Avengers Academy #25

The last review for the night is the comic that would have been my Pick of the Litter had Winter Solider #1 not come out today. Yep, it's time for me to read another issue of my favorite series of 2011, Avengers Academy!

Avengers Academy #25:

Summary: In the present, Hybrid is tearing through the faculty and students at the Avengers Academy. Reptil(who is actually an older, future version of Reptil in his younger body), realizes that the Academy would soon fall to Hybrid's might and heads inside to make two calls, one to a mysterious party(who we'll discover the identity of later on) and one to the future, to tell his teammates that he needed help lest Hybrid kills everybody and destroys his timeline. In the future, Reptil(that would be younger Reptil in his older body) is freed from the stasis tube holding him by his daughter with Finesse. Needless to say, Reptil is shocked to discover he was in the future(and had a kid with Finesse), but upon being brought up to speed, learns that the future Avengers Academy wanted to put his mind back into his younger body, WITH his older self, hoping the two minds would leave Hybrid confused. That gambit actually works... For about a minute, at which time Hybrid nails Reptil with a mind-blast so powerful it leaves him comatose. Since his powers were taken away by Hybrid, Pym ends up looking at the files he had on Hybrid(from the X-Men) and learns that the best way to defeat Hybrid was to disintegrate him at the atomic level, at which time he'd end up in Limbo, and would be trapped there until he could reintegrate himself. Since Pym had no weapon powerful enough to disintegrate Hybrid completely, Pym tells Quicksilver and Lightspeed to concoct a dimensional transporter that would send Hybrid back to Limbo. Unfortunately Hybrid is wise to their strategy and continues to fight, mocking the Avengers transparent plans. Meanwhile, in the future, older Reptil is comatose, while in the present, younger Reptil wakes up, as apparently Hybrid's mind-blast destroyed older Reptil's mind, while younger Reptil's mind was left unharmed due to the sacrifice of his older self. Back to the fight, Hybrid is having his way with the Academy until he is suddenly held immobile and then blasted by the hand of the Sentinel, which sends him to Limbo, ending his threat. Seeing as that the Sentinel was destroyed earlier, everybody is confused as to how it managed to blast Hybrid, at least until Jocasta walks over explaining that she had forced the Sentinel to attack. She also reveals that she had brought Veil back with her, which would explain why Hybrid was held immobile(so there you go, that's who older Reptil called earlier on!). Pym is rightfully pissed that Jocasta faked her own “death” and demands to know why, and Jocasta tells Pym it was because she analyzing the Academy from afar and, after this recent battle, had concluded that the Academy was putting the students there at risk, and as such needed to be shut down.

Thoughts: Well, this was a pretty good issue, but for whatever reason, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did some of the earlier issues of the series. The battle with Hybrid was well done, as he was a force to be reckoned with, and nearly single-handedly defeated the entire Academy, trainers and students both! The stuff with Reptil, both present and future was okay, but never really came together for me. And the Jocasta reveal, while dramatic, didn't really impact me either. Oh well, if nothing else, the return of Jocasta and Veil should liven things up come the next issue, as we get away from the mindless fighting and get back to the inter-character relationships that made this series so great to begin with.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Hybrid is a pretty funny guy! Who knew?