Writer Rick Remender

Penciler Leinil Francis Yu

Inkers Gerry Alanguilan and Lienil Francis Yu

Colorist Edgar Delgado

Letterer Chris Eliopoulos

Book Two : Inversion – Chapter One

Kitty made the cast list, so we know we are in for a good time!

SHIELD Helicarrier Iliad.  Above the Atlantic.  Is it really a good idea to name the Helicarriers, with how often they crash?

FalCap and Hulk are meeting with Fury Jr. and Maria Hill.  Fury Jr. keeps saying things that implies that he’s been doing this for years or decades, instead of the year he really has been doing it.

The Stark Sentinels have been dismantled.  The Red Skull camps have been torn down.  Fury refers to the events of the previous three issues as – World War Hate.

Hill wants the Red Skull handed over to SHIELD, as they have a special containment facility built specially for him.  Which seems like a waste of expenses, as long as it is a SHIELD prison, Red Skull should be able to break out of it within a month.

FalCap is acting way crazier and more confident, just because he has the title of “Captain America” people are treating him differently and it is going to his head.  I know he is under the Inversion spell, so he has that excuse but he was acting like the top boss in the first issue and that was prior to the spell.  Honestly, just because he got a temporary promotion, I don’t get how or why the characters around him are tooting his horn so much.

Hill states that no one has seen Stark in days.

Hulk is a simpleton here, which seems odd as I know in his own title, he is suppose to be a genius, or at least, able to form proper sentences.  FalCap shuts down what he has to say and goes as far as to tell Hulk that he didn’t ask for his opinion.

As FalCap is leaving, he punches Fury Jr. to his silly face.  He calls Scarlet Witch so she can schedule an Avengers meeting but to leave Steve Rogers out of it.

Bushwick, Brooklyn.  A street level villain, the Squid, has a family hostage as outside, the police are not helping matters.  Just then, Carnage breaks through the window and subdues the criminal and his gang, the Tentacles.  Pretty clever.  Carnage leaves a note behind, calling himself Friendly Neighborhood Carnage.  Spider-Man isn’t thrilled to see that note but he is impressed that Carnage didn’t kill anyone nor take their money.

San Francisco, Giants Stadium.  Iron Man appears at a game.  Iron Man offers his Extremis App to those in attendance.  The app turns your inner beauty to your outer beauty, so you don’t have to live with any more imperfections.  He tells them that the app is free and it is already in their phones, so they only have to activate it.  Those who will use it will be more attractive and never age.  Matt Murdock is at the game.  This is essentially setting up the opening issues of Superior Iron Man, guest starring Daredevil.  Pretty cool to have two heroes calling San Francisco, their home.

This section ends with Tony drinking alcohol.

Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.  Storm is presenting a speech.  Kitty is on the stage, second from the right.  We’ll see a better angle of her on the next page.  She is standing between Rogue and Colossus.  This wouldn’t be a bad roster – Sunspot / Jean Grey / Storm / Havok / Nightcrawler / Rogue / Shadowcat / Colossus.  It would be a pretty old school team but that’s an A-List roster!  I guess it would be Uncanny Avengers plus Excalibur with Storm and Jean thrown in there.

Storm is tired of all of the humans trying to kill them, this latest attempt will be their last.

Oya whispers that she thought Quire defeated Red Skull, as he clearly told her that.

Storm references how the humans created these camps and are responsible for other bad events that have effected mutant kind.  Xavier is gone and Wolverine is dead.  A mutant controlled by a cosmic being killed Xavier and Wolverine foolishly open up a vat of adamantium and allowed it to spill all over himself.  Sure a human pressed the button to start the adamantium pumping into the vat, but Wolverine could have diffused the situation a number of ways.

Why are Kitty’s hands as if she is being arrested?  Colossus appears to be doing the boy version of that.

Storm is going on about no more mutant on mutant fights.  I guess the Schism is officially over now.  It only took three years.

Not only that, but Storm is talking about out right attacking the humans.

Havok, whose face is messed up (when did that happened as it appears find in issue three) takes the mic.  Xavier’s dream is no longer the X-Men philosophy.

The new philosophy?  Apocalypse’s Survival of the Fittest.  Apocalypse is the new leader of the X-Men!  He stands with Storm, Havok and Cyclops, so this is for real.

FalCap is not happy that the X-Men are forming an army.  At the Avengers meeting is – Wasp, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Medusa, Luke Cage and Boy Thor.

Wasp doesn’t want to fight the X-Men, she still remembers the time she and Havok were married and had a daughter.  Boy Thor wants a battle and they know the X-Men are coming for Red Skull who may be a shell for Xavier.  Luke Cage also doesn’t want a fight, he wasn’t on Genosha, so he isn’t affected by the Inversion spell.  Medusa was there, so she is glad to be free of Inhumans and feeling responsible for them as their Queen.

To prevent the X-Men getting Red Skull, FalCap suggests they just kill Red Skull.  All but Hulk doesn’t want to go through with it.  Their big plan is to present Red Skull to the X-Men and kill them while they are distracted – which I bet would work.

Jarvis is the only thing standing between the Avengers and Red Skull.  Scarlet Witch hits him with a force spell, knocking him to his feet.  Hulk is concern for Jarvis and helps him back up.  Now the Hulk is blocking the Avengers from the Red Skull.  Cage punches Hulk to the ground and Boy Thor threatens that Hulk will be buried next to Red Skull, which makes Hulk sad.

The Hulk is Bruce Banner’s Rage and Kluh is Hulk’s rage – which is a thing, apparently.  Kluh is hulK backwards, get it?  Pretty clever.

Kluh wants to fight and kill.  Kluh refers to Hulk as ‘Doc Green’ who is suppose to be a version of Hulk with Bruce’s mind.  Kluh charges out of a wall and into the general public.

Issue ends with the Avengers discovering that Red Skull has escaped.

There is an ad for Superior Iron Man, Tony gone bad.  Just like Superior Spider-Man, it is a whole new branding situation.

Other titles that came out around this time – AXIS Revolutions 2 / AXIS Hobgoblin 2 / AXIS Carnage 2 / Deadpool 37 / All New X-Factor 16 / Magneto 12 / Wolverine and the X-Men 12 / Nova 23 & 24 / Avengers World 15 / Captain America & The Mighty Avengers 1 & 2 / Superior Iron Man 1 & 2 / Loki : Agent of Asgard 8

None of which I bought.  The next issue of AXIS I own is issue seven.