A+X 16, Infinity: Heist 4, Inhumanity: The Awakening 2

A+X 16
Spider-Man and Psylocke: S. Ryan (w) and Parlov (a) and Gandini (c)
Captain America and Cyclops (and so many friends): Duggan (w) and Yardin, C. Smith, N. Lee, and Pallot (a) and Mossa (c)

In our first story (set several years ago), Spider-Man happens to be swinging by a restaurant when he hears a crash. He goes to check it out and finds Psylocke in there, surrounded by sword-wielding men in suits. He helps her dispatch of them but, as she tries to interrogate one, one of the felled men drops a grenade. Spidey stays out of the blast radius but Psylocke ends up impaled by a sword on the ground. Spidey rushes to her side and immediately realizes he can't move her. She doesn't want him to leave for help and so he stays as she tries to hold on to consciousness. Right as it seems like she might be fading, the X-Men show up and take her away, presumably to save her (she's still alive now, isn't she?) and Spider-Man makes his way home. Weird little story, doesn't seem to fit any where but it's a nice intimate look into the superhero community, which I suppose is the goal of this series. The story moves well and the art works well enough for it so I guess I can't complain. Still a little weird though, right?

Continuing the long Cap+Cyclops saga, the assembled team squares off against Cadre K, the Skrulls who were trained by Charles Xavier and who are hiding out on the planet. In the middle of their big fight, Emma Frost realizes that they're not doing anything wrong here and informs the heroes. Everyone stops the fight and they talk for a bit as Cadre K explains that they're just trying to make a decent living for themselves out on the farm and trying to keep the cattle who have Skrull DNA in them out of other farms and out of processed foods in America (some of their farm is comprised of the cattle that Reed Richards convinced Skrulls to be on their first trip to Earth, a move everyone considers pretty jerky). The heroes decide there's nothing wrong with what they're doing (in fact, they'd prefer those cows stay out of the market) and promise to stop fighting against them and fight for them as need be. Unfortunately, the LMD Cap and Cyclops have been working with shows up and reveals that he, Cap, and Cyclops have been infected with nano-Doombots who have monitored everything so Doom is likely on his way to capture these Skrulls. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer to see a resolution between Cap and Cyclops.

Infinity: Heist 4
Tieri (w) and Barrionuevo, Bachs, N. Edwards, Domingues, and Rauch (a) and Sotocolor and Mossa (c)

The supervillain team-up not in league with Captain Atlas of the Kree (so pretty much just not Spymaster) present have been imprisoned and knocked out so that they can be executed (weird that they're waiting) by the Iron Man soldiers that they helped to steal, unwittingly, for the Kree Empire. We'll get back to that, okay? Anyway, Unicorn goes crazy and manages to break them out of their containment and, with the help of a remote controlled Iron Man who has figured out what's happening here and the help of Blizzard's new Inhuman powers (which apparently act as a battery, so he overcharges a lot of the armors), they manage to defeat Atlas and Spymaster. Not willing to let his pals go down for the fight, Blizzard flies the remote Iron Man out and freezes them both while the others escape. When the pair come to, Iron Man shuttles Blizzard off to jail, where the SHIELD psych team gives him a dream of joining up with the Inhumans on Attilan while Whirlwind and Firebrand start a relationship over again in the tropics.

There was a time this week where I wasn't sure I'd be able to read this book in time to review and, well, I'm kind of jealous of that possible-timeline-Tim. I haven't totally hated this series overall and I don't totally hate this last issue but I certainly don't care for it. There's plenty here that doesn't quite gel for me. First and foremost is the idea that someone from the Kree Empire is deadset on stealing Tony Stark armor and using B-List villains to do it, including hiring Spymaster to coordinate the whole thing. One of the biggest things about the Kree Empire is that they're masters of technology. I don't really see them going crazy to steal all of Tony Stark's outdated armor. I know that might seem like a minor flaw but really, it's the plot point that's driving LITERALLY EVERYTHING we've seen in this mini-series so not buying it means that the whole series is weak. Also, everyone looks and sounds rather the same (aside from Firebrand, who at least looks different, thanks to being the only woman in this series) so it's hard to tell exactly what's happening at any one time. The final reveal that Blizzard is actually dreaming his future with the Inhumans is played like a big and shocking reveal but it's really not that big a reveal and it's not that meaningful because, again, B-list villain who we haven't really grown to love in this series, despite what Tieri might think. Ah well, at least the final piece of INFINITY seems to be over, which is more than we can say for AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, am I right A+X?

Inhumanity: The Awakening 2
Kindt (w) and Davidson (a) and Beaulieu (c)

The assortment of kids (I'd be fine if that was their superhero team name - The Assortment of Kids! Actually, never mind, I'm going to use that one, copyright Tim Nicastro 2014) manage to track down new Inhuman Fiona's new Inhuman brother Flynn after he destroys an apartment building which we learn was the apartment building that housed the jerk kids who nearly tortured Fiona in the park before she flew away. He was doing it out of love and a severe anger problem, that's all! So the Assortment of Kids® goes to meet up with Flynn and Finesse talks him down from his anger, explaining a bit of her history to sympathize. They stage it so that it looks like the apartment building was actually just the result of an Inhuman transformation and then they give Flynn and Fiona a choice of which superkid school they want to go to: Flynn chooses the Latverian School of Science (geez guys, warning bells, huh?) and Fiona checks all of them out to learn she's not alone in the world.

Like the last issue, this one is framed by social media. It's a little less intrusive here as we don't follow the Instagram account of anyone in the book but it's still pretty prevalent as every page shows a weird non-sequiter sort of Twitter conversation between two people who seem unrelated with all of this and it's weird and creepy and I do not care for it. One of the blurbs from one of the creators at the end of YOUNG AVENGERS this week called YOUNG AVENGERS the perfect comic for the Tumblr generation (which I a little resent because I loved that book and similarly hate that generation but I understand what it's saying) and it feels like this book is trying just super hard to be named that. Instead, I think it flounders and gets a little too heavy-handed about these kids not fitting in and finding their place and so on and so forth. On top of it, the art is a little bit weird and kind of makes everyone look super ugly super all the time. Also, I just really can't say enough how much I don't need a Twitter feed going across the top of a comic book. Gross. Hope no one was looking for interesting action from the cover of this one! Plus side: the book that this one advertises at the end of this one is AVENGERS UNDERCOVER, which I'm looking forward to and, more importantly, which isn't this one.