OMG, WHY? WHY WAS THIS SERIES SO BAD?
OK, OK. Sorry for that outburst. Let's regroup.
As predicted, little of the events that occurred in this series will wind up having any enduring impact. From the public's perspective, the main "event" of this series was Apocalypse forcing the evacuation of New York, seemingly with the help of the X-Men. However, thanks to a video that the villains conveniently taped and released, the public "knows" that the villains formed an Axis of Evil to manipulate the heroes into acting like villains. Unfortunately, this story doesn't really survive under any scrutiny, since it makes little sense why the non-mutant villains would help Apocalypse in his attempt to murder humankind, but I digress. In the end, the only permanent changes are Havok, Iron Man, and Sabretooth stay inverted because Tony created some sort of shield to keep him that way. That's it. I guess we were supposed to be moved by Evan being the only hero or villain to successfully fight past the inversion, but it's so overwhelmed by the noise of the rest of the issue that, needless to say, I wasn't.
It's hard to remember my excitement for this series before it start. After the amazing fight against the Apocalypse Twins that took up most of the "Uncanny Avengers" series, this series held such promise. Remender has teased the Red Onslaught since the start of that series, so it's clear not only that he'd given a lot of thought to this event but that it would also have a significant impact on the story that he's telling. I expected the Avengers and the X-Men working together to prevent the dark future of Ahab's camps from becoming a reality, bringing to a close a story that Claremont set into motion with "Days of Future Past." (Tony even alludes to that possibility in this issue, telling Xavier that he was going to mass manufacture Sentinels to eliminate mutants.)
Instead, we got...what we got. Rather than seeing the sort of heroism necessary to save the world from hate on a grand scale, we got long expository sequences telling us what heroism is. In fact, we never really see much heroism. Carnage sacrificing himself to save humanity is the only real sacrifice, and we rushed past it just like we did Evan asserting control over Apocalypse. I'd continue, but there doesn't seem to be a point.
* (one of five stars)
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