Avengers #402

Avengers #402
Writing: Mark Waid
Art: Mike Deodato and Tom Palmer

What Went Down: The Avengers start out by rescuing a subway full of people trapped underground. Didn’t something similar already happen in Uncanny? Don’t worry about it! Once they get above ground, Captain America seems overwhelmed by the chaos around them, as buildings crumble and fires rage. The Avengers spend some time rescuing civilians and getting them to safety. They come across the Black Widow, technically the leader of the Avengers at this point, being mobbed by desperate people. Cap orders them away, and the Widow goes off to help more people.

Iron Man and Giant Man show up and tell the Avengers that they’ve completed the psionic armor. Unfortunately they’ve brought it with them, right as they are attacked by Post and Holocaust. The two villains are trying to steal the armor, and they have cloaking fields that render them invisible. While they fight the Avengers, the surrounding civilians begin to feel hopeless as the heroes are beaten. As the fight rages, Wasp asks Captain America what they should do; he replies that they can’t beat them. The Wasp is shocked to hear that Cap is giving up, but what Cap meant was that they couldn’t beat the villains head-on and needed to trick them. So Captain America throws his shield, triggers Post’s cloak, and tricks Holocaust into shooting him. While Holocaust is shocked by his actions, the Avengers beat the crap out of him. The crowd cheers, inspired by the Avengers’ victory. Onslaught appears on a giant screen to taunt the heroes. They destroy the screen and charge off, while saying “Avengers Assemble” of course.

How It Was: This is actually the last issue of the Avengers’ initial run. After the Onslaught storyline, the Avengers get shuffled off to the Heroes Reborn universe and the numbering starts over at issue one. So Mark Waid had the task of providing a closing to the Marvel Universe’s greatest heroes while making it fit within the Onslaught crossover. Oh, and he couldn’t resolve anything in the Onslaught storyline either. What we get is an issue of the Avengers doing what they do best, saving lives and inspiring people, followed by a fight with two C-list X-Men villains, which probably isn’t the conclusion Stan Lee would have envisioned 401 issues prior.

The story is okay, nothing spectacular. Mark Waid doesn’t even get a chance to wrap up any of the dangling sub plots his tenure as writer had set up (Kurt Buisek would handle them years later), and he also has the unpleasant duty of writing the issue that essentially makes his job obsolete. Black Widow gets brushed aside during the course of the story because she can’t go to Heroes Reborn; she’s needed in Daredevil and around the Marvel Universe. Vision is still lying on a bed off panel and Hawkeye is nowhere to be found, so they don’t get to be in the finale either. Come to think of it, while this Avengers roster consists solely of veterans, these are not the best versions of these characters. We have teenage Tony Stark/Iron Man, a Wasp who is an actual insect person, the poorly named Giant Man, and redesigns of classic costumes for characters like the Scarlet Witch and Thor that show how hard the Avengers Bullpen was trying to rip off the look of the X-Men.

So they’re rescuing civilians, which is fine except that the same thing is happening in every other Marvel book, and then they have to fight two villains that they have nothing to do with. The art is phenomenal and it really makes the issue. The battle is brutal as heroes are ambushed and thrown around. The mislead of the disheartened Captain America is a little contrived, but it’s not like Waid can really build drama any other way, since the plot isn’t allowed to proceed until Onslaught: Marvel Universe.

This is just a really odd issue to end the Avengers on. Waid definitely does his best, and at least the characters aren’t overshadowed in their own book as the X-Men have been in theirs’. Considering how bad the next year was for Avengers fans, this probably didn’t seem so bad, but it still feels like Earth’s Mightiest Heroes deserved better.

C+

Cable #35

Cable #35
Writing: Jeph Loeb
Art: Ian Churchill

What Went Down: The opening page is an info dump setting up this point in the Onslaught storyline—brought to us by Uatu the Watcher. Down below Cable and the Invisible Woman are fighting against the psychic storm that is raging with her forcefield, which is being reinforced by his powers. Unfortunately, as Cable puts more effort into reinforcing the forcefield, he is losing control of the techno-organic virus that infects half his body. Sue offers her husband’s help, and Apocalypse shows up to tell them that Onslaught must be stopped. Of course this is a super hero comic, so Cable and Apocalypse have to fight each other for two pages before realizing that they have a common goal.

Apocalypse suggests attacking Onslaught on the Astral Plane because Onslaught draws power from it, so he therefore must be more vulnerable there (??). Cable agrees to the team up, but tells the Invisible Woman to stay behind in case they fail to rescue Franklin. As they travel the Astral Plane, Apocalypse expresses admiration for Onslaught’s accomplishments, disgusting Cable. Apocalypse offers to cure Cable of the T.O. virus that he infected him with when Cable was a child, but Cable refuses, saying it’s made him stronger.

In his citadel, Onslaught admires the destruction with Franklin Richards attached to his back. Onslaught discovers Apocalypse and Cable, which surprises Apocalypse, and summons projections of the Hulk, Post, and Magneto to attack the duo. Cable faces the Hulk projection, and thinks back to when he fought the real Hulk all the way back in the last issue of Cable. While Cable is distracted, Apocalypse makes his way to Franklin and apologizes for having to kill the boy. Cable tells the Invisible Woman to make her move and it turns out that she has been hiding the whole time waiting for Apocalypse to betray them. As Cable and Sue fight Apocalypse, Onslaught teleports them away. Apocalypse yells at the heroes, accusing them of being narrow minded and having cost them the battle. Apocalypse teleports away, and Cable comforts Susan as she thinks about how helpless her son is alone.

Apocalypse returns to Uatu’s side; Uatu proclaims his respect for the heroes’ principles while Apocalypse sees it only as weakness. Back at the Citadel, Franklin is inspired by the bravery of Cable and his mother, and now he has hope.

How It Was: After two issues of Uncanny to set it up, Apocalypse shows up to affect Onslaught’s conquest. Then he goes away, leaving an anti-climactic dullness in the reader’s brain. This is supposed to be the return of one of the X-Men’s greatest villains, one who hasn’t been seen for about three or so years in the main universe, and the Age of Apocalypse showed how great he could truly be. So it’s not the triumphant return that fans were expecting, but Loeb does still get quite a bit right

The interaction between Apocalypse and Cable is very solid. Loeb nails the mutual hatred and respect that each of these characters has for the other. The offer of a cure for the T.O. virus is the perfect example of a back-handed mind game that the villain would play on Cable. Their interactions are probably the highlight of the issue. The central conflict of the issue, whether it is better to kill Franklin and rob Onslaught of his power, is excellent because the way Loeb handles it, Apocalypse is technically right in his viciousness and Cable and Sue have endangered millions of lives because of their own selfishness and lack of foresight. Absolutely fantastic.

However things devolve very quickly once Onslaught enters the picture. First, it’s hard to tell whether the fight takes place on the Astral Plane or the physical plane; I think it is the physical since the word balloons change shape in the Astral Plane. Then they end up fighting uninteresting copies of existing villains, and it is really disappointing to see the Hulk back in this series so soon, especially a more shallow and boring version of the character. Also, inconsistencies continue to pop up as Ian Churchill draws the wrong version of Onslaught for this point in the crossover—it should be the evolved version from Uncanny #336. Plus, if Onslaught can make his enemies disappear at will, why doesn’t he just do it at the beginning?

There is a lot to praise about this book, but it is too bad that it begins the same way as it ends…with absolutely no new plot progression at all. In the end Franklin is still captive, Sue is still distraught, and Apocalypse leaves to go back to spectating with the Watcher. You can skip this issue and not miss anything important whatsoever. On top of that, the confrontation with Onslaught makes no sense, and he uses powers that never appear in any of the other issues of this crossover. It is a nice treat for Cable fans to see the protagonist forced to interact with his arch villain, but outside of that, this is for super collectors only.

B-

Uncanny X-Men #336

Uncanny X-Men #336
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira

What Went Down: Franklin Richards is alone inside Onslaught with an unconscious Charles Xavier. He tries to wake the Professor up, but he can’t. Onslaught speaks to the boy and tells him that the boy will help conquer the world.

Apocalypse and Uatu the Watcher are hovering over Manhattan. They observe as people try to rescue each other from elevators and cops fire on Sentinels, all the while commenting on whether Onslaught is the next evolution of mutants. Outside Onslaught’s citadel, the Human Torch and Iceman are hiding behind an ice wall that is protecting them from the citadel’s defenses. Hawkeye joins them and they discuss rescuing young Franklin. Cyclops, Psylocke, Mr. Fantastic, and the Invisible Woman show up to get readings for the science team. Hawkeye asks Psylocke to help him free the wounded in the street (see Incredible Hulk this month) and the Invisible Woman stays behind with Iceman to try to save her son.

Joseph rescues some civilians trapped in a subway. They attack him, but Gambit knocks him out of the way. Gambit tries to explain that Joseph isn’t responsible for this, which impresses Rogue. Joseph goes off to end the threat, and Rogue and Gambit make up for their fight in X-Men #45 and hug it out.

At Four Freedoms Plaza, Vision, Iron Man, and Ant Man (??) were injured in the EMP and are recuperating. Mr. Fantastic uses Jean Grey as a sounding board for his thoughts, and Jean thinks about how inspiring he is since the creation of the FF marked the birth of the modern age of heroes (since Fantastic Four was the first of Marvel Comics’ Silver Age super hero titles). The Thing helps out a wounded Iron Man because Iron Man is determined to help no matter how weak he is.

Outside the citadel, Onslaught is producing energy and talking about how powerful he is becoming. Sue Storm wants to stop him, and Cyclops tries to stop her. She knocks him away, but Cable and Storm show up (after fighting the Hulk in his own title) to tell Sue that Cyclops knows what it’s like to have a son in danger.

Inside Onslaught, Xavier wakes up and comforts Franklin. He tells Franklin to be brave, and Onslaught takes the boy away to use him…for something. Outside, Joseph attacks Onslaught, and the villain opens his armor to reveal a trapped Xavier suffering. A group of heroes attack; Cable uses his powers to psionically enhance Joseph’s magnetic hold on Onslaught. Cyclops sees a crack in the armor and blasts it while the Invisible Woman pulls it open. Xavier notes that this allows himself to exist on the physical and psychic planes at the same time.

Thor bursts through Onslaught and rescues Xavier. Instead of defeating Onslaught, this causes him to laugh and change appearance even further. Apparently Xavier was holding Onslaught back, so now the villain is able to unleash a “psychic maelstrom” to beat back the heroes; essentially this is a big flamey forcefield thing that the heroes can’t penetrate. When asked to search for a sign of Franklin, Xavier informs everyone that he has lost his telepathic powers. In the sky, Uatu and Apocalypse talk about what is to be done next. Uatu shows Apocalypse a hologram of Cable and tells him that he knows what to do.

How It Was: Well first thing first, Joe Mad does not draw very impressive Sentinels, which is a big disappointment. But he does do a good job with all of the different heroes. And man, are there a lot of heroes. Lobdell does a decent job managing all of them, even though all they’re really doing is shuffling around until the final issue. Hawkeye and Psylocke show up just to leave, Iceman and Human Torch don’t do much. Lobdell doesn’t do a lot with the actual X-Men, although he does a good job displaying Sue Storm’s frustration and anguish, and Iron Man and the Thing get a nice little scene. Unfortunately, Lobdell’s handling of Joseph and Gambit is completely inconsistent with Mark Waid’s; while Waid had Gambit attacking Joseph and Joseph defending himself, Lobdell has Gambit acting sympathetic while Joseph blames himself. It’s just another sign of the disorganization of the Marvel Bullpen at this point. And I’d like to know how the Sentinels survived the EMP.

Actually Xavier and Franklin both get a brief chance to shine this issue as well. Lobdell manages to capture the fear and confusion a young boy would be going through, and it’s neat to see Xavier finding strength through the boy. The fight at the end is pretty cool, although it ends almost exactly like X-Men #55 ended, with an immense force from Onslaught pushing back all the heroes, and the heroes feeling hopeless because of it. I personally dislike having Onslaught as a separate entity since it seems like yet another ploy to absolve Xavier of guilt. Plus, you’d think that once Xavier is rescued, he might play a part in defeating what he created, but he doesn’t. At least we have a new plot development for X-Men with the loss of Xavier’s powers.

Once more we have lots of buildup and little payoff. Onslaught “evolves” but nothing changes because of it except for how he’s drawn. And Lobdell makes Apocalypse seem like he’s going to be a major player in the story, when all he’s going to do is show up in the next issue of this story and then disappear. So it still feels like nobody has really thought this through. This is a pretty mediocre Onslaught chapter made worse by the fact that most of the X-Men are pushed to the side by all of the guest heroes in the book. I’d like to say that Xavier’s rescue moves the story along, but really the plot is at the same place it’s been; Onslaught is more powerful than the heroes and the heroes need to figure out a way to stop Onslaught.

C