How do you think that Avengers vs X-men could be salvage and enjoyable to the fans/readers ?

[Rochedalaix]

It would have been better if it was about Hope murdering the Scarlet Witch, and the Avengers wanting her to face justice for it, while the X-Men protected her.

[hawkeyefan]

It would have been better if it was about Hope murdering the Scarlet Witch, and the Avengers wanting her to face justice for it, while the X-Men protected her.

Yeah....that wouldn't have been controversial at all....

[Mark]

But I don't think it was supposed to be enjoyable for the fans. I think that like cw the basic storyline was designed to drive fans apart and inspire anger, division and even hatred. The entire clumsy way it was written, plotted and hyped all pointed to marvel probably wanting fist fights breaking out in comic book stores over the argument of who was right/wrong.

[stingnewell]

Yup before the resets in CBR, fan base rivalry was at an all time high, fans wanted this character raped, accusations of prison camps, separating characters to alternate universes, and insults being thrown left and right. Many CBR members were kicked out from the site during that event.

[Wren]

Make the two sides both partially reasonable and right. Also make them cooperate to a degree. For example:

X-MEN:

- they tell the Avengers that Cable in the future saw that the phoenix force not being allowed to do its' thing caused the destruction of earth.

- they explain other hints that they've had that the phoenix will fix things and not hurt the earth

AVENGERS:

- tell that the phoenix is killing hundreds of billions of people on its' way to earth. Not only can they not take the chance that it isn't friendly, they can't sit and do nothing knowing so many people are dying because of them. They have to stop the phoenix.

Have some X-Men side with the Avengers and some Avengers side with the X-Men. Make them on-panel question what Cable actually saw.
Basically make it HARD to pick a side and make it clear people are picking sides based on unreliable information.

These two teams now take 2 paths to deal with the problem, both are reasonable paths and they're not in direct competition.

Make Phoenix Go Away Team
Like AvX, they first go out to space to stop it. They've been told that killing the phoenix is bad but you can just hurt it and make it go away temporarily. Bring back Beast's phoenix cage from Phoenix End Song and make the laser thing Tony builds be an extrapolation of that.

Prepare Hope Group
The other side should be training Hope, but the combined pressure of a ton of Avengers and X-Men all trying to give her advice makes Hope freak out and bail. Also she's frantic about Cable's health (I think he was in a coma at the time?). Say she bails because there's maybe something they can do for Cable, but everyone else is so focused on the phoenix they're leaving him to rot. Put some effort into Hope's characterization here.

The Moon
They're all on the Moon. Hope shows up at the last second. Have some side-story of Hope successfully evading capture by both Avengers and X-Men and finding a clever way to get to space.

Hope says she's ready to take the phoenix, and the X-Men convince the Avengers to let it happen: at the least, the phoenix will be easier to deal with in a host. Hope takes the phoenix and it's clear she's going down-hill fast. Wolverine starts sharpening his claws to kill her.

Then the laser is unveiled and Tony explains that this laser will probably make the phoenix at least leave Hope so they don't have to kill her. It works and it leaves Hope... but the P5 are born. Except make the P5 not all X-Men. Make it like... Cyclops, Emma, Cap, Magneto, and some other Avenger, a B or C lister.

P5
Thereafter they're trying to figure out what to do with the P5 all together (no more vs). The P5 originally agree to not use their powers until they figure out what's going on (as Rachel recommends), but very quickly they find themselves seduced in various ways.
Emma re-opens Xavier's school and makes it awesome.
Magneto rebuilds Genosha.
Cap brokers peace among different countries he's fought in. Removes corrupt politicians from office he's had to put up with.
Cyclops feeds the hungry, irrigates deserts, etc.

So now the X-Men and Avengers start disagreeing about whether the P5 should be left alone or not...

P5 Going Down
The P5 are still ostensibly doing good, but slowly they discover that it's going wrong...

Emma
The school somehow acquires some of her dead students. They have no idea that they're dead and only some of the X-Men telepaths notice: Emma has mentally commanded everyone to forget these kids are dead and the students are sitting next to undead monstrous horrors every day in class.

Cap
World-peace is looking more and more likely. But Tony, Reed and Beast (who are attending a UN convention for solving global warming that Steve is responsible for) notice that people are acting increasingly peculiar. Whenever anyone says anything Steve doesn't like, everyone in the room hears something different and the person suddenly changes their tune. They initially think they're immune to these effects and start talking among themselves... until Reed notices Tony suddenly switch direction and say that it's all great! It's for world peace! Isn't Steve so clever?

Reed quickly agrees, then leaves. He monitors the situation from a distance. Turns out Steve was mentally manipulating everyone to agree on everything and when he realized Tony's suit blocks telepathy he changed it.

Tony becomes Steve's puppet for the rest of the series. He's a little bit self-aware but not really. His dialogue becomes increasingly creepy/funny. Over time Reed notices that Steve is manipulating more and more people, not just people who contradict him but his friends in the Avengers. They're all becoming scary caricatures of themselves: they talk like Steve thinks of them talking, they do things Steve thinks they would do, etc. They all seem REALLY HAPPY.

Magneto

The rebuilt Genosha is a paradise. Most surviving mutants and many of the X-Men move there... but increasingly it comes into question why they would move there rather than stay and teach at Emma's school? The X-Men who are working on figuring out what the do with the P5 just start up and going to Genosha to "rebuild the mutant race".

More surprisingly, Lorna, Wanda, Pietro, Billy and Tommy all move to Genosha ostensibly to "observe" Magneto, but when their friends start calling they act increasingly strange. Even though some of them are in various stages of hating Magneto they all universally "love Genosha". They all get along amongst each other and increasingly stay locked up in Magneto's mansion.

Some of their teammates finally show up only to discover that Genosha is not a paradise. Genosha's streets are paved with human bones (the bones of anti-mutant bigots that have been quietly disappearing all over the world). The buildings are made of sentinels. People there are all mind-controlled zombies slowly starving to death since there's no actual food and very little water. Some of those who died in Genosha are back as zombies. Magneto has locked his family into a small room, created grotesque dolls of his wife and child, Luna, Vision and Alex and is having them act out family dinners. They're all completely convinced they've always been a family and have no memories of their real lives.

Cyclops

He starts out feeding the hungry but increasingly becomes dictatorial and unreasonable. When scientists publicly try to correct or question some of his initiatives (mild questioning in good faith) he uncharacteristically loses his temper. Over time more and more he starts doing things that look like a good idea but either are implemented bizarrely or scientifically lacking. For example in an effort to stop overfishing he causes fish populations to skyrocket killing almost all marine ecosystems. And where before he was willing to work with the world community to decide what to do with his powers, he increasingly refuses any advice. Eventually he actually starts becoming a real dictator: anyone who disagrees with him is "free to leave"... the planet. He creates a place for them on the moon. Ostensibly it's a nice place to live. There's an increasing amount of people who "take advantage of their ability to leave" and go live on the moon. Common opinion seems to be that it's a peaceful and luxurious retreat.

Eventually it is discovered that while creating a beautiful, bizarre alien garden and homes on the moon... Cyclops never put in air. Everyone who "left" is dead. They continue to be animated because he refuses to believe they are dead.

Everyone Team Up!

Eventually the X-Men and the Avengers led by Rachel, Hope (borrowing her powers) and a newly resurrected Cable (Cyclops cured him) pull together the heroes and take down the P5. They get crazier the fewer of them there are, and they control people to fight for them (Steve keeps Tony, Magneto keeps Lorna, Emma keeps some students, Cyclops hijacks Beast, Ice Man and Angel and resurrects a Jean-puppet).

The ending is pretty much the way it was... Wanda, after shaking off her father's brainwashing, helps Hope release the phoenix.

Hope accepts the phoenix. Her first act is to highjack Cable's brain, bring back the woman who he raised her with (the one who died in the far future) and create a family life for them. In her fantasy Bishop lives in their house's basement and when Hope is "naughty", she's locked in the basement until she can kill him to escape.

Wanda stops her with a chaos blast. Wanda tells Hope that what her powers have taught her is that reality is suffering. Taking on the phoenix is a painful responsibility and it won't bring mutants back or bring back Hope's childhood. Wanda says she will never gain forgiveness and she will never see her dead children... but reality is still better than living in a dream. Hope realizing that releasing the phoenix requires this sense of what is real and that she understands Wanda: her life has been one long night of suffering, and she still fears and hates Bishop. She will never have the carefree life she's seen other kids have.

Hope looks at the puppet of Cable she's created and realizes that she loves him, and that she'd rather stay with him in the real world than create a fake world where she is happy and he isn't himself.

She thanks Wanda. Then she releases the phoenix.

As it disappears, the puppet of Jean that Scott made, which has been lying half-decomposed, opens its' eyes (no one notices). They glow green. Undead Jean smiles. A voice from the White Hot Room speaks to Hope privately. It says "The phoenix is not made for granting dreams. It is made for the granting and the taking of life!" the phoenix engulfs the planet in fire, then disappears. Abandoned in Emma's school, cerebro starts beeping.

A ton of new mutants appear and some old mutants gain their powers back. But... an equal amount of humans drop dead.

[Kuwagaton]

Kill Cyclops.

This reminds me of a Larry David thing where he just has to pay for a problem that he didn't really cause. But yeah, just kill current Scott cause little Scott is having a really good run out in space. Bring him back if they want, from before he ditched Madelyne, and I think everyone would be happy.

[Tiamatty]

This reminds me of a Larry David thing where he just has to pay for a problem that he didn't really cause. But yeah, just kill current Scott cause little Scott is having a really good run out in space. Bring him back if they want, from before he ditched Madelyne, and I think everyone would be happy.

Except me. Because I love current Scott. I think it's a really cool, interesting direction he's gone in, and I'm eager to see where he goes.

[Kuwagaton]

I don't exactly hate Cross Face Scott because writers like Gillen could still make him interesting. But I think the current books stink fiercely. If killing him slowly and painfully across large panels would get us out of the AvX era, I'd be all for it.

[Punisher007]

-Write Captain America in character to start with. Seriously, he comes across as incredibly stupid and self-righteous during the entire event. They really messed up his character.
-Don't ignore contradict large chunks of the Phoenix's history for the sole purpose of making your premise work. If you'd just read AVX, then you could be forgiven for thinking that the last time the Phoenix came to Earth was in DPS. They also drastically simplified (not in a good way) what the Phoenix is/how it acted. It's called lazy writing.
-Have Rachel, or Wanda, or both teach Hope. You have an even centered around the Phoenix and you almost completely ignore the woman who was the Phoenix host for the longest, bullcrap. Don't do some stupid retcon tying Iron Fist into the Phoenix that makes no sense just so that he and freaking Spider-Man could be the one's to train Hope.
-MAKE RACHEL A MAJOR PART OF THE STORY!! This is one of the things that REALLY annoyed me.
-Don't have the Avengers constantly provoking the P5 and making the situation worse unnecessarily.
-Don't make Cap and the Avengers into gigantic hypocrites and don't have him give that astoundingly self-righteous speech to an imprisoned Cyclops.
-Make it more balanced. BOTH sides made major mistakes, but it seems like the X-Men are the only ones who were truly affected. The Avengers basically carried on as usual and NO ONE seems to be calling them out on THEIR screw-ups during that incident.

I'd start with those.

[dragonmp93]

The previous posters are right, it would be better if it hasn't been done, or if some evil guy had manipulated the heroes from the shadows, but otherwise, the event would have been way better if:

-We should have been shown some evidence that the Phoenix really came to restore mutants. I know there were pieces and bits here and there, but for most readers it seemed as if Cyclops had pulled it out of his ass. It felt weird to read Cyclops acting like that when he reacted with fear every time the Phoenix came back in previous works. Last time Jean took the Phoenix title he said to her face "you are going to go mad and we'll have to kill you!". When the Phoenix resurrected Jean, she begged the X-Men to kill her before she went mad and destroyed Earth, and all the X-Men were OK with killing her...And then suddenly Cyclops is "the Phoenix is on our side and it isn't going to burn Earth like it did to those other planets.

-Make the X-Men sound less selfish and a bit more concerned about those planets being charred. It seemed as if they didn't care so long as mutants were restored.

-Show the Phoenix Five trying to restore the x-gene and failing, and discussing their options and if they should give the power to Hope.

-Show the X-Men pissed/concerned/disappointed when the Phoenix didn't restore the x-gene of the millions of depowered mutants. It should have felt like a defeat when not a single depowered mutant was repowered; the Phoenix just turned a few humans into new mutants, that's all.

-Somebody should have thought about using Rachel and Feron, or at least Rachel; she should have been sent to meet the Phoenix in space.

-The X-Men and Avengers should have been able to reach some kind of arrangement before starting to fight; maybe taking Hope to space, to meet the Phoenix far from Earth, and see what happens there? The Phoenix was already burning planets, anyway, so maybe having a host would have made it controllable or at least vulnerable.

-Some X-Men should feel concerned about the Phoenix Five taking control of Earth and hunting the Avengers. They were too eager to be good soldiers for Cyclops; some of them should have felt that they were crossing too many lines.

-They should have shown Colossus giving legs to the whales, and maybe a few similar stuff before the Avengers' second attack against Utopia. If the Avengers had watched Colossus being a loony, their attack would seem more justified ("it's happening already! They are going crazy!").

-Make Cyclops look less like a blind fanatic. A bit more of self-doubt, of internal dialogue could have made the readers understand and even empathize with his choices.

So basically every action of the avengers was perfect and completly in-charácter, and the x-men are the reason that this event sucked ?.

[Swashbuckler]

So basically every action of the avengers was perfect and completly in-charácter, and the x-men are the reason that this event sucked ?.

No, it's just that it was basically an X-Men story that the Avengers had NO REASON to stick their heads into. All the plot points leading up to the story were from the last several years of X-Stories. NO Avengers story has ANYTHING to do with the plot of AvX before the event. It was just a badly put together story that the Avengers had no purpose in except MAYBE the Scarlet Witch who did her part in Children's Crusade.

[Chief]

Not purposely make one side look bad for the sake of the story. Similar to Civil War when it came to characterization.

[stingray]

It would have been way more interesting (for me at least) if they had some different battles going on. It would have been great to see Quicksilver vs. Northstar or Danger vs. Jocasta, but instead we had the Thing fight Namor for the hundredth time. Boring.

[Rochedalaix]

Yeah....that wouldn't have been controversial at all....

I don't care if it is controversial it would have been more enjoyable for me, I can't speak for other readers or fans because I don't know what they want. I liked AvX because Cyclops came out looking good, at the expense of the Avengers.

I hear most people complain about the Avengers acting out of character and people love to hate on Scott so if Hope killed the Scarlet Witch and Scott protected her at least than Avenger fans could bash Scott without being liars, and the Scarlet Witch would be dead and I hate her more than I love Scott so I'd be willing to take the disgrace in Scott's character.

-Write Captain America in character to start with. Seriously, he comes across as incredibly stupid and self-righteous during the entire event. They really messed up his character.
-Don't ignore contradict large chunks of the Phoenix's history for the sole purpose of making your premise work. If you'd just read AVX, then you could be forgiven for thinking that the last time the Phoenix came to Earth was in DPS. They also drastically simplified (not in a good way) what the Phoenix is/how it acted. It's called lazy writing.
-Have Rachel, or Wanda, or both teach Hope. You have an even centered around the Phoenix and you almost completely ignore the woman who was the Phoenix host for the longest, bullcrap. Don't do some stupid retcon tying Iron Fist into the Phoenix that makes no sense just so that he and freaking Spider-Man could be the one's to train Hope.
-MAKE RACHEL A MAJOR PART OF THE STORY!! This is one of the things that REALLY annoyed me.
-Don't have the Avengers constantly provoking the P5 and making the situation worse unnecessarily.
-Don't make Cap and the Avengers into gigantic hypocrites and don't have him give that astoundingly self-righteous speech to an imprisoned Cyclops.
-Make it more balanced. BOTH sides made major mistakes, but it seems like the X-Men are the only ones who were truly affected. The Avengers basically carried on as usual and NO ONE seems to be calling them out on THEIR screw-ups during that incident.

I'd start with those.

The X-Men didn't make any major mistakes only the Avengers did.

[Rochedalaix]

*double post