Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

AvX #1A vs X #1 of 6
Marvel Comics
Aaron, Kubert, Immonen & Immonen

The mini-series within the mini-series is a series that focusing entirely on fighting Ignore the fact that it has a confusing cover where the logo appears to be identical to the main mini-series, which creates a hesitation because of the numbering though. You know coming into the book that there is no plot development and no real “story”. These books are meant to be pure action. In that regard, this book delivers, but is it worth it? For me, this book needed to be “different” from the countless other times heroes have squared off against one another whether it be World War Hulk, Civil War or Red Hulk’s introduction to the Marvel Universe. I’m not sure I found much in the way or memorable here, but I was entertained.

Aaron and Kubert work on the first battle that squares Magneto and Iron Man against each other. The pairing is natural because one is in a suit of metal and the other controls anything metal. This allows Aaron to show his cleverness in terms of finding ways that Iron Man can circumvent Magneto’s power. He does this well. However, what he does not do well is conclude the fight convincingly. It almost appears that the loser kind of just lays down for the count to end the battle and I’m not sure that was the desired affect from the story. The best part of the fight is dialogue between the two as they both accuse each other terrorism and/or being complicit in the potential annihilation of a particular race. I liked the first eight pages a lot but the last two left something to be desired.

Immonen and Immonen give us The Thing and Namor. You would think this battle would be lopsided because of the fact that it takes place mostly in the ocean, but it actually isn’t. There are some funny one-liners in here but there isn’t anything that is terribly memorable. Again, the ending was odd because I simply can’t tell how Namor swinging a giant fish manages to send Namor crashing to the ocean floor. The fight is good, but feels like any number of other characters could have filled the spots for either one of these two.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsKubert and Immonen deliver well on art. With the exception of the confusing nature of Namor’s knockdown, I found the art to present a very fluid fight in both stories. I loved Kubert’s panel layouts, though I suspect it may read oddly digitally. The art needed to scream out action and it does so very well here.

I liked this issue. I think if I had a particular affection for any of the characters I would have enjoyed it that much more. It seems like these comics will be entertaining and will “matter” if you like the characters in them. If you are curious about how the fighting plays out or you feel the main book is just too light on the fighting then I recommend picking this up.

3 out of 5 Geek Goggles