Avengers-X-Men AXIS # 5

By Mark Rodriguez

The Red Skull used Xavier's mind to spread hate across the Marvel Universe. After a huge battle, the Red Skull is defeated, but he showed signs of Xavier's consciousness which led to the X-Men and Avengers to argue over who gets custody of him. The Avengers take him and prepare for retaliation from the X-Men. Captain America (Falcon) decides to flat out kill Red Skull. Seeing the Avengers acting this way made Hulk sad that unleashed a stronger more evil sadistic form called Kluh who escapes. The Avengers also find out that the Red Skull has escaped....

The issue opens with Spider-Man meeting up with the younger newer Nova as they both attend an 'All Avengers get here now!!!' kind of meeting. Nova is excited to be a part of this and Spider-Man shows him around the huge gathering of super heroes. He pokes fun of Hawkeye's costume and he jabs back. Spidey says it's costume envy since his outfit is timeless but Hawkeye changes his every few years. Susan Storm wants to know who called this meeting, and Sam Wilson announces that he declared the meeting.

Sam Wilson tells everyone that the Red Skull escaped, and whoever did it has Avengers-level clearance and was able to delete the security footage afterwards.... therefore, he says one of THEM must be responsible. Spider-Man senses something wrong. Falcon says he considers everyone a liability and warps them all to Ant Man's subatomic ant farm, but Spider-Man shoves Nova out the window and escapes with him before they get affected too.

Medusa grabs onto Nova and threatens to snap him in half. Spider-Man saves him and tosses a web onto Nova's leg so he can blast off with him. Nova asks Spider-Man what to do, but the veteran web-slinger is confused out of his mind about what just happened. Falcon tosses his shield into Nova sending him into a building. He demands to know where 'Spider-Man is hiding the Red Skull' or he'll snap his neck. Spidey says that's probably the most un-Captain America thing for him to say and the shield boomerangs back into Sam's face, sending him down. The Scarlet Witch soon arrives, but Magneto grabs Spider-Man and Nova and keeps them safe.

Scarlet returns and tells the others that Sam let Spider-Man and Nova get away. Luke Cage says they drained Wasp of her Pym particles and might use them to also round up the X-Men and Medusa angrily cuts him off before he says the Inhumans are also targets. Scarlet Witch announces she is done working with them. She flies off tells them to stay out of her way as she goes to seek her vengeance.

At the Avenger's mansion, Spider-Man flips out at everything that happened and is surprised to see Magneto working alongside the aged Steve Rogers and his son Nomad. Magneto tells them that the X-Men have also gone insane. Rogers explains that when Dr. Doom and Scarlet Witch discovered that Xavier existed within the Red Onslaught, they tried to reverse their personalities so that Xavier would be the dominant personality. However, it also switched everyone's general alignment on the island, so good guys are bad guys and bad guys and good guys.

But it gets even worse as in Hulk's case, his evil side is a lot more visible. Kluh is on the news in a city-wide rampage and he's calling out any hero to come and stop him or he'll kill everyone. Nova suddenly appears and challenges him, surprising the other heroes because he was with them just a second ago. Just then an alarm sounds off and they all exit to see what is causing it. A giant A-shaped building is flying towards them with Apocalypse leading the X-Men into battle. They decide to attack the Avengers down now while they are divided, and they have the Red Skull.

Falcon monologues as Wasp is restrained, her Pym particles being drained by a device. He says the world needs order and shrinking everyone that gets in his way is more humane than outright killing them. He says the world demands a tyrant, and he is the best choice. The X-Men step in announcing that they will be taking over. Havok is furious to see his wife restrained and sends Falcon flying back with his energy attacks. Cyclops tells Nightcrawler to get the Red Skull and he warps away. Falcon says he's locked tight and he threatens to blow up his holding cell if they don't leave. Nightcrawler returns and announces the Red Skull isn't there and says they'll move on to the next order or business, killing off the Avengers.

Cap dodges a lighting bolt from Storm and tries to punch her, hitting Rogue instead, who is basically solid as a rock. Rogue kicks him away and then lifts a huge desk and slams it down on him. Apocalypse grabs him by the throat and tells him to tell all humans to leave Manhattan since it will belong to the mutants now. Cap asks why and Apocalypse tells him that the city is important to them, so they will take anything that's ever mattered to them. He says any humans remaining after three hours will be slaughtered. He also says the Apocalypse is coming and socks Cap out.

My Opinions

What an issue. It started out a bit light-hearted with Spider-Man's usual sense of humor as he kinda/sorta shows Nova the ropes. But then all hell soon breaks loose as these darker more sinister Avengers quickly go against everyone else. I'm glad Steve finally explained what was going on, but wow. The dark Avengers still feel they're doing what's right but with a more brutal remorseless attitude, and the dark X-Men flat out want human extinction in return for all the years of oppression they faced.

Genesis went all-out Apocalypse now. Kluh is eager to cause some damage to anyone he sees, while the regular Hulk only causes mass destruction if people start messing with him and shooting at him and so forth. It's all just going crazytown banana pants. Of course, the real question is... where is the Red Skull? Everyone seems to think that everyone else has him... but where is he really?

Now my real question is... if the good guys are bad guys and vice versa... wouldn't this turn Cyclops into a better person instead of being the maniac he currently is? Wouldn't this make him the error of his ways?

We've seen the Marvel heroes fight each other before, at least this time the villains also get involved, even if they're good guys now.