thanekos: Seiga Kaku from Touhou 13, shadowed. (Default)
[personal profile] thanekos posting in [community profile] scans_daily
This week, the Age of X ended with the defeat of its motive force.

It also began in AoX: Universe #2, with the end of another legion's story: that of the mean and nasty fucked up Avengers and their run at Fortress X.

It's not hard to figure out if they took it down, or if they even lived, but the story is still a good one as alternate reality hero-to-antagonist recastings go.



When writer Simon Spurrier confirmed that it was Steve under the mask, and no one else, a lot of people cried foul: the Hulk, Jessica Drew, Iron Man, and Sue Storm, sure!

But Cap, no! No way would Steve countenance concentration camps and sterilization of the genetically different, no matter his circumstances.. right?

Well, #1 tried to explain why he would, using the Phoenix's blowup in Albany: " [She] snubbed surrender and razed Albany in an instant of cosmic rage.. and took with her two thousand of my fellow soldiers. "

#2 takes a similar tack, as the team breaks into Fortress X (with Jessica slitting an inattentive Pyro's throat) while General Frank Castle and the Hulk wait outside.

Doctor Banner's playing control over the headset, to Cap's irritation:

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(Despite Tony being a techno-organic terror, they're still on a first name basis. How nice.)

As they make their way through the in-progress Fortress, tranqing all they meet, they also learn that.. Callisto's senses trump Sue's force fields.

So a melee begins.

(funny thing, considering Namor's presence at the Fortress? A lot of people wanted him to turn up in this, just so he could have a "What the hell, you guys?!" reaction to Steve and Sue.)

And Steve gives in to the exultation of battle:

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(I think that's legitimate glee in the third panel, and petulance in the fourth.)

But now it's time for Steve and friends to see another side of those demonized..

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(Sue, obviously, understands the plight of innocent mutant children.)

Naturally, such a visual pauses the Phalanx-infested man of iron, the killer who never spoke a word yet, the woman who sold her friends and family out, and the great soldier.

Sue's shaken in her belief that mutants need to be controlled: "These aren't military targets!"

Steve still holds on to his, though:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

(Captain America using the "I was just following orders" defense, even to himself.. that's got to have annoyed someone.)

But then a dying Mystique lectures him: "..Anyone special and unpredictable and unique who you can't control.. where does it end, Captain Am.. amer.."

This leads Jessica to opine that "This is wrong", and for Tony to wonder "You have a voice?" in an economical little beat.

So finally, Steve Rogers does out, to the relief of many:

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It's a bit pat, I have to say, turning Steve and friends around just because they saw some scared kids.. but I'm not yet sure there's any other way you could have swung it in 21 pages.

(And besides, if they weren't this decent, would Reaper have taken Cap?)

Of course, General Castle's been listening in via Tony, and he is not happy.

Frank activates an override in him, very nearly causing him to repulsor the kids, and all Steve can do is get him first (which Tony accepts: "Not me. Help them.").

General Castle is entirely nonplussed, though, breaking out a monologue:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

(It's interesting to contrast Frank and Steve here; I'd never have thought the former to ever hold strong enough opinions about mutantkind's worth, but it's all in the world around, eh?)

From there, things proceed as expected: the remaining Avengers die stopping the Hulk (whose lack of redemption is understandable; why would this Banner forgive mutants for their role in his creation, really?) and Reaper takes a dying Cap in.

(I'm oddly amused at the speculation that any uncharacteristic competence that she had in AoX can be attributed to having Steve's skillset up in her..)

About the only loose end is Ghost Rider; guess Spurrier had a reason for not telling us much about him, which I have to say was very honest in retrospect.

(Though I do like to imagine two endings, in a sort of post-credit fashion; either him having just beat up Chamber and friends somewhere near the Grand Canyon, or a slightly perturbed Mephisto appearing to Jono: "Looking for a job?")

There's also a backup, featuring Dazzler and mutant hunter Stephen Strange: the twist is one you can see coming (though it does make me imagine Strange and Wong, somewhere down the road, doing that one scene from Schindler's List.. You know the one.)

Date: 2011-05-02 12:00 am (UTC)
icon_uk: (Default)
From: [personal profile] icon_uk
I'm not sure OOC really can be said to be a problem in AoX because I think that any OOC aspects can be assigned to Legion rewriting everyones memories and experiences pretty much exactly as he wanted them to be, regardless of the originals.

Tony being TO is a good example, and look at Cypher, his new origin had Doug's mind dying in the explosion caused by Warlock's arrival on earth and Warlock's personality being in charge of the remaining body.

Date: 2011-05-02 12:12 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] jlbarnett
however they justify it I'm not sure I'd ever allow Simon Spurrier near the real Captain America

Date: 2011-05-02 05:57 am (UTC)
schala_kid: Stephanie Brown as Batgirl (stephanie)
From: [personal profile] schala_kid
This.

Date: 2011-05-02 01:50 am (UTC)
tsunamiwombat: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tsunamiwombat
To be fair to cop, if Mystique said NO STOP i'd immediatly shoot her too, because it obviously means she's got a sniper lining up a shot on you.

It's fucking mystique, people.

Date: 2011-05-02 04:49 am (UTC)
proteus_lives: (Default)
From: [personal profile] proteus_lives
Trufax.

Date: 2011-05-02 05:45 am (UTC)
mrstatham: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mrstatham
Not in the AOX world, though. The Avengers of this world have no precedent for what she's like, and a shoot-first mentality when you don't even know what she's telling you to stop for is pretty horrid.

Date: 2011-05-02 05:46 am (UTC)
tsunamiwombat: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tsunamiwombat
'Shoot Mystique First' transcends genrea's and universalities, IMO.

She was probably secretly selling out mutant children to the authority anyway.

Date: 2011-05-02 01:32 pm (UTC)
shadowpsykie: Information (Default)
From: [personal profile] shadowpsykie
i don't know, she was decent in Excaliber (AoA)

Date: 2011-05-02 03:18 pm (UTC)
crabby_lioness: (Default)
From: [personal profile] crabby_lioness
Mystique was decent in our universe before Destiny died. It's only after the death of her partner that she's gone off the rails.

Date: 2011-05-02 03:19 pm (UTC)
crabby_lioness: (Default)
From: [personal profile] crabby_lioness
Anyone who thinks Rogue's use of good strategy was sudden and unexpected hasn't paid attention to what Carey's been doing with her for years now.

Date: 2011-05-02 08:51 pm (UTC)
schala_kid: Slowpoke Flash (slowpoke)
From: [personal profile] schala_kid
When writer Simon Spurrier confirmed that it was Steve under the mask, and no one else, a lot of people cried foul: the Hulk, Jessica Drew, Iron Man, and Sue Storm, sure!

But Cap, no! No way would Steve countenance concentration camps and sterilization of the genetically different, no matter his circumstances.. right?


Well Tony was definitely not Tony (thanks to the phalanx), Hulk is a character that's very erratic in his behavior, Jessica Drew (as much as I love her) doesn't really have much of a definite personality ever since Bendis brought her back.

And Sue had major reservations about killing innocent mutants and wanted just to get the ones that were causing trouble, but I still wondered what she was doing with this team then.


As for Steve, the comic is pretty much "What if the X-Men never formed" and from what I seen it seems to imply that everything else in the Marvel Universe keep going its course (the changes of course being what the mutants influenced). Which means Steve up until being defrosted was the same guy, which I cannot reconcile with this version of Steve. I've seen AUs were Steve is radically different person for the very reason of having a very different life from the start and I have no problem with that.

And while I did like the part when Steve said he wasn't going to murder anyone because he didn't perceive them as a threat (and was going to do it unless he had to), the whole getting his jollies from violence was weird and not like him. Then there's the part with Mystique's speech which I have very mixed feelings about, but I did like that after all of that he decided that he was done with Frank and the anti-mutant BS (and pretty much acted like Steve afterward, even his words to Reaper and the other mutants).

(Captain America using the "I was just following orders" defense, even to himself.. that's got to have annoyed someone.)

Mainly because Steve was never a follow-orders type of guy, which is why he and Bucky sometimes got into trouble with their superiors during their WWII days and why he became Nomad, and why he opposed the registration act. If he was a all about following orders none of that would have had been a problem for him.

All in all this wasn't a bad story, I actually really liked it and it was way better than I expected.

Date: 2011-05-03 09:48 pm (UTC)
cypherfdp: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cypherfdp
So Sue is dead? A pity, they could have used Franklin to pull something interesting, assuming he's a mutant here.

Sue's involvement

Date: 2011-05-03 11:32 pm (UTC)
capt_satellite: (Default)
From: [personal profile] capt_satellite
In the first issue, they covered the Baxter Building being raided as a secret hideaway for mutants...rather like the Dutch Resistance did in WWII. I think that scene was there to imply that is Sue is there under duress, because they are holding the fate of someone near and dear to her (Franklin, most probably) over her head to guarantee her fealty to the cause, willing or not.

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