I Reads You Review: AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #0

"Without a bang"

AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #0
MARVEL COMICS

WRITERS: Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron
ARTIST: Frank Cho
COLORS: Jason Keith
LETTERS: Chris Eliopoulos
COVERS: Frank Cho with Jason Keith; Stephanie Hans (alternate cover)
40pp, Color, $3.99 U.S.

Rated: T+

Avengers vs. X-Men is Marvel Comics’ current giant, crossover, event series. I’ve read comments on the old Interweb that suggest Avengers vs. X-Men will be Marvel’s biggest publishing event in over a decade, at least from the point of view of sales.

I am sure that it will be a big thing. This planned 12-issue miniseries pits the Avengers and the X-Men against each other, apparently over The Phoenix. The X-Men are a sales and merchandising juggernaut for Marvel, and the franchise has produced five successful films for 20th Century Fox. The Avengers are a little less than a month away from their debut on the big screen, when the film, Marvel’s The Avengers, arrives. Two Iron Man movies have a combined gross of over one billion dollars in worldwide box office. In 2011, two other Avengers films, Thor and Captain America, each made more than 170 million dollars in domestic box office.

Avengers vs. X-Men #0 is a prologue to the main event and focuses on Avenger, Scarlet Witch, and X-Man, Hope Summers, and blends two separate stories starring each character. In the Scarlet Witch story (written by Brian Michael Bendis), the reality-warping mutant and long-time member of the Avengers hopes to get back into the superhero business. She takes on M.O.D.O.K., but ends up needing help from Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel. This reunion leads to a bigger reunion, but perhaps, the Scarlet Witch can’t go home again.

In the Hope Summers story (written by Jason Aaron), the young woman called the “mutant messiah,” feels confined by others’ expectations of her. Hope spends her time ruthlessly punishing non-super-powered criminals, but now, she faces the Serpent Society.

For a prologue to a big, big event, Avengers vs. X-Men #0 is surprisingly blasé. The Avengers come across as stock figures in their appearance here, except for The Vision and the Scarlet Witch. This duo is where the fire is in this story, but the constraints forced upon the story smother the fire. The Hope Summers story is only a tad bit better – if it is actually appropriate for me to use the word “better” to describe this comic book. The other characters are wooden, and Hope is petulant, but in a totally boring king of way.

The art by Frank Cho is technically well-drawn, but looks like a mechanical exercise that at least 20 other robo-artists-for-hire could have done in the same drawing style and with the same lack of panache.

I hope issue #1 is better, and I’ll find out soon.

C+

Appearances:
HEROES: Scarlet Witch, Hope Summers; The Avengers: Beast, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, Thor, The Vision, Wolverine; The X-Men: Cyclops, Emma Frost

VILLAINS: M.O.D.O.K.; The Serpent Society: Anaconda, Asp, Bushmaster, Cottonmouth, Puff Adder