Avengers vs X-Men

Nozawa Bar

Raindancer and I had dinner here tonight (We’re in LA for the Christmas weekend).  The sushi was pretty darn amazing, but not 4x as good as the regular omakase at Sugarfish.  More than happy that we did it, would do again, but we’ll generally be satisfied with Sugarfish in the future.  The taste/value ratio is off the charts there.

AvX 0-2

Avengers 25

Uncanny X-Men 11

New Avengers 24-26

I know that I didn’t finish buying this series.  I’m not sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with my main takeaway from the first 3 issues of the main storyline:

Cyclops is a mega-douche.  

He may have some valid points as the Avengers and X-Men fight over Hope Summers with the impending arrival of the Phoenix Force, but I just don’t care.  He’s a self-righteous, sanctimonious dick with a massive persecution complex, and I can’t wait for him to get smacked upside the head.  Multiple times.  

Bendis, who writes the mini-series plus the Avengers and New Avengers tie-ins, does a fine job with the initial battle between the two teams.  In a surprising move, he succeeds primarily through the use of captions, neatly summarizing why each of the individual moments are awesome.  I’ve rarely (if ever) seen this technique used to such good effect.

Avengers is drawn by Walt Simonson, and its main source of awesome comes from seeing Simonson draw Thor again, this time in his new costume:

Like coming home.

There’s also a satisfying moment between Thor and Cap, aided by some nice colors by Jason Keith:

Nothing like an old friend to cheer you up.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Fine

Uncanny X-Men recaps the events of AvX 1 and 2.  I wonder if this is because as not-Bendis, Kieron Gillen felt that he owed a more straightforward retelling to his readers.  (As opposed to Bendis, who veered more sharply from the mini-series with his other titles)

After all these years, I’m still undecided in my verdict on Greg Land.  I know most of his work is tracing model references, but it’s still very nice to look at.  More on this as I get to his main work, I’m sure.

I’m having a ton of fun with the New Avengers side of things.  Aside from Ultimate Spider-Man and Miles Morales, the Jessica Jones/Luke Cage relationship may be the best thing that Bendis has brought to the Marvel Universe.  It reads as such a true relationship between two loving people with both powers and major issues.  (Though for people with huge problems communicating with each other, they have some of the best talks.)  

By the time you get to this point in the issue, you know everything that's going on in his head.  It adds so much weight to this moment.  

I’m also loving the Iron Fist flashback.  It reads like a hidden chapter from Ed Brubaker’s Iron Fist run, and I want to see Mike Deodato on a martial arts title.  An Iron Fist/Shang Chi comic from him would be heavenly.

Part of me wants to know how many of these trainees were drawn individually and how many were copies.  The other part can't be bothered to do the Where's Waldo.

Iron Phoenix?  I'm all in.

I’ll grade everything that’s not Avengers 25 tomorrow, when I read the last parts of those storylines.

Other notes:

I've asked this same question myself.

Be. Successful!  B.  E.  Successful!