Avengers VS X-Men # 2 (Round Two)

By Mark Rodriguez

The Phoenix Force is coming and Cyclops believes he can use it to inhabit Hope and save mutantkind. The Avengers see it as a threat that could destroy everything. Captain America goes to visit Cyclops on Utopia and tell them they came to take Hope. They argue and Cyclops blasts Captain America back. This signals the Avengers to jump into action. ALL OF THEM.

The Avengers leap off from a hidden helicarrier in the sky and land on the island, including such members like Spider-Man, The Thing, Red Hulk and Wolverine. Both sides hold, waiting to see who would make the first move. All hesitation and doubts stop as Magneto sends Colossus, flying like a human missile, smashing through the floor of the carrier. Red Hulk challenges Colossus as the others fall to sea.

There Namor fights it out with the Thing and Luke Cage. Cyclops tells Emma to keep Hope safe as he tries to blast the flying Avengers out of the air… until he’s hit with the Captain’s shield. Cap then catches his shield and leads his team into action… and Cyclops leads his team to fight them off. 

Inside Utopia, the younger mutants watch the action. Emma brings Hope inside with the kids and tell them to keep her there. Ready to mindwipe everyone and end this battle, Emma steps outside… surprised to have inhaled Microscopic Telepathic Tasers that Iron Man set up to shock her whenever she tries to use her powers. Emma turns diamond and punches Iron Man.

Organic diamond meets multi billion dollar armor. The most expensive punch in history! The Narrator runs wild with this issue.

Magneto comes to help Emma and attack Iron Man. This whole fight is being shown live to the masses due to a traffic copter in San Francisco. Quicksilver watches the broadcast and runs at full speed to the battle field to punch Magneto, blaming him for some reason. Still at home, Scarlet Witch stayed behind to watch. She turns off the TV and walks off, leaving her journal behind saying ‘This is how the world ends’ with a drawing of the Phoenix on the next page. 

Magneto's not behind this you dumbass!

The battle continues and Domino calls Wolverine a traitor for fighting against his fellow mutants. Wolverine says they need to pull their heads out of Cyclops’ ass. Agreed. Storm and Black Panther bicker about their marital disputes… um… Storm and Black Panther are married??? I must have missed A LOT… back in the 90’s I knew she was with Forge… anyways…

Hope watches and wants to stop this. The others tell her it’s best for the big guns to handle this. Hope says that if the Avengers and X-Men are going to war because of her… then she’s the biggest gun there is… and starts to knock out her friends.

Captain America and Cyclops bicker about what everyone has been bickering about in comic book message boards since Cyclops blasted the Cap. If Cap was willing to talk, why did he bring the whole fleet of Avengers with him… and why did he choose to go to Wolverine for information rather than Cyclops himself. Captain America says what Cyclops is doing is going to endanger the whole world, mutants included.

Cap finally smacks Cyclops down with his shield and asks one last time to not make them take Hope by force. Cyclops calls for Magik to help, but Dr. Strange goes to her.  Magik warps both herself and Dr. Strange to a hellish world named Limbo… where they will begin their own battle. Danger warns the X-Men that Iron Man has hacked their systems and will soon bring Utopia down. Just then Cyclops notices that Wolverine is missing from the battlefield.

Wolverine and Spider-Man sneak inside the building through a drain pipe. Once inside they find that Hope has knocked out all her team-mates. She apologizes to her friends and says she feels the power grow stronger within her the closer the Phoenix gets to Earth. Wolverine notices that Hope is starting to show signs of the Phoenix’s power and gets ready to impale her before it’s too late.

Hope fries the living crap out of Wolverine. The Avengers and X-Men arrive in time to see the kids, Wolverine and Spider-Man unconscious, as Hope escapes in full Phoenix mode. Elsewhere in space, Beast, War Machine, Thor, Valkyrie, Miss Marvel, Protector and the Vision all prepare to face the Phoenix as it arrives on Earth…

My Opinions

This issue is full of non-stop action and I enjoyed seeing all the awesome heroes slug it out. Now that Hope ran off on her own and the Phoenix is arriving… it’s really gonna go crazy next issue. Cyclops is still an insane douche. I’m still curious how they will handle him when all is said and done. A lot of this is his fault due to him not telling Hope all the things that were going to happen to her. She is quite the headstrong rebellious youth and keeping some things from her had made her lash out to find out on her own. Things might have worked out differently if Cyclops told Hope the truth and Cap talked to Cyclops before, but since their end goals are different regarding the phoenix, they would have ended up fighting anyway.

I do wonder what would have happened if Wolverine DID impale Hope before Phoenix got to her. What does it do if it loses its host? Would it go to some other planet.... choose a new host right off the bat... or blow up the Earth out of spite since it wasted its time coming here.... and how exactly does the Phoenix Force keep coming back after all the times it was dealt with in the past??

The art continues to suffer at times, mostly due to the bi-weekly schedule. Like this action shot here.

I guess you can forgive it due to it having a lot of character but oh man, just look at Spider-Man.

And what the hell happened to Wolverine here?? And this is just a panel or so after the one I showed with Wolverine walking up to Hop, which was drawn well. What's going on?

Anyways, we'll see what will happen as the fighting continues while the Avengers prepare to destroy the Phoenix directly in outer space.