Axis: Revolutions #4

OMG, this issue could not be more terrible.  Iceman becomes some sort of broody teenage poet lusting after a woman that he thinks that he's saving, and Chaykin confuses misogyny for something that makes a character interesting.  Ugh.  This issue is why women feel like they're not welcome in comics

(zero of five stars)

Axis: Revolutions #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Just like all the other event mini-series like this one, that feature two stories on the margins of an event, this series so far has been mostly skipable.  I've mentioned the first two issues in passing, but I felt like this one merited comment.

The first story involves Kitty Pryde robbing a bank.  It's interesting not only in the fact that we see just how amazing Kitty's powers can be if she uses them for evil, but also because it again raises the question of whether this entire story is going to wind up getting ret-conned.  Between Thor's bender in Vegas and Kitty indirectly murdering people, it's hard to imagine any of the inverted heroes being able to return to their normal lives without some sort of legal ramifications.  I feel like we've got an "Age of Ultron" ending coming.

The second story is actually a really solid character study of Sandman.  He's inspired by the villains suddenly acting like heroes to break into a prison to save a former henchman-turned-snitch from an angry mob boss bent on silencing him permanently.  It's interesting because Sandman does the right thing (at least from his perspective), but instead gets blamed for the chaos at the prison.  It's a pretty solid commentary by Barbiere on people seeing what they're used to seeing (a.k.a. Sandman being a villain despite his actions).

Again, we don't get anything ground-breaking here, but it's the first issue of this series that merited its own comment.

*** (three of five stars)

Loki: Agent of Asgard...ahem...Axis #8 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, I'll say right off the bat that this issue isn't the easiest to follow.  It's not totally Ewing's fault because he's got a lot of balls in the air right now, some of them related to this series' ongoing story arc and some of them related to its presumably mandatory participation in "Avengers & X-Men:  Axis."  He does his best trying to put them together in a coherent fashion, but he doesn't necessarily do himself any favors by using the flashback approach that he employs here.

First, we have the framing device, namely the fight between Loki and Thor that we see in "Avengers & X-Men:  Axis" #6.  Loki initially learns of Thor's drunken antics in a Vegas casino from the tweets of a journalist following Thor (as seen in "Axis:  Revolutions" #2*).  But, before he finds him, Loki stumbles upon the robbery of a different casino by the Death Throws, a group of circus-themed ("super-")villains.  Honestly, this fight is the best part of the issue.  Ewing lets us know that the Throws consider themselves legitimate villains (one of them is even auditioning for a spot on the team), but we're allow to laugh at them with Loki as he makes quick work of them.  They're the perfect group for Loki-as-superhero to confront.  They're not enough of a challenge for him to require his full attention, so it allows him to toy with them (and a circus-themed group certainly lends itself to Loki's sense of humor).  Once he defeats them, the cops send him to the casino where Thor is, setting up the fight in "Avengers & X-Men:  Axis" #6.

Second, Ewing is also trying to tie up loose ends left from "Loki:  Agent of Asgard" #6 and #7.  At some point, the Enchantress, Lorelei, Loki, Sigurd, and Verity have all assembled in Loki's apartment.  (The intro page tells us that the Enchantress is Lorelei's sister.  I'm not counting that as an example of pet peeve #2, because long-time readers of this series and its predecessors may already know that.)  It's a surprise to see them all together, since they were all in different places when we last left them.  Eventually, we learn that the Enchantress and Loki called everyone to the apartment to let them know that they're good guys now, but it's not until well into the issue that Ewing establishes that.  It results in the reader (or, at least, me) spending most of the issue confused, since we're not privy to the events that set up the scene and it's clear that a lot happened since we last saw everyone.  I keep feeling like I had missed an issue somewhere.

In other words, Ewing is clearly rushed, trying to combine the epilogue to the events of "Loki:  Agent of Asgard" #6 and #7 with the introduction of the changes to the Enchantress and Loki to this series as a result of "Avengers & X-Men:  Axis" #3 as well as setting up the fight in "Avengers & X-Men:  Axis" #6.  It's a lot.  As I mentioned above, I'm not sure if the flashback technique was the best call here.  I get that starting the issue with a fight (and a well scripted one at that) is a better opening than the expository scenes that happen in Loki's apartment in the middle of the issue, but its impact is lost when the reader is suddenly throw a few hours into the past and left trying to put together the pieces.  As I said, Ewing manges to do a better job than most authors with what he has here, but I think it would've been even stronger of an issue with a more linear approach to the events unfolding.

* I've previously mentioned "Axis: Revolutions" in passing, because it's really just filler.  I'm not even reviewing it, since it doesn't really merit the effort.  But, I'll admit that it would help to pick up issue #2 if you're totally lost here, because you really get a better insight into Thor's mindset.

*** (three of five stars)