Friday, July 20, 2012

JT's Take: Avengers Academy #33

Hey X-Maniacs, JT back once again, and I figured I'd follow suit with the AVX review from yesterday and review Avengers Academy, since it features one of the Formerly Phoenix Five, the lovely Emma Frost. So let's see how our favorite students deal with one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

Avengers Academy #33

Summary: We start things off with a flashback to two weeks ago. We see Juston talking to his dad about visiting, when his dad tells Juston to come home, he's not like the other kids with powers and his family is worried, and he should just give up the Sentinel. Juston says that the Sentinel is his friend and he won't have it melted down or used to attack mutants, and ends the call with his dad. He tells the Sentinel he'll never abandon it, just as it will never abandon Juston, since that's it's Prime directive. Back in the present, the Avengers Academy students all continue to attack Emma Frost to fight her off, all the while stating reasons that she should allow Juston to keep his Sentinel. Juston tries to repair the Sentinel from Emma's attacks and climbs inside the driver's seat to help with repairs. Finesse goes off to call Quicksilver and asks him to help, but he says he's busy with the current AVX stuff, plus he's never cared for the Sentinel anyway, and Juston should just let Emma destroy it. Finesse says that Quicksilver is an emotionless machine like the Sentinel, as is she, and she intends to help. The Sentinel lunges at Emma trying to attack her, and she blasts it, but is shocked to find out that Juston was inside the Sentinel. Pym removes Juston and says he's only stunned at the Sentinel protected him, and the Sentinel continues to try to go after Emma to protect Juston, even though it can barely stand. The Sentinel keeps trying to advance until Emma completely destroys it, and Juston cries that he can  rebuild him if the CPU survived, but Emma states that she has it in her hands, and melts it . She states they can rebuild it with a new CPU but she couldn't allow that one to live, since it was made solely to kill mutants. Emma says she was merciful, and asks X-23 to join her back on Utopia, but X-23 says if she see's Emma again, one of them will kill the other one, simple as that. Emma leaves and as she does, Quicksilver arrives, holding the Sentinel's CPU. He says he was able to swoop in and replace it with a similar looking CPU from a training bot at the Academy so quickly that Emma couldn't see him, and she couldn't sense his mind due to their defenses. Ten minutes later, Quicksilver has rebuilt the Sentinel for Juston before heading off to join the Avengers against the Phoenix Five. The next say, Hank Pym and Tigra tell the students the only reason they were targeted is because they are Avengers Academy, and as this war is getting more dangerous by the minute, so they think the students should go home to their families. He then regrettably announces that as of this moment, there is no more Avengers Academy. Reptil asks if they can come back when the Avengers/X-Men war is over, but Pym says the honestly thinks this world will be a different place when the war ends, as this issue comes to a close.


Thoughts: Well hot damn, this was a hell of a comic! I'm not gonna lie, I was heartbroken when Emma destroyed the Sentinel's CPU, and I was ecstatic when Quicksilver showed up with it. Everything here was perfect, the characterization of Juston and the Sentinel at the beginning, the fact that all of Emma's points were valid, and everything about Pym, Quicksilver, X-23, and Finesse. Plus, the ending caught me totally off guard with Pym and Tigra's announcement. I loved every single bit of this comic, and I can't wait for the Final Exam storyline.

Score: 10/10

Hank Pym: As of this moment... There is no more Avengers Academy.

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like there are shades of Terminator 2 all over this issue and storyline.

    Does anybody know if Avengers Academy is going to survive this whole Marvel NOW initiative? Sure sounds like it's drawing to a close, with an arc titled "final exam." I hope not. Even though I dropped the series long ago (did not enjoy the post-Fear Itself direction at all), Gage is great writer, and I had a miniscule hope that the series could recenter on its original cast and be great again.

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  2. Haha, great catch on the Terminator 2 thing.

    That's a great question, I didn't even think of that, but now that you've said that, you got me worried. I definitely hope Avengers Academy continues, if not... maybe Gage can get Runaways? The guy is talented and he deserves to have all the books he wants to write.

    Kinda surprised ya didn't like the Fear Itself fallout, may I ask why ya didn't enjoy it?

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    1. In short:

      -Packing the cast with a lot of characters I found uninteresting (white tiger, juston) or unlikeable (rainbow girl, x-23).

      -Didn't care for the Hybrid storyline.

      -Dissatisfactory ending to the whole "Jocasta is dead" subplot.

      -Found the Runaways crossover to be just terrible.

      I am keeping my eye out for when they address subplots from earlier in the series that interest me (mainly, Jeremy Briggs's group and the evil grown-up versions of the AA kids). But otherwise, I don't like the new direction the book has taken and have moved on.

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  3. Runaways is not ending, and "final exam" will be all about the main group" confrontting Alchemist (the boy genius from the .1 issues) and after that comes a issue with the kids from the Jean Greys School as guest (playing Football)

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    1. ...I mena "Avengers Academy" not Runaways, man I was tired the night I wrote that...

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  4. I cried when I thought they had killed the Sentinel. XD

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  5. I enjoyed some of those things Trobb but I definitely see how you could've lost interest, especially after reading it for so long, whereas I caught up on like twenty issues or so before reading it monthly.

    Lol I figured that's what ya meant Alien, and I'm way more excited for that flag football issue than I should be, lol.

    Anon, to be honest I'm not surprised... that was a great story, definitely caught me off guard.

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