New(-ish) Comics: The "Avengers vs. X-Men" Edition #7 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Avengers vs. X-Men #5: I saw an advertisement that billed this issue as the end of Act One, and it's a pretty apt description.  The storyline so far has revolved around Cap and Cyclops' dueling views of Hope, with Cap maybe taking overly aggressive steps to address the danger that he felt that a Phoenix-empowered Hope posed to the world and Cyclops pretty much proving that he had lost his mind by constantly asserting that a so-empowered Hope would save the mutant race.  A reckoning between these two visions has been coming, and we get one (to an extent) in this issue.

Last issue, we saw that Hope herself didn't really necessarily believe that Cap or Cyke had any idea what they were doing, a pretty reasonable conclusion given that, as I mentioned in my last review, Cap had no real plan to protect her from Phoenix and Cyclops didn't seem to have any idea how she would control it.  She convinced Logan to let her try to control Phoenix, but got him to agree to kill her if it looked like she couldn't.  They then went to the Moon to greet Phoenix.  (It was like Burning Man, but with less acid.)

We start this issue with the Avengers having located Hope, thanks to a tip from Logan, and the X-Men arriving right on their heels, as a result of Emma successfully plucking her location from someone's mind. The Phoenix Force has also arrived and Hope quickly realizes that she can't control it while the Avengers and the X-Men resume pounding on one another.  I thought Fraction did a great job of using Hope's narration to explain that the war between the two sides had gone beyond the rational and, in fact, seemed no longer to have anything to do with her.  Even with this pretty reasonable explanation why years of emotions meant that neither side seemed capable of putting together a workable plan, it was getting hard to believe that the two sides would just continue to wail on each other for the next seven issues given that it really wasn't doing anything to resolve the issue of Hope.

Here, Fraction resolves that issue, in a way.  We finally see the device that Tony Stark has been building over the last few issues, some sort of giant robot that reminded me of Tranzor Z from the '80s.  Stark and Hank Pym fly said robot straight at the Phoenix Force, detonating some sort of energy field that disrupts her.  Fraction isn't entirely clear how the robot manages to do that, but I'm willing to concede that Stark and Pym are capable of finding some way to do it without me needing to understand all the mechanics.  The Phoenix Force, rejected by Hope and attacked by Stark, splits itself five ways, imbuing Colossus, Cyclops, Emma, Magic, and Namor with its power.  They then inform the Avengers that they're taking Hope with them and that they plan on helping Phoenix heal so that it can remake the world.

The good news is that I don't necessarily hate this development.  When I first heard about it, I rolled my eyes and figured that it would be the moment when this whole endeavor jumped the shark.  I mean, it's pretty obviously a stalling tactic to help justify a 12-issue mini-series.  But, it's a stalling tactic that at least works in terms of the story.  It makes sense that Tony and Hank could damage, but not destroy, Phoenix, so I'm willing to concede that the actual effect of their attack was to split her power between the five X-Men.  In fact, Hope herself comments that Phoenix didn't want her any more after she initially rejected it.  I'm waiting to see where Fraction goes with that.  After all, the obvious question is why Phoenix didn't just give Hope its powers.   If it was able to empower the five X-Men mentioned above here, then it seems like that it could also have just gone ahead and empowered Hope.  Fraction seems to be implying that Hope's realization that she couldn't handle the power somehow affected Phoenix's view of her, and I'm wondering if the point of imbuing the five X-men was to give them the ability to convince her to play host.

In other words, Fraction does really bring us to a solid end of Act One.  It's no longer about Cap and Cyke's dueling visions about Hope's potential future.  We're now waiting to see what Cyclops et al. meant about the need for Phoenix to heal itself before it can "evolve tomorrow itself."  I'm glad to say that I'm excited to see what the answer to that question is.

Finally, Fraction does a good job of making Hope a little more likable here.  After all, she realizes that she can't handle the Phoenix Force and asks Wolverine to kill her.  As grim as that sounds, it shows that Hope is trying to do the right thing and allows us to have empathy for her, something that has always been hard to have given how obnoxious she's been.  All in all, despite my doubts, it was a pretty strong issue.

AVX:VS #3:  This title's previous issues have been fun, but I can honestly say this one is totally skipable.  The Colossus/Thing fight is totally formulaic and the Black Widow/Magik fight is rendered almost unintelligible by Marvel's decision to put half of it in Russian, hoping we'll download its AR app.  I'm specifically NOT downloading the AR app as a result.  So there.

Avengers #27:  OK, I've pretty well documented the fact that the "Avengers" and "Secret Avengers" coordination problem has been my least favorite thing about "Avengers vs. X-Men."  The problem is, unfortunately, all the more stark after my six-week hiatus, because I spent most of this issue trying to remember what happened in the last issue versus what happened in the last issue of "Secret Avengers."  If I'm not mistaken, we ended "Secret Avengers" with Ms. Marvel and the Protector supporting a reborn Captain Marvel and I had more or less ascertained that the upcoming fight was contained between panels in "Avengers" #26.  I think that hunch is more or less supported by this issue, given that Marvel isn't even mentioned and Carol is clearly no longer under his sway.  I don't remember the exact details of the Protector's attack on his teammates last issue, but he appears to have stolen something that will help the Supreme Intelligence gain control over the Phoenix Force.

Unfortunately, he assumed that the Supreme Intelligence would then help save Earth.  He is clearly an idiot.  (I mean, really?  I actually liked this plot line better when he was merely traitorous, not naive.)  He was wrong (obviously) and I give credit to Bendis that the sequence where he's deserted by his teammates is heartbreaking to read.  Or, at least, it would be heartbreaking if I believed it.  Bendis makes it seem like the Protector staked Captain America through the heart given the vitriol that the team spews at him.  I mean, Hank gets so angry about singed fur that he threatens to kill the Protector?  I get that they're upset, but, honestly, something about the team members' reaction just seemed totally over the top to me, given that any number of Avengers have done much, much worse but are still welcomed with open arms.  I'm not saying that he didn't do a terrible thing, but I don't know if I believe that they would've reacted the way that they did.  In the end, it wasn't a terrible issue.  In fact, it's pretty damn good for Bendis,  But, I still find myself scratching my head why we're dedicating two titles to the Space Team when one would've definitely sufficed.  But, at least it seems like the dueling Space Team stories are coming to an end, so I'm happy that we'll presumably be seeing something else next issue.

  

Uncanny X-Men #13:  Despite the fact that "Uncanny X-Men" is just a tie-in issue, Gillen makes two fairly major revelations here.  First, he has Unit reveal that the Phoenix Force has, in fact, come to Earth specifically because it felt "pushed" by Wanda's decimation of the mutant race, implying that it's here to correct it.  Second, he reveals the existence of another messiah who previously used the Phoenix Force to save her race.

Needless to say, I'm pretty surprised that we didn't see the reveal about Phoenix's intentions in the main title.  After all, it pretty much proves that Scott is right (to an extent).  Given how insane Scott has seemed lately, I think this revelation makes him seem significantly less crazy.  I mean, he still seems somewhat crazy, since I'm pretty sure that Unit didn't tell Scott about Phoenix's intentions and he's just basing his belief in its redemptive abilities on some sort of instinct.  One theory about his erratic behavior has been that Hope or Phoenix has been manipulating him, so it makes sense that, if Phoenix has been manipulating him, his connection to it would probably given him some insight into its intentions.  Now, Gillen doesn't actually draw that line here, so it's entirely possible that Cyclops is really just on a limb in his belief in Phoenix as the mutants' savior.  Moreover, even if he's right that it's come to Earth to recreate the mutant race, it doesn't mean that a lot of people aren't going to die in the process.  (In other words, Cap isn't necessarily wrong that Hope and Phoenix are threats, even if Cyclops is right that it's here to undo Wanda's spell.)  But, at the very least, it does make me feel like Scott's not as insane as I think, even if he is only basing his opinion on instinct that may or may not come from a connection to the Phoenix Force.

Morever, Gillen address one of my questions from "Avengers vs. X-Men" #5, namely, why Phoenix decided to empower the five X-Men on the Moon.  Here, we learn that it parallels an event that happened a billion years ago, when a messiah was born to a race who found itself evolutionarily halted by a group of demons who had enslaved it.  The messiah built up a group of five acolytes and called to Phoenix for help.  Phoenix answered, and the messiah and her acolytes worked with Phoenix to undo the spell and reform their world.  So, Phoenix not only has come to Earth to save the mutant race, but it's essentially done the same thing previously.  Gillen draws an implicit parallel between Hope and her original Lights from "Generation Hope."  We've never really gotten an explanation of how Hope exerted the influence over the Lights that she did, since it's not her mutant power to do so, but Gillen seems to be implying that it was due to her link to Phoenix, given the previous messiah's experience.  In the present, with Hope discarded and her acolytes scattered, it's clear that Phoenix is willing to use a different set of acolytes to further its goals.  We'll see where that goes.

Again, it seems odd to me that the editors at Marvel would shunt these revelations -- that the Phoenix Force IS here to recreate the mutant race and that Hope isn't the first messiah surrounded by five acolytes to call on the Phoenix Force to save her people -- to a tie-in issue.  But, I'm certainly glad that these stories got told, regardless of where they were told, because it does help address two nagging questions I had, namely Cyclops' insistence that he was right about Hope and Hope being able to control the Lights.  On the down side, the use of Unit as the source of this information remains deus ex machina-y, and I found myself rolling my eyes at his revelation that he's trying to prevent Hope from saving the mutants since he has nothing to learn from such a scenario, given that he's already witnessed a messiah achieving her goal.  Plus, I might be giving Gillen a little too much credit here, given that, as I've noted, I'm connecting some dots that Gillen doesn't specifically connect himself.  But, all in all, I'll take any sort of clarity that I can get.

The other focus of this issue is Magneto, Psylocke, and Storm regrouping at a pre-designated location after the battles that we've seen occur throughout Earth over the last few issues. It's a great series of scenes, because it gives the event the quiet time that it's been missing, allowing the characters to consider the events of the last few days.  Again, we're moving into Act Two here, so I thought it was a nice touch for Gillen to use this issue to spend some time reflecting on the events of Act One. All in all, I probably enjoyed this issue of "Uncanny X-Men" more than any since the re-launch.

X-Men Legacy #268:  OK, first, I was confused by where we start this issue, because I thought that, when we last left Rogue and her team, they were still in the middle of a fight with Falcon and his team.  I guess I'll have to check.  Anyway, this issue is the first one to deal directly with the aftermath of "Avengers vs. X-Men" #5, informing us that the five X-Men empowered by the Phoenix Force are remaking the world in their image.  For starters, they've outlawed war and we start the issue with Cyclops disarming both sides of a conflict somewhere in Africa.  Enter Frenzy, who's tasked with keeping the peace for a few hours until the Stepford Cuckoos can come and re-write everyone's memory.  (They're a little busy at the moment disarming Iran's nuclear program.)  I was also a little confused by this moment, since I was pretty sure that only Bobby, Rachel, and Warren defected to Cyclops' side.  Have Rogue et al. followed?  I guess that they have, but it would've been nice to see that.  Instead, I was left feeling like I missed an issue.

I was worried from the get-go with this story, because I find that authors often fail miserably when they engage in these foreign-intervention tales.  They usually greatly oversimplify the complicated dynamics that tend to create these sorts of internal conflicts and fail to write a story that provides a believable role for the costumed hero who finds herself suddenly thrust in the middle of one.  As someone who works in foreign affairs, these stories generally require too significant of a willful suspension of disbelief for me, particularly when it comes to the reality that the victims will face once the heroes leave.

I will say that Gage mostly (though not totally) avoids all these traps.  By using Frenzy, he gives us a protagonist who completely understands that the X-Men are not going to keep two sides who've been fighting each other for decades from attacking each other, even if they have been disarmed.  Gage somewhat wisely has the conflict itself take a backstage, since the issue is really about Frenzy and the abuse that she suffered at the hands of her father, a history that inspires her to intervene when she comes across a guy abusing his child bride.  My only real criticism of the issue is this moment, since Gage has the guy spout off way too many theories about international relations while telling Frenzy to take a hike.  Gage also falls into the oversimplification trap as Frenzy decides that she's going to solve this girl's problems by just stopping the guy from hitting her.  (Gage actually somewhat sidesteps the question entirely by killing off said husband at the end of the issue, so that we don't have to wonder what's going to happen to the girl once Frenzy leaves.  I'm not entirely sure why the guy was killed, though.  Did another guerrilla group stumble across the rebel camp and kill everyone there?  Gage isn't really clear on that.  If the husband was a member of the group at the camp, why would they kill him?)  But, leaving this scene aside, the rest of the issues flows pretty smoothly (though sadly) as Frenzy tells her story to the man's wife, who's barely a teenager, as she leads Frenzy to the rebel's camp.

The most interesting part of this issue comes at the end, with Frenzy successfully convincing the Stepford Cuckoos not to wipe the traumatic memories from the minds of the villagers, since they need those memories to protect themselves from the next warlord.  If Cyclops and his crew are really having the Cuckoos rewrite the memories of everyone on Earth to conform to their vision of the world, I'm wondering what nightmare Utopia we're going to be seeing in "Avengers vs. X-Men" #6.  Plus, shouldn't they be re-sparking the mutant race?  I mean, why are they bothering with political conflicts when they could be going to every de-powered mutant and reviving their powers?  Overall, I'm a little worried, because these sorts of stories about free will have been done many, many times before (and probably most successfully by the "Squadron Supreme" mini-series in the '80s) and I think that this entire endeavor could get really derivative really quickly.  Fingers crossed that it doesn't.  In the meantime, Gage gives us a decent character study here that managed to miss all the pitfalls that this sort of issue usually carries with it.  Frenzy continues to grow as a character and Gage clearly enjoys writing her.  You don't necessarily need to read this issue in terms of the larger event, but if you like Frenzy and you're looking for a good character study, you should think about getting it.