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Axistential Crisis: “Avengers & X-Men: AXIS” #4 [Review/Recap]

By | November 7th, 2014
Posted in Columns | 8 Comments

Welcome back to Axistential Crisis: Multiversity’s ongoing attempt to chronicle Marvel’s latest crossover, “AXIS.”This week brings us the beginning of the second Actis of “AXIS”, heroes acting like jerks, and the arrival of Kluh. As always we’ll do a quick objective spoiler-free review followed by an absolutely subjective recap full of spoilers. Do with that information what you will.

Review

Written by Rick Remender
Illustrated by Francis Leinil Yu

ACT II: INVERSION
• The fate of the Red Skull decided.
• A founding Avenger quits.
• The birth of KLUH, the strongest one there is.
• Doom tears down Latveria.
• The X-Men join their greatest foe.

On one hand, I should despise “AXIS.” It’s full of characters acting out of character for the sake of it, art that’s so otherworldly it just seems dead, and dialogue that can best be described as “To Kill A Mockingbird Meets WWE.” On the other hand, I kind of love it for all the reasons listed. “AXIS” #4 is insane in such an oddly specific way that I can’t help but want to see how it could possibly top itself, even if the comic itself may be the print embodiment of hot trash.

“AXIS” #4 has a cavalcade of plots, compared to the first three issues consisting of Red Skull curb stomping everyone while Tony Stark cried. With the inversion, which is still not actually explained or addressed, heroes have turned bad and villains have gone good. At least I think it’s because of the inversion. I’ve mentioned before that characters often go into “Event Mode” during crossovers wherein they arbitrarily turn into utter cocks because someone needs to provide a contrast to start the inter-hero bickering; in “AXIS”, everyone turns into an utter cock because a vague plot device told them to. While that could make for an interesting topic to explore, it doesn’t feel like the inversion’s as large a switch as everyone makes it out to be.

Tony Stark’s created an app for Extremis? Great, last issue he was talking about how he had been planning to sabotage everyone he’d ever known since he was eight. I’m just glad he’s not skinning Squirrel Girl alive while talking about his morning routine. Remender has already been writing his heroes like jerks and his villains like the coolest for the first three issues, so why should he stop now? I’m not saying Iron Man has to be flawless, but if you’re going to turn him evil maybe he shouldn’t start with an interior monologue from True Detective.

It’s hard to get excited for any perceived “personality” changes when everyone is already the worst. and it’s not like this is a concept that can’t or hasn’t worked. The “AXIS” tie-ins for Hobgoblin and Carnage have been stellar and shown what can be done with this premise by establishing a cause and then a concrete effect. The inversion happened and now Hobgoblin is a motivational speaker. The inversion happened and now Carnage is a hero. In “AXIS”, something probably happened and now Sam Wilson wants to kill a psychic Nazi warlord. What? That’s not a visible change, that’s literally Captain America’ job description. And that’s not even bringing up the transformations that don’t make any sense (looking right at you, Kluh.)

That said, “AXIS” provides a lot of insane moments in between moments of self-declared seriousness. And while they comprise some of the most bonkers content I have ever read in a comic, I can’t help but appreciate the creative team keeping a straight face in the face of travesties like Carnage’s accent or Kluh. Since a lot of moments here are meant to be earth-shattering revelations, they’re executed with a grim sincerity which is not helped by Yu’s characters having already tragically died in the face. Despite the fact there’s a character named Kluh and there’s a whole scene of Carnage scaring and saving some kids, there’s not any sense of fun in Yu’s artwork. He excels in fight scenes (and shout out to colorist Edgar Delgado for the baller lightning effects towards the end) but all of the “emotional” moments in “AXIS” fall to the wayside.

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That said, some of the lighter moments like Carange’s “debut” are still enjoyable as they’re not trying to shove any sense of seriousness into the already ridiculous plot but you can’t build a crossover on just doing stupid stuff for a couple issues and hoping it all works out.

Final Verdict: 4.1 – Instead of a story that should be the most important event going on in the Marvel Universe, “AXIS” is just action figures being smashed into each other while the bad guys get to pose and look cool.

Recap

In case you forgot your comic books from two weeks ago, the first part of “AXIS” concluded with Red Onslaught being defeated with an inversion spell that would only turn Red Skull from bad to good and wouldn’t tamper with anyone else. Because this is a comic, it did turn out to tamper with everyone else as seen when everyone argued over whether or not they should kill the Red Skull which, coincidentally, is still the stupidest debate any superhero has ever had. Apparently, the inversion did actually tamper with the X-Men and Avengers, turning them into utter cocks while turning all the villains present were turned into good guys, and that’s where we are at the beginning of “AXIS” #4.

Captain America, Hulk, Nick Fury, and Maria Hill are all sitting around and congratulating themselves on stopping World War Hate (ugh). Also, Nick Fury (Jr.) is sitting in the director’s spot even though Hill is the director of SHIELD because we’ve reached that point where we just assume Marcus Johnson is also the old Nick Fury (double ugh). SHIELD is trying to retrieve Red Skull from the Avengers who claim they have everything under control. They don’t, because they’re written by Rick Remender.

“You see those clamp things on his arms? Those prevent him from doing that thing where psychics touch their temples. There’s no way he can use his powers now!” – Sam Wilson, four hours before World War Hate II.

SHIELD tells Sam the Avengers can’t keep Red Skull because he’s a criminal and they’re a global government task force whose job is to probably imprison war criminals like Skull. In response, Sam slaps Fury and tells him he’s not “that Captain America” before walking off with a dumbed-down Hulk who presumably high-fived Sam and told him how sick that slap was, bruh, you sure showed him.

Over in Bushwick, The Squid is holding a family hostage because Remender has hipster taste in villains. Thankfully, Carnage bursts in and immediately begins to start talking about his abusive dad within two panels.

Is… is that country? I don’t think I’m going to continue this train of thought.

After Carnage beats up the Squid Squad and saves the hostages, he leaves a note for Spider-Man with a drawing of himself and the signature “From your friendly neighborhood CARNAGE!” If this were villainous Carnage, I’d assume the red ink on the note was blood but since he’s a good guy now I hope he just spent twenty minutes drawing that picture with crayon while the hostages screamed at him to save them. Now that’s country.

Over in San Francisco, Giants fans are so excited by their team’s World Series win that they’re still in Giants Stadium a week after the Giants won. I can’t decide if this would be better or worse than if this had been published last Thursday and Tony Stark was literally interrupting the World Series. Either way, he shuts down the national anthem to U2 everyone his Extremis app, summon a bunch of models in bikinis, and eyefuck a glass of champagne.

Daredevil, who is also in the audience because screw it, is probably glad he can’t see the subsequent four pages of Stark trying to put his dick in a champagne bottle while Giants Stadium cheers him on.

Over at the Jean Grey School, the now fully united X-Men (Havok, Storm, and Cyclops) hold a press conference. In response to the Red Onslaught attacks and Wolverine’s death, the X-Men declare they will stand together to face the turmoil that is almost guaranteed to be in their future. All in all, it’s actually a pretty good speech that makes total sense in the face of recent events. Anyone else have anything to add? Evan?

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Wolverine has been dead for a minute and you already let Evan turn into Apocalypse. If Havok stepped up for three pages on why affirmative action is unfair to white men and how #GamerGate is all about ethics in gaming journalism, this would have been the worst press conference Remender’s ever written. I know it’s petty to get upset over a comic book, especially one where everyone’s acting dumb because they’re mind controlled or whatever, but seeing Evan’s story go from a shy boy who wants to fight fate and not turn evil to literally screaming “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST” in front of everyone is the most disappointing way his arc could have gone. I hope we get a Hangover style follow-up to “AXIS” where the X-Men have to watch this press conference’s tape and explain why any of this seemed like a good idea.

Also something that seemed like a good idea, the small bird watching over the X-Men conference transitioning directly to Sam Wilson’s face. BECAUSE HE WAS THE FALCON! WHO IS A BIRD! DO YOU GET THE SYMBOLISM GOING ON HERE?

Anyway, Cap and his crew of unruly Avengers prepare for war with the X-Men which, to their credit, is the only thing you can do with someone when they suddenly team up with Apocalypse. The Avengers fear the X-Men will come and take Red Skull to try and revive Proessor Xavier which, also to the Avengers credit, could not possibly be a thing that works out for anyone who read Mein Kampf with a smile on their face. In order to make sure this escalation doesn’t get out of hand, Sam offers to kill the Red Skull so they could keep him out of the X-Men’s hands. Everyone agrees because being evil means you’re willing to kill psychic Nazi monsters? Again, literally a hero’s job description. This isn’t like The Joker or Green Goblin where you can argue they have a mental illness or something: Red Skull straight up created a holocaust camp in 2014 and is also always screaming about the Reich Eternal. You can kind of kill him, literally no one will miss him.

Jarvis (the butler, not the Siri Jarvis) shows up to remind everyone that killing Red Skull might turn him into Onslaught again which is a pretty solid point. Still, the Avengers knock him down which greatly upsets me and the Hulk who has been dumbed down by the inversion. Not only is he back to speaking like a four year old, but he now has a different Hulk for whenever he gets sad. I shit you not, the exact phrase is “You wouldn’t like when Hulk is sad…

I was not prepared. I had been anticipating Kluh for months and I was not prepared. I was prepared for a slightly evil Hulk but I was not prepared for a Doomsday clone who talks like Jason Aaron. Kluh immediately punches the Avengers and jumps out the window which is honestly how I would react to them at this point. Despite the fact that Hulk just turned into a worse Hulk, the Avengers decide not to go after them since they have a more pressing matter: the Red Skull escaped from his shitty manacles.

Honestly, I doubt this is as big a threat as “AXIS” is making it out to be. The next issue is probably just Professor X walking around in Red Skull’s body and screaming in terror for twenty odd pages. Besides, the Avengers have a much more pressing threat on their hands:

I can’t believe they used the word “rut”. I can’t believe the term “Kluh gonna rut and roll in some sweet destruction” is a phrase that made it past the first draft. Kluh is everything I could have dreamed of and hoped for. Not only is he going to cause a wave of destruction, he’s going to frantically hump the remaining debris. Kluh is such an undefined aspect of the Hulk which is funny considering Peter David created like forty different incarnations of the Hulk in the 90’s. Kluh is the Hulk’s Hulk? You mean like every other Hulk? Who cares. I hope the next issue just finds a way to get Kluh and Carnage to yell at each other. I will eat my shirt if they don’t share a bowl of grits.

That’s it for this week. Join us again next week when something more ridiculous than what I just described happens.


//TAGS | Axistential Crisis

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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