Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Avengers Academy #22

Hey, it turns out I WAS able to get tonight's reviews up on time! So huzzah for me! Anyway, I have three reviews on tap for tonight, with the first being this week's Pick of the Litter, or the comic book I am MOST looking forward to reading. It says A LOT about the writing prowess of Christos Gage that what is basically the forth-string Avengers book is by FAR the best Avengers book, and probably my favorite ongoing comic book from any company.

Avengers Academy #22:

Summary: Poor Pym has been working on Jocasta's inert form since the Academy discovered her destroyed in the Academy security room, and is no closer to discovering who or what attacked her. Tigra and Quicksilver, worried about Pym's mental state, tell him to take a break and maybe find somebody who wasn't as close to Jocasta to look into the attack. To that end, Pym decides to enlist Magneto(!!), you know, Quicksilver's VERY estranged father. Mags arrives along with Emma Frost and Lord Summers, who felt that publicly assisting the Avengers would be good for the Crazy X-Men's public image. Right from the start things are tense between Mags and Quicksilver, and two of the Academy students, Finesse(who has been secretly blackmailing Quicksilver into teaching her how to be more like Magneto) and Reptil(who is actually currently possessed by his evil future self unbeknown to anybody) decide to spy on the meeting to see what transpires. Mags tells Pym he'd be happy to help, but under one term... That Quicksilver was to never again get himself involved in mutant affairs, since Mags blamed Quicksilver for pushing the Scarlet Witch into the House of M debacle which ended up costing the world thousands(million?) of mutants. From there Mags continues ripping into Quicksilver, bringing up the time Quicksilver was using the Terrigen Mists to give mutants faulty powers, and causing a war between the Earth and the Inhumans, before finally bringing up the fact that Quicksilver's own daughter wouldn't even speak to him do to his actions with the Mists. Finesse has heard enough of Mags tearing down Quicksilver and charges into the lab, attacking Mags. Mags defends himself, which brings Quicksilver into the fight, attacking his father. Emma goes to put a stop to the fight mentally, but is ambushed by Reptil, who alerts the other students that the Crazy X-Men had attacked Finesse. Lord Summers attacks Reptil, which is seen by Hawkeye(who thought bringing what he considered the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to the Academy Compound was a terrible idea from the start), so he attacks Mags and the other Crazy X-Men. The students rally around Hawkeye, but Mags has had enough of this nonsense and begins to use his powers to pin the students and Hawkeye to the ground, before being attacked by Finesse again. This time Mags deals with her in a more forceful manner, which brings Quicksilver to attack Mags again. Having recovered, Emma mentally freezes everybody in their places, except for Mags who was immune to her powers due to his helmet. Realizing that he once again screwed up where Quicksilver was concerned, Mags makes a half-hearted attempt to reconcile with Quicksilver, but is rebuffed, as Quicksilver states that from now on, as per Magneto's wishes, he'd contact another mutant before involving himself in mutants affairs, but that it would be a mutant he trusted, like Storm or Beast, but NEVER Mags. Having had enough, Mags tells Pym he was ready to see Jocasta and after scanning her sees that besides electromagnetism, Jocasta also had trace tachyon particles on her, meaning she was most likely attacked from a different dimension or possibly through time. With that, the Crazy X-Men take their leave and this one ends with Finesse telling Quicksilver that after having met Magneto, she was no longer interested in becoming like him, instead she was more interested in learning how to be more like Quicksilver.

Thoughts: What can I say? This comic, for me, was perfect. It had Magneto and Quicksilver going at it, the dialogue was topnotch(as always in this series), there were several little character development scenes that I didn't even get to mention here(such as Hazmat's quick dig at Lightspeed), and the story was smooth, fast and made perfect sense. Once again, this comic book left me with a big smile on my face, and eagerly looking forward to the next issue. I love this series.

Score: 10 out of 10.Yes, the Sentinel DID make me laugh.

8 comments:

  1. .. Loved this one, nothing else to say.

    You know, the fandon freaked with the cancelation of x-23, wich get the fans of AA concerned since this series is even under x-23 sales.
    So Gage, said in twitter , that there wasnt any talk about cancelation, but he will be happier if the series sells more, just to be more calm.
    and encouraged the fans to spread the word about how amazing this series is.

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  2. That's all you need to say! :D

    I have been encouraging people to pick this series up for months now. Seriously, it's a true gem. It's like I always say, out of ALL of the books I read in a month, THIS series is probably my favorite. I honestly can't give something higher praise than that. I wish there was more I could do to get people to read this series. Trust me, if I could, I would!

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  3. I loved the issue also. There was some quick jabs at Team Cyclops here. And, I guess there are some mutants at Avengers Academy.

    Next issue has X-23 joining, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe with some good writing (i.e. Gage) X-23 would be more interesting character.

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  4. One thing Christos Gage does a great job of is dialogue(he was awesome back in the much-missed Avengers: Initiative series as well), and this issue was no different. He did a fantastic job with Mags and Quicksilver, as well as Hawkeye's great "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" line. There was def a lot to like here.

    I'll be honest with you, Jermox, my knee-jerk reaction to learning that X-23 was heading to this series was an angry sigh and a roll of the eyes... But after some thought, maybe that addition will pull in a few X-fans who weren't already reading this comic. As long as Gage doesn't make EVERYTHING revolve around X-23(like Yost and Kyle did in Academy X), this could be a boon for this series. If ANYBODY can do something with X-23, Gage can. I have full faith in him.

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  5. Hey X-M. Newsarma is doing a week dedicted to Avengers Academy,

    Here are some interviews to Christ Gage

    http://www.newsarama.com/comics/avengers-academy-marvel-teen-teams-111115.html

    http://www.newsarama.com/comics/avengers-academy-gage-series-111116.html

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  6. jajajaja I dont know if you have seen this but I Laughed out and loud with this

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprQf2VccWU

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  7. HA!!! I just watched that video and it legitamately made me laugh out loud too! Awesome!

    I didn't check the links yet(I have some reviewing to do), but you can be SURE I will check them out tomorrow, so thanks for them, mi amigo. As for Newsrama doing a week on Avengers Academy good on them! That series deserves at least a month! :D

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  8. There have been a lot of great lines in this book...

    all Hawkeye intervention were great.

    Emma frost comment about Tigra outfit..

    And in some way this issue show that Finnese can feel emotions too..

    Ciplops saing that he trains childrens to war and if he want to play Beisbol or Football better call to Wolverine's school.(and I want to see that please)

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