Written By: Jonathan Hickman
Art By: Oliver Coipel
Six issues into A Vs X and the bigger picture is starting to come into focus. I’ve been admittedly hard on this “Event” book since its started. The characterization of Scott Summers as character has been erratic and off-putting enough to make the rest of the story fall flat under its lofty ambitions.
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After Iron Mans failure to contain the Phoenix Force last issue ended with the creation of “The Phoenix Five”. Ten Days have passed and The Phoenix Five have done a lot to fix different parts of the Country. Charles Xavier finally accepts an invite from Magneto and Cyclops and this is yet another attempt at beating us over the head with the notion that Cyclops is losing his touch with reality.
Cyclops credits all of this work to be done in honor of Charles and then proceeds to explain to Hope that she didn’t deserve the Phoenix Force after giving it up. He then tells her she isn’t a prisoner and can leave when she wants.Again it all seems forced and while he dialogue is good and it creates a layer of tension and creates a pretty big threat it doesn’t feel fully realized and polished.
There in lies the problem. A few pages later and The Avengers have decided that The X Men must be held accountable for their actions regardless of their intent. I understand that Marvel wants to ground things in reality but must every big event have the President involved? The Avengers are presented as nothing more than pawns of the President in this issue and it doesn’t give a compelling argument as to who your more interested in seeing “win”. Once again Tony Stark creates some cool suits for The Avengers to use and develop a plan. The Avengers decide that Hope is the key to figuring out how to stop the Phoenix and go on a rescue mission to kidnap Hope off of Utopia.
I will say I was very happy to see Oliver Coipel’s pencils this issue. He’s always been able to draw epic action scenes and I actually thought the redesigns of The Phoenix Five looked far cooler this issue than what Romita Jr. had created. I’m hoping he continues to draw the next few issues. Say what you will about how odd the story and plot of this issue were at least it’s pretty.
With a conveniently placed cameo the story progresses in a way that drives Cyclops even further in to the realm of Crazyville. I know that some people may enjoy this series but for me it still continues to show us that good Event Books are few and far between. The story is full of too many characters and with more being added each issue with little to no character development how can we truly care about whats happening in the series at all? I’m really hoping for some last-minute magic here other wise I have to say this is one of the bigger disappointments in recent memory for something that had so much potential coming out of the gate.
Review Score: 5/10
Mike DeVivo
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