Avengers VS X-Men: Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Adam Kubert, John Dell, Laura Martin, Larry Molinar, Chris Eliopoulos, Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, Ryan Stegman, Matt Wilson

Whoops. I’ve decided I don’t like Kubert’s art. There are just way too many things going on here that I can’t agree with. For one, he made Spider-Man look fat. In two separate panels. Made him look fat. SPIDER-MAN. How the hell do you look at Spider-Man, see he’s fat, and be okay with that? Let that go to print? I’m really confused there. Also, this one just felt WAY too fast, drawn way to quickly. Rushed. Not looked over, not polished at all like last issue. And it’s the same inkers and colorist too. So we can’t argue that someone new made it look different. Something happened at the foundation. Also, what in the gorram hell happened to that crazy panel layout from last issue?

Okay, I should be fair. The page layouts aren’t always up to the artist. Yes, they have a big say in the layout of the panels. But the number of panels per page is typically handled by the scripter. Aaron, in this case. Yeah, Bendis did the last one, and Aaron did this one. Have to say, not a fan. But at the least the characters are sounding like themselves.

Emma is afraid that the Phoenix power is wanting her to start doing bad things. Meanwhile, Colossus and Magick ARE doing bad things by throwing Avengers into volcanoes in Siberia. Yeah, apparently there are volcanoes in Siberia. Who’d have known? Emma starts doing those terrible things she was fearing, because she can now see into everybody’s mind. And it looks like she’s about to start punishing people who acted against or harmed mutants in their lives. Scary notion.

Storm visits Wakanda to try and help rebuild, but T’Challa pushes her away, saying they’re no longer married. This…is stupid. Really T’Challa? You think it’s necessary to banish your wife and all that? She just said if she had KNOWN the X-Men were doing this to Wakanda, she’d have been there fighting by his side! Is that not enough? Does he actually not love her? Were there problems in their marriage previously that I don’t know about, and this was just the culmination of everything? Storm seemed pretty blind-sided, so I can’t say that it makes sense at all. So this is dumb. If he really loved her, he would have been hurt, he would have hoped against hope that she had nothing to do with what happened to his nation. I guess Jason Aaron, or whoever came up with that genius bit, doesn’t know a whole lot about loving someone.

So the Avengers go into the volcano to find their comrades, and it turns out that it’s a portion of Hell. Fun. Xavier’s there, and he helps them infiltrate. And then…sigh…and then the worm demon things start talking. And talking idiotically. Demon Worm 1: “You smell what I smell?” Demon Worm 2: “Dinner.” C’mon, seriously? That was cataclysmically lame.

Magick and Colossus come to stop the team, and Peter decides to help get everyone out so he can face the Phoenix Force siblings alone. Crazy, right? Well, see, it was all set up at the beginning when Spider-Man was waxing philosophical about being an Avenger, and what it means to be ready to step up to the plate. See how they brought that around? Clever right? Meh, I really don’t care.

So basically Peter gets the crap beat out of him. I’m impressed with how the covers of these books have been really accurate in terms of their contents. Usually that doesn’t happen, but nice job on this series for giving us covers that ACTUALLY tell us what’s going within. I’ve also decided that Colossus is the only well-drawn character in this issue.

Avengers VS X-Men #9, the verdict: A kind of a let-down of an issue. I like a couple of things that go on, but it really, honestly seems pointless. Really? All of the Avengers are going to risk all of their lives to save just a few people? Because, look, they really do only carry out six or seven people. Is that going to make a difference? Yeah, they need as many people as they can get to fight the Phoenix Force…so let’s risk ALL OF OUR HARDEST HITTERS IN THE HOPE THAT THIS RESCUE IS EVEN POSSIBLE. How idiotic. And when did Ben get caught? He was standing in K’un Lun at the end of last ish. I dunno, it just feels really stupid. Really, really stupid. I’m all for blaming Aaron on this one, because damn. So many things happened that I thought were just off the mark. Like he threw dart and missed the board entirely. Poor guy in the corner now has a dart in his eye.

(Photo Source: Newsarama)