Uncanny Avengers #8AU

Huh, so Age of Ultron is still rolling along.  Too bad...  But hey, We have an AoU tie-in issue written by none other than Rick Remender!  So this HAS to be good, right?  Well, at least it should be better than Bendis's work...

Uncanny Avengers #8AU: 

Summary: This issue actually takes place in the present of Age of Ultron(after Wolverine killed Pym and screwed up the timestream), but the past of Uncanny Avengers...  Yeah, it's kind of confusing...  Basically, this issue sees Kang manipulating the Apocalypse Twins when they were still children, not the adults we saw in the last two issues of this series.  Kang has instilled in the twins the fact that humans and mutants are unable to live together in peace, and as the chosen caretakers of mutantkind, the twins had to segregate mutants from humans.  So basically, humans bad, mutants good.  That's the way Kang raised the twins.  Since he was destined to be a constant thorn in their side, Kang wants the twins to kill Colonel America(AoU's Steve Rogers).  As for the Colonel, he was meeting with the Morlocks, led by Rogue and Havok.  Uriel attacks the Colonel, but Havok intervenes, giving the Colonel time to escape.  Angered that a mutant would defend a human, Uriel ends up killing Havok, who was mainly fighting defensively.  Rogue then attacks Uriel, but winds up impaled by him.  As she is dying, she manages to absorb Uriel's memories, and tries to convince Uriel not to follow Kang's teachings.  Uriel takes pity on Rogue and goes to find a healer among the Morlocks, but before he can, his sister kills Rogue, much to Kang's approval.  With the mission to kill the Colonel a failure, Kang returns to his base with the twins and decides to punish Uriel by sending him to an anti-mutant camp to better learn the hatred of humans towards mutants.  Eimin tells Kang that she would face the same punishment her brother was getting, so Kang agrees to send her as well.  This issue concludes with Kang leading the twins through his massive trophy room of dead heroes.

Thoughts: Yep, Remender can indeed tell us a really good AoU story!  It kind of makes me wonder why Marvel lets Bendis do anything...  We got a glimpse into the Age of Ultron world, AND Remender managed to give us a deeper look at the twins, further advancing his own storyline.  What more could you want in a tie-in issue!?

Score: 9 out of 10.

Uncanny Avengers #8

This series has been as close to perfection as you're going to find.  I expect more of the same this issue, so yeah, intro over, let's dig in!

Uncanny Avengers #8

Summary: Thor and Sunfire manage to stop SWORD's space station from crashing onto Rio De Janeiro, before heading into space in search of the two responsible for the carnage, the Apocalypse Twins.  Meanwhile, Wolverine point the Uncanny Avengers towards the Akkaba city hidden at the North Pole.  As for Captain America, his space pod crashes in southern Sudan, where the local militia is none too pleased to find an American hero.  Severely outnumbered, Cap manages to find refuge in an old church, where a box is waiting for him containing a message from somebody(I'd imagine Kang or Immortus)...  The Apocalypse Twins kill everybody at Akkaba city, since they were mere humans.  By this time, the Uncanny Avengers are approaching, and catch sight of the twins as they are leaving the area.  However, before they can make a move towards the villains, a nuclear explosion rocks the area, presumably killing the team.

Thoughts: Yeah, I somehow doubt the Avengers are dead.  This issue didn't grab me as the past few issue did.  It was good, but there was a lot of people speaking in riddles and events being set up.  It seems like the Apocalypse Twins have broken from Kang, who took them so there wouldn't be an Apocalypse, which would make it easier for him to create a dynasty in the future.  The twins seem to be uber pro-mutant, ala Magneto, and are striking out, in part, because of Red Skull's antics earlier in this series.  Or at least that's what I was able to gather.  So yeah, good stuff, but not great, so I have to admit, I'm just a tad let down.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

Uncanny Avengers #7

Here's a book I can't wait to read!  The last issue was, in a word, perfect.  I'm hoping for similar stellar results here.

Uncanny Avengers #7: 

Summary: This issue opens near the sun with Genocide summoning a Celestial in order to take Apocalypse's place as... um, the new Apocalypse, I guess.  After finding him worthy, the Celestial prepares to grant Genocide the armor of Apocalypse, but is interrupted by Uriel and Eimin, the Apocalypse Twins.  Uriel attacks the Celestial(!) with Jarnbjorn(Thor's enchanted axe from last issue), and cleaves through the Celestial, killing it(!!!)!  Genocide is livid at this, but is apparently defeated with the rest of the Horsemen.  Back on Earth, SHIELD clears Rogue of the death of the Grim Reaper, but asks Havok to keep her off field missions for a few months...  HA!  Yes!!  Rogue naturally bitches about that('cause that's all she does...), so Havok asks her to investigate Magneto, which leads to Wanda making a hilariously catty comment.  Meanwhile, Wonder Man bemoans his existence and tries to hook up with Wanda.  Wanda tells him she loves him...  Like a brother...  Ouch.  Also, Wasp flirts with Havok, who doesn't seem interested.  Luckily for Havok, the team is called into the meeting room.  Upon arriving, they are told by Captain America what happened to the Celestial, and inform the team that Apocalypse's ship was on a collision course with the SWORD satellite, which was where Cap and Sunfire currently were.  Watching the footage of the Celestial's death is especially profound to Wolvie and Thor, who have a connection with Uriel(in Wolvie's case) and Jarnbjorn(in Thor's case).  Sunfire makes sure Cap gets into an escape pod and prepares to face the Apocalypse Twins on his own.  Havok begins to formulate a plan, but can't find Thor, who ends this issue heading towards the falling wreckage of the SWORD station.

Thoughts: Yet another great issue of this series.  Sure, it wasn't as perfect as the last issue, but yeah, it was damned good.  Lots of little interpersonal stuff went on, all while the main story advanced.  Just like in the good old days of the Avengers.  Plus, Rogue was benched, meaning I hopefully won't have to see her anytime soon!  So huzzah for that!  But yeah, as I said, this was yet another good issue in a long line of them here.

Score: 9 out of 10.

Uncanny Avengers #6

Well, I decided to review this comic instead of Ultron #1.  After reading Age of Ultron #5, my interest in that event is at an all time low, so I figured I'd change gears and go with Uncanny Avengers.  Rick Remender has yet to disappoint with this series, here's hoping he keeps that up.

Uncanny Avengers #6: 

Summary: Woooo, this was a good one!  This issue mainly takes place in 1013 AD(so a thousand years ago), back when Thor was a brash young god.  Thor is celebrating a battle with his worshipers, when he is suddenly attacked by Apocalypse(!).  Apocalypse wipes the floor with Thor, while Thor can do nothing to harm Apocalypse.  Before he is killed by the big A, Thor retreats from battle, promising revenge.  Apocalypse heads back to his ship, where we learn he was told by Rama-Tut(Kang!!) to kill Thor now, since Thor would prove to be a thorn in Apocalypse's side in the future.  Apocalypse complains that somebody as weak as Thor would never prove a threat to him, and demands Rama-Tut give him the name of a true threat.  And so Rama-Tut does just that, sending Apocalypse after an ancestor of Wolverine(!).  As for Thor, he asks Odin to assist him against Apocalypse and his indestructible Celestial armor, but Odin refuses, telling Thor that if he were to defeat Apocalypse now, he would create a far greater catastrophe in the future.  Thor is steamed over that, so Loki comes over to help his brother out.  Loki tells Thor about a special way to enchant his battleaxe(Jarnbjorn), so that it could cut through Apocalypse's armor.  Thor goes off to do that, at which time we learn that Loki was actually a disguised Kang(!!!).  Meanwhile, Apocalypse sends his Four Horsemen to London, where Wolvie's ancestor was a member of the army.  The Horsemen cleave through Wolvie's ancestor's allies, and are preparing to do the same to him, when Thor arrives on the scene.  Thor kills the Horsemen, while an enraged Apocalypse watches from his ship.  Rama-Tut taunts Apocalypse about this before teleporting away, because Kang is awesome.  Thor arrives on the ship to get his revenge for the earlier battle, but Apocalypse again turns Thor aside.  Not fearing Thor, Apocalypse moves in to finish Thor off, but is nearly cleaved in two by Jarnbjorn.  Needless to say, Apocalypse is shocked, and sets the self-destruct on his ship.  Thor escapes, and figuring Apocalypse to be dead, heads back to Asgard to celebrate his victory.  Odin crashes the party and reprimands Thor for his brash actions, telling him he'd regret what he did in the future.  This issue ends in the present with Kang gaining possession of the now forgotten Jarnbjorn.

Thoughts: Absolutely perfect.  That's what this issue was.  I literally don't have a single bad thing to say about it.  It was absolute comic book perfection.  Thor vs Apocalypse?  Kang manipulating BOTH of them in order to gain a weapon of immense power?  Everything here was fantastic.  This is EXACTLY what this series should be!  You have one of the greatest X-Men foes, as well as one of the Avengers greatest threats.  And it's not like this was one of those lame, "Two villains randomly team-up to pester two groups of heroes" stories, the story was great, and the reveal at the end with Jarnbjorn tied everything together so perfectly.  Amazing work by Remender here, this comic is definitely the front-runner for best single issue of the year for 2013.

Score: 10 out of 10.

Awesome!!

Uncanny Avengers #5

Hey all, X here with your Saturday night review!  Tonight we have a single review, but it should be a good one, if the first four issues are anything to go by.  Let's see what Rick Remender has in store for us as we kick off the second storyarc here in Uncanny Avengers!

Uncanny Avengers #5:

Summary: We kick things off with Kang heading to the Akkaba base and meeting the Apocalypse twins.  Seems he has plans for them...  From there we learn that Wasp was serving as the Avengers PR director, and wanted the team to hold a press conference to try to halt the recent anti-mutant feelings the Red Skull stirred up.  Wonder Man has joined the team as a favor to the Scarlet Witch, who feels everybody on the team hates her.  Sunfire also joins up, as a favor to Wolverine and to honor the memory of Prof. X.  The team holds their press conference, which sees Havok unmasking and telling the surprised press that he was the brother of mutant terrorist and failed world conqueror Cyclops.  The press conference is interrupted by the Grim Reaper(!), who wants to kill the Scarlet Witch, who he blames for bringing him and Wonder Man back to life.  With the element of surprise on his side, and lots of members of the press in the way, Reaper manages to take most of the team down and moves in to kill Scarlet Witch.  However, Rogue manages to swipe Wonder Man's powers and socks Reaper in the face, apparently killing him, and ending this issue.

Thoughts: Good stuff here.  I have no real complaints...  Well, except for Rogue's continued bitchy/childish behavior, but besides that, no major complaints.  I like the addition of Wonder Man to the team, and look forward to him being redeemed after the way Bendis had used him.  As for Sunfire, the jury is still out on that one...  I've never been a fan of the character, but I'm more than willing to see what Remender can do with him.  Now, I AM a fan of the Grim Reaper.  He's a great old school Avengers villain, and with Bendis disregarding Avengers history for most of his long Avengers run, he's been sitting on the sidelines for way too long, so I was glad to see him pop up here.  Ditto for Kang.  I really am happy to see Remender actually using AVENGERS villains in this Avengers book, unlike Bendis, who wanted to use Spider-Man villains, street-level villains and Fantastic Four villains as the Avengers nemeses.  So as usual, good stuff here.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Huzzah for the return of classic Avengers villains!!

Uncanny Avengers #4

It's an X review night!  And it's also the first review night of the week, which means I'll be posting three reviews.  And those reviews will be of the three books I'm most looking forward to checking out this week.  Number one on that list?  Marvel's flagship book(that's a fair statement, right?), Uncanny Avengers.  The first three issues of this series have been extremely strong, and have given me the kind of superhero story the Avengers haven't gotten in YEARS.  I have high hopes for this one...

Uncanny Avengers #4

Summary: The battle here is twofold as we have Havok and the Scarlet Witch trying to stop Thor, who has been brainwashed by the Red Skull...  Needless to say, the two have their hands full.  We also have Captain America confronting his arch-nemesis.  Unfortunately for Cap, the Red Skull's new telepathic abilities make him more than a match for Cap, as the Skull tries to convince Cap that the Skull was right and America needed the Skull to "right" it.  Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch tells Havok to go after the Skull while she dealt with Thor.  Havok doesn't really want to, but since the Skull is the one behind all of the recent madness, he heads off.  As for Wanda, she manages to send Thor far away with a massive hex.  Rogue swipes the power dampening abilities of one of the Skull's men and shuts the Skull's telepathy down, so Skull draws a gun and shoots at her, being interrupted at the last second by Havok.  Rogue is still hit though, which causes her to stop cutting off the Skull's powers, at which time the Skull makes Havok attack Rogue.  However, the Skull makes the mistake of taking his attention off of Cap, who nails the Skull with a massive uppercut.  Cap realizes that the Red Skull with Professor Xavier's mental powers needed to be stopped, for good, and moves in for the kill.  Before Cap can strike though, the Skull is spirited away by one of his henchmen.  With the Skull gone, all of the rioting citizens of Manhattan break free of his influence and are horrified by what they had done.  With that, the Avengers head back home and bond(or don't bond, in the cases of Rogue and Wanda).  This issue ends a few months in the future where the world has been devastated by the Apocalypse twins.

Thoughts: This was a good comic book.  I enjoyed it and all, but... There was something missing for me...  I can't quite put my finger on what that missing ingredient is though...  I think it was the way the Skull was defeated.  It was too neat.  Basically it was the Skull's own man who caused his defeat, because if Rogue wouldn't have aped the power dampener's abilities, the Skull could have won.  In other words, the Red Skull defeated the Red Skull.  That seems like the type of error a super-criminal like the Skull wouldn't make...  Besides that(and Rogue's extreme bitchiness), this was a good read.

Score: 8 out of 10.

I don't care what anybody says, Wanda is awesome.

Uncanny Avengers #3

Okay, so I've had my first perfect score of 2013 with the first review of the night, let's hope this issue gives me perfect score #2!  And honestly, with how good this series has been over the first two issues, a perfect score isn't out of the realm of possibilities.

Uncanny Avengers #3

Summary: We kick things off with the Red Skull, now with the telepathy of the late Professor X, arriving in Manhattan with his S-Men, as well as Rogue and the Scarlet Witch, who he captured and mentally tampered with last issue.  The Skull uses his mind control to make the people of New York turn against anybody with an X-gene, whether the person in question knew they had the gene or not...  With New York a mob scene, the Avengers show up, or at least Havok, Captain America, Wolverine and Thor do.  Havok has the group spread out to try to contain the madness all around them, which isn't exactly the way Cap would have handled things, but he goes along with Havok's orders.  Thor heads straight to the center of the madness and finds the Red Skull, immediately attacking him.  Unfortunately, Thor ends up being mentally corrupted by the Skull and one of his henchmen.  The attack does manage to free Rogue and the Witch from the Skull's power.  The two women end up coming across Wolverine, and tell him that the Skull was behind the riot,  and oh yeah, that the Skull had stolen Prof. X's brain to do so.  That pushes Wolvie over the edge and he heads off to kill the Skull.  While that's going on, Cap is slowly starting to succumb to the Skull's influence and nearly comes to blows with Havok.  Back with Wolvie, he manages to lop off the Skull's hand, but is attacked and defeated by Thor, who ends this issue by bowing to the Skull.

Thoughts: I did enjoy this comic, but there was something missing that I just couldn't put my finger on...  Plus, I didn't really like how easily Thor was overcome by the Skull and his goon.  I mean Thor IS a god and all, you'd think he'd be harder to corrupt than that!  The limited number of Avengers that showed up was a bit concerning too...  I mean I get that this series stars Cap, Thor, Havok, Wolvie, Scarlet Witch and Rogue, but with a full-scale riot in Manhattan, and there being like 5 million Avengers now, shouldn't a few more have popped up to lend a hand?  So yeah, there were a few things here that bugged me, but overall, I did enjoy reading this issue, and that's good enough for me.

Score: 8 out of 10.

I love that the Red Skull has one guy who's just there to serve him drinks!

Uncanny Avengers #2

First X review of the week is the second issue of the flagship Avengers title, Uncanny Avengers.  The first issue gave us the Red Skull reveal, what will issue #2 give us?

Uncanny Avengers #2

Summary: This issue kicks off with Captain America, Thor and Havok cleaning up after Avalanche's attack on Manhattan last issue.  Wolverine saunters over and is told by Cap that Havok would be leading a group of Avengers, which would hopefully ease the increasing human/mutant tensions.  Wolvie isn't pleased with this idea, but seems like he'll go along with it.  Meanwhile, Rogue manages to break free and escape two of the Red Skull's goons.  While Rogue is sneaking around Skull's base, the Skull is talking to the recently awakened Scarlet Witch.  The Skull claims that he only wants to talk to Wanda and says that the two of them share the same goal, the eradication of mutantkind.  Wanda refutes that and says she was pretty much crazy when she decimated mutantkind before, but the Skull uses telepathy on Wanda to force her into agreeing to help the Skull with his plans.  It's then the Skull learns Rogue had escaped and leaves Wanda behind.  Rogue pops up and absorbs Wanda's powers, but is unable to figure out how to make them work.  Mind-controlled Wanda has no such trouble and blasts Rogue through the ground where the two women come across the body of Professor Xavier...  With his brain removed.  That infuriates Rogue, who remembers when the Prof brought her onto the X-Men, and snaps Wanda out of the Skull's mental thrall.  However, the Skull and his henchmen enter the room and the Skull tells the two women that he had bonded his brain with Xavier's, and was now one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet!

Thoughts: This was a very, very good comic.  I can easily see it becoming my favorite monthly title if it keeps up like this.  We learned where the Skull came from(he was apparently another clone of the Red Skull who woke up recently), and found out that he had managed to steal Xavier's telepathy.  This issue pretty much did everything right.  It continued to slowly put together the Uncanny Avengers team, gave us some animosity between Wolverine and Havok going forwrd, gave us a sensible reason Cap chose Havok to lead the Uncanny Avengers, made Rogue likable(which is something I always found her lacking), and explained what the Red Skull was doing here.  All that was really missing was some explanation as to what the Skull's henchmen were.  So yeah, all in all, this was a nearly perfect comic.  Needless to say, I wish Rick Remender was writing all of the Avengers books!

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.

Telepathic Red Skull has that whole Joker smile thing going on, doesn't he?

Uncanny Avengers #1

Okay, this review is being put up later than I usually do, but what can I say, sometimes life happens.  Anyway, due to my 3 and a half hour lateness, I'm gonna skip the intro and dig right in.

Uncanny Avengers #1

Summary: This one kicks off with somebody apparently cutting into the brain of Avalanche, before setting him loose.  From there we head to X-Mansion/the Jean Grey School where Wolverine says a eulogy for Professor X...  And does a pretty damn good job of it.  I have a couple of things to say about that, but I'll save it for the "Thoughts" portion of this post.  Next up we go to Havok, who has stopped by the Brig, which is currently holding his brother, Lord Summers/Cyclops.  Havok does a magnificent job of dressing down Lord Summers for his recent actions, going so far as to call Utopia "Magneto Island".  Personally I always called it Crazy Mutie Island, but to each their own.  Havok ends the conversation by telling Lord Summers that it was really nice that Lord Summers basically forgot/ignored all of the things Prof. X tried to teach Lord Summers, and then murdered Prof. X to boot.  On the way out, Captain America and Thor invite Havok out for a cup of coffee.  At Avengers Mansion, Cap and Thor try to convince Havok to lead a joint team of Avengers and X-Men, to try to keep Prof. X's dream of mutant and human coexistence alive.  Havok doesn't feel he's the man for the job, but before he can be pressured any further, Avalanche attacks Midtown Manhattan, tearing the streets apart and destroying buildings.  Cap, Thor and Havok rush out to help, with Thor and Havok rescuing civilians and Cap confronting Avalanche.  Avalanche babbles about this being the inciting act before jumping off of a several story high chunk of street.  Next up, we head back to X-Mansion, where the Scarlet Witch is paying her respects to the Prof.  Rogue comes by and bitches Wanda out for the whole, "No More Mutants" thing and claims Wanda had always hid among the humans(as a member of the Avengers).  Wanda's retort is brilliant, and is something else I need to touch on in the "Thoughts" section of this post.  Eventually the argument breaks down into a fight, and the two are hit by an explosion and confronted by a bunch of strange, powered beings.  The beings kidnap the two women(or maybe just one, it was hard to tell) and quickly leave.  This issue ends with the leader of the beings cutting out the brain of Prof. X(!?!?!), stating that with that brain he could eradicate the mutant menace.  And the leader?  The Red Skull!

Thoughts: Wooo, I have a lot to say about this one...  First off, I thought it was a great first issue.  It balanced the Avengers and X-Men sides of things well, gave us a good cliffhanger and was full of really great moments.  Now, those few things I wanted to talk about...  I have to say, this issue really made me realize what a great job Marvel has done turning Wolverine from a crazed, murder machine, with little to no conscience, to a legitimate leader.  I was one of those people who groaned(loudly) about Wolverine being put on the Avengers(and still don't particularly like that fact due to his colorful past...), but I can get it now.  His character has evolved SO MUCH from the one dimensional berserker from back in the 1980's-1990's.  I hated Wolvie heading up a school, but I can see why he did it.  Oddly enough, out of everybody who has been an X-Man, Prof. X is probably the most revered by Wolvie, due to all of the mental help the Prof. gave him those early years, when Wolvie struggled the most with his animal side.  So yeah, go figure, I see Wolverine as a human being now, and not just a crazed animal.  Next up was the conversation between Wanda and Rogue...  I've never been shy about how much I hated the whole, "No More Mutants" decree that screwed up the X-books for so many years.  It led to some repetitious and downright terrible stories.  However, Rick Remender makes a great point through Wanda here...  Why the hell was it so important for there to be more mutants?  So the mutant population was decimated...  So like 90%+ of the mutant population was depowered...  So what?  So former mutants were now normal?  Big deal.  So when the remaining 198 mutants died there's be no more?  And that's a problem because?  Seriously, why was Lord Summers so damn keen on there being more mutants?  I honestly never really looked at it that way, I looked at it the simpler, "I wish there were more mutants because the X-books are really boring now..." way, but why was all of mutantkind so pissed with Wanda?  Hell, if anything, she did them a favor.  If the remaining mutants would have quietly retired/joined the Avengers/a million other things besides become crazed militants on an island, wouldn't they have been able to live out the rest of their lives in peace?  Sure, that's a really simplistic way of looking at it, but why couldn't, say Emma Frost, who could easily pass as a human, dye her hair and just live a nice, quiet, happy life in nowhere-ville USA?  Wanda is totally right here, obviously a large majority of the X-Men flat out love being martyrs.  It was a very powerful argument   So there's that.  Now let's try to get back to the main story here.  I loved Havok's interaction with... Well, everybody, from Lord Summers(who it appears Marvel is going to smartly keep evil), to Cap and Thor.  As a long-time Havok fan, I am really excited to see Alex get a huge role going forward.  The Red Skull reveal was kind of strange...  I'm guessing that's the original Skull, and not Sin, although we only saw the head and not the body, so I guess it COULD be Sin.  Although it's probably not.  I'm cool with the original Skull being the first villain in this series  because he is a big enough threat to actually face the Avengers, plus, as a crazed Nazi, he WOULD hate mutantkind.  I don't get a) how he got Prof. X's brain, or b) how he plans on using it, but it should be fun finding out the answers to those questions.  In closing, this comic was NEARLY perfect.  If not for a few small bumps(mainly the Red Skull and his whole brain-snatching thing), it would have been perfect.  As it is though, I'm going to give it a...

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.

Wow, Wanda just verbally kicked Rogue's ass there...