Avengers VS X-Men # 8 (Round Eight)

By Mark Rodriguez

The Phoenix comes to Earth and the X-Men want to use it while the Avengers want to destroy it. Iron Man uses a giant mech to destroy it with a blast, but instead if divides into five and inhabits Cyclops, Emma, Namor, Colossus and Magik. With the Phoenix Five being too powerful for their own good, the Avengers come for Hope Summers and she leaves with them voluntarily. Avengers took Hope to Wakanda as they prepare to send her to the dimension of K’un-Lun for training. Emma Frost found out and sent Namor to wage war on the Avengers behind Cyclops’ back. Let’s see how this all goes down.

We start off seconds after Wolverine and Hope stepped into the portal to K’un-Lun, the magical world of Kung Fu, as Namor’s tidal waves start thrashing the country. Iron Man warns Lei Kung the Thunderer that if they don’t close the portal NOW they risk Namor finding it and also destroying his world. Iron Man grabs Thunderer and flies with him into the portal, closing it behind him before Iron Fist has time to join them. Before they vanish, Iron Man reminds Captain America to use their secret weapon.

Black Panther is enraged and wants to kill Namor. Captain America wants to deal with Namor himself and sees this as Scott Summers setting an act of war upon innocent people. Panther doesn’t care about Cyclops and tells the Cap to call all the Avengers to Wakanda now. The Cap does so.

Meanwhile in K’un-Lun, Wolverine and Hope stare in awe as suddenly Iron Man and Lei Kung fall through the portal. As it closes, Wolverine wants to know what happens. Iron Man reminds them that Hope has work to do. She is ready, but doesn’t know exactly what she has to be ready for.

Namor soars above the skies ready to destroy everything over his feelings of betrayal, until the Cap clocks him with his shield. Iron Fist comes crashing down on Namor as well. The Cap takes on one of Namor’s soldiers as Black Panther tries to blast Namor with a super-sized gun. Namor however, fries him and then breaks the gun apart saying that Panther should have known his power wouldn’t compare to his own. Panther says he knows, and that they were only stalling.

The rest of the Avengers appear, mostly the heavy hitters but Namor send them flying back with flames. He yells out ‘IMPERIUS REX!!’ which seems to be his battle cry or whatever since he’s been yelling it out a lot since he got Phoenix Powers. Just then Namor gets a face-full of Red Hulk fist, followed by the Thing’s own clobberin’ punch, Thor’s hammer to the jaw, a magic blast from Strange and stomped to the ground by the Vision. Holy crap, these guys mean business.

But despite all this…. Namor grabs Red Hulk’s arm and SNAPS IT!!! I mean snap it to the point that you see his bones sticking out! He swings Red Hulk around and then socks Thing across the jaw. Namor takes to the sky again and sets the heroes on fire, not knowing that Thor is right behind him ready to bring down the hammer on him.

HOW IS THIS GUY A HERO OF ANY SORT?

At Utopia, the X-Men observe this and Cyclops asks Magneto what Namor is doing. Emma says he’s doing whatever Namor does, as he always has. Cyclops asks her what she knows about it, Emma points out that they now know where the Avengers are. Cyclops gets everyone ready to go to Wakanda.

Thor smashes Namor with his mighty hammer, but Namor still manages to withstand the hit and knock the Asgardian out. Wanda comes in and starts using her power against Namor. Namor tries to fry her, but her magic is able to shield her from the attack. Namor screams as he falls to the ground.

Vision catches Wanda before she falls and Thing gives Namor an extra kick to knock him out. Spider-Man asks if they won, and Black Panther is pissed that it took all they had to knock him out and his country is now in ruins. Iron Fist tells them that the rest of the Phoenix Five will soon come after them, and Spider-Man points out that they’re already here.

Just then Namor screams as his Phoenix Power leave his body and bombard the rest of the Phoenix Five with flames. Cap tells the Avengers that it’s time to go and uses a device to warp them all to K’un-Lun. The Phoenix Four now realize that since Namor is down, his powers were transferred to the rest of them. It also seems that Black Panther was left behind.

Xavier then enters Scott’s mind and tells him that he is ashamed of their actions and it goes against everything he taught them. He warns Cyclops to stop, or he will stop them.

 Back to K’un-Lun, everyone regroups with Wolverine, Hope, Iron Man and Lei Kung. Spider-Man says that even when they took one of the Phoenixes down, it only made the other four more powerful. Hope asks Captain America what his plan is… and then asks if there is a plan…

My Opinions

This was an intense rockin-sockin issue that pumps up the action and never stops. Most of it is an intense battle between Phoenix Namor and all of the Avengers’ main power players, and it was awesome. That panel with him breaking red Hulk’s arm is just…. Ouch!!! It keeps building up with more things and more questions. How will they stop the rest of the Phoenix Four without giving them even more power? What will Xavier do to stop Scott? Will Scott catch on that Emma and Namor are misbehaving behind his back? Actually I expecting this to spark a Cyclops VS Namor all-out Phoenix battle over Emma’s disloyalty, but I guess we’re past that since Namor is back to normal.

 I do think it was very stupid for the Avengers to leave Black Panther behind, since the X-Men can question him about where the others went. Maybe he chose to stay behind, or the escape was so hasty he didn’t have time to join them. I feel bad for T’Challa now since these Phoenixed-out X-Men are not above torturing a fellow superhero if it means getting Hope back. Either way I can’t wait to see what happens next issue.