The two biggest teams in the Marvel universe are pitted against one another,
but is it a recipe for success, or just Civil War under a different name?
WOOF WOOF! Hey guys it's me Marcus AKA the Maddogg and we're back with another video! Written by
Bendis, Fraction, Aaron, Brubaker and Hickman, and illustrated by Cho, Romita Jr., Copiel and Kubert,
the first official issue of avengers vs x-men was published by marvel comics in april of 2012
with the 12th and final issue being published in december the same year and the phoenix force is
back with the x-men believing this signals rebirth for mutant kind and the avengers remembering just
how destructive of a force this is war ensues and no one's left on the sidelines but what happens
when the line between good and evil and right and wrong is blue and can either team make a decisive
enough move to prevent destruction across the planet it's such a weird trip when it comes to
the arts i've made it no secret that i'm not the biggest fan of jonometer junior's modern style but
his daredevil stuff still banks but the one thing that i always knew about him was that he can bring
his art out consistently so when i got to issue one i wasn't thrilled to see that it was him on
the title but i knew that it could probably be him throughout the entire thing but halfway through
you've got copiol and kuber taking over and it's definitely stepped up a notch so it's weird that i
got the thing that i didn't think that i would get but i was happier for it and the more confusing
thing for me because i haven't read this since it was originally coming out in single issues is the
issue zebra was illustrated by frank church so i thought that he was going to be the lead for
the entire series and i had high hopes no pun intended and this gave me such a sleek classic
yet polished vibe reminiscent of many ways of stewie timing and just a few pages in we get
i'll be back in a minute but just touching on with me to junior i really can't fault the guy's work
ethic the dude's definitely a legend and i can't take that away from him but there was definitely
a turning point during his career and avengers 3's x-men came out during that time his art's overly
2d and flat and all of his characters look like the based off 70s star wars toys the arms just
always seem to move in this way nothing ever feels proportional either and the depth of field just
always feels off because there's parts in this boot where it looks like a puppet show and this
is a minor nitpick but everybody's just always got the same mouth and they're always grimacing but
they've always got the same perfect white teeth and the biggest fault of this especially when it
comes to this title is the action has no weight a character can be blasted by cyclops at point-blank
range but it's got the same impact as if a ghost of wind hit them and don't get me wrong there
are moments of greatness that are scattered in between all these criticisms where his expression
and composition could be up there with some of the best but unfortunately they're just few
and far between and to give him credit when i was looking at his wide shots or we got landscapes or
aircraft or just some of the bigger moments these are always great and he does energy stuff
great as well when he's showing the phoenix force you've just got this sense of magnitude and if an
attack affects an entire city there's a great sense of impact or even when he's just doing a
big spider web but that one really shouldn't come as a surprise and with him being able to do those
bigger moments so well it just surprises me that he doesn't translate to the small scale i've also
read the argument in the past that it depends on who's doing the coloring and that might be true
it's constantly it feels like there's missing shading and that might be the reason why his
positions always just look weird but damn as soon as it hits a halfway mark and kopiel takes over
it really steps it up we're in utopia everything feels so vast in detail magneto's helmet shiny
colossus is shiny and yeah still get distracted by that kind of thing all of his characters were
textbook as well it was great to see him doing work on thor again there was montages and group
shots and a lot of me nitpicks that i had jeremy house of m review were solved here and this was
also where the action was at its best the fights were more widespread than just whoever was in the
foreground the landscape switched up so often that he always felt fresh and it's just what
i come to expect with a title like this however he is switched out for a couple of issues with
kubert and the change isn't that jarring and what i liked best about kubu was his paneling it was
so dynamic and no two pages looked the same and it just looked like he left everything on the
page the only criticism that i've got is there was one double page spread where the perspective just
really messed with my brain which isn't really that difficult but still yet characters in weird
positions that you feel like they shouldn't have been and they were all looking like they were the
exact same distance away from each other and there is also something about his style that
just reminds me of 90s art but i really can't put my finger on it so the art definitely got
more exciting for me the longer that this book went on which is great because sometimes a boot
can fizzle out towards the end and regardless of who was doing the art the action at bare minimum
was always engaging which is the key component for something like avengers vs x-men versus also
had a variety of great artists as well there's a lot that i really did enjoy and if i had to pick
my favorite i'd probably go with the one from daredevil vs psylocke this just always looked
phenomenal there was so much detail but there were so many artists that worked on this tie-in series
that i could probably do an entirely separate video you might have a different favorite than
me and it's something that you can compare in the upcoming omnibus which you can already order from
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just copy and paste them from the description down below and you can use these codes as many
times as you like now let's not beat around the bush this event was dumb and it was also exactly
what i needed it tries its hardest to act like it's this deep emotional universe spanning event
that's going to have lasting repercussions for years to come but the only real people that this
had any impact on was the x-men in all honesty this event eventually just been called marvel vs
x-men because that's pretty much all it became and i actually enjoyed this more now reading
it 10 years after it came out than when it was originally coming out in single issues and that's
mostly because of the fact that anything that did have an impact in this series has already pretty
much been written out and the strange thing is that it's kind of the best of both worlds if you
want a story with a structured beginning middle and end then it is here and it's also entertaining
even if a lot of the character motivations just don't add up but if you also wanted the comic
book equivalent of emptying out your toy box when you're a kid or maybe when you're a grown
adult and you're still buying them like i am and making random heroes fight even if it didn't make
much sense then there's an entire spin-off tie-in series that's just called verses and this acted
as a really nice break from the main event but i do also think it's essential to this reading
it just had matchups that were fun and dumb and even from the introduction page in each issue it's
very clear that this isn't taking itself seriously and one of the issues that i had is that halfway
through verses it seems like they just give up because they don't tell you where that issue
is placed within the main event it is something that i'm hoping that the omnibus solves and i did
read this on the marvel unlimited app even though i've got the hardcover here and it's got a reading
order but also it does is categorize it by series instead of where you're supposed to read each
issue it's interesting though because i picked this up just because i fancied reading it but
it acts like a bouquet to house of them we pick up and scarlet witch's back and the world still
hasn't forgiven it all the heroes still don't trust it this plotline is laid on quite thick in
the final issue but at its core it remains focused on the main thing the avengers versus the x-men
speaking of which this book delivers on its title the group fights in this were great especially in
the second half of the series when there's a greater sense of scope and perspective however
the more interesting one-on-one fights we're reserved for verses which is why i say that i feel
like you have to read that title which is a bit of a shame because besides wolverine vs captain
america and one of the early issues the main fights that i remember come from versus and it
kind of overshadows the main event a little bit if you're just looking for an action-packed fight and
that isn't necessarily a negative because versus really did need a selling point and i could easily
jump between the two series but just highlighted one of the major problems with this overall event
there are massive gaps in the main story issue two ends with the cliffhanger of thor and the secret
avengers preparing to fight in space and then this has picked up in issue 4 and the battle's already
over i get it event comics need to allow openings so the other series that are connected can pick
up the story elsewhere which should never have a negative impact on the main title or it should
be like something like annihilation and make sure that all those separate series are essential reads
and included the entire time because my favorite events are the ones where i could just read the
main series and still get a full story every time that i read helps enhance the experience to add
to that each issue starts with a breakdown of where every character is and i couldn't
remember what half of these people had done i remember the big moments but there was times when
a character would jump between the two teams and it feels like that should be an important moment
but it just wasn't sometimes it wouldn't even get a mention and it'd just be like nothing's
happened this also could just be because of the sheer numbers of characters that are in this and
it did make sure they zeroed in its focus on a few of them and it managed to do a surprisingly good
job at showing the impact this would have on some of the established relationships they were placed
in direct conflict with each other and it was really nice to see and i wish that was something
that could have been explored more with other characters what's best about the black panther
and stormbit was even when the road was less bumpy it still kept their relationship strained they
couldn't just forget what had happened the fact that they were fighting each other and it made
me want to see where it picks up after this event because this was one of the plot elements that i
found most interesting and i wish they would have gone further with wolverine in this book he is an
avenger but at heart he's always going to be a part of the x-men yet there's only a few moments
where they really highlight the struggle that he's going through again i don't know if i need to read
about five or so spin-off issues but i didn't get it in this main event and arguably that could have
been the perfect emotional call for this story now this is a 12 issue event and there's a lot going
on so it might be easy to forget something or especially some of those smaller moments but four
punches are kid in this and i'm okay with that another thing that i was disappointed with was
iron man setting most of this out his best fight was arguably in the first issue of vs which takes
place in issue two of the main event and he does have a real big impactful moment at the end but
he was one of the characters i was most excited to see in this and i couldn't remember a lot of
what he'd done from when i read this 10 years ago and i think the reason is because he didn't do a
lot it would have been interesting to see how we'd changed since civil war especially since
this was only shortly after siege so the avengers were only really just coming back together and him
once again being in a fight against some of his friends some of the people that he respects most
could have been really interesting for this story and i feel like it's a massive missed opportunity
to just pretty much have him mooching about also you might already know but i'm a power rangers kid
at heart so dumb army sign me up so it pains me to say this but i hated the flying tactical gear
in issue 6. what was the point in this why did the shield need protection this book also came out in
that weird time where companies were just trying to figure out how they can incorporate ipads and
iphones into everything so there's these infinite issues that are shoved in here and there that are
pretty much the equivalent of when you're a kid and you'd get like a wad of post-it notes and
you draw something in the top corner so that you could flip it through and have some kind of sort
of moving story and it just slowed the boot down so after the first couple i got quite bored and
i kept skipping these another thing i wasn't a massive fan of hope like i didn't dislike it but
this book really forces you to care a large part of this event is pretty much just to capture the
flag task but instead of a flag it's an actual person but she only became vital in the final
issue and i think they just spent so much time focused on her and the teams reacting to her but
he could have cut all that down a little bit and had some more interesting fights in the main event
in saying that considering the name of this boot we don't really spend a lot of time with the x-men
we got a bit in the middle when something happens that changes the dynamic that i can't really say
in here without getting into spoilers but i just wanted more colossus and that brings me onto my
biggest disappointment with this title is that i really thought it was going to be more balanced
i wanted to be put in a position where i didn't side with either the x-men or the avengers and i
could see where both of them are coming from and when it kicked off it seemed like they both had a
really good argument for why they were standing the ground but the longer that this title went
on it was clear that we were being forced to side with the avengers sure yes it's probably because
it was released in 2012 at the same time when the first movie was coming out was just a shame
because in the couple years before this mutant kinda just lost so much it had been used since
house of them but it's clear that there's still a lasting effect and this was the first glimmer
of hope that they'd had for a while again no pun intended but the x-men in cyclops in particular
took things so far that i couldn't get behind them and it was clear that the avengers needed
to be the one to save the day and stop them and i just feel like with so many different writers
coming from a variety of different titles and understanding these characters from different
angles it could have been more nuanced and not so one-sided which i think is integral when you've
got two heroes being pitted against each other and the anti-narc itself felt quite big in grand
scale which was needed for a title like this but the actual 12th and final issue just felt a bit
meh there's way too much flashback in this it goes a little bit too far over in the deep end and the
resolution itself feels like a slap in the face to everyone but two characters and it's disappointing
because a character gets reintroduced someone that we hadn't seen throughout this main event
you know an integral avengers member but then that character does nothing of any major significance
you don't give them that big payoff or a real explanation why they needed to come in this late
into the story so it almost feels a bit pointless bringing them back in saying that the overall
build up throughout the series was great and it feels like this could have been one of those
titles that just blows its load really early on especially because of the fact that the x-men and
the avengers fight each other in issue 2. and for as silly as the plot was it did gradually
build there were really interesting twists and developments and there weren't many moments where
i had an opportunity to be bored and just overall the pace was worked out really well conversations
didn't dominate the action and there wasn't so many fights that i forgot what the plot was
and it's weird seeing this get such a bad rap since it was released i don't really hear a lot
of people talking about this with any kind of a claim like yeah it's not the greatest
event ever and it does have its shortcomings but unfortunately most of those shortcomings
are actually spoilers so this is your final spoiler warning if you don't want anything ruined
i'd recommend skipping to the final verdict but i hated what they did to cyclops when it gets to
the stage that magneto's saying that you've gone a bit too far maybe you need to rein it in and it is
just a shame because it felt so out of character for cyclops to just forget what the phoenix force
could really do and at a certain point it became avengers and x-men vs cyclops and i can't lie
cyclops is the least intimidating dude like of all time even over somebody like jimmy olsen even with
divisor i wouldn't be afraid to fight him but if it was somebody like colossus well i'd still fight
him but less confidently so wish this event could have found a way of developing its story without
needing to push cyclops under the bus and making him the big bad of the entire thing on top of that
i also hated cyclops killing xavier i get that the phoenix had taken over him and we saw what
that had done to gene grey but this just still felt like one step just way too far and what's
worse is that they doubled down once the phoenix falls left in that final face to face with captain
america and wolverine he was still talking like he did everything that you wanted to at which point
you can't just blame it on the phoenix force and i feel like this is something that just completely
ruined cyclops okay maybe that helps me understand why people don't like this event so much and don't
get me wrong i like the novelty of the phoenix 5. i thought it was an interesting development
i liked how it also wasn't just an entirely negative thing but we just didn't get a lot
of time there to really see the positive impact that this phoenix 5 could have before they all
just started trying to get each other's powers and i feel like there could have been a lot more story
to explore there and i said this in my house of m review but i just love that no matter what happens
hawkeye will always still be the guy that will point an arrow with anybody and isn't afraid
to fire and in the spoiler-free section i talked about them having this big moment where character
was reintroduced and of course i'm talking about mr hulk yep mr bruce himself came back he was in
his cave of sadness which kind of sounds like the place where i'm at in life and the build up to it
was great that you saw captain america talking to somebody that wasn't in the panel and i remember
wondering who it was because we had red hulk throughout this i remember him throughout jeff
loeb's run and i loved when i reviewed that so it wasn't really yearning for him but i was happy
when it was revealed to be him it's just a shame that like i said this didn't really turn the tide
of anything it still just became about hope and scarlet witch finding a way to destroy the phoenix
force so we kind of feel like they just had that moment for fan service but didn't really know
where they were going where these and like i said about the ending it was just those two characters
coming together and everybody else felt pretty irrelevant they'd put up a bit of a fight and i'm
sure that that did help to turn the tide a little bit but from the very beginning you could have
just had hope and scarlet witch come together and it feels like nothing would have gone wrong and
like i said i hated the amount of flashbacks that were in this final issue because you just saw them
too arguing even though you knew that they were going to work together anyway this is my final
verdict and sometimes the title of an event can promise more than the boot can deal ever something
like avengers vs x-men would evoke a wide range of possibilities in any comic fans mind which is
something that this book tries to live up to i had a great time with it but it does still fall
short of the highs that were reached during house of m because the plot that facilitates the battles
takes the easy route of just making the mutants the enemies again a good number of the exciting
and key moments are in the tie-ins and neglected in the main event and the art although it does
peek towards the end starts off like it's just a bunch of unfinished pages but first and foremost
comics are supposed to be a form of entertainment and in the 10 years since avx the x-men have been
redeemed a lot of the repercussions of this have been washed away by the countless events that
followed it so at a base level and read outside of continuity this is just a dumb fun blockbuster
type of event that features the two biggest teams over at marvel it is pretty much just civil war
with a different name and different alliances but i never feel like it's trying to take itself too
seriously so if you're okay with the x-men being the bad guys and you just want a rollercoaster
ride then this is definitely worth a read but you have to make sure that you read the full thing
but for shia entertainment valuable loan i'm going to give this a decent enough score
of 70 percent woof wood so that's the video and hopefully you enjoyed it but until next
time just make sure that you stay safe and stay mad all you dogs woof see the next video