Avengers & X-Men: AXIS

Avengers & X-Men: AXIS

by Rick Remender (Writer), Adam Kubert (Illustrator), Leinil Francis Yu (Illustrator)

The Red Skull has exploited the gifts of the world's greatest telepath to broadcast pure hatred across the globe. Now, born of the murder of Charles Xavier, World War Hate has begun. Tony Stark discovers a secret truth that will upend not only his life, but also the lives of everyone he cares for. Can The Avengers and X-Men finally unite? Would their combined strength be enough to hold back the darkness of the Red Onslaught? Magneto murdered the wrong man, releasing the greatest evil the Marvel Universe has ever known. Now Rogue and Scarlet Witch are all that stand in its way.

COLLECTING: Avengers & X-Men: Axis 1-9

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, X Men, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Rick Remender is an American comic book writer and artist who resides in Los Angeles, California. He is the writer/co-creator of many independent comic books like Black Science, Deadly Class, LOW, Fear Agent and Seven to Eternity. Previously, he wrote The Punisher, Uncanny X-Force, Captain America and Uncanny Avengers for Marvel Comics.

Reviews

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 3 out of 5]

My friend Jeff aka Hulk Boy messaged me whining wanting to do a buddy read. He told me to look at his up next shelf and pick one that my "live in the boonies" library might have and to go get it. I picked this one. I should have known something was up because the monkeys starting acting really weird.



So you have a super baddie the Red Skull who everyone keeps trying to kill. Yep, that doesn't work. Now he has been reborn as super baddie the Red Onslaught.
The X-men and Avengers need to team up to take down the Red Man..but then they come up with the super stupid idea of an axis. It makes the good guys go bad though.



Like Hulk..dude. He went even more postal than normal.


There was something that I loathed about this book and it happens sometimes in graphic novels. Why do authors through in every imaginable character that was ever in existence in comic book land? It makes the story confusing and I hate the crap.

There were some parts of the book that I did have fun with though..
Tony Stark's badass phone app? Total win.



I also found a character that I liked...Carnage. I could get behind this guy.



And a graphic novel with a soundtrack. Just try getting this out of your head....Then I saw her face..


So I didn't totally hate this book. The monkeys liked it for the violence. They rated it a five and I kicked their asses. They said to show Jeff their Halloween outfit for this year.



Stupid monkeys


I guess since I'm buddy reading this sucker with him I'll feature Jeff...if he ever gets his review up.
Jeff is deluded. thinks he is the all time comic guru. If you aren't following or friends with him, you should be. Sometimes he posts groin kick/vomit/Goldblum gifs that are awesome.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avengers X-Men Axis #1-9, Axis Carnage, Revolutions and Hobgoblin and Axis crossovers - Nova, Superior Iron Man, Loki and Avengers World. Red Skull takes on everyone resulting in inversions of many - that is Bad Avengers, X-Men and Medusa! And good Creed, Mystique, Absorbing Man, Loki, Enchantress, Hobgoblin, Carnage etc helping Steve Rogers, Spider-Man, Nova, Deadpool and Magneto. Good idea, OK read. 6 out of 12 Three Star.. not interesting enough to actually write about :D

2015 read

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This is what my wife tries to point out to me on a daily basis, for whatever obscure reason.

Which brings me to the Marvel universe (616, not the multiverse*) and everyone’s least favorite retro-Nazi creep, the Red Skull. He’s been killed a million times, banished inside the Cosmic Cube, given his own show on QVC, but this ass keeps coming back again and again. Does he stay dead?

No, no he doesn’t.

“Gott im himmel, Captain America, you fool! I will return for I am not Uncle Ben.”

Marvel heroes = chumps

Wait, Jeff, if the heroes are basically doing the same thing (killing the Red Skull) and hoping he’s dead, they would expect the same result, not a different one. In light of this, your stated premise makes no sense whatsoever.

Shaddup!!

The storyline, which I gave up on after the projected birth of the Apocalypse Twins, is thus: The Red Skull dug up Charles Xavier, cut out his brain, pureed it into a fine shake, added nutmeg and a twist of lemon for flavor, drank it and viola the Skull now became the “World’s Most Powerful Psychic”. Instead of opening up a storefront on Route 70, he decided to get rid of all the mutants. In a rage, Magneto killed him, but because he still had the essence of Charles Xavier, the Skull’s psyche became Red Onslaught (as opposed to just Onslaught which was what happened last time Charles Xavier got really mad and helped usher in a year-long Marvel storyline where Franklin Richards sent a lot of Marvel heroes to a pocket universe, which almost ruined comic books for everyone.**)



Excuse for reading this: I picked this out of the library without really checking on what it was about because it’s big and shiny and beckoned me to borrow it.

Am I sorry I did?

Meh!

It’s basically another smash and bash Marvel crossover, with the twist that in the second half of this volume, some heroes become villainous and any villain on site, is now on the side of the angels.

How? It was magic, kids! Stay in school, don't get involved in the Black Arts and don't do drugs!



As with any crossover that isn’t self-contained there are always lingering questions in your mind when you finish reading. The more complex the storyline the more questions you have. This was middling to fair.

Spider-Man and Deadpool are a hoot here, which is a big plus for this book.



I’m digging the new mis-guided Iron-Man and the fact that Magneto’s assholery knows no bounds.

Question: Since when is the Wasp back in the Marvel picture.

Answer: Since the Ant-Man movie became a reality and now she’s a potential character in the Marvel cinematic universe, Jeff.

Oh, of course.

This was a buddy read with my pal, Shelby who PM’ed me and begged me to read a comic with her. I had no other choice cuz she threatened to send her new and improved army of killer flying monkeys to my doorstep.



Check out her funny review here.

Proudly Goldblum gif free since 2012

*Jury is out Jeff

**Just shoot me now Jeff

[Sean Gibson · Rating 2 out of 5]

In what will come as a shocking surprise to those of you who have assumed that I was always this macho, I was a late bloomer. Now, we don’t need to get into how late in life I achieved milestones that most enterprising young lads hit by the time they’re 15 or 16, but I will note that I did not drink until I was 22, and that I didn’t actually start imbibing until after graduation.

(Note from the frontlines of college frat parties, lo those many years ago: when you’re stone-cold sober, drunk people are only about 33% as funny as they think they are, as a general rule. Some of them think they aren’t funny at all, though, and are being totally serious…THOSE are the ones who provide hours of genuine entertainment. I encourage you to seek them out.)

And thus begins the chorus of questions, rarely out of place at the beginning of any of my reviews: “Sean, what does this have to do with the latest in a long line of epic massive mega Marvel crossovers?”

Patience, grasshopper.

When I finally DID start drinking, I was years behind the curve in terms of actually knowing HOW to drink. So, needless to say, I got exceedingly obliterated in my first few attempts, something my with-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies friends (looking at you, Bret) very astutely observed. Consequently, the third time I ever drank, and the last time I would drink with these bosom buddies (I call them that because we were accustomed to feeling each other’s bosoms with distressing frequency, even in our habitual state of sobriety) before heading off to Manhattan to pursue my dreams of being a low-paid peon in the world of commercial publishing, they thought it would be an entertaining lark to make use of a mini tape recorder to preserve for posterity the innumerable nuggets of wisdom I might drop in my inebriated state. And, they ingenuously waited until I was too pifflicated to notice the presence of said device literally three inches from my face before they began recording. (Note to younger readers: tape recorders used to be a thing…I encourage you to visit the Smithsonian or consult an ancient set of Encyclopedia Britannica to learn more.)

Well, it turns out they were right. The bon mots flew fast and furious as the poorly chosen combination of dark rum and Goldschlager hit my inexperienced liver, and the tape recorder rolled as I, amongst other things, “quoted” Shakespeare (in other words, I made up a bunch of stuff that sounded like Shakespeare, but which my friends didn’t realize was, in fact, just utter nonsense, proving that every once in a while, the drunkest guy in the room can also be the most convincing), including mixing up Macbeth with McBain, the beloved Schwarzenegger-style parody from the Simpsons.

None of the intellectual gold I spun from word vomit (and actual vomit) straw that night was more profound, however, than a single quote that best sums up my thoughts on Axis. (“Wait, you mean you’re actually going to talk about the book you’re reviewing in your review? This is a shocking turn of events.”)

After weighing in on various topics of tremendous importance to the world community, I opined (correctly, I might add) that, “I’m really kind of an intellectual.” My friends, tipsy but far, far less drunk than I at that stage, found this to be a rather provocative assertion, and encouraged me to elucidate. “As an intellectual,” one of them said, teeing me up (as though I needed it), “is there anything you’d like to say?”

“Aaaasss an intellectual,” I slurred, my tongue somehow number than my brain, “I would like to say…that stuff is poop.”

Yep. That’s genius at work, people. Stuff is poop.

And so is Axis. (See? I told you I’d get there.) Once again, Marvel sets up an epic, continuity-altering, every-hero-starring mega crossover throwdown, and once again it fails to do much more than elicit a shrug.

A quick note on the premise, WITH SPOILERS HERE AND THROUGHOUT: the nefarious Red Skull, having somehow gained access to Professor X’s immense mental powers by exhuming the dead man’s brain, is on a rampage, bent on conquering the world (as is the purview of all good Nazi villains). A little weird, but all well and good. Enter a coalition of heroes (and antiheroes, including Magneto Dr. Doom) to stop him. Big fight ensues, heroes are on the verge of losing when “Red Onslaught” appears, magical chicanery from the Scarlett Witch and Doom transpires, and BOOM! Down goes Skull, but, in the process, all of the heroes and villains present are “inverted” – that is, good becomes evil, evil becomes good…dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria!

I couldn’t decide at this point if this was an intriguing or annoying premise, so I tried to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Another spoiler alert: turns out it was an annoying premise.

I will admit that it was good fun to see Carnage swooping about hither and thither as a hero, and asking Spider-Man to honor the heroic and noble sacrifice he makes to save the world by erecting a rhinestone-studded statue of him. Moments like that gave the series a little spark of life, as did the art, which was high quality in places.

But, most of the series was built on the premise that it would be exciting and awesome and whiz-bang-pow neato to see heroes behaving badly and throwing down with each other. And it was…for about 4 pages. And then it got really, really old.

Marvel and DC constantly contrive ways to have their heroes make with the fisticuffs against each other, whether it’s due to a misunderstanding (“I totally didn’t know she was your sister! Wait, she’s your daughter, too?? What?!”), mind control, or just preening, my-hammer-is-bigger-than-yours contests (you’ll notice that lady superheroes are rarely involved in those, mainly because they’re sitting on the sidelines laughing at how small EVERYONE’S hammers are…damn you, steroids!). Marvel did this to good effect a few years back with Civil War—it wasn’t a perfectly executed story, but the premise for the heroes duking it out made sense and spoke to a deep philosophical divide within the superhero community, one that resonated with real-world political differences. That was an interesting idea.

Axis is just a bunch of mind-warped heroes doing bad things to each other (and not sexy bad things). There’s no character development and no compelling reason for these fights, and, ultimately, no consequences, seeing as how, when the heroes are returned to normal (with a few notable exceptions, including Iron Man, which is where the continuity-altering effect of the series comes in), they’re completely off the hook because the bad guys, who were good during all of this, made a video taking the blame for everything so that the heroes’ reputations wouldn’t be tarnished once they were back in their right minds. Gee, that was convenient.

I’ve been reading comics for more than 25 years (because I’m a sex panther like that), and I’ve been as big a proponent of massive, epic crossover events as anyone (I peed myself a little the first time I read The Infinity Gauntlet (though that was really more of a bladder control issue than anything), and X-Men: Age of Apocalypse remains the gold standard by which I judge event comics – I loved it). Over the past several years, however, Marvel has initiated a series of annual (if not even more frequent) epic blockbusters from which there is no break, no chance to get back to smaller, character-driven stories, and no chance to absorb the continuity-altering implications of them before the next series comes along and reboots everything again.

Let us breathe, Marvel. Let your characters figure out who the heck they are for a little while. Let us get reinvested in them again before you go turning them inside out for no apparent reason other than to goose sales (which, I recognize, is a sufficiently legitimate reason when you’re a business). Let’s call for a three-year moratorium on these types of event-driven stories. Let’s let writers and artists do their thing and find the voices of the characters they’re writing without having to put them through this kind of ringer. And then, organically, let’s see where the opportunity arises for that next big epic burst of storytelling. I promise you that we’ll still be with you. So, think about it.

And call me if you need a story consultant. I’ll bust out the Goldschlager and everything. You won’t regret it—especially when the McBain/Macbeth crossover blows up the Twitterverse with its awesomeness.

(Interesting postscript about those tapes my friends made: several years after the fact, my buddy stumbled on them, largely forgotten, in a box. He popped them into the tape player and was delighted to hear that they were still intact, though he noticed that the quality had degraded. So, enterprising man that he is, he took them to a company that primarily does audio forensics work for police departments and had them clean up the audio and convert the tapes to CDs. And, so, that’s how I come to have ridiculous drunken ramblings from a random Friday night in May of 2002 on my iPod today, enabling me to hear, whenever I want, a wise drunkard opine about how Wimbledon is the home of the champion of rainbow coloration, and how much he loves to make Shrinky Dinks shrink. God, I hope my iPod never gets stolen.)

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most books written by Rick Remender, the story suffers from the lack of connective tissue in the story. All of a sudden something critical to the story just appears out of left field. I felt like I had to get all of the crossover issues in order to know what was going on. This is a big problem in collected trades where they've even removed references to the other stories. They gathered some great artists but I would have preferred one consistent artist through all 9 issues. The last issue especially suffered as there are 5 artists on it and they seemed to have removed inkers from the book. Some of the panels look like they are just roughed in pencils. An interesting premise that would have been much better if the author would learn some patience and pace the issues better.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

So basically the Red Skull got super strong and psychically beat down a bunch of heroes at Genosha. Magneto went and got a bunch of villains to help fight the Red Skull and Scarlet Witch cast a spell that made good guys bad and bad guys good.

So Axis was an excuse to make a lot of bad guys good and good guys bad. The reasoning behind it happening was fairly weak, but seeing the heroes be ruthless was interesting. Anyone looking for strong plot look elsewhere.

[Remy Blas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had its redeeming moments, but mostly, I cannot shake the feeling that the whole concept is just wrong. Villains are not bad because they're just bad for no reason, and heroes are not heroes because they're good. People -and superheroes- are not that simple.

So yeah, reversing the moral compass of a group of heroes and villains sounds interesting, but when that completely changes who they are, overriding their personalities and rendering them unable to control their actions, making them go to extremes, I'm not on board anymore.

If not a single character was able to fight against their impulses, then everything they did lacks merit, and ironically that makes the ones that weren't affected by the reversing spell -like Spider-man and Stever Rogers- the most interesting characters in the story because they're the only ones that one cannot know what they're gonna do.

I'm pretty disappointed with Rick Remender for this, since I've been liking pretty much everything he writes, even for Marvel where he probably doesn't have control on every aspect of the story as in other works of his like those of Image comics. But still, his run on Uncanny X-Force and Uncanny Avengers so far has been great in my book. Sadly, AXIS just wasn't nearly as good as I expected.

Some redeeming aspects of the story: Deadpool, especially his interactions with Evan/Apocalypse; Carnage trying to be a hero; the resurrection of Cassie Lang; Loki picking up Mjolnir -though as I say, that lacks merit because he just did it thanks to the spell and as soon as it ended, he wasn't worthy anymore-; Marco Checchetto's art on Avengers World; and some of Magneto's moments.

Worst parts of it: Everything the X-Men did as bad guys; Scarlet Witch and Thor: the most annoying "villains" ever; Tony Stark drunk and without his armor kicking Daredevil's ass (Whatthefuckwas that?? Was Daredevil even drunker or what?); and... Kluh (seriously?).

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eeerrrruuuuurggggmmm.

I was going to ignore this event. I don't follow Remender's Uncanny that closely enough to be interested in the events, and after Avengers vs X-men, I promised myself that I wasn't going to read an event unless it directly effected a title I was reading (like Infinity did, which was GREAT).

But, my brother is getting rid of some comics and in the lot was AXIS, so I thought I'd give it a read before they go.

It started quite promisingly. It looked to be a Marvel event that would see a bunch of heroes take on villains, instead of a variation of Hero vs Hero, that's been in nearly every event since Disassembled (and some of them have worked and been great, but some haven't).

But when AXIS got to book two titled 'Inversion', I stopped caring.

Here's the clever pitch: the heroes become the bad guys, the bad guys become heroes. Turning the AXIS. It's an inversion of characteristic. You get, readers?.

Also, Marvels need to split these events into 3 parts is becoming as tiresome as the events themselves. "Stories come in 3 acts, so let's be clever and have our event stories in 3 parts! Beginning, middle and ends! The fans will love it! That way, we can get 9 or 12 issues out of this instead of 4!"

No.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

The triumphant end to Remender's Uncanny Avengers arc? Not so much. Instead, AXIS is a total face-plant.

Its main problem? It's banal. Not only is their absolutely nothing original here, but the plotting is turgid and the characterization is either non-existent or laughably stereotyped.

The problems start with the first three issues, which are a long, drawn-out fight against the Red Onslaught. Do we get interesting insight into what the return of Onslaught means? Do we get a fearful take-over of the world? No, we get three issues of punching.

The inversion that follows could have redeemed this mini-series, and for perhaps one issue it looks like that might be case, but then the inverted personalties descended into pure schlock. The heroes are just manically evil, with no depth. The villains get a little better shake, since they see the irony in their situation, but they don't get enough screentime for that really to matter.

And after that all, the Red Skull situation has almost immediately come right back to the forefront as if this big setback never happened. Which makes it not just a boring miniseries, but a boring waste of a miniseries.

[Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blah. Mostly forgettable. Some decent parts but in all honesty it's more like a 2.5. Remender is normally a reliable writer but it seems that nobody apart from Hickman can do events well at Marvel these days (Unless you count Slott and Spider-Verse as well). Like most Marvel events, it's designed to provide launching points for new ongoing series such as Superior Iron Man.

[Marco · Rating 1 out of 5]

The horror, the horror.

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete waste of time for everyone involved, including the time I spent reading it...

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be fair, I have been enjoying me some nonsensical, terrible, only vaguely X-Men-ish crossovers as of late, and with that in mind I was pretty pumped for AXIS. I didn't really know what it was about, but it was loosely referenced in Bendis' Uncanny X-Men run, which I generally enjoyed, and with that in mind I figured this was just required reading.

wrrrrrrrongggg

As everyone (who pays attention to this stuff) but me knows, this book has basically nothing to do with either of Bendis' conjoined X-runs, and is mostly a culmination of both Remender's Uncanny X-Force and Uncanny Avengers which are, yes, actual things because, yes, superhero comics are stupid. In this run, a bad guy becomes Super-Bad and the good guys cast simultaneous chaos spells and order spells to stop him (yes, stupid) and the spells make all the good guys bad and bad guys good, and it's stupid.

Then fighting then stupid then over. And the X-Men have an Apocalypse storyline in the middle that somehow isn't even good, if that's possible.

I think that for these kinds of ridiculous and embarrassing crossovers to work, there has to be some aspect of the story that A) expands or twists the superhero allegory and B) offers a narrative payoff that validates the ongoing serial nature of comics. It also helps if things are C) well-drawn or D) fun, and in many cases a good C and D can minimize the need for A and B.

And when none of that happens, you get this book.

It's a story that doesn't particularly make sense, that almost every character forgets happened when it's over, that barely fits into the surrounding continuity (I think it actually made the continuity of my other comics worse), and that just feels half-assed all the way around, which is really surprising because it's like a million pages long. The internet says that these days, DC monthlies are where it's at and that Marvel has fallen to crap, but most of the time I'm too busy collecting review-proof X-Men comics to really care. This book reminded me DON'T READ SUPERHERO COMICS UNLESS THEY ARE ALL X-MEN ALL THE TIME and in that I suppose I am something resembling grateful.

[Tesutamento · Rating 3 out of 5]

2014'ün son crossover event'i AXIS bekletilerimin altında kaldı. Yine ilk fikir olarak ortaya atıldığında heyecan verici fakat uygulamaya dökünce elde kalan bir hikaye. Hikayenin Marvel evreni için yarattığı önemli bir gelişme Scarlet Witch'in Magneto ile kan bağı olmadığını bu hikayede öğreniyoruz.

Uncanny Avengers serisinde ortaya çıkan Red Skull'ın Charles Xavier'ın güçlerini çalma hikayesi Skull'ın en sonunda Onslaught'a dönüşmesiyle son bulmuştu. AXIS tam bu noktadan başlıyor. Avengers ve X-Men Onslaught'u durduramayınca bu kez kötü adamlar sahneye çıkıyor ve Onslaught'u durduruyor. Her şey yoluna girmiş gibi gözükürken aslında bir terslik vardır. Avengers ve X-Men üyeleri anlamsız derecede agresif ve kibirli bir hal almış buna karşın kötü adamlar da pasifist ve iyilik meraklısı olmuştur.

Latveria'nın tahtından inip demokrasi ilan eden Dr. Doom, şakalar yapıp insanları kurtaran Carnage, Mjölnir'i kaldıran Loki gibi zıt karakterleri görmek keyifli olsa da bütünlüklü bir hikaye yok. Fazlasıyla kopuk ve tempo sorunu yaşayan bir hikaye.

Belirtmeden geçmek olmaz. Kitaptaki favori sahnem güçlerini yitirmiş ihtiyar Steve Rogers'ın Red Skull'ı yeni Captain America Sam'den korumaya çalışmasıydı. Daha güzel yazılmış bir hikayede çok güzel olabilecek bir çatışma boşa harcanmış.

[Judah Radd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing about this sat well with me. There were too many things that didn’t make sense.

The “inversions” seemed so contrived. If a character can be “inverted,” why not invert every villain? That should be the go to approach of heroing!

Every characterization was way off for me. I didn’t like the flow of the story.

Great art. That’s about all I liked. It’s especially weird because I loved Remender’s UXF and UA. Not sure what went wrong here.

Seriously weak event.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing special here, really. There are a lot of cool appearances, and the story starts out pretty interesting. I don't think it really goes anywhere, however. The big battles are the worst part which is blasphemous for such a large crossover.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was way better than I thought it would be. The art work was so so, it appeared kinda cartoonish in my opinion. The overall story was really interesting and thoughtful. If the art work was better then I would have given it a better rating.

[Michael Church · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let's see...I liked this because it was kind of an ending to what started back in Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender, except most of that wrapped up in Uncanny Avengers. It was another hero vs hero story (as if we haven't had enough of those yet), and not even as good as some of the others recently. It rehashed a lot of what happened in Avengers vs. X-Men, but not as well. It was an excuse to do a bunch of "what if" kinds of stories. It also suffers a LOT from character bloat. There were SO MANY moving parts. I couldn't even tell you who were the characters that shined or stood out because none of them had a chance to. Maybe a little Evan/Genesis/Kid Apocalypse, some Spider-Man, Carnage. But really no one. And none of those moments coming to mind fit with what I knew of the characters before or where I had hoped their stories were going. The art was mostly solid. I don't like Dodson, but it wasn't awful.

In summary, it's a pretty book (as an event, it better be), but it was pretty pointless. I'm starting to learn that it's better to read the titles I want to and fill in any questions from event titles with a quick google search. Save yourself the trouble.

[Gerry Sacco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! For the amount of hate this trade gets, I was shocked with how much I liked it. LOTS of action, lots of character flaws, lots of Spider-Man. Not sure what there is to hate. Is it breaking any new ground? No, but it’s fun and that’s what comics are supposed to be. Second half is much much stronger than the first. I was actually prepared to give it a 3 or 4 because of the mistreatment of Spider-Man, but the second half is awesome, and he really shines. The overall banter is outstanding as well. Laughed out loud quite a few times.

Don’t worry about other people’s reviews, give this a shot. Really. It’s on sale on a few websites, could probably find it on some lonely shelf in a comic book store, get it. It’s a damned thrill ride, and you’ll thank me.

*edit* Oh and I forgot to mention, the art is gorgeous! Seriously, fights are amazingly drawn, and the colors are outstanding. What more do you want? Go get it!

[ranges · Rating 1 out of 5]

i never review books, but i feel like as someone who suffered through this nonsense, it is my duty to warn you not to read it. not only is everything rushed and poorly developed, but all of the characters become completely insufferable for no reason, and it includes world's most pointless retcon with magneto. it was a waste of my time, money, and the part of my soul that was sucked out of me while being forced to follow this event in the solo comics i normally enjoy. if you love your happiness and sanity, just skip this one.

[Indigo Gilliam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't really understand the serious hate vibes around this storyline. I think it was a great read, with the exception of a few plot holes with the inversions. Considering that team work is one of the prevalent traits of the x men, I think it would have made more sense for them to split up kind of like the avengers did. It also seems strange that wasp is good again after havok saves her from the rest of the avengers, since she was on Genosha when the inversion occurred. Other than that, loved it.

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 3.5. I really liked the idea, switching who's a villain and who's a hero... I'm a pushover for those villains who have a moment of heroism, knowing not only that it'll pass, but that they'll hate themselves for having it. The book was just too short, though. Or maybe it was long enough but not deep enough. Maybe the character work I want was in tie-in books that had time to focus on individual arcs?

[Simone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Se volete leggere la mia recensione, cliccate qui! http://ascwblog.blogspot.it/2015/09/a...

[Audrey Hacker · Rating 1 out of 5]

remender......U blocked me on twitter so I gotta tell u here this sucks , it sucks! It, sucks

[Tomás Sendarrubias García · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bueno, pues me ha dado muchísima pereza ir leyendo Axis, la verdad. Lo recordaba tirando a maluno, pero sin ánimo de ofender, leyéndolo de nuevo ha resultado ser una completa y absoluta decepción. Y eso que no tenía demasiadas expectativas.

Realmente Axis nace de una trama que podría haberse resuelto sin demasiados problemas en la propia colección de Imposibles Vengadores, donde había arrancado la historia de Cráneo Rojo descerebrando a Xavier para quedarse con sus poderes telepáticos y convirtiéndose con el tiempo en el Onslaught Rojo anunciado por los Gemelos Apocalipsis; pero que terminó convirtiéndose en un evento que Marvel aprovecharía para algunas cosas que no tenían nada que ver con Remender y lo que planeaba y sí mucho con temas editoriales, de lo que ahora hablaré. La historia comienza con los Hombres C de Cráneo Rojo capturando a Kaos, Pícara y la Bruja Escarlata y llevándoles a Genosha, donde ya han capturado a Magneto y desde donde Cráneo Rojo y Acab planean acabar con los mutantes. Y mientras crea sus campos de concentración, Cráneo extiende una series de ondas de mala leche por el planeta que hacen que todo el mundo esté tenso y propenso a dar de ostias al resto del mundo, incluyendo los héroes. Finalmente, varios miembros de la Patrulla-X y de los Vengadores se enfrentan en Genosha a Cráneo Rojo y le derrotan gracias a un hechizo combinado de la Bruja Escarlata y el Doctor Muerte, un hechizo que desequilibra el eje del bien y del mal en Cráneo y con el que pretenden devolver a Xavier el control de su mente. Pero el hechizo sale regular, y así, el "cambio de eje" se extiende a todos los presentes de modo que los héroes comienzan a comportarse como villanos, y los villanos como héroes. La Patrulla-X de pronto decide exterminar a los humanos, los Vengadores tienden una trampa al resto de los héroes y los encierran a tamaño miniaturizado utilizando Partículas Pym... y personajes como Loki, Matanza, la Encantadora, el Hombre Absorbente y Dientes de Sable se convierten en los Vengadores, bajo el mando del propio Steve Rogers.

En fin, que esa va a ser la trama de Axis, los héroes comportándose como idiotas y los villanos dispuestas a sacrificar sus nuevas personalidades (o incluso sus vidas) para salvar el planeta... y poco más, porque es una de esas series que al final lo deja todo más o menos como estaba al principio... a nivel narrativo, porque a nivel editorial es otra historia. Y es que, las cosas como son, Axis sirvió más para ajustar temas editoriales que otra cosa. Lobezno acababa de morir en su colección, así que hacía falta un personaje con garras: así es como volvieron bueno a Dientes de Sable. Y un poco lo contrario con Iron Man, después del éxito de Superior Spiderman tocaba probar con un Superior Iron Man... así que dejaron a Tony Stark tonto del culo. Y lo que más me indignó en su momento y me ha retorcido las tripas esta vez es como con una sencilla escena de lo más absurda, se cargaron cerca de sesenta años de historia, convirtiendo a la Bruja Escarlata y a Mercurio en no-mutantes, y para más inri, en no-hijos de Magneto, todo para desvincular los personajes del universo mutante que cinematográficamente seguía en manos de Fox, lo que llevó también por ejemplo a la muerte de Mercurio en Vengadores: La Era de Ultrón. Ah, por cierto, y otra cosa que hacen es pasarles por encima a los 4F, que no intervienen ni en la historia, más allá de una aparición eventual de la Mujer Invisible, y probablemente por el mismo motivo, porque los derechos de los 4F también estaban en Fox.

¿Hasta que punto todo este desastre fue responsabilidad de Remender? Porque por cierto, además del desastre del guion, hay que mencionar el desastre de dibujantes, un auténtico baile de "primeros nombres" completamente desganados, incluyendo a Adam Kubert y Leinil Francis Yu, que si ya de por sí me gustan poco, en Axis están realmente horribles. Pues... supongo que al final algo de responsabilidad le toca al guionista, y es que aquí tampoco debería valer decir aquello de "Yo solo cumplía órdenes", y si bien no eres directamente responsable de eliminar la mutación de Wanda y Pietro, por ejemplo, sí lo eres de hacerlo tan rematadamente mal.

Así que en fin, releyendo de nuevo esto, no puedo más que afirmar que para mí, Axis fue seguramente el principio del fin de mi coleccionismo galopante.

[Brian Poole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marvel’s pipeline of “event” series spits out new entries at such a rapid clip that it’s easy for fans to forget that some of them even happened. Case in point: AXIS.

Falling between Original Sin and Secret Wars, AXIS grew out of the first volume of Uncanny Avengers. The Red Skull had grafted the late Professor X’s brain onto his own brain and developed significant psychic powers that he used to cause all kinds of mayhem. When Magneto attempted to kill the Skull, he instead unleashed “Red Onslaught.” Red Onslaught nearly did in a small army of heroes that fought it on Genosha. A complicated series of events both defeated Red Onslaught and caused an “inversion” that caused numerous heroes to start acting like colossal jerks while a handful of villains present embraced the greater good. More near-ruinous fighting broke out, as the X-Men prepared a “gene bomb” to wipe out non-mutants, while the Avengers practically cannibalized one another. The inversion was reversed, except for three characters. And then everyone went and felt all awkward.

One of the main reasons that AXIS isn’t one of Marvel’s more recognized recent events is that so much of it just doesn’t make sense. Rick Remender is a talented writer who’s done a lot of good work. His first three arcs on Uncanny Avengers were fantastic. This concept of “heroes and villains observe Opposite Day” seems like it could have been entertaining, but really never quite came together. The string of events necessary to cause the inversion and then later undo it felt rather convoluted. The spectacle of heroes fighting each other never quite wears old, but has been done more logically before and since. Honestly, seeing your favorite heroes act like complete assholes just isn’t really that much fun, at least not over the course of several issues.

One of the frustrating things about AXIS was all the threads it created, some of which were followed up, others of which just sort of evaporated. The story is most notorious for the revelation that Magneto isn’t actually the father of twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. That was an absolutely terrible move, one that needlessly wiped away one of the most intricate, impactful family dynamics in the comic book world. The three characters who remained “inverted” had differing results afterward. The Superior Iron-Man book explored Tony Stark being an even bigger jerk than most writers usually portray him, but that lasted for about two arcs and was undone by Secret Wars. The reformed Sabretooth appeared in the second volume of Uncanny Avengers and was one of the few highlights of a misguided arc, but faded after that. As for Havok, he was barely seen after AXIS and fans never really got a payoff to the Havok/Wasp relationship from Uncanny Avengers.

There were some decent moments in AXIS. Steve Rogers got a prominent role that deployed him quite effectively. Remender made the best use of Carnage, often no more than an amalgamation of many of the worst impulses of the ‘90s, that many readers had ever seen. And a handful of Spider-Man/Nova scenes provided some sterling character moments. A significant character resurrection was welcome, but that if happened offscreen felt like a cheat.

It’s become increasingly rare for event series at the Big Two to use a single art team. AXIS featured the work of blue chip pencilers like Adam Kubert, Leinil Francis Yu, Terry Dodson and Jim Cheung, working with a small army of inkers and colorists. While the styles on display aren’t radically different, each has his own quirks, which were enough to keep any kind of overall artistic cohesion from forming. This was a conscious decision by Marvel, intended to get the book out quickly and avoid delays. The art is always professional and occasionally compelling, but the committee approach can’t help but feel like another missed opportunity when reading the story in collected format.

And that is AXIS in a nutshell. A not bad idea that its creators didn’t pull off.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was... kinda stupid. A very hacky premise (The good guys are bad now! The bad guys are good! What'll we DOOOOO?) mixed with clunky dialogue, haphazard plotting, inconsistent art, all cooked into a big ole dudcake of a Marvel crossover event.

That's not to say it was all bad. Remender's take on Deadpool in his Uncanny X-Force run was always one of my favorites, so it was nice seeing him return to the character in short bursts here. I also liked the callbacks to various other X-Force things that popped up here and there, such as Evan turning into Apocalypse.

Beyond these brief bouts of creativity, though, this thing is pretty much a sloppy mess of ideas and execution. Half the time I was reading it, I couldn't tell if it was meant to be a serious Marvel event, or almost a parody of one. The clunky, expositional dialogue, the ungodly amount of narration bubbles, the sheer stupidity of a reverse Hulk named "Kluh" (you wouldn't like him when he's... sad?). It's all just so silly. And I don't think it was supposed to be! I honestly couldn't tell sometimes, though. It's so on-the-nose "dumb comics" that I thought surely Remender was doing it on purpose. But, ultimately, I don't think he was.

This is thoroughly skippable. As far as I can tell so far, there are no consequences for this in the Marvel Universe. It's a completely frivolous, nonsense crossover meant to sell books and nothing else. Don't fall for it!

[Brandon · Rating 1 out of 5]

The few saving graces for this event are the art (which switches teams almost every issue and is so inconsistent it's a pain to read most of the time) and *some* of the jokes land. But it's mostly one big boring slump. The heroes becomes villains, the villains become heroes, and then they fight. The characters rarely do anything interesting (most of that is saved for tie-ins) so it's just heroes vs villains- though I guess, with the inversion, it's villains vs heroes. Woohoo. Same thing. The cast is pretty random and it kind of serves as a conclusion to Remender's Uncanny Avengers (and, to an extent, Uncanny X-Force and the like) butit should have stuck to being an arc in that book. As a crossover event it's just another thing people can point to and complain about how Marvel's crossover events are annoying.

Usually, if a book is bad, there's at least something to talk about. This one is jut boring.

[Travis Duke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remender.... please stop doing marvel books, after your amazing uncanny x-force run this book just hurts. The story goes that red skull has professor x's brain now and is red onslaught. It's taking x-men and avengers to take him down but they screw up and reverse everyone's personality. It sounds interesting but is poorly executed with goofy writing and inconsistent and mainly crap art. The idea of rooting for the villains back fires and is just terrible. Same goes for watching the heroes be evil, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Side note I'm so sick of iron man on so many levels... sick of him being the center of action and sick of him fighting gods and aliens that should be able to smash his stupid armor.

[Blindzider · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this crossover was what made Remender finally leave Marvel. The whole thing feels forced, and is really a Civil War in disguise, another excuse to get heroes to fight heroes. It also changes a few characters' personalities, presumably to create drama later on. There are quite a few short, snarky remarks, which some are funny, except the problem is everyone is saying them, heroes and villains, regardless if it fits their personality. There are a few good moments, but they are few and far between and aren't enough to save this event.

This event drew in (ahem) some all-star artists (Yu, Dodson, Cheung), but it also feels rushed, because it doesn't look as good as you know they are capable of.

Like most events I believe everything in here as since been undone and it's better to just forget this ever happened.