PREVIEW: Avengers & X-Men: AXIS, #9

[XPac]

Yeah. I wish he were on a new ongoing instead. He barley does anything beyond covers recently

Honestly I'm not sure he could keep an on-going schedule.

I do wish he'd at least do more mini-s and events though. Ideally I would have preferred it if he did the entire Axis event.

[harashkupo]

Honestly I'm not sure he could keep an on-going schedule.

I do wish he'd at least do more mini-s and events though. Ideally I would have preferred it if he did the entire Axis event.

It seems more and more of my favorite artists are putting out less interior work and waiting a whole year in between is a little disappointing.

[Raye]

It seems more and more of my favorite artists are putting out less interior work and waiting a whole year in between is a little disappointing.

Could be your tastes just tend towards the more detailed stuff that just plain takes more time to do, or their art is becoming more detailed with time. It's a tradeoff, detailed art tends to come at a slower pace. Also, covers pay better.

anyway, I find it a little surprising that it apparently is still Red Skull, just inverted, I was thinking it would be Xavier taking control.

[berserkerclaw]

Honestly I'm not sure he could keep an on-going schedule.

I do wish he'd at least do more mini-s and events though. Ideally I would have preferred it if he did the entire Axis event.

Unfortunately I'll agree here.... he may, not be able too especially with Marvel crazy release schedule and double shiping. But yeah of he had interiors on minis or events I'd prefer that to getting nothing lol. Axis would have, been cool to have the whole thing done by him. But I'll consider it good that I have my favorite comic artist of all time art in, hand at least 9 covers and, one interior. I'll take what I can get

[vitruvian]

with regard to an avenger's fate; doesn't "synergy" sort of require wasp to, you know, die?

Given the vast number of characters who don't exist in the movies at all, and don't seem to be on the chopping block, I see no reason to think they'd feel a need to do that any more than they feel a need to off Elsa Bloodstone and Blue Marvel.

Now, if you think they'll be emphasizing Scott Lang over Hank Pym as Ant-Man, and not referencing Jan much in Scott's title, then Magic 8-Ball says "Signs point to yes".

[anthony_lynch15]

Yeah, well, I guess it's a good things that all telepaths vanished into thin air.

That is an excellent point - wasn't that convenient.
Not that telepaths would make much difference with the city scale telepathy jamming technology Tony suddenly has at his disposal.

[Tazpocalapse]

I don't want to debate about who is the most powerfull or who should win: Authors will do whatever they want anyway.
But those comments reminded me that many X-Men have powers that are only "kept in check" because they are unwilling to kill their adversaries. Inverted X-Men should be more than eager for blood and use their powers in the deadliest way. Which would be quite different.

For example, Nightcrawler can teleport part of someone body (the last time it was shown was in Axis: Révolutions 2). Kitty can render her hand solid inside someone else body (she did it a few times). Or a TK can squash someone's brain/heart to pulpe (Jean gave a stroke to someone that way) and so on.

It's kinda weird not to see the inverted X-Men use their powers in more gruesome ways and with less restraint. (Guess we can be glad about it as it would have really ugly results for the characters themseves)

That's another silly thing about Axis: The heroes are shown to be evil, bloodthirsty, without morality and yet, nobody managed to kill anyone. So they can all walk away from that more or less clean. Or at least clean of murder.

Great point.

[vitruvian]

That is an excellent point - wasn't that convenient.
Not that telepaths would make much difference with the city scale telepathy jamming technology Tony suddenly has at his disposal.

Effective telepathy jamming tech seems to have been around long enough that in a Spidey crossover decades back, some normal protestors were able to lay hands on it and make Xavier's telepathy ineffective across the ESU campus (or at least in one office there, trying to remember full details). So, if it's been around so long, you'd think Stark or somebody would have sold such devices to the Secret Service, NORAD, Wall Street, etc., i.e., anywhere you really don't want telepaths messing around either with reading minds or with mind control.

But the existence of such technology is by no means sudden, just Tony remembering that he knows how to build it...

[ExodusCloak]

Effective telepathy jamming tech seems to have been around long enough that in a Spidey crossover decades back, some normal protestors were able to lay hands on it and make Xavier's telepathy ineffective across the ESU campus (or at least in one office there, trying to remember full details). So, if it's been around so long, you'd think Stark or somebody would have sold such devices to the Secret Service, NORAD, Wall Street, etc., i.e., anywhere you really don't want telepaths messing around either with reading minds or with mind control.

But the existence of such technology is by no means sudden, just Tony remembering that he knows how to build it...

Think you're talking about the Mentallo thing with Tony. Don't recall normals have that technology in a Spidey crossover involving Xavier. Tony Starks anti-telepathy technology was never full proof though. Not in the Onslaught Saga, Contest of Champions against Psylocke and not in his O.N.E. designed Sentinels which Emma Frost (who specialises in telepathic technology) found a weakness and bypassed. It may actually be why he resorted to infecting her with nanites in order to stop her from thinking rather then full on block her telepathic signal in AvX. Heck Onslaught overcame it in AXIS 2 and then Quentin Quire had to step in and failed in AXIS 3.

BTW There are two issues in Gen X where we kind of find out that there wasn't any psi-blocking technology in Wall Street.

[vitruvian]

Think you're talking about the Mentallo thing with Tony. Don't recall normals have that technology in a Spidey crossover involving Xavier. Tony Starks anti-telepathy technology was never full proof though. Not in the Onslaught Saga, Contest of Champions against Psylocke and not in his O.N.E. designed Sentinels which Emma Frost (who specialises in telepathic technology) found a weakness and bypassed. It may actually be why he resorted to infecting her with nanites in order to stop her from thinking rather then full on block her telepathic signal in AvX. Heck Onslaught overcame it in AXIS 2 and then Quentin Quire had to step in and failed in AXIS 3.

BTW There are two issues in Gen X where we kind of find out that there wasn't any psi-blocking technology in Wall Street.

Actually, I think I was conflating the Mentallo at ESU incident with the psi-scrambler or psi-scream device that Columbia students were able to construct in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #196. Not exactly a wide-area telepathy jammer, no, but if college students (not sure if they were undergrad or grad) that we've never heard from again were able to construct a device that caused Rachel's powers to backfire and nearly take out her, Xavier, and Magneto, I've got to think that Tony can do better these days.

[ExodusCloak]

Actually, I think I was conflating the Mentallo at ESU incident with the psi-scrambler or psi-scream device that Columbia students were able to construct in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #196. Not exactly a wide-area telepathy jammer, no, but if college students (not sure if they were undergrad or grad) that we've never heard from again were able to construct a device that caused Rachel's powers to backfire and nearly take out her, Xavier, and Magneto, I've got to think that Tony can do better these days.

Keep in mind though that Xavier didn't have powers in that issue he said he was mind-blind so he couldn't protect himself. It was a reflector that took out Xavier without defences but think Magneto was fine. Although that's a fair point but Tony's blocking devices have never been full proof. Not in the original Onslaught Saga, not on his O.N.E. Sentinels meant to protect the pilots and not even during AXIS as they eventually failed. Same in AvX it wasn't blocking the signal persay but trying to hurt Emma everytime she thought. And in CoC v2 it didn't work against Psylocke. And MODOK has been successful against Iron Man too.

Plus the X-telepaths do have a lot of experience with psi-technology and bypassing it in particular. So I don't think it's as cut and dry. Although they weren't present in the final battle anyway so I guess it doesn't matter either way here.

[Rockstadt]

Wow. The shocking climax approaches! An X-Man’s horrifying fate! An Avenger’s appalling choice! What is going to happen?

Well, here is what I've been waiting for, so with one issue left I guess it's time:

The Charles Xavier School have been strangely absent considering their two alpha males are in a fight for the future of the world on Genosha, but now they arrive in NY. Teleporting in Hijack shuts off Iron Man's psi-blockers, the telepaths pacify everyone long enough for Illyana to move everyone to Limbo. Or Tempus freezes everyone so that Magik can teleport them to Limbo. Once there, Ms Rasputina simply removes all spells, or at least those she feels like removing, just like she did when Colossus was playing Juggernaut in A vs X. A Hell-Lord in their own domain can do lots of things, removing spells being one of them.

So now everyone nice is once again nice while all baddies are (probably) still nice. It's kinda like the Age of Aquarius Deadpool wanted. But we need one death. Why break tradition? In a Remender story Rogue is always in danger of being gutted, and as she didn't steal Hulk/Kluh powers (like she did to She-Hulk in A vs X) she is gutted by Mystique (who doesn't need spells to go from good to bad in a heartbeat) for being a disappointing daughter. Luckily Triage is present and saves her, so it's just another "near refridgerator moment".

As for the appaling choice? In a moment of pure evil and insanity, the Scarlet Witch retcons her own origin and turns into an inhuman, her real daddy being a mouse/man-hybrid having left Attilan some time before WW2. Or something completely different and equally stupid.

An old foe must claim the mantle of his greatest enemy to save the lives of all he cares for! You would have to be Layla Miller to guess/know this one.

[davew128]

You can even say that about villains a lot if the time. There are a million instances where the villains have captured the good guys and could have killed them. But they usually don't. That's kind of how comics work. The body count is always unrealistically low. And overall that's probably a good thing.

I think part of it is that a lot of supervillains are criminals but not KILLERS. Obviously there are many with no qualms about killing, but a lot of the older rogues gallery type criminals are crooks only. Even a jerk like Absorbing Man really isn't a killer like say Sabertooth or Mystique.

[davew128]

But the existence of such technology is by no means sudden, just Tony remembering that he knows how to build it...

Please, he (in his teen Tony incarnation) had built this stuff based on Xavier's cerebro designs and Wakandan tech way back in Onslaught. For whatever reason he never incorporated it into his armor (Contest of Champions II against Psylocke) and both he and Panther forgot it existed in AvX.

[davew128]

Plus the X-telepaths do have a lot of experience with psi-technology and bypassing it in particular.

I would agree but for the fact that the jammer worked on Onslaught. I mean, look, telepathy is no more than the human mind using EM energy in wildly different uses. Quasar figured this out and used his quantum bands to block telepaths from controlling his mind based on simply shielding his brains EM field. Even Overmind couldn't take control of him even if he could read him. If thats all it is, then I can't imagine Stark not having it work just fine.