The X-Axis – 7 October 2012
So we’re finally here – the end of a storyline that’s been running for months, which in turn ends a storyline that’s been running for years. No wonder they’ve given it a pretty clear run – we have four X-books out this week, but three of them are effectively different perspectives on the same story. Strangely, that works better than you might expect.
Avengers vs X-Men #12 – I may do a separate post looking back on this crossover as a whole. But let’s talk about the finale and where it leaves us going forward.
Here’s what basically happens in this issue. Cyclops is Dark Phoenix, and he wreaks havoc around the world. Finally he gets taken down to earth by Nova, of all people – presumably to try and give this otherwise minor character a springboard into his new series with a high profile cameo – and then gets taken down by Hope and Wanda working together. Hope becomes Phoenix, she undoes all the damage Cyclops did, and then she and Wanda disperse the Phoenix around the world, undoing Wanda’s spell from House of M and causing new mutants to appear again.
Credit where it’s due, this series really does resolve a whole load of long-running storylines. Wanda’s back in circulation as a hero. Hope’s messiah role is resolved. The Phoenix is out of circulation (though granted, it wasn’t doing much anyway). Cyclops’ radicalisation flows through to its logical conclusion. And the “no more mutants” storyline, which has been running for seven years, is finally and mercifully ended.
I’ve written at length in the past about why the idea of reducing the number of mutants to 198 was hopelessly misconceived. Suffice to say that not only did it wreck the central metaphor of the series (because the mutants no longer functioned as a workable analogue for any minority), but the initial follow-up was inept, as no character showed any apparent interest in trying to undo Wanda’s spell for an inordinate amount of time.
Eventually, however, the X-books did find a workable angle on the premise, as they relocated to Utopia and began repositioning Cyclops as the new radical Magneto working to find a solution and seizing on anything that came to hand. The initial error with “no more mutants” wasn’t that it’s a fundamentally bad story idea; it was that Marvel didn’t treat it as a story idea at all, but simply as the new status quo against which all future stories would work. As a status quo for the X-Men, it’s hopeless; but as a medium-term challenge for them to overcome, it’s fine. That’s why the premise only started to work once Marvel started taking steps to undo it.
It helps that it was hooked to a very effective character arc for Cyclops, which got off to a shaky start when he seemed to undergo an arbitrary personality shift, but eventually settled down to the idea that, with his back against the wall, he was turning into a bit of a zealot. That’s a novel reading of the character, but it’s a totally plausible one, given that he’s never really had a life beyond the X-Men, and if their dream fails, he’s pretty much wasted everything.
This issue delivers the pay-off to all these threads, but also manages to throw in a few unexpected elements. Instead of just re-powering all the old mutants, Hope and Wanda seem to have randomly empowered loads of completely new ones – a nice opportunity to refresh the cast and a neat twist on how these new mutants might feel about being suddenly added to the mutant “community”. And instead of ending with Cyclops dying in a replica of the original Dark Phoenix Saga – which would have been fine in itself – we have the rather more interesting idea that Cyclops survives and remains more or less unrepentant for everything he did. After all, he was right. The Phoenix was there to save mutantkind, and he made sure it happened. That’s exactly how he ought to feel, but I’m pleasantly surprised that Marvel are actually running with it.
Not everything in this story works quite so well. Wanda is suddenly shoved front and centre for the final arc, more because plot convenience and symmetry with House of M demand her presence, rather than because the writers seem to have any particularly dramatic role for her to play. In fact, the Avengers as a whole are left to serve mainly as foils to the X-Men’s story. Notionally, there’s a character arc for Iron Man where he learns to embrace spirituality, but it feels decidedly tacked on, especially since the upshot is merely for him to realise the blindingly obvious fact that Hope and Wanda might have something to do with solving the Phoenix problem.
There’s also the fact that the Phoenix’s own actions seem wholly arbitrary and overly convenient. Apparently it really was coming to Earth to help save mutantkind, in which case the X-Men were right all along and the Avengers caused most of the trouble themselves. The idea is meant to be that Hope could only control the Phoenix because the training she received in K’un Lun while she was hiding out with the Avengers, but that isn’t brought out as clearly as it might have been. (The idea set up in Uncanny X-Men, that Generation Hope were supposed to be vital to helping her control the firebird, is simply ignored in the main series.) But if the Phoenix was only trying to help, then (a) why, and (b) why was it destroying all those planets on the way to earth, other than to generate false peril? The opening pages of this issue pretty much admit that no better explanation can be offered than “just because”, and that’s a bit weak for such a major part of the story.
Still, for all that, this issue does deliver a successful resolution to some major storylines that have been running for years. And on the points that really matter, it works.
AvX: Versus #6 – Most of this issue is an expanded version of the fight between Hope and Wanda which is shown in flashback in Avengers vs X-Men #12 (with a coda to provide a technical winner). Wanda’s powers always better defined in theory than in practice, but there really does seem to be a tendency at the moment to treat them as “ehh, she can do stuff”. Kieron Gillen does try to frame it in terms of probability-manipulation, which is supposed to be her power, but I can’t help feeling that she’s been allowed to drift way too far from the central premise and needs to be reined in. At the moment, she’s powerful in a way which is actively unhelpful to stories. She has no clearly (or even unclearly) defined limits, which is dramatically problematic; and because her powers are no longer limited in any rational way to their supposed gimmick, writers are prevented from having her use the gimmick in a creative way.
Anyhow, it’s a fight scene in which two people hurl energy around, it’s quite nicely drawn, and the final page is cute. But it’s AvX: Versus, and it’s inherently superfluous.
The rest of the issue is a mixed bag of one- or two-page “fights”, most of which are comedy strips, one of which is pretty much just a pin-up, and one of which is an Iron Fist/Iceman story by creators who don’t seem to have received the memo about the feature being a joke. The less said about the Jeph Loeb/Art Adams thing, the better, but some of them at least raise a smile.
Uncanny X-Force #32 – “Final Execution” chapter 8, and it’s still not finished. Boy, this is going to be a big collection. Anyway, it’s mainly people running around fighting in the Brotherhood’s base, and as usual with this book, it’s quite attractively drawn. It’s got a nicely done sequence of Deadpool trying to be heroic for a change, and while it’s hardly novel for him to be attempting legitimate heroism, Remender both paces it well and neatly brings him to the foreground of a series where he’s not always been that prominent. Nightcrawler also gets some interesting material as he has the opportunity to go back to the mission he actually came to our Earth to pursue – hunt down his world’s version of the Blob, for purposes of personal revenge.
I can’t help wondering whether this storyline is a bit overextended at nine issues, but what X-Force does continue to deliver is the sort of team book that the regular X-Men titles have more or less abandoned, with a careful balance giving each character not only some page time, but some actual story content of their own. Balancing all these elements while keeping the story flowing isn’t easy at all, and Remender is showing real skill at it.
Uncanny X-Men #19 – This is basically Avengers vs X-Men #12 told from Cyclops’ perspective, which at first glance is merely a necessary evil. After all, the events in question are so important to this book that they really do need to be repeated here (particularly for the benefit of anyone buying the collections) – but how do you do that without making the story mere repetition?
Well, this issue does make it work. No doubt assuming that most of the audience will have read the core mini too, the issue hits all the core plot points, but puts its real focus on Cyclops’ perspective and what’s happening to his mind. He’s been steadily losing his grip over the course of the storyline, and by this point he’s totally lost touch with reality. So the version of events seen here is intentionally disjointed, cutting back and forth between highlights of Cyclops’ life, snapshots of chaos, and brief moments of relative lucidity, all accompanied by a detached, blank first person narration in which Scott seems to be watching from afar, describing what’s going on with the sort of neutrality that shows he no longer really understands its implications. When the narration unconvincingly asserts “I am still Scott Summers”, it does so only as one of nine panels of mostly trivial facts, Scott’s sense of identity apparently ranking no higher in significance than Magneto’s heart rate or Emma’s grey hair count.
It’s a little odd that an issue like this should end up with fill-in art by Dale Eaglesham, but for the most part he does a good job of selling the weirdly disconnected tone that the story is going for. The coda, where Scott talks to Hank after the fight, does look a touch rushed, but still delivers the important point that Scott is, if not unrepentant, certainly minimally repentant. He saved mutantkind; he won. And if he ruined his life in the process, he sees that as martyrdom. As a complement to Avengers vs X-Men that puts the focus more firmly on Cyclops’ personal character arc, it’s a very good issue.
If anyone wants to put Scott back in circulation, it should be pretty easy. Apocalypse left a darkness in Scott. Scott recognized this and it’s why he withdrew emotionally and became Celibate. The darkness is what attracted him to Emma. After Jean died, he embraced the darkness and found an outlet for his bloodlust by sanctioning X-Force. In the end, he completely lost control when the Phoenix took him over. So, blame it all on Apocalypse or Paralax or whatever. Throw Scott through the siege perilous and you get pre-Morrison Scott back.
I’m sure it’s not intention on Bendis’s part but there is something unfortunate and slightly regressive about reducing the only (AFAIK) prominently featured and technologically advanced African nation to a wrecked mess dependent on life-aid type concerts and charity from first-world nations.
I don’t *want* pre-Morrison Scott back.
Scott Summers: fan of cm punk
Alternatively, did they ever do anything with that piece of the Void that Cyclops locked up inside his head during the Dark Avengers crossover? I was half-expecting them to use that as a way to get him out of AvX without having to be accountable for the Phoenix stuff.
@Dasklein83
Hell, just blame it on the Phoenix. He was possessed.
Wanda had far less of an excuse and far less justification when she rewrote reality and then rewrote everyone’s DNA, and she’s long-since been forgiven.
I really liked Uncanny X-Men, Doctor Manhattan pastiche though it was.
I think most readers don’t want pre-Morrison Scott back, but I do think some writer or editor will eventually bring him back. I thought Children’s Crusade said Wanda had no responsibility because she was possessed or some nonsense.
You can blame the rampage on the Phoenix – after all, the book was pretty clear that it drives you mad – but that’s precisely why it’s so important that Scott specifically says he’d do it again even once he’s back in his right mind.
Obviously there are also back doors that could be used to absolve him completely, such as the Void, but I don’t see them going there until they’ve followed through on the potential in this set up.
Lest we forget, Scott’s brain also contains a fragment of The Void, which could also be used to explain his villainous turn in AvsX. However, this reminds everyone about The Sentry and no-one really wants that.
AVX in an overlong paragraph:
A destructive cosmic force was headed for Earth. The X-Men had experience controlling the force and one of their members had received information from the future that indicated one of their members would be a viable host. They also received evidence indicating that the Avengers would soon begin hunting mutants and kill the lady who could control it. When they refused to hand the girl over tothe Avengers, the Avengers attacked them and imprisoned non-combatants. Later, one of the Avengers attempted to kill the host and the X-Men stopped them. Asa result of Iron Man’s actions, they were infected with a parasite that influences a person’s thought patterns. The infected X-Men channelled the force to dramatically improve the world, and only began to lose control when under attack from Avengers. Eventually, the Avengers realise that the X-Men were right and use Hope as a host for the Phoenix. They then blame the X-Men for the consequences of their previous aggressive actions.
The End.
What’s not clear in AVX is how much damage Scott did as Dark Phoenix. How does it rate against the long term benefits of the improvements the 5 made? Can it be justified as a price worth paying? After all, supposed decent and sane people see Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima as a price worth paying to end WW2 and end the Holocaust. Is Scott any more wrong than those people?
I thought that he eventually got cured of the void? Either way, even if he didn’t, lets suppose that the phoenix killed his void fragment off panel, just like other storylines were resolved off panel. Beyond that, the less said about the void the better.
One of my problems with the x-books since Morrison left, is the lack of good villains, dangerour villains that we love. Now there is the perfect opportunity to fix this.
After Scott almost became apocalypse, he started to become an interesting character. Before that he was just a good boyscout, a fine FIELD leader and most importantly a student. But once he started becoming darker he became a good leader by himself. Morrison made sure of that. And other writers after that took him even further. When Magneto bowed to him, I started to see his true potential as a character.
The Phoenix powered Cyclops’s actions can be explained away by the fact that he was possessed. But his lack of repentance opens a new door for the character and I really hope that they will follow where that door leads.
Cyclops went from boy scout to a leader, to a warrior, to a dictator. Why stop there? He can become the best villain the x-books have ever had, one that used to be a friend and an ally but has turned to a zealot, trying to protect his people at any cost, whether they like it or not. Personally that’s how I want the character to evolve
Cyclops as the new Magneto could be a very good direction for him, though I’m not sure where you take it right now. After all, he’s achieved his goals for now.
They’re very vague about how much damage Cyclops did while rampaging around, but we know Hope reversed all the property damage. It’s rather hard to believe that he hasn’t killed anyone, but then again, the Hulk always used to conveniently manage it.
you know, i think i really enjoyed ‘avengers vs x-men’.
yes, plotholes abound, from minor (did the beast switch sides or not) to one really major one (why didnt the phoenix five try to undo m-day?). and dramatically speaking, there are some clumsy moments, especially regarding the roles of professor x and the scarlet witch, and the x-mens schism set-up.
but overall, i think the story works pretty well, resolving a bunch of long running storylines in a satisfying way, and setting up an interesting new status quo. the backbone of the whole thing is solid enough, and momentum carries it over the rough patches and messy details.
and the ‘logistics’ of the crossover were handled pretty well, i think. the art was great, with only minor delays. and the tie-in situation was ok.
one really nerdy complaint i have: i wish theyd found a better role for rachel summers (and perhaps quentin and the cuckoos). after all, they found a semi-prominent role for iron fist, of all people, and there were enough tie-in books.
i enjoyed uncanny x-men 19 as well, and i thought the moment with jean grey was really nice. but i wish theyd shown more cyclops flashbacks from the fraction era, which would be more relevant to the story than yet another ‘scott and alex fall from the plane’ or such.
my hope for the aftermath: storm takes the role of the x-men leader, now that cyclops and xavier are out of the picture, and emma is on the run. she was in the background for way too long, and now the writers dont have to deal with the idiotic marriage anymore.
I can understand why they relegated Rachel to the tie in issues. It’s just not her story, and she’d complicate the issue.
On the other hand, the failure to clearly explain why the Phoenix Five didn’t repower the mutants themselves is an inexplicable blunder. There IS an answer – it can only be done with Wanda’s help – but it’s so central to Scott’s motivation that it should clearly have been addressed head on rather than left to implication with hindsight. The problem with writing by committee is that this kind of thing slips through the cracks. Everyone assumes somebody else must be covering it.
I’m not sure I want pre-Morrison Scott back either, though they could dial his craziness down a notch or 2.
Didn’t Scott pursue a relationship with Emma because White Hot Room Jean told him to start boinking Emma and be happy? Or live or whatever?
Well, this long mess of a crossover is finally over, Goddess be praised. And at least Decimation has been overturned, 3 or 4 years too late. But, better late than never.
Also, I want Storm AND Emma to co-lead the X-men. Think of all the wacky hijinks that would come as a result of this odd couple pairing…
Come on, the Jeph Loeb/Art Adams bit was funny. I mean, come on
Also, are we expected to believe that Emma Frost is 144 lbs (in her fleshy form?) I’m sure she’s tall and muscular but seems high to me…
Niall’s recap is pretty spot on. Avengers sound very American in that telling…
Loving X-Force, really sad to see it go.
As for Scott, for whatever reason he’s been my favorite character since I was a kid, and I’m really enjoying the character arc. Perhaps it’s best that the Void/Sentry nonsense not be mentioned, but it seems odd that it didn’t come up. In anycase now we can see Cyclops alongside proper (former) villains like Magik, Emma, and Magneto and have it make perfect sense. DO we have any more info on this book yet and what they’ll be up to?
wwk5d, Scott began to pursue Emma before WHR Jean told him to. He was engaging in telepathic therapy, remember? And also psychic sex with Emma in the Dark Phoenix costume….
I was left with the impression that Magneto was on the run and wanted like the other members of the Phoenix 5?
Surprised how favourable people are being about AvX. My immediate impression was closest to Paul’s paragraph about how arbitrary the Phoenix was all through this, and what a let-down it is as the end of Hope’s story – what was Hope’s mysterious connection to the Phoenix? Phoenix made her a mutant, one single mutant, rather than just restore them all at once. And yeah, what effect did the Lights have in any of this?
There are also Phoenix-related details that don’t make sense here and/or are unaddressed – what was the state of the Phoenix at the time of Hope’s birth? Still partly in Rachel and the cuckoos?
Still think the whole middle (and near-end) with the Phoenix Five was a waste of space. It is only Cyclops’ part in that that gives it any point in the story. And it was at this point that the whole key point to the story – is the Phoenix here to restore mutants – was completely forgotten in favour of asking whether a dictatorial utopia is a good thing or not.
Whole thing would have been much better, being a Phoenix story, as just an X-Men crossover. Keep the part where Sinister tries to get the Phoenix force under his control. Or even have the conflict with the Avengers be about if they can risk Wanda combining forces with the Phoenix.
Niall’s description is spot-on, and yet Marvel’s saying that this story had the Avengers ‘playing a big part in restoring mutants’. If that’s what they were going for, they really missed the mark.
Also don’t think the Avengers tie-ins worked. Added nothing to the story, were released in the wrong order, possibly contradicted the main series…X-titles were decent, though.
They could have addressed the Rachel issue with ease. Just show her and the other former hosts going into comas or being rejected by the Phoenix.
Quire, on the other hand, sticks out as a character who could have added something to wrap this era up. We still don’t know how he returned from the white hot room.
And the bottom line regarding Scott’s leadership of mutants is that without him, the world would have gone to Hell – as seen in Morrison’s final arc.
Dave, I can only speak for myself but I don’t really think AVX is good. The final issue was the best of the series and that affects how we remember it but it still leaves a lot to be desired. If one simply read the first and last issues (including the recap of the last to see how Scot got the phoenix) they would enjoy it much more.
However AVX wasn’t meant to be a story per se, but a means to an end. M-day had to be reversed, a soft rebbot was also needed and what’s the best way to achieve those? A big event. it doesn’t really have to be a good event, just sell enough.
Brand New Day (or whatever it’s called) was an equally bad event but the stories that followed it have been great. I just hope what follows AVX will be as good
I can’t help but think it was criminal not to include Gillen as part of the AVX writing team. He wrote the best X-Men issues of the current era and deserved to contribute more to the story that closes it off.
“Didn’t Scott pursue a relationship with Emma because White Hot Room Jean told him to start boinking Emma and be happy? Or live or whatever?”
Here’s what I reckon. White Phoenix was still destructive, and wanted Cyclops to go on a rampage and burn the Earth. Sure Jean could have done it, but how much more ironic this way? So she pushed Cyclops into Emma Frost’s arms so she would influence his thinking – entitled, ends justify the means, ruthless, etc. Then it was just a matter of sitting back and waiting for the inevitable. Phoenix wasn’t really coming to reverse M Day, that was just a ruse. Which is why it ate all those other planets. It was coming to finish things off.
Well, not really.
The annoying thing about AVX is that it contains so many really cool ideas and moments, but is so clumsily told with frustratingly disjointed storytelling. I think I can honestly say that I both enjoyed it as well as found it poorly told. It must be said, however, that I would like to see Marvel change their approach to their event books, where the main book serves as a mere skeleton to hang the plot on and any kind of real depth or characterization is shunted off to the tie-in books.
Also, concerning Vs., I didn’t buy a single issue, but flipped through the final one, and think the entire mini’s existence was justified by its inclusion of 1)the Science Fight and 2)the Pixie vs. Squirrel Girl doll fight, which was both adorable and possibly the most coherent and all-encompassing explanation of some of AVX’s more head-scratching moments.
I don’t understand how people connect Scott’s affair with Emma to his post-House of M Zealotry. One is a mistake committed within his personal life that effected only the people involved within the love triangle, and had no bearing on his ability to do his job as an X-Man. The other is inflicting violence upon anyone he deemed unworthy of life. Is adultery really as bad as pre-meditated murder?
Going forward I really like the idea of all these new mutants, who have seen Scott as the leader or Utopia and the Pheonix 5, as the persons they want to turn to. This impressiond leader, maybe as something for the Avengers to kick against.
Paul –
– Final Execution is being split up into 2 seperate HCs/TPBs, one with issues 25-29 and the other with 30-35, like they did with the Dark Angel Saga.
– I got 2 weeks of comcics this last week, so I may be mistaken, but I think Age of Apocalypse #8 came out this past week. Did you not get it?
Scott becoming less of a Magneto look-alike and more of his original self looks like a plan to me. It would also fit nicely with the conflict opportunities caused by the increasing militarization of the MU.
Not interested in the return of pre-Morrison Cyclops. Morrison is the first writer to make me say to myself “Hey, this character is interesting.” which is something I could never say about Cyclops before.
As for everything that’s happened since, I don’t want him absolved. He did what he had to do, and he did it because the Avengers needlessly pressed him into doing it. There’s nothing to absolve.
Well, AvX #12 wasn’t a bad ending. Not good either, but it wasn’t a trainwreck like the rest of the series. (Part of me almost wishes it was).
It’s definitely a weird feeling having a final bookend to storylines stretching all the way back to House of M, the 198, Second Coming, etc. Unfortunately, since it was handled so poorly, it makes the last few years just feel sort of pointless – probably because, as Paul said, it was set out as the new status quo instead of an actual story idea. We only got “closure” when the higher-ups finally realized they needed to reverse it.
Overall, the main story for the crossover was pretty weak – lots of ill-defined Because We Say So happenings and power usages between Scarlet Witch, the Phoenix, and Hope. Wanda is really powerful for no reason! Hope knows Dragon Kung Fu! The Phoenix is going to wipe out planets, show up on Earth, try to take Hope, instead take 5 other X-Men, remake the world, then go back to Hope so Hope can kill it. Uh, okay.
Another flaw is that it’s really an X-Men story, yet the Avengers get to keep coming in and play the role of the Big Damn Heroes, then the plucky underdog. This story could have been done just as well by having the non-Phoenix X-Men like Storm, Magneto, Psylocke etc. take down the Phoenix. As an X-Men fan, the whole story felt pretty unsatisfying – the X-Men either spend the whole crossover as 1) villains, 2) flip-floppers, or 3) pushed to the side.
One exception: I do really like how Cylcops is unrepentant at the end. I still feel like he was being written out-of-character and having him be the “must save the mutants at all costs” zealot is a bit much, but him being a dick is definitely in his character post-Morrison and it’s an interesting change. He’s the only character who came out of this whole crossover with any interesting character development at all. I have high hopes for Rick Remender writing him on Uncanny Avengers.
I just looked it up, I’m a little under 140 and about Emma’s height and BMI-wise I’m pretty close to being underweight. I’d imagine that being a superhero means she’d legitimately have muscle mass which would bring up her number?
Granted I just looked up a list of female celebrities which claims Lucy Lawless (who’s about Emma’s height) is somewhere between 120 and 135. Then a completely different site claimed Karen Gillan from Doctor Who is in the 140 range despite being an inch taller, but she still seems like a pretty skinny slip of a thing.
If you toss Emma’s reputed stats into this one BBC Olympian data pool (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19050139 ) she’s still within the realm of a runner, beach volleyball player, and water poloer/poloist.
Setting aside the fact they probably make up those handbook stats entirely arbitrarily with little frame of reference what most people actually weigh or their height. I’d always gotten the impression Emma wasn’t so tall, she just wore crazy heels.
Yeah, I was relatively pleasantly surprised when I saw the 144 in the handbook. It leans low, but I figured go with it.
As a general note, men don’t seem to know much about how much women weigh. Including me – I always do calculations, weighted to level of muscle, etc. And I have to, as I don’t even know how much I weigh, y’know?
(One of the responses to this issue that has made me smile is men going “No way!” to that number and women going “Thank fuck someone’s attached a feasible number to a tall woman”.)
Generally speaking, be suspicious of celebrities’ quoted stats.
I don’t think Emma Frost is that fit* though? She always seems to be standing there aloof while all the other X-Men are leaping about and punching trees and stuff. And if you can both turn into diamond and disable peoples’ brains with a thought, why would you want to leap about and punch trees? I’d think she keeps herself in shape*, but is no Olympian.
Checking Google tells me 144 is 65 kilos in grown-up measurements, seems like a perfectly reasonable figure* to me.
*oh grow up
on rachel: i dont think she should have had a role in the main series. i think she could have had a proper subplot in one of the tie-ins, eg x-men legacy.
on all the ‘because we say so’ storytelling: thats a very legitimate criticism. the thing is, it doesnt really bother me as much as it probably should. its a ‘tradition’ that goes all the way back to x-cutioners song… look at it with the eyes of a critic, and it falls apart. look at it with the eyes of a 13 year old boy, and its a lot of fun! i guess the question in the end is whether youre ‘feeling it’ or not, and thats very subjective.
I think the important thing about AvX 12 is that it was Wolverine’s most costumeful issue to date.
After managing to keep his uniform mostly intact for the last few issues by fading from prominence but then getting his (I want to say fifth, but I may have lost track somewhere) uniform of the crossover burned (along with most of his flesh) in issue 11 he’s changed into a fully intact uniform for the start of issue 12 and manages to go almost half the issue before he gets a big hole blown in his mask (as does Iron Fist, though at least Wolverine’s hair remembers to show up under the hole – is Iron Fist bald now?) but fortunately this storyline has taught him to always carry a spare because his mask is intact 5 pages later (as is Iron Fist’s), though both of his shoulders are torn … until THREE PANELS LATER when they’re intact again too and only his gloves and back are torn, finally proving that Wolverine’s healing factor does, in fact, regenerate his clothing. It’s nice to finally get some answers on the important questions.
I wonder if this story was originally planned to have the Avengers in it, or it started an X-Men story that grew into something bigger?
It seems strange that Marvel set up the Schism status quo just to tear it down so soon. But perhaps in the original planning stages, Wolverine’s team were the ones meant to be opposing Cyclops and trying to stop Hope from getting the Phoenix? That would have at least used the X-Men’s existing status quo instead of sort of shunting it off to the side.
Of course, adding The Avengers in was probably necessary to boost sales, which the entire line needed. But I wonder how much the story suffered because it had to give The Avengers equal billing in what was essentially an X-Men story.
Maybe he got Reed Richards to design him an unstable molecules costume that heals with him. Wolverine goes through more uniforms than any other superhero, so it’s lest wasteful this way.
Paul, please do the round up. They are one thing I really miss from the if destroyed – and later x axis – days.
Though the reaction to issue 12 has got me thinking. Since comics are written on the fly, so to speak, the stories always look better in retrospect. As a kid, I remember reading all about the stories that happened before my time, and thinking they sounded wonderful. Reading the response to this issue, if you take the entire bendis avengers run, and x-men from the start of the post Morrison era, and cram it down into a few paragraphs for tomorrow’s readers to find out what they missed, you could forgive them for thinking they missed some kind of golden age.
@Charles Knight’s point about Wakanda, I think you’re onto something. Genosha was originally a pretty advanced African nation too and look what happened there.
As for my comments on Emma’s weight, I guess I was wrong! Thanks Kieron
@ Joseph
But Genosha was mostly white people, so most wouldn’t count it as “African”.
I think the event-driven nature of the story has hurt things as well. It seems like the X-Men have careened from House of M and Decimation, through The 198 and Schism, to AvX without really having time to breathe. In other words, where these stories have taken the better part of a year to set up, only for the next big story to begin in a few months, it makes it feel like very little time has actually passed for the characters. I realize that’s an unavoidable problem for most monthly comics, but this sort of storytelling seems to make the timeline uncomfortably visible.
Avengers has been suffer
*ahem* I’ll try that again…
Avengers has been suffering the same problem. No sooner do they find out that there are little green men running around than they are beaten up and Osborne is running the show but wait now its heroic and then some Thor villain stuff and then Osborne again and now x-men!
And thanks to the decompressed nature of the first few arcs, it was like a whole lot of nothing happening very quickly.
Yeah, that’s been one of my problems with the Bendis era of Avengers. Every story seems to last about six issues and every other story is about changing the team, setting up a new status quo. There’s not all that much ‘avenging’ in it.
And I was going to suggest the same thing as Nitz; It’s reasonable to assume that Wolverine has a self-regenerating costume made of unstable molecules. Given how much of a glutton for punishment he is and how he’s on every team going, a costume that can repair itself as he does and can quickly shift colours/styles to match whichever team he’s working with at that moment seems almost essential.
Is there a mutant (past or present) that derives any powers from having sex? That would have seemed like a natural from the Morrison Era.
Heck, given the origins of the Hellfire Club and Shaw’s mutant ability, it’s a wonder that Emma has never had something like that.
alex: Arguably Rogue is in that category. Having her powers trigger with her first kiss can be seen as a more innocent and/or family-friendly way of getting to that point.
Avengers has suffered very badly in terms of the impression of how time’s passing. Between Fear Itself and AvX they had, between both books, ONE story where they fought Osborn again. In that same time, the X-Men had their Schism, Wolverine set up a new school, the extinction team fought Sinister, went into Tabula Rasa, and helped out SWORD (though Avengers turned up there, it was in the X-book).
stacy x?