Avengers and X-Men: Axis 4

Avengers and X-Men: Axis 4

SHIELD wants the Red Skull but Captain America refuses to hand him over, not trusting that SHIELD is capable of holding the criminal. That's the only sane thing done in this book, as then the X-Men, still led by Storm, Havok, and Cyclops, become decidedly more militant and turn to a grown Apocalypse for help, Tony Stark introduces an Extremis app that will allow people to experience their better selves, and a portion of the Avengers (Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, Thor, Hulk, Luke Cage, and, for some reason, Medusa) decide they need to kill Red Skull to stop this kind of thing from happening again. Jarvis tries to stop them but is thrown out of the way quickly, prompting a doubtful Hulk to intercede and try to stop the others. Though he fails, the sadness it causes him turns him into Kluh, the inverted Hulk who is, apparently, even worse. He runs off and the rest discover Red Skull is missing.

This is so stupid. I'm not even going to put on airs about it any more. I talked in my review of AXIS: CARNAGE 1 last week about where this event was going and how it feels way more manufactured than most events in that it's such an insane premise with such a twisted, unbelievable, soft-sciencey solution that it's impossible to see it as anything but someone at a Marvel summit going "what if...some of the heroes were jerks? And some of the villains were good?" and everyone high-fifing one another and leaving Remender to write the whole thing (though I'm blatantly calling this stupid, I'm still not willing to force the blame entirely on Remender, though each issue seems to make it harder). But they're in the place they want to be, with clear factions and rivalries set up, from SHIELD up against the Avengers, to the Avengers keeping this on the down-low from other Avengers, to the X-Men and the Avengers, to Kluh and the Avengers (pretty Avengers heavy, huh?), to Iron Man making his big Extremis app announcement in San Francisco in front of Daredevil. None of it works for me. It screams of a WHAT IF... book or an alternate universe book but here it is, an all-enveloping event. I'm already sick of events (I'll reiterate, HALF OUR BOOKS THIS WEEK ARE EVENT-BASED) and here's this one, a terrible premise posing as an event. I didn't even want to write a review tonight. I was tired and I said "you know what, I'll give myself another one of those millions of nights off I've been giving myself lately. I'll update the comic list (on the right, you guys, chock-full of creator names!) and maybe I'll read a couple books but I don't feel like reviewing. So I read this one first, knowing it would eventually be the first one to get reviewed. I couldn't even take the night off, this comic was so bad. Ugh. I guess, in fairness, the art is Leinel Yu and he's pretty good. Though there was one really distracting shot of Medusa that literally focuses itself to only get her butt in frame. So you're certainly not winning points, guys.

Total Score: 1/5