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

[Admiral_Young]

The frustrating thing with Avengers Vs X-Men was that it has been an organic storyline stemming from years worth of storylines, but the execution of that story has been incredibly flawed due to the inconsistent writing and seemingly lack of communication and coordination between all the writers of the book. It might have seemed great on paper for all the Architect's to be writing this, but to me this has been one of the biggest messes. Too many voices all trying to add their own mark on the book when there should only be one or two. Frankly if anything Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, and Brian Bendis should be the only writers involved in the book, since they're the main Avengers/X-Men writers. No one else.

[Guy Gardener]

It's because they work from home, in different parts of 'the country' and even the world.

It's not the good old days when everyone had to wear a suit and had to go into the office.

Although, i suppose those retreats they go on could last longer.

Failing that.

Maybe we could raise all the young writers in kennels from now on to teach them good habbits?

[Admiral_Young]

The New York Daily News has spoiled who dies in tomorrow's Avengers Vs X-Men #11...click at your risk.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dail...men-death.html

Pretty much almost what I expected would happen, and makes sense for much of what we know now about Marvel Now.

[Guy Gardener]

Hey buddy, careful where you put that thing!

You could put an eye out!

[Admiral_Young]

There's an even bigger spoiler from the issue that got a holy shit reaction from me that I won't post. I suspect we're going to be talking about it for a while.

[Hound of UIster]

Guy Gardener wrote:

---

It's because they work from home, in different parts of 'the country' and even the world.

And yet 52 worked and that was even more complicated with more issues and everyone cowriting every issue.

[Allyn Gibson]

Out today, Avengers Vs. X-Men #11:

Fatality!

No, really. That's Marvel's original solicitation text for the comic. They may have updated it online, I'm not sure. Can't be arsed to look.

I'm not going to focus too much on the "Fatality," since it's plastered across the Internet. I will say that, in the context of the comic, it makes a heck of a lot of sense, though I don't entirely understand how the character in question planned to defeat the X-Men.

Also, and I haven't seen anyone mention this, but

Cyclops burns Wolverine's arm off. At the very least. I'm curious to see how that plays out.

Anyway.

I never felt involved in this issue. I had a problem with the Avengers' behavior toward the X-Men who were abandoning their cause; they weren't being gracious in "victory." And when the fight between Cyclops/Emma and the Avengers/X-Men alliance happened, I didn't really have a grasp of how the A/X team planned to win.

The fatality, by the way, is handled badly. It's not clear when it happens that anything out of the ordinary happened.

That said, I think this issue manages to narrow the narrative enough that a pretty good guess as to the finale can be hazarded.

There is now only one host of the Phoenix. Scott Summers, the new Dark Phoenix. At this point, Hope is finally going to have to stand up and draw the Phoenix out of Scott, merging with it as she is supposed to do, freeing Scott of the taint. Then, Hope probably buggers off into space with the Phoenix, never to be seen again.

With lots of extra punching, of course.

[Starbreaker]

#11 was good. I'm ready for the conflict to end though. Spread out over 63 issues, including the tie-ins, it's become kind of cumbersome. Also, slightly annoying since stuff has been published way out of chronological order.

[Turtletrekker]

I agree with pretty much everything Allyn Gibson said there, including your predictions for next issue.

At the end of the day, despite his horrific acts in this issue, whatever the end of the end of the story here, I'm still going to walk away from this as a fan of Scott Summers, as I have been for many, many years since childhood. Hell, Jean Grey did a hell of a lot worse under the corrupting influence of the Phoenix, and she still gets more "fan mail" at Marvel than any other character. Also, a lot of this reeked of making the character fit the story rather than genuine character development.

On the other hand, I loved seeing Emma Frost getting some long overdue bitch slaps!

Uncanny X-Men 18 by Kieron Gillen is a really good supplement to the event. It finally shows what happen to Peter and Illyana after losing the Phoenix and how Good-Lord-Bat-Shit-Crazy poor Illyana is, even without the Phoenix.

Also, a kind of chilling bit showing Scott and Emma having a luxurious dinner on the mental plane ("prepared" by Emma by mining the memories of others) while their bodies engage in pitched battle with Avengers.

Well, well, well worth picking up if you weren't planning to.

[Mr Light]

I expected Cyclops or Emma to die. I really didn't see Xavier coming, since he's playing such a minor role in the series thus far. Plus, killing Xavier is so overdone. How many times has he been "killed"? How many times has he be crippled, then decrippled, then crippled again?

I expected Emma to be the final baddie, since she hasn't done much of anything up till now. I thought they were saving her for the big finale. Plus she was going a lot more evil than Cyclops was the entire time. I thought she would stab him in the back and steal his power (hopefully killing him in the process).

I'm still hoping they kill Cyclops in the last issue.

[Aldo]

Overall I enjoyed it, which isn't surprising since it was a Bendis book.

As for the death, when Adam revealed it was a "Holy Shit" moment for him reading the spoiler, I was expecting something big, but like Mr Light, it was more of a "ho-hum" moment for me.

Still, a fun issue, and it's got me anticipating Issue 12, now only if the whole series could have been this much fun.

And oh yeah, it still bugs me that Carol is depicted here as Ms. Marvel when in her own title she's been "Captain Marvel" for three issues now.

[Guy Gardener]

I must have missed a speech bubble, because I totally did not notice that guy dying.

Hell, I thought Magneto bit it a couple pages earlier, so I wasn't looking for another corpse on the field.

No, no that was just a graze.

[Admiral_Young]

It was a holy shit moment for me because I was fully expecting Scott to die in this, I've said as much before in the thread. This is entirely different. Guy was right regarding Bendis getting all the impact in this issue, Aaron might be writing the finale, but this is what everyone is talking about. This issue doesn't make up for a lackluster series, but it does start to formulate what we know about Marvel Now and what happens to Scott (although it doesn't explain the cover to All New X-Men, unless that was meant to be misdirection of some kind).

Aldo Carol not being in her Captain Marvel costume is just one of many inconsistencies in this book, really a minor one, but one nonetheless. It's been unclear when exactly in the timeline this book takes place considering we've had other major stuff happen around it while it's going on (such as Doc Ock trying to take over the world!!!).

[Guy Gardener]

Wait?

professor X died early on in the 60s and came back in issue 60-something claiming that he had faked his death to prepare for a massive a telepathic repulse of the Z'onx, which was his pick up .line for Lilandria if you recall.

Do these children come form a point in history when chuck was already dead?

[Turtletrekker]

^ As I understand it, the time tossed X-Men will be from very early in the team's history.