Want to keep up with the ever-advancing continuity porn of the DC and Marvel universes, but simply don’t have the time or money to buy every ongoing? We’re here to help. The Weekend Week In Review aims to give you ((usually) very) brief synopses of what happened in a select few of DC and Marvel’s titles – with a helping of sarcastic commentary – so that when some nasty old writer wants to punish you by heavily referencing a title you didn’t pick up, you won’t be left in the dark. Of course, that means that spoilers are in abundance, but I figure that you could figure that out
There’s nothing really to say about this week’s Before Watchmen issue, “Rorschach” #2. There wasn’t even a single “Bitch to be you right now” moment! I feel cheated — I was hoping I could just pick a few screencaps and send you guys on your way. Ah well. After a short intro where Walter hit a pusher with a truck and a molotov in his civvies without being seen, we followed the dead crook’s comrade to Rawhead’s underground hideaway. Clearly, the mook in question, Tyson, hadn’t seen enough gangster movies to know that if you are attacked by someone who was supposed to be dead by your hand and you don’t kill him, then don’t return to your boss. Yeah, he didn’t make it very far. The next morning, Rorschach stumbled to his local diner, still suffering from the injuries he received a few nights before.
I’m assuming that “Whoa…” is short for “Whoa, that does not sound at all clever or funny or however it’s supposed to sound.” I could be wrong, though. After vomiting up blood and passing out in a booth, Kovacs woke up in a crowded hospital a few days later and, feeling a bit more up to snuff, went to go beat Rawhead’s location out of an abusive pimp. Doctor’s orders, I suppose. And, yeah, that’s about it.
The ‘Rotworld’ crossover continued this month, after a very necessary month of origin stories that we could not have done without, though right now it’s more like a parallel-over, or maybe a side-by-side-over. While Buddy and Alec were split off in their respective books, they both learned that the few hours they thought they had been gone in the Rot totalled up to almost exactly a year in the real world, in which time the Rot had invaded and corrupted… well, nearly everyone and everything on Earth. How come the future is never a cheery place? Only some of those with a strong tie to either the Red or the Green, all-encompassing cybernetic enhancements, or copious amounts of luck a la John Bloody Constantine survived the culling. In New Orleans, the Parliament of Trees had built a large plant tower above their new desert home, protected by the likes of Poison Ivy and Deadman, while Beast Boy, a young Steel and Black Orchid (one of the lucky ones) made their home on the West Coast in a city that the Totems built out of their own bodies.
It’s like the Animal Kingdom at Disney, except much more horrific! And believe me, that’s saying saying something — have you seen the prices for the stomach-churning food at Disney? We were also given flashbacks to the two avatars’ loved ones a year before, right after the two heroes left. Yep, they’re all probably dead. At least Abby went out like a BA, beating up zombies while her plane crashed; Ellen Baker just got turned into a Rot zombie after finding her equally zombified son. What exactly happened to Maxine is still up in the air, though if we are to trust Constantine — which is probably a bad idea, but whatever — she did die a year ago as well. Boy, this is off to a cheery start!
Now, I know many are upset that Tony Daniel is off “Detective Comics,” so if hearing about John Layman’s new run makes you upset, please feel free to leave the room for a bit. I understand completely.
Are they gone?
Quick, lock the door. Good riddance to those fools, I say. Anywho, this latest ‘Tec story began as many do: with Bruce on a night of patrol. Despite needing to be at a public function where a new wing of the local community center for children was to be dedicated in his mother’s name, Bruce couldn’t resist beating up entry-level thieves and such. Come on, isn’t the point of the Bat-family so that he can outsource these small fries? After beating up some guys for no reason that was told in-story — but boy, they looked rough! — we saw that someone had their eyes on the Bat-man.
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That, my friends, is what we call foreshadowing. It is also dramatic irony, as we soon found out that these masked assassins, the Ghost Dragons, had been hired a few days earlier to kill Bruce Wayne by Oswald Cobblepot, before the billionaire playboy arrived at the charity event. Man, it takes a special kind of bastard to just steal from charity. But, wait a minute, apparently the Penguin was planning donating even more to the cause than Wayne. What gives? Looks like the Ozzman is upset about Brucey being Gotham’s favorite son and wants to one up him (after, you know, making sure he can’t return the favor). The poor crime boss just wants to be loved! On his way to the function, still in his Bat-suit, Bruce noticed the Ghost Dragon’s lone sniper, and gave him a nice little pop on the head before heading in to the event. Having just “convinced” the organization to accept his donation over Wayne’s though, Cobblepot was happy enough to call the hit off. One problem with that, though…
God, I knew people like that in college. Just calm down and give it a rest, will you?
This week marks the final week of Avengers fighting X-Men as —
Wait. Hold on. This week had “AvX” #12, but next week has an “AvX” tie-in of “Wolverine and the X-Men” and the beginning of “AvX: Consequences”, only to be followed by other tie-ins like “A-Babies v X-Baibes” and “A+X”? Aw, crap. I was looking forward to covering another series for once.
Alright, so this week marks another week of Avengers fighting X-Men as the main series comes to a dramatic conclusion, followed up by a very, very silly tie-in and a very, very serious one. Let’s give it our best:
As “Avengers vs X-Men” #12 opens, things are kind of screwed. The Phoenix has arrived on Earth and is fully inhabiting Scott Summers, who has become the new Dark Phoenix after being driven insane due to years and years and years on a dark road. The Avengers are essentially clueless now, as most people are who try to take down God, and Tony Stark has come up with the only ptoential solution: mixing science and faith. It’s like a summary of the finale of LOST, except at the end of this one an island gets condemned.
In the present, the Dark Phoenix is essentially schooling the Avengers, the X-Men and Planet Earth in general on what happen when you piss off a cosmic entity that can destroy planets and universes at a whim. He punches the Hulk from Sydney to Sacramento, reigns terror down on everywhere from Beijing to Paris in the blink of an eye, and is generally unstoppable all around. This is in stark contrast to the original Dark Phoenix storyline, where the X-Men could “defeat” her alone. I guess that’s what happens when you give an anal-retentive boy scout with parent-issues the power to shape and crush the universe as he sees fit. We really need to stop doing that in comics.
However, just when you forgot he ever had any involvement, NOVA happens to show up out of nowhere to tackle Dark Phoenix into the Tibet. You remember Nova, right? He’s the one who showed up at the beginning of the event to warn that the Phoenix was coming and then disappeared entirely from the rest of the story. Nova’s return seems basically like a way to get a character into a story enough to make him relevant and on people’s minds, yet not enough to actually do anything with him because, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as they hit the ground Nova is unconscious and out of the event.
However, as we see in flashbacks, Hope and Wanda are the “saviors” of the day, who despite hating each other at first and attacking each other, realize that by banding Wanda’s chaos magic with Hope’s mimic abilities, they can double the pleasure and double the fun to use magic and beat the Phoenix into submission. While they have a throwdown at first (elaborated more upon in “AvX: Vs” #6, which we’ll lampoon soon), the two of them are able to weaken the Dark Phoenix enough so that Scott can be taken out by every ineffective measure before: Wolverine claws, a Cap shield to the face, an Iron Man blast. Go figure, right? The only way to destroy a being with unlimited abilities is to just change the world around him so that a shield to the face can hurt again!
Continued belowThe defeat of Scott allows Hope to take over the Phoenix as a host and extract the entity from his being, which is essentially what Hope has been training to do all her life. Hope’s connection to the Phoenix was never something that wasn’t obvious, and while she does refuse to change her outfits she still seems to have fixated on a destiny, now fulfilled. Hope uses her abilities to fix all of the damage Scott caused (well, to an extent — hard to resurrect all those dead people who were killed during his rampage… but she puts out fires with her fire, like a David Bowie song!) before deciding that she is the White Phoenix, who can save everyone. I guess when possessed with the power of the Phoenix, she forgets that trying to save everyone with the Phoenix is what got everyone into this mess in the first place.
Luckily for the Avengers and the X-Men, Wanda is still on hand to talk Hope down from her crazypants position and remind her — oh yeah, the Phoenix is nuts! Together, the two decide to use the deus ex machina that was used back in “House of M” — no more Phoenix. And with their powers combined, they are Captain Planet! … which, of course, means that they save the planet.
The after effect of this, however, is the widespread reawakening of the mutant gene. New mutants begin springing up to be integrated into the population, which means that in the battle of Avengers vs X-Men, Cyclops wins on a technicality. See, his goal all along was to harness the Phoenix for the rebirth of the mutant population, so while he went crazy and got his ass kicked and murdered his father figure, his goal was ultimately reached — whereas the Avengers, who were trying to save the planet, kinda sorta failed given all the people he killed.
Way to go, Cyclops. You murdered innocent civilians, but you still won!
There are a few elements of the finale that tease future storylines once the main issues are all wrapped up. Cyclops is put into a ruby quartz cell while also being forced to wear shackles and a new special helmet to contain his blast. It’s a bit overkill, but can you blame them? While the mutant population is beginning to boom, there are still quite a few X-Men who were loyal to Cyclops who have gone missing (even if, at the last minute, they fought against him) — folks like Colossus, Magneto and Emma Frost, who was last scene arrested in “Avengers.” Captain America has begun to form the Uncanny Avengers, a mix of X-Men and Avengers to help show the world that mutants should be welcomed and integrated into the population. All the while, a few smaller things have taken place: Black Panther and Storm have separated, Iron Man has found faith, Nova is being welcome into the Avengers (why, I have no idea) and Utopia has been shut down and condemned.
However, as Cyclops points out, “there always has to be destruction before the rebirth,” and a single flower is shown growing on Utopia — just like the “AvX” prelude from Marvel’s “Point One” in which Nova fought Terrax before the coming of the Phoenix!! It all ties together!!!
But wait, how did “House of M” end again? Didn’t they say, “No More Mutants” and all the mutant energy went up into space but then all the energy collected and had to go somewhere and ended up in Michael Pointer during the sixth arc of “New Avengers”? Wouldn’t that inherently mean that the Phoenix power isn’t just “gone,” especially since it is a cosmic entity that serves a purpose within the universe and would therefore always need to exist in some capacity to continuously fullfil said purpose?
There you go, Marvel. Your “AvX” sequel awaits.
So “AvX” wraps up, but the fun doesn’t stop there. “AvX” continues with “Versus” #6, which features one big fight, and then a bunch of little ones. Here’s how it breaks down.
Kieron Gillen and Jim Cheung elaborate on the scene in which Hope and Wanda fight, which largely boils down to Gillen making jokes, Cheung churning out some pretty awesome artwork and one huge catfight. We get hilarity like this:
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And symmetry like this:
Until it all ends with a truce. And by truce, I mean Captain America says stop, so they do, and then Hope knocks out Wanda with a sucker punch. OH HOPE!
The rest of the issue is the equivalent of the books Marvel usually puts out after an event to make fun of it, like last year’s Shame Itself.” We get Bendis and Jim Mahfood having Cyclops and Captain America with a verbal throwdown:
Kathryn and Stuart Immonen showing off every major scientist in the Marvel Universe having a science battle, Mike Deodato illustrating Havok kicking Captain America’ ass (which would make the upcoming “Uncanny Avengers” a bit weird), Domino beating the Hulk thanks to her luck powers in a scene written and illustrated by Ed McGuinness, Jarvis throwing Toad out of the Avengers tower window for being dirty in a scene written and illustrated by Christopher Hastings, the first team-up of Jason Aaron and Ramon Perez as Iceman beats up Iron Fist, and finally Dan Slott and Katie Cook showing how Squirrel Girl and Pixie caused the entire disaster by playing with voodoo dolls accidentally.
Oh, and this little number in which Jeph Loeb and Art Adams make YOU the winner by having Hawkeye fantasze about his girlfriend Spider-Woman have sexy fights with sexy X-Men:
Cue my complete and utter shock that this hasn’t been a bit more controversial on comic sites that usually have issues with superhero comics doing relatively sexist looks at superheroes like this. Or maybe this time it’s just sexy? I don’t know. I never do.
Then there’s “Uncanny X-Men” #19, this week’s serious entry into the “AvX” fracas (which I reviewed quite favorably here, if you’re interested). In this issue we’re given a direct look into the mind of Scott Summers as he reigns chaos upon the world, from the brief moments where he still retains his sanity and into the direct moment in which he becomes the Dark Phoenix in… “The Passion of Scott Summers.”
On the one hand, this is a Greatest Hits for Cyclops. We see his origin, from jumping out of a plane with his brother, his life in boarding school, his meeting with Xavier and Jean Grey, his early interactions with Wolverine, the loss of Jean Grey (the first time), his romance with Emma, Schism and his recent murder of Charles Xavier.
That in mind, it’s very easy to call this Cyclops’ Greatest Misses as well, as he brutally attacks his friends, levels cities, and — oh yeah — murders Charles Xavier. And we thought Emma would be the villain!
As know, however, Cyclops is defeated by the combined efforts of Hope and Wanda, and in the immediate wake of the battle he is detained by Beast, who reveals to him that the Phoenix’s defeat did result in the birth of the new mutant population, as we discussed in “AvX” #12. Now, even though Scott is morally and ethically lost and viewed as a monster by the general population of the world, let alone his friends and co-workers, he reveals that he’s just a wee bit crazy given that he’s proud of everything he’s done due to the results. That and a goofy smile.
But mostly the bit about how he did a lot of horrible things.
It’s a tricky line that Scott walks. We don’t want to call him a monster because he’s a childhood hero of ours, but at the same time it’s hard to condone any of his actions. Thank god this is just a silly comic book, though, so it’s not like we have to deal with these kinds of heavy subjects in the real world!
This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Before Watchmen: Rorschach” #2, “Animal Man” #13, “Swamp Thing” #13, “Detective Comics” #13
Matthew – “Avengers vs X-Men” #12, “AvX: Vs” #6, “Uncanny X-Men” #19
Anything we didn’t get to that you’re interested in? Email me at the link below! This also applies for if you read something that we didn’t and want to share it with others, as I, too, have only so much money and time to spend on comics. Don’t worry, we’ll give you credit.
