By Mark Rodriguez
After an epic battle against the Red Skull that had control over Xavier's mind, all the heroes and villains involved had their personalities changed from good to evil and vice versa. In the final battle to stop the evil X-Men and Avengers, Steve Rogers has a plan to turn things back to normal. Iron Man sends the new Captain America, Sam Wilson, to finish him off and is surprised to find Steve in an armored version of the Captain America outfit holding onto a weakened Red Skull. What will happen now?
This issue opens with a flashback of Wolverine trying to talk Sabertooth out of killing someone, and how Xavier can help find the good in him. Creed says there is no good in him and kills his victim.
Now in current times, Steve laments how he has to protect his worst enemy, the Red Skull from a kill-crazed Sam Wilson. Steve tries to put up the good fight, but without the super soldier serum, he's aged and Sam is eager to to finish both him and the Red Skull off. Sam says that the first time he feels free from all of Steve's rules and regulations and will do anything to keep that freedom.
As Sam slams his shield down onto the original Cap, he fades away proving to be some sort of psychic trickery from the real Red Skull, getting a head start escape with Steve. The Red Skull seems to feel sorry for his evil deeds and wants to help revert the AXIS effect from before.
Back to the battle, Iron Man tells Kluh and Luke Cage to kill all the fallen heroes. Falcon arrives and tells Iron Man that he was right in suspecting that Steve plans to revert everything back to normal and they head off to stop him.
Sabertooth and Mystique are now in bad shape and know the Avengers are coming to kill them. They remember how they first met and Mystique sends Sabertooth to help the heroes turn things back to normal, even if it means they'll be evil again. Rogue suddenly appears and is ready to kill them both. Sabertooth hacks at her gut, giving Mystique time to run. Rogue slams Sabertooth's face into a wall so hard it even exposes his brain and she's ready to finish him off. Spider-Man webs her up before she can do so.
Havok breaks Wasp out of her prison and tells her they have to stop Steve to ensure their happy future. Wasp notices Carnage's remains and realizes that the others stopped the X-Gene bomb from going off, not him. She fries him with her attack and flies off.
Apocalypse laments that his side has lost and soon the Avengers will kill off the X-Men. Deadpool (or at least his head) tells him that he can fix things by bringing the good inside him out. If they kill the Red Skull everything will stay inversed forever. He reminds him that he's really Evan, not Apocalypse, and he can still bring out his true self and save the world.
Meanwhile on the moon, Loki runs with Thor right behind him, eager to kill him with his sacred axe Jarnbjorn. Loki runs off to where Thor's hammer lays after he had lost the ability to lift it (this must have been before the new female Thor took it). Thor spouts out that he never loved him as a brother, nor did their parents. Loki suddenly leaps in and bashes Thor across the face with his mighty hammer.
Steve and the Red Skull arrive with Nomad and Jarvis, and Steve is in bad shape. Red Skull says he can fix this if he can get Dr. Doom and Dr. Strange. Nomad says Strange disappeared, but they have bigger problems now. Just then Kluh and Iron Man bust in and start attacking everybody. Iron Man chokes Red Skull knowing Xavier can hear him and tells him he will build more Stark Sentinels to wipe out any remaining mutant out there. Falcon bashes Steve to the ground and says he's free from the 'garbage' he taught him. Steve says it's not the ideals that he taught him, it was the ideals his father taught him, which stops Sam.
Kluh lifts Nomad and is ready to break him in half. Apocalypse shows up and socks Kluh out. Steve and his team are confused but decide to take this chance to escape with Red Skull. Luke Cage then busts in through a wall next to the jet they were planning to use to escape. Spider-Man and Sabertooth jump in to attack Luke. Steve and rest try to escape in the jet, but Iron Man raises it and crashes it down. Nomad tries to stop him and is slammed to the ground by Iron Man. He then attacks Steve telling him that he likes the way he is now.
Dr. Doom, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Dr. Voodoo all arrive and Magneto tries to kill Iron Man. Red Skull talks Magneto out of it since killing when he saw no other solution was what turned Red Skull into the Red Onslaught in the first place. Magneto recognizes Xavier's idealogy coming from the Red Skull and lets Iron Man live. Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom cast their spell along with the Red Skull to begin the inversion. Havok arrives to stop them saying that he can't handle knowing what he has done, but Sabertooth stops him. Dr. Voodoo also holds Iron Man back who also tried to stop this. Doom, Wanda and Red Skull continue with the spell.
Iron Man says he won't go back to how he was before which is why he was prepared for this. He forms a forcefield around him, Havok and Sabertooth to shield them from the huge energy blast caused by Doom, Wanda and the Red Skull.
On the moon, Loki gloats that he is finally more worthy than Thor since he can now lift the hammer. The energy wave hits them and Loki drops the hammer. Thor seems to be back to normal and much to Loki's dismay, he doesn't remember his brother's moment of triumph.
Elsewhere, Wasp tends to Havok and Luke tends to Sabertooth. Luke is ready to pin Creed down, but he tells him he's still one of the good guys due to Iron Man's forcefield, which means that Havok is still evil. Havok grabs onto Wanda and demands she shrinks them both down so they can escape or he'll kill her. Before anyone can do anything, Wanda and Havok shrink and disappear. Magneto tells everyone that Dr. Doom, Iron Man and the Red Skull got away.
The next days news reports are informing people on how the city is rebuilding after the mass chaos that happened. They received a video filmed by Carnage and the other villains saying that they brainwashed the heroes into being evil. Calling themselves the AXIS of Evil, they took the credit for all the chaos. Falcon watches this and tells the others it's the least they can do to make the world trust the Avengers and X-Men again.
Sabertooth writes in his journal how strange it is that he stayed inverted permanently and can only think of doing heroic things now. As he monologues about human nature, we see that Tony Stark is still his evil self, and that Havok returns with Cyclops and the others, without them knowing that he is still evil. Dr. Doom has the Red Skull imprisoned with a device that blocks his mental powers.The Avengers and the X-Men now stand together to make sure they never to fight again (we'll see how long that lasts....) and Peter Parker is working on making the Carnage memorial statue he promised. Sabertooth concludes his journal saying he knew Wolverine was thought of a monster but he pushed through it to become a hero, and now he wants to do the same.
My Opinions-
And so we've reached the grand finale, and I have to say, what a rush! The only thing that got a bit silly and repetitive was that near the end, it seemed every page ended with someone randomly busting in or saying something off panel making you wonder who's coming. It's like they're trying to work on the spell, off-panel 'wait!!!' and we see someone come in. They get held down, then off panel 'not so fast!!!' and we turn the page to see who said that. Then they're trying to finish the spell again and 'noooooo!!!!!' off panel, again making us turn the page to see who said that. It was cool once or twice but after a while it just got silly.
But anyway, as dangerous as the Marvel villains are, this series showed just how dangerous the Avengers and X-Men are to the world if they did turn evil. While the story ended there are still some heavy consequences, mostly with Iron Man and Havok. While Iron Man wasn't too surprising (I mean, it would suck to cancel the new Superior Iron Man comic after 3 issues), having Havok return to the others pretending to be 'all good now' only to secretly be a bad guy... yeah, that can't be good. Especially if Cyclops would most likely defend him to the ends of the Earth if anyone accuses him of anything fishy.
I do have to say, the inversion really did a number on everybody. The heroes were so evil, they had less qualms about outright killing their enemies than the villains do, and they fought tooth and nail to stay as their evil selves. On the other hand, the villains were heroic enough to do their part to restore order even if now they felt remorse for their past evil deeds and knew they would turn back into monsters if their plan worked.
One thing that didn't make sense to me was Wasp attacking the heroes after she discovered that they stopped the Gene Bomb from going off. After she found out that Carnage stopped a bomb that would have killed her instead of Havok and blasted the hell out of him, I figured she was gonna start helping the good guys. Instead she was still helping Luke and Falcon attack the others and trying to stop them from reversing the process.
It's good to see Falcon as a good guy again though. Again, I don't want him to be remembered as the 'asshole Captain America' since he spent most of his time in the uniform as a brainwashed jerk. Sabertooth as a good guy will be interesting, but what happened to his healing factor? He looked pretty messed up during most of this issue and you would assume he would heal up between panels.
One thing I can point out, looking back after reading Astonishing X-Men, is the hypocrisy of the X-Men and Avengers treating Havok like crap after he did some evil things while still under the influence of the AXIS until he turned good again. Like they completely forgot about them trying to eradicate all of humanity with a X-Gene Bomb and I wish Havok threw that back in their faces.
After an epic battle against the Red Skull that had control over Xavier's mind, all the heroes and villains involved had their personalities changed from good to evil and vice versa. In the final battle to stop the evil X-Men and Avengers, Steve Rogers has a plan to turn things back to normal. Iron Man sends the new Captain America, Sam Wilson, to finish him off and is surprised to find Steve in an armored version of the Captain America outfit holding onto a weakened Red Skull. What will happen now?
This issue opens with a flashback of Wolverine trying to talk Sabertooth out of killing someone, and how Xavier can help find the good in him. Creed says there is no good in him and kills his victim.
Now in current times, Steve laments how he has to protect his worst enemy, the Red Skull from a kill-crazed Sam Wilson. Steve tries to put up the good fight, but without the super soldier serum, he's aged and Sam is eager to to finish both him and the Red Skull off. Sam says that the first time he feels free from all of Steve's rules and regulations and will do anything to keep that freedom.
As Sam slams his shield down onto the original Cap, he fades away proving to be some sort of psychic trickery from the real Red Skull, getting a head start escape with Steve. The Red Skull seems to feel sorry for his evil deeds and wants to help revert the AXIS effect from before.
Back to the battle, Iron Man tells Kluh and Luke Cage to kill all the fallen heroes. Falcon arrives and tells Iron Man that he was right in suspecting that Steve plans to revert everything back to normal and they head off to stop him.
Sabertooth and Mystique are now in bad shape and know the Avengers are coming to kill them. They remember how they first met and Mystique sends Sabertooth to help the heroes turn things back to normal, even if it means they'll be evil again. Rogue suddenly appears and is ready to kill them both. Sabertooth hacks at her gut, giving Mystique time to run. Rogue slams Sabertooth's face into a wall so hard it even exposes his brain and she's ready to finish him off. Spider-Man webs her up before she can do so.
Havok breaks Wasp out of her prison and tells her they have to stop Steve to ensure their happy future. Wasp notices Carnage's remains and realizes that the others stopped the X-Gene bomb from going off, not him. She fries him with her attack and flies off.
Apocalypse laments that his side has lost and soon the Avengers will kill off the X-Men. Deadpool (or at least his head) tells him that he can fix things by bringing the good inside him out. If they kill the Red Skull everything will stay inversed forever. He reminds him that he's really Evan, not Apocalypse, and he can still bring out his true self and save the world.
Meanwhile on the moon, Loki runs with Thor right behind him, eager to kill him with his sacred axe Jarnbjorn. Loki runs off to where Thor's hammer lays after he had lost the ability to lift it (this must have been before the new female Thor took it). Thor spouts out that he never loved him as a brother, nor did their parents. Loki suddenly leaps in and bashes Thor across the face with his mighty hammer.
Steve and the Red Skull arrive with Nomad and Jarvis, and Steve is in bad shape. Red Skull says he can fix this if he can get Dr. Doom and Dr. Strange. Nomad says Strange disappeared, but they have bigger problems now. Just then Kluh and Iron Man bust in and start attacking everybody. Iron Man chokes Red Skull knowing Xavier can hear him and tells him he will build more Stark Sentinels to wipe out any remaining mutant out there. Falcon bashes Steve to the ground and says he's free from the 'garbage' he taught him. Steve says it's not the ideals that he taught him, it was the ideals his father taught him, which stops Sam.
Kluh lifts Nomad and is ready to break him in half. Apocalypse shows up and socks Kluh out. Steve and his team are confused but decide to take this chance to escape with Red Skull. Luke Cage then busts in through a wall next to the jet they were planning to use to escape. Spider-Man and Sabertooth jump in to attack Luke. Steve and rest try to escape in the jet, but Iron Man raises it and crashes it down. Nomad tries to stop him and is slammed to the ground by Iron Man. He then attacks Steve telling him that he likes the way he is now.
Dr. Doom, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Dr. Voodoo all arrive and Magneto tries to kill Iron Man. Red Skull talks Magneto out of it since killing when he saw no other solution was what turned Red Skull into the Red Onslaught in the first place. Magneto recognizes Xavier's idealogy coming from the Red Skull and lets Iron Man live. Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom cast their spell along with the Red Skull to begin the inversion. Havok arrives to stop them saying that he can't handle knowing what he has done, but Sabertooth stops him. Dr. Voodoo also holds Iron Man back who also tried to stop this. Doom, Wanda and Red Skull continue with the spell.
Iron Man says he won't go back to how he was before which is why he was prepared for this. He forms a forcefield around him, Havok and Sabertooth to shield them from the huge energy blast caused by Doom, Wanda and the Red Skull.
On the moon, Loki gloats that he is finally more worthy than Thor since he can now lift the hammer. The energy wave hits them and Loki drops the hammer. Thor seems to be back to normal and much to Loki's dismay, he doesn't remember his brother's moment of triumph.
Elsewhere, Wasp tends to Havok and Luke tends to Sabertooth. Luke is ready to pin Creed down, but he tells him he's still one of the good guys due to Iron Man's forcefield, which means that Havok is still evil. Havok grabs onto Wanda and demands she shrinks them both down so they can escape or he'll kill her. Before anyone can do anything, Wanda and Havok shrink and disappear. Magneto tells everyone that Dr. Doom, Iron Man and the Red Skull got away.
The next days news reports are informing people on how the city is rebuilding after the mass chaos that happened. They received a video filmed by Carnage and the other villains saying that they brainwashed the heroes into being evil. Calling themselves the AXIS of Evil, they took the credit for all the chaos. Falcon watches this and tells the others it's the least they can do to make the world trust the Avengers and X-Men again.
Sabertooth writes in his journal how strange it is that he stayed inverted permanently and can only think of doing heroic things now. As he monologues about human nature, we see that Tony Stark is still his evil self, and that Havok returns with Cyclops and the others, without them knowing that he is still evil. Dr. Doom has the Red Skull imprisoned with a device that blocks his mental powers.The Avengers and the X-Men now stand together to make sure they never to fight again (we'll see how long that lasts....) and Peter Parker is working on making the Carnage memorial statue he promised. Sabertooth concludes his journal saying he knew Wolverine was thought of a monster but he pushed through it to become a hero, and now he wants to do the same.
My Opinions-
And so we've reached the grand finale, and I have to say, what a rush! The only thing that got a bit silly and repetitive was that near the end, it seemed every page ended with someone randomly busting in or saying something off panel making you wonder who's coming. It's like they're trying to work on the spell, off-panel 'wait!!!' and we see someone come in. They get held down, then off panel 'not so fast!!!' and we turn the page to see who said that. Then they're trying to finish the spell again and 'noooooo!!!!!' off panel, again making us turn the page to see who said that. It was cool once or twice but after a while it just got silly.
But anyway, as dangerous as the Marvel villains are, this series showed just how dangerous the Avengers and X-Men are to the world if they did turn evil. While the story ended there are still some heavy consequences, mostly with Iron Man and Havok. While Iron Man wasn't too surprising (I mean, it would suck to cancel the new Superior Iron Man comic after 3 issues), having Havok return to the others pretending to be 'all good now' only to secretly be a bad guy... yeah, that can't be good. Especially if Cyclops would most likely defend him to the ends of the Earth if anyone accuses him of anything fishy.
I do have to say, the inversion really did a number on everybody. The heroes were so evil, they had less qualms about outright killing their enemies than the villains do, and they fought tooth and nail to stay as their evil selves. On the other hand, the villains were heroic enough to do their part to restore order even if now they felt remorse for their past evil deeds and knew they would turn back into monsters if their plan worked.
One thing that didn't make sense to me was Wasp attacking the heroes after she discovered that they stopped the Gene Bomb from going off. After she found out that Carnage stopped a bomb that would have killed her instead of Havok and blasted the hell out of him, I figured she was gonna start helping the good guys. Instead she was still helping Luke and Falcon attack the others and trying to stop them from reversing the process.
It's good to see Falcon as a good guy again though. Again, I don't want him to be remembered as the 'asshole Captain America' since he spent most of his time in the uniform as a brainwashed jerk. Sabertooth as a good guy will be interesting, but what happened to his healing factor? He looked pretty messed up during most of this issue and you would assume he would heal up between panels.
One thing I can point out, looking back after reading Astonishing X-Men, is the hypocrisy of the X-Men and Avengers treating Havok like crap after he did some evil things while still under the influence of the AXIS until he turned good again. Like they completely forgot about them trying to eradicate all of humanity with a X-Gene Bomb and I wish Havok threw that back in their faces.
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