Avengers Vs. X-Men -- Speculation, Spoilers, and Discussion

[Allyn Gibson]

Marvel Comics' big event for 2012, Avengers Vs. X-Men, begins today with Avengers Vs. X-Men #0, from Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, and Frank Cho.

• The return of the Scarlet Witch! What does this mean for the "Mutant Messiah" Hope?
• Three of the hottest names in comics kick off the biggest event in Marvel history!
• And did we mention Frank Cho on art?!

Anyone going to follow this?

I'm not a Marvel guy, to be honest, but I received issue #0 in my shipment today because I was curious.

It's a book of two halves. The first half, by Bendis and Cho, focuses on the Scarlet Witch. The second half, by Aaron and Cho, focuses on Hope Summers, the Mutant Messiah.

As someone who last picked up an Avengers book with Avengers/JLA #4, the first half of the book was incomprehensible.

I have no idea what's happened with the Avengers. I don't understand why Scarlet Witch seems to be an amnesiac or why Vision is such a dick to her. To be frank, I'm really not sure what any of this had to do with anything.

I'm on slightly better footing for the second half, because I'm a little more aware of what's been happening in the X-Men's world. The mutant population is down to about 200, Scott Summers has taken one group of mutants out to San Francisco where they have a refuge, Wolverine has taken another group of mutants to New York where they're trying to uphold Professor X's ideals. (Basically, Schism split the X-Men in two, with Scott taking after Magneto and Wolverine taking after Xavier.)

There was nothing wrong with this. Hope feels like she's trapped on the island of Utopia and she wants to do something, anything, while Scott is a serious dick to her and basically grounds her, whereupon she goes off and does what she was going to do in the first place, which was to fly off into San Francisco and beat up some bad guys. And then Scott and Emma turn up to take her home and ground her. Again.

So, is issue #0 any good?

I felt unsatisfied after reading it, to be honest. Again, not being a Marvel reader is probably going to be a big part of that, because I had no emotional connection to any of the characters or their situations. Aaron does a better job in the second half of making his story accessible to the non-X-Men reader, while Bendis' story in the first half assumes that the non-Avengers reader knows the backstory.

Unless there's some deeper meaning to Bendis' story here and it makes sense around AVX #9, I think AVX #1 next week will make a better entry point for the casual reader into the event than AVX #0.

[ReadyAndWilling]

will there be a TV show on this?

[Admiral_Young]

I was going to start a thread but someone pointed out about a third thread with Avengers in the title might confuse people so didn't do it, thinking the Marvel catch all thread would do, but yes very much looking forward to this as mentioned in the Marvel thread. On my way to the comic shop in a bit to pick up issue zero!

@Allyn, if you've not followed Avengers or X-Men in the last ten years or so a lot of this is going to go over your head frankly! It is the culmination of a lot of story lines and issues that have transpired over that period of time.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

i'd advise reading Avengers #24.1 before Avengers VS X-Men #0.

[Skywalker]

Eh. I prefer to imagine the X-Men Universe as being separate from the rest of the main Marvel Universe (i.e. the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four). So a crossover like this doesn't really interest me.

Plus I'm not really digging what's currently going on with the X-Men anyway.

[Greg Cox]

ReadyAndWilling wrote:

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will there be a TV show on this?

No. This is a comic book event.

[Blip]

Skywalker wrote:

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Eh. I prefer to imagine the X-Men Universe as being separate from the rest of the main Marvel Universe (i.e. the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four). So a crossover like this doesn't really interest me.

Plus I'm not really digging what's currently going on with the X-Men anyway.

I've always felt this way also. Though for my part it's probably a little down to the "realism" aspect that Singer tried to instill in his movies, versus the more fantastical elements present in Thor and the likes.

(yes, I know we're discussing the comic universe here, so sue me for being re-introduced to X-Men via the movies :P )

[Captain Craig]

I'm trade waiting on this.

[scnj]

I'd love if they release the whole thing in one trade, but knowing Marvel, it'll be three overpriced volumes.

[Allyn Gibson]

scnj wrote:

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I'd love if they release the whole thing in one trade, but knowing Marvel, it'll be three overpriced volumes.

Possibly, though I think they may do two. Marvel's solicitation for Avengers Vs. X-Men #5 calls it "fiery conclusion of Act One," so it would make sense to do issues 0-5 (six issues) in one trade, then issues 6-12 in the next.

Marvel will definitely do Premiere Hardcovers first, though, and then trades four months later, and then possibly an omnibus hardcover eighteen months after that, because that's the way Marvel rolls.

[Mr Light]

Well, nothing really happened in #0... it was basically an introduction to the characters for someone unfamiliar with them.

[Turtletrekker]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I was going to start a thread but someone pointed out about a third thread with Avengers in the title might confuse people so didn't do it, thinking the Marvel catch all thread would do, but yes very much looking forward to this as mentioned in the Marvel thread. On my way to the comic shop in a bit to pick up issue zero!

Actually, I said that another active thread with "Avengers" in the title would raise the amount to FOUR threads at once.

There is this thread, the movie thread, the A:EMH season two thread, and the Heroic Age/Avengers thread.

Maybe it's time for the "Heroic Age" thread to get that thread title change that we've talked about (my suggestion was "Marvel on-going discussion- forerly 'Heroic Age'") and then merge this thread with that one?

[barnaclelapse]

Captain Craig wrote:

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I'm trade waiting on this.

I'll second that.

[Skywalker]

Turtletrekker wrote:

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Actually, I said that another active thread with "Avengers" in the title would raise the amount to FOUR threads at once.

There is this thread, the movie thread, the A:EMH season two thread, and the Heroic Age/Avengers thread.

Maybe it's time for the "Heroic Age" thread to get that thread title change that we've talked about (my suggestion was "Marvel on-going discussion- forerly 'Heroic Age'") and then merge this thread with that one?

This wouldn't be a problem if we had a Comics forum...

[timothy]

Okay with scarlet witch coming back is this a possible reset to everything that happened since HOUSE of M?