Avengers story by: Simon Spurrier (writer), Khoi Pham (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Sonia Oback (colors)
Spider-Man story by: Jim McCann (writer), Paul Davidson (art), Antonio Fabela (colors)
Entire issue: Joe Sabino (letters), Daniel Ketchum (editor)
The Story: Those following the Age of X story have seen what is going on inside Fortress X, but what about the “heroes” living on the outside? Are there Avengers and Spider-Man in this alt-world?
What’s Good: Not a whole lot, to be honest. The best thing about this issue is that it is NOT required reading for those following Age of X. There is nothing here that could be called vital and that is now these tie-ins should be. Unfortunately, it also makes them pretty passable.
The best part of the Avengers story is simply these alternate versions of Marvel heroes and villains that we know and love. It’s always kinda fun to look at a characters in an alternate universe and see how he/she is mostly the same, but different in some very fundamental ways. All of these characters are similar enough that you can say, “Ohhh…. Look at how Iron Man is different!”
Similarly, learning a tiny bit more about this alternate universe is kinda interesting. Of course, the concept of a universe where society REALLY hates the mutants isn’t new, but it is always entertaining to see what sort of trigger caused society to go bat-shit bananas on the mutants.
Probably the story highlight of the issue was the shorter, Spider-Man back-up that shows Spidey together with a certain redhead after society has determined that even altered DNA-types like Spidey need to be eliminated. How far do you think Spidey would go to protect those that he loves?
What’s Not So Good: Well, despite the fact that these alternate versions of our heroes are kinda interesting, it is hard to get too charged up about them when you know that they’re short-timers. Surely they’ll be around for Age of X Universe #2 and might make an appearance in the final issues of the crossover in either X-Men Legacy or New Mutants, but that’s it. It doesn’t look like Age of X is going to be such a classic crossover that we’ll be revisiting this world ever again, so it is pretty easy to have an attitude like, “Big whoop! Another alt-version of Hulk where he can’t control himself.”
I also thought there were some logical inconsistencies in this alternate universe. If the powers-that-be have decided that even folks like Spidey with altered DNA are a risk because they could pass on their mutated genes, why do the alt-Avengers have Sue Storm on the team? I guess we don’t get into her origin in this issue, but it was heavily implied that she is basically the same as the 616 version of Sue and doesn’t Sue have altered DNA? So why isn’t Sue Storm being rounded up?
And, the art just wasn’t very strong anywhere in this issue. I’ve seen better work from both Pham and Davidson, but in both cases their linework looked kinda rush and incomplete, leaving the colorist a lot of heavy lifting to do. This results in the heavily rendered, colored in highlights and contours that I just hate.
Finally, I still just have a logical problem with this world. It is presented as an alternate United States and it’s just hard to imagine anything that would cause our society to engage in genocide, internments and mass sterilizations. I know it’s fun to pick on the good, old USA, but why not set these genocide stories in parts of the world that actually have genocide like Africa and Asia?
Conclusion: This just wasn’t very good. There are some interesting things here, but this feels really tacked onto the Age of X crossover. On the plus side, there is nothing here that is vital to Age of X, so you can skip it if you’re just following the main story.
Grade: D+
-Dean Stell
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