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Dec 7

Axis: Revolutions

Posted on Sunday, December 7, 2014 by Paul in x-axis

Nitpickers may quibble with the idea of doing Axis: Revolutions this week, given that it still has an issue to run.  But nothing else is wrapping up this week, and Revolutions is an anthology title, and it’s clear enough by this point that it can be safely filed as one for completists only.

Also, the solicitations for issue #4 tell us that (a) there will be a She-Hulk story and (b) there will be a story written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, and I have a terrible feeling they will be one and the same, and that is something I do not want to see, because the fact that Howard Chaykin made some good comics thirty years ago doesn’t alter the fact that everything he does with female characters is abominable now.  (That said, the “next issue” box at the end of issue #4 promises Iceman and Dr Doom stories, so who the hell knows.)

So much for the story that hasn’t come out yet – and if issue #4 turns out to be a revelatory surprise I will let you know.  Otherwise, assume it’s what I’m expecting.

What about the three issues that have appeared?

Axis: Revolutions is the now seemingly obligatory anthology tie-in to the big event story, featuring assorted creative teams doing various solo stories.  In part, these things reflect Marvel’s clearly established philosophy to event comics: always leave them wanting less.  But in part, they also seem to be a reflection of the fact that Marvel editorial would quite like to do an anthology title where they can commission short stories from assorted creators, and they can’t find any other way of getting the sums to add up.  That seems to have been at least part of the mentality behind A+X.

Yet the content of these anthology titles has remained stubbornly in the range from mediocre downwards, with very occasional exceptions.  On the whole, neither editors nor creators show much sign of knowing how to do a short story, even with half a book to work with – the result being a bunch of vignettes that aren’t actually stories in any proper sense.  Axis: Revolutions faces the further problem of having to springboard off the premise of Axis itself.

Issue #1, surprisingly, turns out to be the strongest of the three.  It doesn’t have to trouble itself with the “inversion” gimmick; instead, it features two stories about the heroes back in New York dealing with the “hate wave” from Axis‘s first act.  This was indeed an underdeveloped part of Axis, since it was mostly going on elsewhere – so there’s something for creators to work with here.  Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat, reuniting from X-Men: Legacy, make it work, with a story in which an increasingly furious Dr Strange tries to save the world by finding a relentlessly positive New Yorker.  It’s a comedy piece, but it is a story, and it’s actually pretty funny to boot.  It’s the one thing in this series that has to go down as an unequivocal winner.

Dennis Hopeless and Ken Lashley’s Spider-Man story isn’t too bad either, though it’s pretty light on plot, and a theme of “Spider-Man explains to a small boy why hate is bad” rather suggests that the creators are aiming for a far younger audience than the one they actually have.  But the idea that Spider-Man continues acting more or less normally, not because he’s immune to the hate wave but because he’s already used to rising above his anger at the likes of Flash and Jonah, is a nice angle, and feels like it makes sense for the character.

After that, however, we’re into creators trying to find something to do with the inversion gimmick.  This is a classic case of a perfectly viable Uncanny Avengers arc being extended far beyond what it will bear, by converting it into a multi-book crossover.  The stories that have worked with the inversion gimmick have overwhelmingly been about the villains.  That’s natural enough.  There’s a fairly straightforward hook there, with the villains wanting to do good, but still retaining their other character traits.  Or you can do what Deadpool is doing, and take an over the top character equally far in the other direction, making him a peaceful zen master for the duration of the story.

But when it comes to the inverted heroes, it all falls apart.  Nobody seems to have any idea what to do with these guys that might be in any way interesting, at least given the plot of Axis itself, which requires the Avengers to simply become self-absorbed assholes, and the X-Men to become Silver Age Magneto.  That plot doesn’t allow for any particularly interesting or disparate reactions from the characters, so there’s not much for the creators on Revolutions to work with.  That doesn’t make it a bad plot for Uncanny Avengers, mind, but it works far better if you just hint at the characters running around doing terrible things and leave the details to the readers’ imagination.

Issue #2 opens with a Frank Tieri and Paul Davidson story which starts with a reasonably promising hook: a newly ethics-free Nightcrawler tries to take revenge on Sabretooth (also inverted) on behalf of the dead Wolverine.  That’s the sort of idea Axis ought to be working with, if we’re  – Kurt has a motivation consistent with his normal character, but he acts differently on it.  But it doesn’t really go anywhere; Sabretooth beats him, decides not to kill him, the end.  That’s not a story, it’s a fight scene which reiterates the premise of the crossover without adding anything.  I suppose it’s kind of saying “look how dangerous Nightcrawler would be if he used his powers without inhibition”, but since he gets taken out with one punch, it’s not saying it very effectively.  There needs to be more – for example, you could have Kurt realise that the inverted Sabretooth basically is Wolverine, and get terribly confused about what he’s doing.  In the event, this is just a competently realised fight.

Kevin Maurer and David Lafuente’s Thor story is basically a journalist tagging along as Thor goes on a massive pub crawl across America.  This at least opts for a slightly subtler take on inverted Thor than “evil”; he’s more of an immature self-important thug who still thinks he’s a tremendous mythological hero.  But there’s no shape to it and no pay-off.  It’s not a story.

In issue #3, Ray Fawkes, Pepe Larraz and Rodrigo Zayas do a Kitty Pryde story which is in the right sort of ballpark, but doesn’t ultimately work.  In theory, the angle here is to have Kitty seemingly doing a bank robbery, but it turns out that she’s also exposing an anti-mutant bank CEO while causing maximum chaos.  Again, there’s an element of “look how cool Kitty would be if she cut loose”, but it doesn’t quite work as a story, not least because she’s too gleefully vicious for any suggestion that she cares about the anti-mutant thing to work.  The bottom line is that she is robbing the bank and she’s left as a one-dimensional character who can’t function as a protagonist any more.

This story actually does have a point in it that would work if it was taking place in her own series: Kitty intentionally allows somebody to shoot through her and kill the person standing behind her.  Now, that’s essentially murder.  And sure, you can do something with the idea of the inverted heroes doing things they won’t be able to take back afterwards.  But because it’s in Revolutions we all know it will never be mentioned again – the X-Men titles aren’t even tying into this crossover, for heaven’s sake – so it’s weightless.

Finally, Frank Barbiere and Victor Santos offer a baffling Sandman story where the hook is that he isn’t inverted, but he’s inspired by the genuinely inverted villains to try his hand at being a good guy.  To that end, he rounds up a gang to carry out a robbery that he himself can break up, thus making himself look good (he hopes), and allowing him to break an old friend out of jail in the process.  It doesn’t work because everyone still thinks he’s a villain.

This is at least a story of sorts, but the decision to do it with Sandman is little short of baffling, as Barbiere seems oblivious to the fact that Sandman has switched sides for extended periods before.  The story treats it as the first time Sandman has ever done anything of this sort, which is simply not workable; it ignores parts of the character’s history that are too large for that.  There are plenty of other villains who don’t have that problem, too, and the story would have worked equally well with them, so why on earth it’s being done with Sandman, I have no clue.

The Dr Strange story in issue #1 is really pretty good.  The next two issues aren’t terrible but they’re eminently forgettable.  It would take something pretty impressive, at this stage, for issue #4 to make the series as a whole into a recommendation.  So like I say, it’s completists only for this one.

Bring on the comments

  1. Nick Bryan says:

    Sounds like the first issue might be worth looking at on Marvel Unlimited for the Spurrier story, at least. I’m enjoying that service, it lets me sample the occasional gems I read about in reviews without having to buy into crossovers in advance or get whole collections.

  2. kelvingreen says:

    Not only has Sandman switched sides before, he’s been an Avenger, so it’s not even a change that was buried in a single issue of a third-tier Spider-Man comic.

  3. joseph says:

    The Strange story was great. I loved that kitten scene. I have to say I liked the Thor story too. The use of tweets within a story is rare enough that it still feels like a novel way to tell a story.

    Of course there are more glaring continuity problems, which have been ongoing of late. Was Kitty eventi on Genosha? I really dont remember that. If so was thrre a reunion w Colossus? Maybe it’s the pace, or the shit art, but I already can’t remember the basic details. Bad sign if a story like this isn’t held by weekly shipping.

    More broadly, maybe someone can help me figure this out… The time in which Cap got his serum drained, original sin,Thor being unworthy,Hulk becoming doc green, joining the Illuminati, the future arc in avengers,and “the betrayal,’ none of it can be squared. But at least at this point let’s synch up somewhat. After loosing mjolnir Thor goes immediately From the moon To fight Rocxon doping somethimg or other and Malikith cuts his arm off. Am i misremembering this, bevause in Thor 2 M. gas an arm aroumd his neck, and in 8 months future Avengers Odinson has a metal arm. But notin Axis or Revolutions.

  4. joseph says:

    And maybe it’s because I don’t know his early work, but I’ve enjoyed Chaykin’s work on Satellite Sam. (I wouldn’t be able to follow it without the character headshots at the start of each issue, however)

  5. Omar Karindu says:

    I’m getting the sinking feeling that a big reason for the inversions is so that inverted Sabretooth can fill in for Wolverine in whatever arc Remender has been working up for Wolverine across Uncanny X-Force and Uncanny Avengers.

  6. wwk5d says:

    “In part, these things reflect Marvel’s clearly established philosophy to event comics: always leave them wanting less”

    I always thought the philosophy was milk the fans for as much $$$ as possible. Which is why these events used to be annual or semi-annual and now are monthly instead.

    @ Omar

    Interesting.

  7. Rhuw Morgan says:

    The editing right across the Marvel titles at the minute is just bad. In last weeks Amazing X-Men they’ve drawn the wrong Mastermind sister throughout the issue and in Avengers World current Axis storyline Valkyrie is part of the team despite being part of the Avengers shrunk down and imprisoned in the main Axis title. I just give up trying to make sense of it all.

  8. Omar Karindu says:

    And maybe it’s because I don’t know his early work, but I’ve enjoyed Chaykin’s work on Satellite Sam. (I wouldn’t be able to follow it without the character headshots at the start of each issue, however)

    Chaykin’s only doing the art there; Matt Fraction is the writer.

  9. Brendan says:

    This whole Axis thing sounds like a classic crossover misfire; something which happens far to often these days. Anyone know if it’s selling well? Surely event fatigue on ill executed ‘events’ should have diminished returns by 2014.

  10. Suzene says:

    @Brendan – IIRC, there were some event sales comparisons at CBR and The Beat. Axis looked like it was selling middling numbers for a big event. Not as badly as Fear Itself, but not nearly as well as AvX and even a bit under Original Sin.

  11. ZZZ says:

    As much fun as the Dr. Strange story was, he definitely should have been in Genosha during the time it was taking place, unless the better part of a day was supposed to take place between the start of the battle with Red Onslaught and the point when all the reinforcements show up. Of course, the story was fun enough that I’m glad the editors either missed that fact or decided to let it go.

    @joseph – Kitty wasn’t shown in Genosha or listed in the cast page, but then neither was Luke Cage, who’s also acting inverted in Mighty Avengers (and the Invisible Woman was inexplicably listed as Iron Fist on the cast page of Axis #2) and Hawkeye’s there in issue 3 but not 2. Considering that most of the battle in issue 2 takes place offscreen and that there are a bunch of featureless and silhouettes shown milling around in the background after the fight – more than the number of identified characters – I suppose the party line is that there were more heroes there than were called to our attention, and that the cast pages only show people who actually do or say something in that issue. It’s sloppy, but it makes sense.

    Or maybe Quentin Quire’s supposed to be telepathically inverting X-Men who weren’t there. If he isn’t there really ought to be at least a few X-Men objecting to the Apocalypse thing.

    By the way, you’d think a few more people would have realized by now that there might be some connection between all the villains suddenly doing nice things and all the heroes suddenly going evil.

  12. Neil Kapit says:

    “Chaykin’s only doing the art there; Matt Fraction is the writer.”

    Though it should be said that Fraction is a huge Chaykin fan and is playing to his old idol’s style; this is, in Fraction’s own words, the “Ultimate Howard Chaykin book”.

  13. Kreniigh says:

    “Kitty wasn’t shown in Genosha or listed in the cast page, but then neither was Luke Cage, who’s also acting inverted in Mighty Avengers”

    I’m wondering if there wasn’t some miscommunication about how widespread the inversion was supposed to be… The Plunderer in Mighty Avengers was also acting inverted. “No, THIS week it’s a HATE ray, it affects EVERYONE, but they’re ALL bad.”

    Speaking of hate, can I also just say that I hate it when the characters within the stories refer to it as “World War Hate”? (But I do want someone at some point to say, “I haven’t seen you since The Death of Wolverine!”

  14. Neil Kapit says:

    ” Speaking of hate, can I also just say that I hate it when the characters within the stories refer to it as “World War Hate”? (But I do want someone at some point to say, “I haven’t seen you since The Death of Wolverine!” ”

    It was a lot worse a few years back, when events like House of M, Secret Invasion, Civil War, Dark Reign, Siege, etc. were referenced by name without a hint of irony. I suppose we should count our blessings that “World War Hate” (which wasn’t even the title of the series) is as bad as it gets right now.

  15. Joseph says:

    @Omar & Neil,

    Didn’t realize Paul said Chayken would also be writing. Especially after Soule’s really excellent take on She-Hulk, I’m not looking forward to that at all, though makes sense as an inverted writer i suppose.

  16. Jamie says:

    “Hey guys, remember when we all faced Fear Itself?”

  17. The original Matt says:

    Bought first issue of this series. Sucked. Bought no further issues.

  18. wwk5d says:

    “That was before we all discovered our Original Sin, right?”

  19. errant says:

    “Remember when we all lived in the House of M? Oh wait, we don’t? Except when we do so we can refer to it?”

  20. Omar Karindu says:

    “Who’s older, the schizo superhero or the killer robot?”
    “Wow, Laura, you really don’t know the Age of Ultron or the Age of Sentry? You *are* All-New to the X-Men. I just hope you get yourself up to speed before Time Runs Out for you.”
    “Wrong franchise, Warren. But if time really did end, I bet all that would remain would be a Black Vortex.”

  21. Omar Karindu says:

    *everyone turns to stare blankly at the reader for the remaining 21 pages of the comic*

  22. ASV says:

    *Grant Morrison laughs, cries, dons fiction suit, enters comic, waves at reader*

  23. Jamie says:

    Is anyone else actually a little afraid to read the cursed Multiversity comic?

  24. Yes. I got half way through the second one-shot, and desperately wished for an annotated version.

  25. Chris says:

    Then Ares told Carol Danvers… “that wasn’t a war. So I was not involved. “

  26. Leo says:

    “*everyone turns to stare blankly at the reader for the remaining 21 pages of the comic*”

    Are you kidding? The plot you described would fill a 20 page bendis issue, while a fight happens offpanel

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