Is Axis a bigger flop than Fear Itself?

[CyclopsWasRight]

Axis COULD be fine, but there isn't any plot development. Everything is happening off screen. This is an event that would work well as a year long deal, focusing on the X-Men's rise, the Scarlet Witch's dirty work against Doom, Steve Rogers' team doing espionage and actually making us CARE about this lame Astonishing Avengers team (which would be better if it was made up of members like Sting Ray and US Agent. Doom has the right idea).

[Mark]

Can we ever truly know whether or not these events are a success? Has marvel ever come out after an event and said "Ok, that was bad, we blew it, the story was horrible an no one bought it." Because if they have I've never seen that interview.

[jackolover]

Axis to me is at this point just kind of mediocre & in no way comes close to the level of crap that was Fear Itself. Also to all the Fear Itself defenders out there I say I'll grant you that individual opinions are going to vary from person BUT the book was damn near universally panned by all the well known comic review sites & I don't think it's any exaggeration to say individual readers(non site reviewers) opinion were lopsidedly negative compared to the positive.


So yes internet opinions should not be the only ones that should be taken into consideration when opinions on stuff like this comes up BUT I think there comes a point when you can only dismiss so much and acknowledge that the overall consensus appears to be that Fear Itself sucks.

Don't try and defend your opinion. Its just an opinion. There is wholesale negativity shown on the Internet so getting your evidence from that is misleading.

[jackolover]

I of course can't prove it now but I recall looked over the spoiler threads for fear itself in the old cbr forum a while before it was revamped and I recall bring SHOCKED at how many people liked it as it came out considering it's reputation now.

That sounds to me like the previous universe, "the old cbr forum". I wonder who is Galactus who survived the old universe?

I will say on the subject of the heading, that Fraction and Aaron have a less intensity and impact than other writers in nature of these events. It requires a sort of shock value element to get people to rate an event. Remender had the credentials to make AXIS a shocking event, but it turns into a comedy instead, trying to make heroes look inverted, when we know in 3 issues the inversions don't stick. It needed to fester over 12 months so we know Marvel are serious, but they do a shortened version or reverse Dark Reign.

[somebody]

Personally, I'm enjoying Axis better than Fear Itself -- but that's just a greater-than comparison. Neither events are/have blown my socks off or warranted a purchase when my bud let's me read his stash. Both series are eerily similar. Bad guy messes with emotion and makes characters act out-of-the-norm? Check. Black Hulk? Check. Although, AXIS is a bit more fun in tone. Fear Itself was just dreadfully depressing. Both as a story and a reader.

I think the bigger issue here is that Marvel keeps pumping up stories to be events. Fear Itself was meant to be a Cap/Thor crossover but Marvel wanted an event and the quality suffered. AXIS was supposed to be the endcap to V.1 of Uncanny Avengers. Marvel wanted an event and it's very scatterbrained. Infinity was supposed to be just an arc of Avengers but Marvel wanted an event and it was very padded. Most of these events come off like they could have been condensed, at the very least. To Remender's credit, he is using humor and lots of plot points, even if they are just short segments. It feels fresher than the other two, but it's still not good.

I just think Marvel should kind of downplay the explosion of story arcs into events. Original Sin, while not my cup of tea because it nerfed two of my favs (Nick Sr. and The Watcher) at least felt like an event. It was a story that was built outside of any one title and as such felt more significant. I guess you could say the same for some of the bigger events like Civil War and AvX. They didn't really derive the story from an existing title and blow it up, which seems to be Marvel's newer trend to these event books. Then again, Fear Itself didn't blow up from Cap or Thor and was still a mess. It's a tough spot because events sell, but it just feels like the magic is gone.

I'm looking forward to Secret Wars though, because it actually feels like an event. Not an inflated story arc.

[jackolover]

Oops, wrong thread.

[Batavenger]

I think the problem is that the "Big Events" are so close together and frequent you don't have time to really digest it before being choked with another major event. And that's from not only Marvel you have Dc and Valiant too!

[Taral-DLOS]

So I, for one, tend to enjoy event books (I had fun with Infinity, Age of Ultron, Battle of the Atom, and while Original Sin wasn't my favourite, it had some cool elements; back-read Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Siege not too long ago and enjoyed those well enough, and I absolutely loved Annihilation and its sequel). I'm enjoying AXIS so far. My difficulty is that some of the tie-in books are interrupting larger runs in ways that will likely have no real impact in the long term.

Take, for instance, last week's Inhuman 9. While the non-AXIS half was fun, the part related to Medusa's inversion felt forced. What she does in Inhuman 10 might be huge, but I fear that anything she does will be ignored past issue 11.

And the final issue of Wolverine and the X-Men, I feel, was wasted trying to show evil Storm needlessly alienating a now-good QQ.

Some other tie-ins were fun though. I liked All-New X-Factor stealing the nuclear football to prevent a World War Hate-influenced US President from nuking his enemies. And while I had no good reason to think I'd enjoy Hobgoblin, someone gave me issue 1 and it was so fun! But after this is done, that character will again retreat into obscurity with no long-term impact.

I'll admit: I've never read Fear Itself. I'm about to read some of the tie-ins (I'm currently reading back-issues of New Mutants, Journey into Mystery, Uncanny X-Men, and will soon re-read Uncanny X-Force, all of which had tie-in issues). And the latest Alpha Flight series spun out of Fear Itself, and I loved that book (will need to re-read it soon).