Uncanny Avengers #18.NOW (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Game on!

Remender hurls us six or so years into the future, where Alex, Hank, and Janet wage a three-person war against Eimin and her forces on Planet X.  Remender makes it clear that Eimin has told her version of the past to the mutants when they awoke from stasis, placing blame for Earth's destruction on Thor for attracting the attention of Exitar the Executioner (and, clearly, gliding over the role that she and Uriel played in that process).  He also puts all sorts of fascinating questions on the table when it comes to this new world.  Clearly, mutants have human children, as Alex and Janet do, so Eimin must do something with them.  But, how much do the mutants know about it?  Do they just not ask too many questions for fear of upsetting their Utopia?  I'm hoping that Kang and his Avengers, who arrive at the end of this issue thanks to Alex and Janet finally destroying the tachyon dam, don't save the world too soon, because I'd love for Remender to have time to develop this world more fully.  Thankfully, they don't have an easy road ahead of them.  Even if Kang and his Avengers have arrived in the future, the tachyon dam is still in place in the past.  So, if they manage to defeat Eimin, they still have no way of sending someone into the past to stop Exitar from destroying Earth.  I can't wait to see how they solve that problem.

Finally, Acuna's work is amazing here.  He delivers a sparkling world of glass and steel to serve as a backdrop to Hank and Janet's fight with Magneto's X-Force.  He conveys a real sense of fluidity to their mid-air battle, while at the same time reminding us how different of a world Planet X is from Earth from just the flashes that we see of it.  It's just so great to read a story where everyone is in top form.

(Also,with Kang back in the game, I'm intrigued to see if we finally learn what role Kang played in the Twins killing the Celestial.  From the start, it appeared that he coordinated the attack, but, given that the Twins seem to believe that the attack was the moment where they put their plan to deny Kang Earth into motion, it's still unclear to me what Kang originally intended to happen.)

***** (five of five stars)