Review: Avengers vs X-Men #2

Script: Jason Aaron

Pencils: John Romita Jr.

The faecal matter has well and truly collided with the cooling unit. After arriving on Utopia at the end of the last issue, Captain America asked Cyclops, in his most reasonable tone, to release Hope into Avengers custody. Sadly Cyclops didn’t seem to be in the mood for reasonable dialogue. Or, for that matter, non-violent solutions of any kind. Let the battle begin.

It struck me that Cyclops is coming across as pretty unsympathetic and unnecessarily reactionary at this point. Which is fine except in some ways it does make the motive for this war a little hard to believe. I mean, he just completely flew off the handle at the first suggestion the Avengers wanted to take Hope. That just doesn’t seem like the Scott Summers we all know. Having said that, Scott’s aberrant behaviour has been a long-running theme in X-Men and is the reason behind his fallout with Wolverine (who, incidentally, looks to have taken the Avengers’ side in all this). So I guess it’s all in line with recent events. One has to wonder if this whole story line will end with Cyclops having some kind of psychotic incident or nervous breakdown. Perhaps he already has.

In charge of the script this time is Jason Aaron who also writes Wolverine and the X-Men. Aaron is one of my personal favourite writers and here he brings a touch of humour that saves some of the more grandiose scenes from becoming unintentional parody. I have to admit that I enjoyed the scripting of this issue far more than last month’s written by Brian Michael Bendis.

John Romita Jr. once again takes on pencilling duties in this issue. I absolutely loved the panel of Magneto reflected in Iron Man’s helmet which neatly foreshadows this month’s VS (a mini-series running alongside AvX) that focuses on the battle between these two characters. As a side note, I also liked Hope drawn in a classic ‘Jean Grey as Phoenix’ pose on the cover. It was a nice touch.

Overall this was a great issue and I am very much looking forward to what happens next month!  9/10

Bernice Watson