Uncanny Avengers

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Uncanny Avengers Volume One Issue 2

Posted by John Klein III on May 20, 2015
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Uncanny Avengers 2

Writer Rick Remender

Artist John Cassaday

Colorist Laura Martin

Letterer Chris Eliopoulos

I like the idea of just lifting the creative team behind the hit Astonishing X-Men opening run and just switching out the writer.  One would think Marvel would be bringing the art team to more titles.

I own this for the Kitty Pryde page later in the issue.  Before that moment, this happened :

Wolverine is back from Tibet, where he tried to meditate.  It didn’t work.  He’s still missing Xavier.  Human / Mutant relations couldn’t be worst.

Last issue, Avalanche went insane and destroyed a portion of Manhattan.  Then he killed himself.  The Uncanny Avengers are helping police and fire crews with the survivors.  Spider-Man is there as he is everywhere.  Wolverine sniffs and he can’t find anymore people under the debris.

Wolverine tells Captain America that Avalanche was no longer a villain, this doesn’t add up.  Thor has decided he will no longer stand silent in regards to the human / mutant war.

Cap tells Wolverine that Havok will lead this, Unity Squad.  A man hugs Havok for saving his life.

There is a double page ad for Amazing Spider-Man 700.

There is a man giving a press conference.  Whoever watches it, sees their ideal type of leader.  All he wants the humans to do is kill mutants.  So they start doing it.  The man works for Red Skull, and his name is Honest John.

Rogue is being held prisoner.  She wonders where Wanda is.  I sort of like how Remender recalls their relationship.  Rouge knows Wanda is a complete nut job but she’s her boyfriend’s daughter, so she has to look out for her.  A mutant turtle (but not a ninja) and a lady made of water arrive to talk to Rogue.  The mutant turtle, Mzee, offers Rogue a sandwich made up of butter of peanuts and crushed fruit preserves.  I sort of adore this guy, already.  The water lady is Avalanche’s daughter.

Somehow, Rogue drinking from a glass and spitting it on someone is enough to count as ‘touching’ as this is what she does to the water lady, absorbing her powers.  Apparently Gambit and her play bondage drinking games.  Those two are kinky!

Rogue realizes that they don’t need her, they just want the Witch.

Red Skull wakes up Wanda, calling her – Jew, gypsy and a mutant, yet so beautiful.  It doesn’t get more back handed than that.  Red Skull has half of Xavier’s brain, thus he has telepathic powers – I’m not sure if that’s how mutant powers work but I guess it does as I just read that is how it works.  Red Skull refers to Rogue as Wanda’s father’s whore.  That’s pretty harsh!  Red Skull also mentions how he knew Magneto has a young boy but couldn’t do anything about it as he had to be the best Nazi that he could be.

Red Skull walks Wanda around his School for Gifted Humans – everyone had schools in 2013.  We get a nifty one page origin recap for Red Skull.  Pretty handy for newer fans as I believe Red Skull hadn’t been seen in a while.  Essentially, Red Skull wants Wanda to pick up where she left off before and be like Michael Phelps and finish a race off.

Poor Wanda, first she undoes the mutant race before Quicksilver told her to do it, now the Red Skull wants her to do it and later, the Apocalypse Twins will want her to do it as well.  Talk about destroying a character.

Avalanche’s daughter’s hero name is, Dancing Water.  Red Skull is informed that Rogue is on the run and he has to go deal with that.  Once he is gone, Rogue appears behind Wanda, ready to kill her.  She heard everything.  She has a little of Wanda’s powers now.

Wanda knocks a hole in the ground, Rogue falls down it.  Wanda follows.  Then they see it.

Uncanny Avengers 2 Kitty 1

Xavier’s dead body . . . minus one brain.  Rogue has a quick flashback to Xavier being kind to her, from Uncanny X-Men 171 (the non-Paul Smith drawn issue of the run).  Nice to see Kitty, drawn by Cassaday again.

Xavier never looked so young before!

Rogue decides to kill Red Skull as the issue ends with him entering the room.  Behind him is his S-Men!

I’ve looked into Mzee’s history.

http://comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=69449

He only has ten appearances, most of them in Uncanny Avengers – 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 24 and 25 where he dies.  He also appears in Captain America (2013) 23 and Magneto 9 & 10.  I don’t recall him in issue four but that’s on me.

 

Uncanny Avengers 21

Posted by John Klein III on October 13, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Uncanny Avengers 21

Writer Rick Remender

Artist Daniel Acuna

Color Artist Dean White

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Avenge the Earth Part Four of Five

I haven’t really been paying attention to this title since issue fifteenth.  From what I can gather, the twins – Eimin and Uriel, seem to be winning.  To stop them, the Avengers have sent their consciousness back in time.  I can’t figure out which ones did this.  I know Scarlet Witch isn’t one of them, as they have to explain to her the new plan.

The Past, a.k.a. Now.  Wanda and that lousy jerk, Simon, are in bed together.  For me, it feels like I haven’t missed much as chronologically, this takes place right before 15.  In that issue, Wanda successfully teleported all the mutants to a different planet.  Next, Rogue killed her and was then killed by one of the horsemen.  That event may have happened in an issue around 15.

So Wolverine, Sunfire and Rogue come into their bedroom, not kill Wanda and start course correcting time.  Which is great as now the embargo on Rogue appearing in other titles should be lifted.  Though what the in-story reason is, is beyond me as she would have been alive during those events.  Maybe she was just outside the panel.

Uncanny Avengers 21 Wanda

Also, Wanda looks so strange without her silly headpiece thing in her hair and no red coloring to her hair.

Rogue reveals that it is Wolverine and Sunfire are the ones who moved their minds to the past.  They must have access to movie Days of Future Past Kitty, as that is something that character can do.

The look on Wanda’s face when Rogue tells her that Rogue killed her in the original timeline is pretty dead on.

Uncanny Avengers 21 Doom 2099

Meanwhile, the proper Avengers are forming a plan to stop the Celestial from destroying the Earth.  Iron Man is about to go into the entire plan when Doctor Doom not only sums it up with a mere sentence but also insults him.

Captain America shows up, tells Iron Man that the plan doesn’t work and offers a new plan.

The plan is for Rogue to absorb the powers of all the Avengers.

One change that also happened is that Thor didn’t kill Uriel.  The twins recognize that time has been changed and they try to figure out how that was even possible.

Another fun twist is that the Wasp was originally at the Tachyon Dam where the Grim Reaper is guarding it.  Wasp couldn’t kill him, so that mission failed.  Luckily, this time, they sent Wolverine.

Cut to the Jean Grey School.  Back when Kitty was still there, so we know this story takes prior to Battle of the Atom.  For those who track that sort of thing.

Thanks to my pal, SlickNickShady, for the scan!

Uncanny Avengers 21 Kitty Pryde

I like how Wanda is about to explain the why of the situation and Rogue shuts her up with a simple “these are my friends, they will just do it.”  Of course, the X-Men do just that and Rogue now has the abilities of both the Avengers and the X-Men.

Thor as taken back his axe that started this whole mess.  The axe was used originally by the twins to kill a Celestial and use its energy source to enable their entire plan.  It takes a lot of energy to teleport all of the mutants to a new planet.

Rogue is sent to stop the latest Celestial from stepping onto Earth.  She is able to hold up one leg.  Tony has no confidence in her, the jerk, and Captain America tells him that Rogue is only half of the solution.  Just then, Sentry (also one of the Horsemen) lifts the other leg.  Which I’m not sure if I buy that Sentry equals the strength of all of the X-Men and the Avengers but I suppose now that he is one of the Horsemen, he doesn’t lack confidence or any of his phobias so he has access to all of his strength.  But still, it took Rogue pages to establish her new (temporary) strength level and he just shows up out of nowhere.

Thor now cuts the Celestial’s head, as it is distracted now.

The heroes are about to win when (two words that should not be read aloud together! – go ahead and try.  It sounds awkward to my ears) Kang shows up.  The plan was to have this new energy go to a dying star when Kang intercepts it.

For some reason, I had thought this was the final part of the storyline (that has been going on for an impressive ten issues or something like that) and thought this was going to conclude when this new hiccup happened.

Thor is now missing and victory may not be at hand for the heroes.

Kang now has all of the Celestial energy and is truly now Kang the Conqueror!  Nothing should be able to stop him, especially not his adopted twins.  So I bet they work together with the Avengers to shut Kang down, as enemy of my enemy and all of that.

As Kitty (or Magik) 0nly appear every six issues or so, who knows if I will get the next issue but this one felt pretty epic.  So much happened!

. . .

This was the other comic that I should have reviewed last month.

Happy Columbus Day!  Glad he discovered Cuba, it lead to bigger discoveries.  I haven’t had Columbus Day off since the fourth grade.  The school system made it a non-holiday for the first time in years from what I gathered.  Going forward, up to juior high school, it was always iffy if other students will show up on this day.

Uncanny Avengers 15

Posted by John Klein III on January 8, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Writer Rick Remender

Penciler Steve McNiven

Inkers John Dell with Dexter Vines & Jay Leisten

Colorist Laura Martin

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Issue opens with Captain America wanting Havok to lead again, and then admitting that his hearing is coming back.  Havok makes a reference to wanting to call it a day, get some In an Out Burger and play sone Grand Theft Auto.  I wonder if in the Marvel Universe, they have East Coast In and Out Burgers?  I imagine with how easy it is for Avengers to travel the globe, he can get to California easily.  I also wonder, in a world with super powers, does the Marvel Universe have the same movies and games that we do?  I would imagine not.  Maybe it is just Watchmen’s influence on my thinking, as they lived in a world of superheroes, so why would people want to read or watch things with superheroes, you want something new that you can’t get on the news, such as pirates.  I imagine video games would have special levels too.  Such as Call of Duty : Ghosts, probably would have a Captain America or Iron Man level, and they can get away with it as it would be based on a public figure in-universe.

While Cap is talking to Havok, Alex disappears.  Turns out Wanda’s plan as a success.

Uncanny Avengers 15 Magik 1a Uncanny Avengers 15 Magik 1b

All mutants are being teleported to the Twins’ ark.  Including from The New Xavier School – Magneto, Magik and Cyclops.

We see Grim Reaper beating on Wolverine.  We get a shot of Rogue’s charred corpse.  I am not counting Rogue to be dead dead just yet.  I have this feeling we will be getting a bit of a reset button at one point.  Though Rogue is not appearing in any other titles, so maybe she really is dead.  Maybe this is why Anna Paquin has been cut out of X-Men : Days of Future Past.  Which must be very awkward, as she did all that press at the San Diego Comic Con.

We see Wasp holding her own against Sentry.  Then Thor shows up to help.  We get a gross moment when Jan shoots Sentry, and his response is to just rip his entire skull apart, leaving only his brain and eyes.  This starts his healing process.  That fight ends with Wasp summoning a sand worm from Beetlejuice.  We get a nice moment with Jan asking Thor if he knows of a god of thunder who wants to fight a set of twins.  I know Wasp and Thor are long time and founding members of the Avengers, I am not sure how much actual interaction the two characters have had.  I do enjoy seeing their friendship.

We see Captain America overhearing the twins talk about Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch, both being dead.  I also suspect both of these deaths to be reversed.  At least Wanda’s for sure.  Wonder Man has died so many times, what is one more?  Such a lousy character.

Cap feels in his gut, that his friends are dead.  Then he fights the Twins, and Eimin cuts him, revealing where his guts are.  Uriel states that Cap is known as a great Tactician, which is why that is his original class on Avengers Alliance on Facebook.

Then Eimin gets super creepy like quoting the Bible, the Noah story.  How come, whenever someone starts reciting scripture, outside of a regilous ceremony, it always comes off as that person being crazy and frightening?

During all that, Cap is getting a beating.  There is a reference / hint, that if you can separate the twins from each other, you might be able to defeat them.

Eimin tells Cap, that instead of “No more mutants” she is going to say “No more humans.”  She shows Cap a window, where we see a Celestial is hovering over Earth.

We cut to Thor and Wasp, as they make their way to the moon.  Thor speaks to Uatu the Watcher, so things are officially now on.  This Celestial is called, Exitar the Executioner.  He is there to destroy the planet.  All due to that time Thor made an axe that could kill a Celestial.  That axe is called Jarnbjorn.  Which the Twins found and used to create their massive plan.

Next issue, looks like we might get Thor versus Uriel.

Uncanny Avengers 1

Posted by John Klein III on November 27, 2013
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Uncanny Avengers 1

Writer Rick Remender

Artist John Cassaday

Color Art Laura Martin

Letterer VC’s Chris Eliopoulos

Cover Dated December 2012

This is the first I’ve ever seen Chris Eliopoulos associated with VC.

Issue opens with Avalanche’s brain being operated on.

Uncanny Avengers V1 1 Kitty 1

We cut to Wolverine, he is going to give the eulogy at Professor Xavier’s funeral.  In attendance is Kitty Pryde, hence why I bought this issue.

We cut to Captain America, wanting to do more to fix the tension with humans and mutants.  We see him looking at Havok’s stats.  Poor Captain America, it looks like he must be looking at the mutant version of himself.  Blonde, 6′ foot, 175 lbs, with Blue Eyes.

Cyclops is still in prison at this point, surrendering at the end of AvX, he killed Xavier but while under the influence of Dark Phoenix.  We see that Magneto is sadden at the loss of his friend.

Havok visits Cyclops in prison.  He lets him know that they buried Xavier that day.  We get Cassaday drawing the Original Five for a panel.  Shame this is the first time we see the brothers together since poor Alex had to find his own way back to Earth after the Fall and Rise of the Shi’Ar Empire storyline.

Once Alex leaves Scott, we see Captain America approach Alex to lead his Unity Squad.  A team of Avengers with X-Men to show the populace that mutants are okay.  Never thinking the opposite will happen, instead of lifting mutants to the Avengers level, but this might bring the Avengers down to the mutant level.  He offers Alex to get coffee with he and Thor, Thor offers Alex can get a latter if he prefers.  The idea of Thor preferring a latte is interesting.  He’s been on Earth too long.

We get a scene of why Avalanche was having his brain operated on.  His powers have been increased and he has gone insane.  He starts tearing up down town New York City.  Thor shows up to save civilians.  Captain America confronts Avalanche and Avalanche jumps off his self made cliff and dies.  Havok destroys some debris to save some more folks.  First mission out, and already some dead along with a dead villain.

Also on this team,  Scarlet Witch and Rogue.  They have a complicated relationship, not even including the time Wanda decimated the mutant race.  What complicates their relationship is that Rogue has had two important relationships, Gambit and Magneto.  Magneto is Wanda’s father.  It isn’t cool.  Rogue’s other two important relationships are with Carol Danvers and her first boyfriend, Cory but they are not romantic relationships.

I don’t care too much for Captain America’s new uniform costume, suppose to be more realistic but that chin strap is a little too Ultimate for my taste, plus it is a chin strap.  Wanda’s outfit is pretty decent and simple, still has that weird M head piece.  I really like Rogue’s outfit, seems like a more realized outfit, like this is what she has been leading up too.  Also, it may have already been her established outfit, but now she actually wears the hood.  While Rogue is confronting Wanda, there is a giant explosion.  The S-Men confront these two, and they have shut down Rogue’s powers.  We find out that when Rogue goes to grip Wanda’s face, she doesn’t absorb her powers (or her craziness).

We find out that these new foes are called S-Men because their boss is … The Red Skull – now with Xavier’s brain!  It is completely bonkers!

Even more crazy, that they don’t protect Xavier’s body and Red Skull can just straight up walk up and snatch his body hours after the funeral.  Surprised this hadn’t happen more with that giant grave site the X-Men have at the mansion.  Like they didn’t learn anything from Fraction’s Sisterhood arc of Uncanny, when those dames went after Jean’s body.

. . .

With this, Thor Month comes to a close.  Thanks everybody!  This was S&FwM’s first theme month and hopefully the next one works out as well, if not better.  December, I am going to try to do some Christmas reviews.  We are expecting our first born hopefully on the 11th of December, so December might be a bit touch and go but bare with me and I will get back onto some sort of schedule.  I have a couple Plan Bs ready, as it should be a fun and exciting month.

Uncanny Avengers 13

Posted by John Klein III on October 29, 2013
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

287176_20131023120555_large

Writer Rick Remender

Artist Daniel Acuna

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

I don’t care for how Havok’s caption boxes and Banshee’s word balloons are the same color.  I know one is square and the other is round but both are white text on black background.  Could be better.

Uncanny Avengers 13 Kitty mention

Havok narrates that some of the nicest people he knows have been corrupted.  Kitty, by Ogun.  Colossus, by the Phoenix Force.  Storm, not exactly sure, maybe when she was just about to go full Mohawk?

He also narrates that Cyclops killed Banshee, but did not tell him to jump out of a plane to stop the Blackbird, and fail miserably at that.  Banshee did that on his own terms.

Wasp goes down Banshee’s throat and rips back out through his vocal cords.  That is fighting dirty as it gets.

Captain America is now hard of hearing, due to taking a full blast from Banshee last issue.  Deaf Captain America is the new character find of the year, so funny.

Some fun moments like Havok stating the guards came from over there, then Cap screaming the same thing.

Wasp volunteers to split from the group, the budding relationship between her and Havok is nice to see.

Cap yells that Wasp likes Havok, Alex’s facial expression is classic.

Thor transports another planet’s ocean onto the current planet he is on, to stop the green lava.

Simon and Wanda are eating with the Twins.  Believe it or not, Wanda looks so weird without the M-piece headgear of hers.

Draken is beating Wolverine to death.

The Twins tell Logan that they plan on opening a school in Wanda’s honor, making it the fourth mutant school.  Nice to have some options.

In the continuing question of who is leading this team, Cap shouts “I don’t follow you” to Havok, based on misunderstanding something Havok said.

Wanda starts talking to Simon, he quickly tells her that the Twins can hear their every word.  Her solution?  To have sex with Simon, that will teach them!

Rogue and Sunfire catch up to Wolverine, and Acuna draws my favorite panel of the issue.  Rogue putting her hands up to her mouth, eyes so big.  It is beautifully drawn.

Logan does the classic close eyes move head to the side death scene, but we all know Logan isn’t dead.

He tells them they have to stop Wanda, Rogue absorbs his claws, they look metal to me, instead of bone.

The thing is, Wanda’s plan is to transport all of the mutants, not into tubes, but awake and well, and have this army attack the Twins en mass.  So Rogue is trying to stop Wanda from winning the day.  Those two have a very complicated relationship.

Uncanny Avengers 12

Posted by John Klein III on October 4, 2013
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

284848_20130926124014_large

Writer Rick Remender

Artist Salvador Larroca

Color Art Frank Martin

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

What is Kang sitting on?  A future bean bag chair?  Hate ti say this, but a future bean bag chair, is still a bean bag chair.

How incredible was the opening of this issue?

We get Eimin and Uriel’s origins.  I have to still look for their names, does anyone have them memorized yet?  Probably Remender and Cowles.

How great is it that Remender gets to continue his Apocalypse / Archangel saga into this title.  He runs the risk of burning out an audience that way, also of being known as that guy with the hard on for Warren Worthington III.

So Warren’s kids appear to be from the Days of Future Past timeline, just during the era when Rachel was a hound, and Arab was her master.  How awesome is that!?!  Someone straight up remembered Arab and put him in a modern comic.

That is some tight continuity!

I remember as a kid when Rod Campbell joined the cast of Excalibur, and he was a humnan wanting to help mutants.   Then horrible events started to happen to him, like replacing human limbs with robotic limbs.

You can tell that Kang wanted to toughen his adopted twins.

But once Uriel has to blind Eimin, that’s to much.  Did we know that Eimin is blind?  Not sure I picked up on that previously.

Uncanny Avengers 12 Kitty

We cut to the Jean Grey School, we get to see Storm, Beast and Kitty, they have moved Evan and Warren into a secret bunker.

Uncanny Avengers 12 Magik

Then we cut to the New Xavier School, with Cyclops, Emma and Magik.  They are discussing how a mutant rapture can even occur.  I like the inclusion of Illyana in this scene, shows that Scott is still using a coucil and now that they have broken up, there is no reason to not add a third.  Glad it was Magik and not Magneto.

Up to this point, Larroca and Martin have been doing an amazing job in art.  Then Wanda shows up and I don’t know what happened.

I think it is that weird glow from the hallway, that casts a strange hue in the rooms.  Wanda looks very ill in all of her scenes.

She should be holding a bucket or have one at the ready.  Luckily, that weird head thing (what do people call that – a head band, maybe?)

Then we cut to Wasp, Captain America and Havok.  The comic instantly looks a lot better too.  It just was an odd coloring choice, is all.

Wasp does that classic cartoon thing of getting two guys with guns to shoot each other.  Which, would that actually work, I wonder?

There’s some nice flirting between Wasp and Havok, but Cap keeps interrupting the chemistry.  I know it is harmless flirting but I thought we were building to a Alex / Wanda relationship, or has that time passed already?  Once Wonder Man shows up, your chances with Wanda decrease dramatically, just ask Vision.  Oh how I can’t stand Wonder Man, at least he has the good sense to die every now and then.

I wonder how eye contact works with Jan, when she is wasp size.

Banshee v. Captain America.  Sean kick yo arse!

Meanwhile, remember that caption?  Back with Wanda and Simon, it is now the blue from the stream that makes Wanda look sickly.

Now that I see Eimin’s current design, she was  obviously blind or something, as she has that weird U thing over her eyes.

Cut to Kang at the end.  So that quake happens, and the panel with GRRUMMBLLE, I had to stare at that strange brown thing for a solid minute, to try to figure out what that was.

You can tell in the larger panel, that he is on a bean chair, which is odd for a conqueror.  He isn’t in college nor in his first apartment.

Daddy, your babies are coming for you!

Maybe Remender can work in Original Warren into the story, that kid needs something to do and should fear his own future.

Uncanny Avengers 11

Posted by John Klein III on September 16, 2013
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

281553_20130828235455_large

Writer Rick Remender

Artist Daniel Acuna

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

This is one of those issues, where the chances are quite high, if you have a favorite Marvel character, Acuna probably drew that character in this issue.

Uncanny Avengers 11 Magik Kitty

We get both Kitty and Magik in this issue.  I like on this page you get some of the Avengers proper and Uncanny X-Force.

The rest of the issue is mostly monologues from the Apocalypse Twins to Wanda.

I like that they actually named the former Montana city that Tabula Rasa is currently built on top of, Tucker Creek, Montana.  Don’t worry, fellow Montanians, it isn’t a real city.  But it sure sounds like a proper Big Sky city.

I like that the twins reference Wanda and Quicksilver, not the best role models to follow.

So this eras best mutant leaders are : Professor Xavier, Magneto, Havok, Cyclops, Archangel and Apocalypse.

That list is horrible, but I do like the one sentence description.  I wonder who built those statues, and were they confused when they made Havok’s?

Rogue and Sunspot have a nice conversation and understanding.

What is it about seeing Wolverine get a beat down, that is extremely enjoyable to watch?  Probably, after all of these years, if he is going to survive everything thrown at him, he might as well take a beating along the way.

Sentry and Thor’s battle is pretty intense too.  The less said about how Rogue knows Sentry, the better.   So dumb

If I was in a fight, and the other guy ripped off his own face, I am not sure I would want to continue that fight.  I may not be suitable for the Avengers.

Next issue promises to be intense, will Wanda follow the Twins’ plan?  We might find out.

Uncanny Avengers 4

Posted by John Klein III on August 5, 2013
Posted in: Homage, Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Written by Rick Remender

Aritist is John Cassaday

Color Artist are Laura Martin and Larry Molina

I have made no secret about how I am a nut for covers paying homage to Uncanny X-Men 141.  There is a splash page in this issue that also pays homage.  I had to make a decision if I was going to start collecting interior art that does that.  I know that it so rarely happens that I really should.  It happens so rare that I bought two issues of Wizard that has a Joker / Harly Quinn homage.   Issue 181 had the first ever and then issue 200 reprinted as a showcase of great original commission art.  I figured I might as well buy it own it twice.

This issue if Uncanny Avengers, is the final part of the Red Skull has Professor Xavier’s brain storyline.

I like seeing the Cyclops’ origin story from Havok’s point of view, as it is Alex’s origin story as well.  I just never have seen it as Alex’s as, to me, he is the lesser of the two brothers.

Though I must state, I freaking adored Alex’s ongoing series, Mutant X, back in the 90s, that was a great series.  Also one of the better alternate timelines, it was well thought out and all of the changes that were made were from known storylines, so you knew where it happen.  A real shame that the series doesn’t get more references made now, but it makes sense as the last issue came out in 2001, oooof, twelve years ago.  Also, there are no available trades, so the series is not readily available.  Some of Howard Mackie’s best work, outside of his Spider-Man career.

Scarlet Witch vs. Thor, pretty impressive of Wanda.

I like the idea of Red Skull and Captain America just walking around and talking.  At this point, they have done it all, practically, so they might as well hold off on the pynching until it is truly necessary.

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The Alex / Wanda budding relationship seems to be happening here.

Alex loses points for hitting Rogue, even if he was being mind controlled, nit cool dude.

It is not until Thor picks up Wolverine’s limp body that I realize we have not seen Logan until now.

I like the little moments at the end.  Cap letting Havok stay as the leader.  Rogue not trusting Wanda.  Though that is super weird that Rogue abd Magneto have had a relationship, and niw she has to deal with his adult crazy daughter.  Thor and Wolverine’s tender moment feels like two warriors talking to each other.

Issue ends with a three month time cut to Red Skull as Onslaught that just looks cool.

Not sure how they broke it down between Martin and Molina on art, as it looks like Martin’s high quality, maybe Molina helped make it look darker, or something.  Just know this, if you have Laura Martin coloring your book, it will look timeless and beautiful.  Marvel better make like Mark Bagley, and chain her to a desk as well.