Every comic fan's favourite time of the year/absolute fucking nightmare is nearly upon us again. The summer crossover blockbuster. For the uninitiated a 'crossover' in nerdy, comic jargon is an epic storyline that incorporates different groups of characters all fighting some sort of threat that effects the wider universe in which the stories take place.
Past examples of Marvel's summer crossover events include Civil War (Iron Man and Capt America fall out and have a fight) Siege (where Norman Osborn invades the mythical realm of Asgard and everyone shows up to kick his ass) and last years Fear Itself (where there is a dragon....and erm...Red Skull I think....). These crossover events are hit and miss, for instance Civil War is really very good, you could read the core issues of the main series and it makes sense and is a big, action packed slugfest.
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| plus it's drawn by Steve McNiven so, you know, its fucking amazing! |
Fear Itself on the other hand relied to heavily on events that are depicted out of the main series title, meaning if you want to read the full story then you need to buy issues of other comics.
So having been burned SO many times before by these infamous summer slugfests I turn my attention to this years big one from Marvel; Avengers Vs X-Men! The vague premise of the story is that the Phoenix Force is on it's way to earth looking for a host and some sort of ruckus breaks out between the Avengers and the X-Men.
The series will be released across twelve issues bi-monthly from April (with an issue 0 in March setting up the story. What's curious about AvX is that it is written by five (FIVE!) writers, Marvel's top shotters or 'Architects' as they have been dubbed. Brian Bendis (Avengers) Ed Brubaker (Captain America) Jonathan Hickman (FF and Fantastic Four) Jason Aaron (X-Men) and Matt Fraction (Iron Man, Defenders, Thor) are teaming up with Olivier Coipel, Adam Kubert and John Romita Jr to delivery this epic.
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| erm....why is Wolverine not on the X-Men side? |
In addition to the main AvX titles there will be a spin off comic called AvX: VS where fights are highlighted and expanded. There will obviously be tie -in comics in titles like Wolverine and the X-Men and Avengers/New Avengers but Marvel swears that the bulk of the action will occur in the main titled, hence the 12 issue run.
Last years Fear Itself event, on paper looked amazing; Fraction writing, Stuart Immonen on pencils....but the story was wafer thin and it spread out into literally all but about 5 of Marvels titles, so long running and slow building plot lines were elbowed aside to make room for tie-in stories. When I read about AvX I immediately decided i would have nothing to do with it as i had been let down badly by Fear Itself.
But I find myself getting more and more into the idea of this crossover. I'm a fan of all of the writers, both their Marvel stuff and their creator owned titles, and the artists are excellent....John Romita Jr drawing the X-Men and the Avengers is too tempting!
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| pretty serious... |
I am quite taken with the idea of all of these writers clubbing together to write this. Will they write individual issues or will it be more of a 'writers table' kinda vibe? This remains to be seen. There isn't really a lot else to say about this really, I'll be taking a look at each issue as it comes out and i'll post my thoughts on the progress of the event as it unfold over the next few months!
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