriously, I’ve moved quite a few books across Marvel, DC, Image, and the rest to digital only, but I now refuse to buy any Marvel book priced at $3.99 or above in a digital format.
I expected nothing from this title when I heard about it, and to be completely honest, I almost didn’t buy it today. I figured it would be more crap like the AVX: Vs. mini that accompanied AVX and that I would end up just whining and bitching about spent money until I eventually dropped it. What I wound up getting was a really entertaining book with two stories that I definitely enjoyed. The short length didn’t really bother me so much given the pacing, and if this is how every issue is going to be…yeah, I can get on board with this.
The first time I ever read a Captain America and Cable team up it was during Heroes Reborn when Cable randomly wound up in the Heroes Reborn world teaming up with Cap. It was a very Liefeldian issue, in part due to having a creative team if Rob Liefeld, and I loved it. To this day I love it. If anything really pushed me over the edge into the realm of buying this issue, it was the promise of Cap and Cable.
Bucky talking about bionic arms is the kind of tongue and cheek nod that most writers would make you roll your eyes with, and yet Slott gets a smirk from it.
I’m a fan of the Marvel Team Up concept, which is one reason I hung around Avenging Spider-Man as long as I did, but there’s generally a flaw in Marvel’s method of handling it. That flaw? That they pick one character and have them be the one that teams up with everyone, meaning that, at the end of the day, that one character is the star. A book like this means you can rotate in a fully new cast from issue to issue, and let the stars be the teams as a whole instead of just pushing one top tier character further to the moon.
Now, let’s hope all this good praise doesn’t lead to a crappy second issue! Wait, what’s that you say? Next issue is Spider-Man teaming up with Beast and Iron Man teaming up with Kitty and Lockheed? I am there!
Overall: 8.5/10
