Avengers: The Children's Crusade #8(of 9):
Summary: We begin this one with Dr. Doom now in control of the Scarlet Witch's reality warping abilities. Doom is happy about this fact(needless to say) and promises to use the powers to make the Earth into a utopia... Provided he was accepted by everybody as the Earth's ruler. Wanda tells Doom to return her powers since they would undoubtedly destroy Doom as they destroyed her, but Doom feels he's better equipped to deal with the power and disregards Wanda's words. Doom asks the Young Avengers if they would follow him, but they also refuse. Spurned, Doom sends the Young Avengers and Wanda back to where the X-Men and Avengers had been battling. The X-Men immediately attack Wanda and Emma Frost knocks Wanda out telepathically. The Young Avengers warn the two teams that Wanda was no longer a threat, and upon looking in Wanda's mind, Emma sees that Doom did indeed possess Wanda's powers. Lord Summers, even knowing that Doom was the real menace here, still wants the X-Men to take Wanda into custody to answer for all of her depowering of mutantkind, and all of the damage that rash act had caused. Wiccan sticks up for Wanda, trying to explain that her actions were a tragic accident, and that most of the X-Men and Avengers committed crimes before they had become heroes. Before the heroes can decide whether to listen to Wiccan's words or not, Doom appears on the scene and offers the X-Men and Avengers several boons(cures to various ailments, world peace, the return of dead friends/teammates), provided they accepted his “benevolent” rule. The assembled heroes natural say no to that offer, so Doom grows to an enormous size and engages the Avengers, X-Men and X-Factor in battle. Wanda asks for Wiccan's assistance, figuring the two of them would be able to create a spell that would force Doom's stolen powers back where they belong(I think...). Ant-Man joins the fray, figuring he could disrupt giant Doom's attention by flying into his ear, but he is seemingly squashed by Doom. Stature freaks out at that and grows to match Doom's size, flooring Doom with a punch. Doom retaliates with a massive blast of energy that sends Stature hurtling away from him. The rest of the Young Avengers join the fight against Doom, which allows Wanda and Wiccan to complete the spell, which opens a portal granting Doom more power. Doom continues to try to absorb the power, but it turns out to be too much for his body to hold, as the power burns Doom's face and body, leaving him back where he started, scarred and without Wanda's powers. Wanda tries to help Doom to his feet, but Doom pushes her away and seemingly takes credit for all of the evil acts Wanda did during Avengers Disassembled and House of M(??), before teleporting away. With Doom gone, Ant-Man regains consciousness and returns to normal size just in time to see all of the heroes tending to his critically injured daughter.
Thoughts: Well, first things first, I guess. This issue was probably my least favorite issue of this mini-series thus far. That's not to say that it wasn't still really good, it just didn't move me like so many of those early issues did. Maybe it's because most of this issue was just a big fight between giant Doom and the heroes, which robbed us of all of the awesome dialogue and character development we had been getting prior to this issue. Besides that, Wiccan and Wanda's actions were kind of hard to figure out... Were they trying to get the powers away from Doom and back to Wanda? Were they trying to get the powers away from everybody? Were they trying to force Doom to try to absorb more power than his body could handle? Were they going for something else altogether? I was never sure. Oddly, this series is kind of making me LESS interested in the upcoming Avengers vs X-Men event... I mean we're already GETTING the Avengers vs the X-Men in this mini-series, probably written and illustrated WAY better than we'll wind up with come this Spring. I would fully expect a perfect score for the next issue, because with the main battle already fought, we should get what made those early issues so fantastic, lots and lots of character interactions in the aftermath of this one. Will Wanda have her powers? Who will take her, the X-Men or the Avengers? Did Ant-Man return to life just to watch his daughter die? What of the Young Avengers? Will they end up back in limbo, or does Marvel FINALLY have plans for these wonderful characters? So while this issue didn't blow me away, I'm already expecting the final issue to be one of the best comics of 2012!
Score: 8 out of 10.
Oh Doom... When will you ever learn...
When patriot was begging Doom to give mutants back their powers did anyone else feel like it was the entire marvel fandom speaking to the writers?
ReplyDeleteWhen patriot was begging Doom to give mutants back their powers did anyone else feel like it was the entire marvel fandom speaking to the writers?
ReplyDelete----------
No.
"When patriot was begging Doom to give mutants back their powers did anyone else feel like it was the entire marvel fandom speaking to the writers?" Agreed for me at least, Anon, but apparently not 100% of Marvel's fandom... Patriot's lines to Doom and Wiccan's speech to Cyclops were both things I'VE wanted to say to Marvel for the longest time! The mutants getting their powers back would mean the X-Men could fight actual evil mutants again as opposed to each other and Sentinels issue in and issue out. And as for Cyclops, I was glad to see someone(in this case Wiccan), call him on how hypocritical he was by lining his team of X-Men with former villains, but demanding a repentant Scarlet Witch be punished for her past.
ReplyDeleteI'm following your reviews in this series, just to know if Mutants will get their powers back.
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting with Marvel, and I'm already tired of Sentinels. I know it appeared two or three times since schism, it is not a lot, But, I have already seen a lot of Sentinel in the 90 animated series (and that was more than 15 years ago). I want to see something different when I come to comics.
So if they need more mutants to be a better series, I'm all for it.
Now, a question.
I thought that Doom was playing with the goods now. is not him with the Fantastic Four?
"I'm just starting with Marvel, and I'm already tired of Sentinels." HA! Imagine how I feel! Yeah, the absolute worst thing about the mutants losing their powers was the fact that it eliminated any future mutants(both good or evil) for the X-Men to come in contact with. It used to be a new mutant enemy for the X-Men, which they'd then have to contend with. Now, all we have are bigots and Sentinels for the X-Men to battle. There are no new mutant villains. Same with heroes. Back in the day you could introduce a new character and add them to the team, now, it's just the SAME characters over and over and over again.
ReplyDeleteAs for Doom, to my knowledge he IS on the FF(although I stopped reading that series a while back so maybe he's not anymore...). But due to the repeated delays with this series, it's hard to tell just when it took place. Back when this mini started, I think Doom was still a bad guy... Plus the Colossus here doesn't have the Juggernaut powers(as evident by the fact that he has hair), so that would make me think this happened prior to Fear Itself... Although the final issue is supposed to be setting up the AvX event, so I have NO idea how that's gonna work out...