Age of Ultron 6, Wolverine and the X-Men 27AU

Hello again! I've missed you all terribly while I was away but NO TIME FOR THAT NOW, NOW THERE ARE 19* BOOKS TO REVIEW.

*I know, I said in my pre-game that there were 20 but that was apparently incorrect and I, in my vacation-craving mind, counted a reprint of All-New X-Men 1, of all things, as a new release this week. Can't win 'em all.

Age of Ultron 6
Bendis (w) and Peterson, Pacheco, and Martinez (a) and Mounts and Villarrubia (c)

Bit of a confusing by-line to add up there. Bendis wrote the entire issue while Peterson illustrated things that happened in the future with Mounts coloring it and Pacheco and Martinez pencilled and inked (respectively) the bits in the past with Villarrubia's colors. So hope that's all cleared up. ONWARDS.
I've talked a lot about this series in recent weeks because there have been six issues since March so I've covered a great deal, I think, about what this series is doing as a whole. Now we're starting to get into the bread and butter of it, which involves a great deal of time travel. I talked last issue about time travel sneaking into the plot and now it seems we're going full-bore into the sci-fi aspect of comics. That means that the butterfly effect is in play, everybody, the sci-fi, timey-wimey law of "don't change anything whatsoever in the past or else it will change the future." Wolverine and Sue Storm (who snuck out of the mission to the future to stop Wolverine from killing Pym in the past) travel to a time when Pym is studying Dragon Man, his first real run-in with artificial intelligence and his inspiration for Ultron. Wolverine, who asked Sue to stay outside, attacks Pym. Meanwhile, in the future, the Ultron strike team finds itself in a somewhat serene world which mixes nature and technology and seems pretty devoid of Ultrons. However, they eventually run into a fleet of smaller Ultrons patrolling the technological wonder that was New York. The strike team attacks and is quickly and fiercely retaliated against, leading to many injuries and seemingly the decapitation of Captain America. Just a friendly reminder, it would seem, that none of this will have an impact on regular continuity after the series ends. In the past, Wolverine eventually defeats Hank and, after a momentary restraint from Sue, kills him. The cover for next issue features the results of this butterfly effect, with a Quake (or Maria Hill, I suppose, because they look identical) Captain Marvel, a Nick Fury-esque Captain America, a Cyclops-Cable thing, and more.
The main takeaway from this for me is, as it has been, that none of this will likely stick. Again, it seems the ten issues is excessive for a giant event that will likely not have lasting effects on the Marvel Universe. There's also an interesting debate going on my head about the merits of using the butterfly effect as a much plot twist. Firstly, of course, I don't think it matters because everything will be reset ANYWAY. But secondly, I was torn on the kind of over-explanation of what the butterfly effect is (just as I think next issue will focus on just how crazy some of these effects are) because, on the one hand, that's pretty basic knowledge for the people you assume are reading comics but, on the other hand, you don't want to assume anything about your audience. Bendis tends to do this, for better or worse, the over-explanation and reliance on twists that don't REALLY feel like twists to people who know sci-fi and things like that. I think that's one of the things that makes him such a popular writer; he's pretty easily accessible. I've talked about Hickman's new Avengers series not particularly caring if you're following or not and being all the better for it. I do think that limits the audience to people who aren't frustrated by that, but I think it has a greater payoff. But with an event like this, do you want it to be so easily accessible? It's clearly going to be reset or something and now you're trying to get new readers into it, into a world that won't exist post AU 10? Weird to me. I did find out this week that Neil Gaiman will be involved in the final issue of this series, so there's some hope yet.

Wolverine and the X-Men 27AU
Kindt (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel w/Rosenberg (c)

Another tie-in to the Age of Ultron event as we watch Sue and Wolverine travel to the past to stop Pym from creating Ultron. Nick Fury's car, which they stole in AU6 after he conveniently landed in the Savage Land right where they had traveled to, breaks down and they need to get a battery from a nearby secret-SHIELD base. While inside, their opinions seem to shift into the opposite of what each had been thinking in the first place; Wolverine starts to believe that maybe he shouldn't mess with the past after accidentally shaping the Brood into a much fiercer foe than they would have been, and Sue begins to think that they need to stop Pym at any cost after finding surveillance of Reed and remembering things. Like the other AU tie-ins, I don't think this is particularly necessary to read for plot, more for character and, in this case, more explanation of the butterfly effect. The art is supplemented by original images from Jack Kirby and John Buscema, which was interesting to me and a pretty nice touch. It was also interesting to me that this took place before Wolverine killed Pym and had Wolverine second-guessing himself, even though people who may have read AU6 first know that he did, in fact, have no real qualms with killing Pym. It felt a little like adding morality questions where there weren't any. Not that Wolverine doesn't have morality or anything, just that he doesn't question his convictions. He's always done what he thinks needs to be done without hesitation. Killing Pym fits into that, though again I'd question why they don't just go to a time when they, without question, know where Ultron is and when he's weaker than in the present and disable him there and then. Solves everything, I win the day.
Not too much else to say about this issue except that there's a weird amount of focus on Sue's breasts. I guess it's not weird, it is comics, after all, but there are shots set from her breasts up which is a little weird. Male gaze and all that. I think that's about all I've got. I don't think it's the best tie-in. We get some questioning of motivations but those questions are all kind of erased by the actions of this pair in AU6 anyway so this seems pretty avoidable on the whole. Nice to see Kirby/Buscema art sprinkled throughout.