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Post by jakefury on Jun 24, 2012 21:43:08 GMT -5
 Writer: Matt Fraction Art: John Romita, Jr I've been ragging this series pretty hard but decided to give it a fair shake. Yes, that means buying it and actually reading it in full instead of flipping through and crying foul. The recap page catches me up pretty quickly as it explains the events of the first four issues. The battle has traveled to the Moon where the Phoenix entity has arrived. The Avengers and X-Men square off as the entity seems to be biding it's time. Tensions have reached a boiling point and Hope seems to be channeling the Phoenix's power. She takes out both teams with an energy blast and realizes she can't control even a fraction of it's power. She asks Wolverine to kill her and he agrees to try. Before he can attack Hope, Cyclops knocks him away with an optic blast. On another area of the Moon, Tony Stark and Hank Pym are working on the ultimate PIS device, a Phoenixbuster armor. Thanks to Romita's outstanding art it ends up looking quite as 80s as possible. Stark launches it into action as the two teams are at each others throats. None of the battles even develop on panel as we're treated to a bunch of single panel views of the fights. The Phoenix finally moves in and it's presence is felt throughout the planet itself. Telepaths, mystics and mutants alike feel it's collective power surge.Cyclops gives a very passionate speech about how he feels the Avengers are trying to snuff out his race. At this point Iron Man launches his attack on the Phoenix. Three pages of a blinding flash and then we see that thw two teams are down and out. Captain America recovers as the results of Iron Man's actions are apparent. His attack has splintered the Phoenix force and it's powers have been divided among the 5 members of the X-men Extinction team present. Cyclops, Colossus, Illyana, Emma and Namor have all becomes hosts to the Phoenix's power. The five of them have undergone significant personality changes and all vow to help save the planet and that there is much work to do. Captain America says they all sound like lunatics (and rightly so) but Cyclops disables the Avengers with a blast of his new power. They return to Earth with Hope, leaving the Avengers on the moon. Thoughts: First and foremost, if you're buying this book to see an epic fight scene then I wouldn't bother picking it up. Most of the fights in this one were one panel samples without any of them going into great detail. Outside of the Wolverine/Cyclops with Cap thrown in a few times they did not develop at all. The art is to be kind, not good. Romita, Jr's work has never appealed to me personally and it doesn't here. It's not the worst in the business but it may be the blandest. As far as storyline goes Fraction actually does a decent job in this one getting into Hope's mind and how she actually feels about what's happening. The rest of the time everyone else feels pretty badly out of character. I realize this book is supposedly dealing with the direst of situations for everyone involved but I just don't feel like everyone's character motivations have to be completely abandoned. All in all this was not great but it wasn't terrible either. This one belongs somewhere in the middle. 2.5/5 |
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Post by Admin on Jun 24, 2012 22:25:33 GMT -5
"All in all this was not great but it wasn't terrible either. This one belongs somewhere in the middle"
All I need to know. I think my $3.99 will be spent better elsewhere, lol.
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Post by Power NeXus on Jun 24, 2012 22:32:47 GMT -5
I used to really like Cyclops, but he's really starting to sound like a douche now. The Phoenix Force is known in every corner of the Marvel universe as one of the most potentially destructive and difficult to control forces in existence. And when the Avengers try to stop it, Scott accuses them of wanting to 'snuff out the mutant race'? His desire to preserve the mutant race is starting to override basic reasoning now.
I think the main problem I have with that is I don't even know why preserving the mutant race is of such incredible importance. The X-Men have tried for years to tell the world that they are just like normal people, except they happen to have powers. So why was M-Day really such a bad thing then? It just turned a lot of normal people who happen to have powers into normal people who don't have powers.
If Scott really believes that mutants are not inherently superior to normal humans, there should be nothing wrong with the entire mutant race getting depowered.
But if Scott is willing to risk the lives of everyone on earth to get someone empowered with the Phoenix Force so he can give all the former mutants their powers back, then he must believe there is something about having powers that makes them inherently superior to normal humans, and so he is essentially the new Magneto and everything the X-Men used to stand for was a lie.
All right. /rant.
Cyke used to be one of my favorite comic characters, but he's been going all kinds of downhill the last few years.
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Post by DedmanWalkin on Jun 25, 2012 1:53:58 GMT -5
You say that as though Cyclops was ever worthy of your favor. Cyclops has always been a crappy leader and has always been little more than a tool. It is just now that his true side is revealed.
I have long held that this is all Professor X's fault because he is an evil bastard who used a combination of telepathic manipulation, mental conditioning, and psychological manipulation to turn Cyclops into his perfect little defender of mutantdom. Professor X wanted a defender of Mutants, well he got one.
Wolverine should be leading the X-men with Magneto as his lieutenant.
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Post by jakefury on Jun 25, 2012 5:53:37 GMT -5
Well said Nexus and Dedman.
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Post by Power NeXus on Jun 25, 2012 7:59:03 GMT -5
Cyclops was a cool character before he became the leader of the mutant race. But now that he's up there he's crossing all kinds of moral lines and acting like a freakin tool.
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Post by jakefury on Jun 25, 2012 8:02:45 GMT -5
Cyclops was a cool character before he became the leader of the mutant race. But now that he's up there he's crossing all kinds of moral lines and acting like a freakin tool. I agree. After Xavier was blackballed for his actions during Deadly Genesis (mindwiping Scott into forgetting Vulcan, hot shotting the young mutants training and sending them to their deaths, etc) it seems like Scott has become the new de facto mutant fall guy. For this issue I was actually sympathetic to Scott on the Moon when he gave a very passionate speech that he was trying to save his race. BUT, you can't endanger an entire planet to do so. I've also read issue 6 and will review/post thoughts later. It is a big improvement over this one. |
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Post by Power NeXus on Jun 25, 2012 8:11:38 GMT -5
And, like I said, why is it even that important that his race be saved. The X-Men have been saying for years that they're just normal people but with superpowers. If they actually believe that, losing their powers shouldn't actually be that big of a deal.
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Post by DedmanWalkin on Jun 25, 2012 15:00:52 GMT -5
This is what Professor X gets for doing what Cobb did to Mal in Inception. He used his powers and skills to insert the idea in Scott's head that he can't control his powers which eventually became I can't control my life then I can't control my race and lastly I can't control the world. In each situation, he has overcompensated leading to ridiculously extreme actions.
Professor X is an evil bastard who killed one of your favorite characters.
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Post by Crom-Cruach on Jun 25, 2012 18:25:10 GMT -5
As far as I'm concerned. Cyclops has always been a detestable tool. And now he shot Captain America, the only thing he truly now deserves is a slow painful death as only someone with the resources of Doctor Strange can craft.
Seriously fuck this guy.
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Post by NorCalCO on Jun 25, 2012 20:34:04 GMT -5
I definitely agree with what some of the others are saying about Scott Summers. He is taking things WAY too far and going head-to-head with Steve is just plain stupid of him. The mutants / X-Men have always maintained that they are the same as everyone else and should be treated as such. Under Scott's leadership though they are doing little aside from setting themselves apart from society as a whole. I understand that moving to Utopia and some of the other things have been in the interest of self-preservation, but using the (and even embracing) the destructive power of the Phoenix Force here on Earth is absolutely ridiculous. Look what it did to Jean and she was very powerful. It's clear to me that the only thing Scott cares about is preserving the mutant race / species at any cost. Wolverine should be leading the X-men with Magneto as his lieutenant. This, definitely this. AvX in general has been pretty decent. I agree with Fury that #5 definitely wasn't the best chapter so far though. Issue #6 was much better IMO. I'm very anxious to see how everything plays out and what state the 616 Universe is in at its conclusion. |
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Post by jakefury on Jun 26, 2012 8:22:22 GMT -5
Issue #6 was very good thanks to Hickman.
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Post by jakefury on Jun 26, 2012 8:32:54 GMT -5
Also, you don't bitch and moan about being accepted into society when you set yourself up on your own island.
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Post by Power NeXus on Jun 26, 2012 11:59:27 GMT -5
This is what Professor X gets for doing what Cobb did to Mal in Inception. He used his powers and skills to insert the idea in Scott's head that he can't control his powers which eventually became I can't control my life then I can't control my race and lastly I can't control the world. In each situation, he has overcompensated leading to ridiculously extreme actions. Professor X is an evil bastard who killed one of your favorite characters. Well, to be fair, there's no actual proof that Xavier did that to Scott. But Xavier has shown himself to be a conniving morality-devoid son-of-an-Emma in at least half a dozen other cases, so I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt. |
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Post by jakefury on Jun 26, 2012 16:27:42 GMT -5
This is what Professor X gets for doing what Cobb did to Mal in Inception. He used his powers and skills to insert the idea in Scott's head that he can't control his powers which eventually became I can't control my life then I can't control my race and lastly I can't control the world. In each situation, he has overcompensated leading to ridiculously extreme actions. Professor X is an evil bastard who killed one of your favorite characters. Well, to be fair, there's no actual proof that Xavier did that to Scott. But Xavier has shown himself to be a conniving morality-devoid son-of-an-Emma in at least half a dozen other cases, so I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt. DEADLY GENESIS! <ahem> |
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Post by Power NeXus on Jun 26, 2012 16:33:47 GMT -5
Well, to be fair, there's no actual proof that Xavier did that to Scott. But Xavier has shown himself to be a conniving morality-devoid son-of-an-Emma in at least half a dozen other cases, so I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt. DEADLY GENESIS! <ahem> Deadly Genesis contains proof that Xavier was the one who convinced Scott into believing he couldn't control his optic blasts? |
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Post by DedmanWalkin on Jun 26, 2012 16:42:13 GMT -5
How does the phrase go, "The proof is in the pudding?" Well, I'd say that Cyclops' recent actions are all the proof needed to show that Professor X is a shitty chef.
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Post by jakefury on Jun 26, 2012 16:56:19 GMT -5
Deadly Genesis contains proof that Xavier was the one who convinced Scott into believing he couldn't control his optic blasts? No it revealed he had mind wiped Scott into forgetting Vulcan and he also mind wiped the world into forgetting Vulcan's team that died on Krakoa. |
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