A+X 9, Wolverine MAX 8

A+X 9
Captain America and Wolverine: Edmondson (w) and Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado (c)
Doctor Strange and Quentin Quire, Eyeboy and Pixie: Lapham (w and a) and Loughridge (c)

It's getting harder and harder to review these as it just boils down to a plot summary for A+X because there isn't supposed to be a huge examination of these characters. The problem with it boiling down to plot is that there also isn't supposed to be a huge plot. So we run into a few problems in writing something even a little compelling. This is a particularly weird issue as we have one story, in Captain America and Wolverine, which features two characters who have a really long and complicated relationship teaming up and another story where Doc Strange and a group of X-kids meet up in a team-up I can't imagine anyone was asking for. In this case, Cap and Wolverine are going to help Doc Strange (these stories weren't supposed to come out together but this one got pushed back) rescue a Shaman friend of his who is in trouble. They argue about the sanctity of life and eventually learn a lesson from Doc Strange about how no number of team-ups between Avengers and X-Men can stop all the evils in the world. What's weirdest about this story is that these guys have such a long history and there are really interesting ways to look at it (one is happening in Uncanny Avengers, for example), whereas many of these team-ups so far have been just oddly matched characters interacting for the first time or maybe a little more in-depth than normal. So these guys have a relationship already and it's not even really that closely examined. It feels like it's a random meeting between the two, a pair who have never really worked together before. It just feels like this would have been a nice time to get a little further into their world.

In story two, Quentin Quire and Pixie have had a series of bets that will result in, for the loser, a series of shameful acts. At the moment, Quentin seems to be losing and will be forced to wear baby's clothes at the Jean Grey School. Their next bet is to steal something from the Sanctum Sanctorum of Doctor Strange. Whoever steals the best thing wins. They bring Eyeboy along as an impartial judge. They manage to sneak into Strange's and split up, with Quentin demanding Eyeboy help him. While they search his home, Eyeboy stumbles into Doc's room, where Strange himself is being attacked by the demon D'Spayre. Eyeboy goes screaming for help, bringing Pixie and Quire back. D'Spayre shows people their worst fears and begins to with the kids before Quentin shuts him out of their brains. The group, with the revived Doctor Strange, vanquish D'Spayre. Strange thanks them and sends Pixie and Quentin home, keeping Eyeboy around to give him a gift that enhances what he can see, especially on the magic spectrum. He also tells Eyeboy to hang around with better people. Not much here, not too much to get into. It's hard to figure out how the world views and/or should view Eyeboy, who is often the butt of jokes or the doing something pretty useful. So is he a joke? Is he not going to die at some point to thin out the herd? It's always tough to tell in these cases. NEXT ISSUE, though, is a team-up between Fantomex and Black Widow, so it's possible this whole series has been worth it.

Wolverine MAX 8
Starr (w) and Ruiz (a) and Brown (c)

Wolverine is a little dead but he's quickly recovering. Now he's being brought out to the country to be buried by a couple of Franky's henchmen. When they come for them, he kills both of them quickly and heads back for the mansion. Now with the element of surprise, he's able to storm the mansion and kill just about everyone. He catches up with Candy, who tells him that what's happened was never her intent and she really did quite like his dog. Also, if he kills her, he won't be able to find Franky before he flees. This makes some sense to Wolverine, so he listens to her and they go to the roof, where Franky is getting into a helicopter. Wolverine stops him and brings down the chopper, catching up with Franky and dropping him off the roof. He brings Candy back down and, still mostly unbelieving of her story, tells her to leave the country and return to England. If he ever finds her again, he'll be less forgiving, he promises.

It's hard to write too much about this series that I haven't already. It still feels weird to me that this book takes itself so seriously. Obviously the MAX line has the ability to do that (or not do that, in the case of books like Deadpool MAX) in a way that the normal lines really can't. These are directed for a far more mature audience and allow different aspect of Wolverine's more mature life to be revealed. Instead, it feels kind of cliche and entirely predictable. It's unfortunate because, while I do think this book is capable of doing everything Savage Wolverine has wanted to do (and done somewhat more effectively at this point), there's some real meat in Wolverine's life that hasn't been uncovered in all this time. Still, it's going to go uncovered, it seems, as we'd rather focus on him being angsty and stabbing more stuff while swearing without censors.