It's funny to me that most of the issues of this event that I've liked have gotten bad reviews and the ones I've disliked have gotten good reviews. Just goes to show you... something I guess.
I liked AvX 3 more than the first two. Maybe because there seemed to be a little more story and less de-compresion and mindless battling. And while, as I mentioned upthread, Rachel acted totally in character, I agree completely about how off-kilter Cap seemed. I'm glad that somebody finally said out loud to Cap that the X-Men have done nothing wrong and they have nothing to hold them on (But Stark? Really? I would have thought something like that would've come from Daredevil/Matt Murdock). It's funny. I'm siding against Cap in this event for the same reasons I stood with him in
Civil War.
Avengers Academy is a book that I buy anyway but would probably have added to my pull-list anyway for this event. As with
Uncanny X-Men 11, I liked this issue more than any of the main AvX story issues. I loved the
Generation Hope book and was sorry to see it end. And while Hope herself is, of course, central to AvX, AA is where we see what happened to the rest of Hope's team (And other assorted New X-Men) following "The Battle of Utopia".
Cap puts the Academy kids in an awkward place by telling them to prevent the X-Kids from leaving, asking them to act as a police force towards kids their own age who have done nothing wrong. It's called the equivelent of "Child Protective Services", but the X-kids call it "a prison". Tigra and Hercules (In his first appearance since his own book folded. It's good to see him again-- but I didn't want to see THAT much!
) try to make the X-kids comfortable to no avail.
X-23, in particular is in a hard place because she joined the Academy because she didn't want to take sides in the Wolverine/Cyclops schism, but now Wolverine has dropped it right in her lap by asking her to stand guard over her former classmates and teammates. (You know, between this, what he asked Rachel to do in AvX 3, and his obvious personal bias against Cyclops, Wolverine is really being a prick in this story.)
Overall, the Academy kids really seem to genuinely like the X-kids. It will be interesting to see where they finally wind up standing in this, particularly given the preview cover image of the Academy kids wearing Xavier School uniforms.
I was not a fan of bringing the mind-wiped Sebastian Shaw onto Hope's team, but he steals the show here. From his remarks to Wolverine (I don't have the issue in front of me, but words to the effect of, "I understand that I beat you to a pulp once. I wish I could remember that"
), to his escape plan to the laugh out loud last page (A homage to a classic panel in the original Hellfire Club story). I never thought I'd ever actually say this but-- Go Shaw!
