Avengers- X-Men- Eternals- AXE- Judgment Day # 2

 By Mark Rodriguez 

The leader of the Eternals plans to wipe out mutants since they have mastered immortality due to never-ending cloning technology on their living island of Krakoa. The Avengers find out about the upcoming war and capture Sersi to get some answers. Druig announces to the world how he will use giants to find and kill all the mutants. Ajak and Makkari arrive with the captured Mr. Sinister wanting help from the Avengers. To stop this upcoming war, they will need to create a god.

The story opens with different civilians from different parts of the world reacting to the worldwide message sent from Druid via their mobile devices. Some act with indifference and others act with concern or worry. 

Meanwhile on Krakoa, several members of the X-Men fight off the army of demonic monsters called The Hex that were sent after them. Exodus manages to knock one of them off the island. Cyclops feels the team needs more help as suddenly Captain America's shield clashes against one of the monsters. 

Captain America and the Avengers arrive to help. Exodus says they should leave but Magik welcomes the assistance. Cyclops welcomes Captain America as he says the world can watch them stand together while Tony is working on a peaceful solution. 

Tony works with Ajak and Makkari as he says Reed with be as green as Bruce with envy when they find out he was able to reanimate a god. Mr. Sinister realizes his role in all of this and offers so help since Earth is his planet too. 

Cyclops tells Cap to help get all the non-fighter mutants to the safety vaults. He explains that the Eternals wish to destroy their method of resurrection, and if they do that they will win. Cap asks Scott why they still keep secrets after everything they've been through. Cyclops after everything they've been through, how could they not.

Jean tells the others that Namor helped her keep one of the minotaurs at the bottom of the sea. Captain Marvel has an idea regarding the one they're currently fighting with. The flying heroes all blast the flying Eternal, that gets in the way of the fiery one that Namor was fighting. 

Meanwhile in the Philippines earthquakes and tidal waves run rampant. Cyclops tells the Avengers to go and deal with the fallout, it will be one less problem for them to deal with. Exodus see the Avengers leave and he tells the council that they are abandoning them. 

Nightcrawler sees this through Destiny's visions and says this is unfair. Destiny tells him that they have always stood alone. 

Tony, Ajak, Makkari and Sinister work on reconstructing the fallen Celestial the Avengers have fought and slain a few years ago. 

The X-Men finally break through the armor of the giant Eternal creature known as Syne. Exodus flies in to destroy it with his telekinetic energy as the creature also blasts him with her energy. A huge explosion occurs as both Exodus and Syne are now gone. Nightcrawler says there are five left to go, all they need is hope. Cyclops says Hope is secure, as he takes what Kurt said literally. 

The mutants are revived, there is a currently a queue of 15 million to bring back but currently the ones that can fight take priority. Exodus is born with his mind as it was with its last back up. He is briefed and returns to battle but doesn't remember the final moments of his death against Syne. Meanwhile Syne falls to her death. 

The civilians watch as the war unfolds via the news and forth. Of all of them, Arjun, a civilian from Mumbai suddenly drops dead, his life taken so that Syne could live again. The secret nobody knows about the Eternals is that a mortal life is exchanged every time they resurrect themselves.

Meanwhile Phastos has added the final touches and they are ready to revive the Celestial. Tony asks if they are sure about this. Ajak says the most important part of the god is its soul and they were sure to make it like them. Mr. Sinister asks why he couldn't add some thoughts to margin and says if he can at least press the on button. Ajak says they won't want the first chapter of their god's story to start with his vile touch. Sinister says they should hurry it up since mutants are dying. 

Scott tells Jean that the vaults are secure and the X-Men have cut the Hex's power supplies. One problem though is that the green Eternal is disrupting the gates. Just then Syne returns and this time she intends to destroy the entire island. Cyclops says if they move to stop that one it leaves the rest of the Hex to attack the vaults. Nightcrawler prays as all hope seems lost. 

The reborn Celestial arrives and orders Syne to cease and she stands down. The Hex leave Krakoa and Tony says the plan worked. Ajak says they have done good work today and created a just god. Just then the Celestial speaks to the people of Earth. 

The Celestial says the people of Earth are bickering children who have acted with unrelenting unkindness to one another. He declares today to be their Judgment Day. The world has 24 hours to justify itself, everyone will be judged individually and as a collective. If the just outnumber the wicked, but if's the other way around there will be no tomorrow. 

My thoughts- 

Well, it looks like while trying to fix things, the heroes made things a whole lot worse. The comic was ok and the Hex had some cool designs, kinda EVA-ish. They spent a good while trying to break past their defenses to be able to damage them, I wonder if that was a sly homage to the Angel's AT Field in that anime.

I just wish some of the fighting was a little easier to tell what the hell was going on. The whole part with what I assume is everyone hitting the flying Eternal at the same time while getting in the way of Namor's fight took a while to figure out. Maybe less focus on cramming as many characters as you can and more focus on a clearer battle scene.

I'm assuming the fight with the Avengers helping the X-Men fight the Hex is expanded on in the tie-ins or something. I'm assuming this was a decently times battle but it literally felt like the Avengers dropped in, said hello and then were told go help elsewhere within 5 or so minutes. Yeah, I know, comic book time and all, but at least some of them should have stayed for the remainder of the issue.

The random civilians were a good reminder of what it's like to be a regular joe living in the Marvel Universe with its constant alien invasions and world ending threats. The woman from the anti-mutant protest from the last issue returns and while she is angry with death of her child at the hands of mutants, she also didn't want an all-out mutant genocide either. Then we have poor Arjun who suddenly drops dead, never knowing he dying so a giant monster can live on to continue to kill others. We know the secret of the Eternals resurrections from the earlier issues but it hits more now that we have a name and face to one of the random people that can drop dead at any moment whenever an Eternal dies and comes back.

One more thing to mention is that it's funny how the X-Men just seem to die every other day now that they have the ability to come back to life whenever they want. It's like Dragonball Z where Piccolo is the only guy the bad guys conveniently blast his arm off since he is the only guy that can actually grow it back. I guess we can chock it up to the X-Men just being way more reckless because somewhere in the back of their minds they know death doesn't matter because they can always come back. They now have more than one life to live. Assuming living on as clones with downloaded memories even counts.

The final thing to bring up is that Cyclops mentioned the resurrection deal to Captain America and not much happened. I know there was a big battle going on, but we were to assume this was supposed to be a big deal. Maybe they'd argue and agree to continue the discussion after the fight with the giant death monsters, but here it pretty much felt like 'you guys are immortal now? cool'.

We'll see what happens next issue. I'm going to assume there's going to be a lot of finger-pointing and passing the blame the cause of the recent events. The Avengers for reviving a god, or the X-Men for playing god that led to the events of all this to begin with. We'll see.