Avengers vs X-Men (the rebuttal)

I was listening to a podcast, “Just A Couple of G’s”, a pretty good comic review podcast.  They were waxing on about the forth coming AvsX event Marvel will soon be releasing.  There were quite a few things about the podcast that I really thought were just plain wrong.  I mean aside from the full-on wankery about the X-Men.  So I thought I would throw my hat in the ring and share a little bit of my thoughts about this event.  Before I begin, I wanted to lay the ground work of my thoughts.

1. I really like the podcast.  One of my best friends is on it, that was the reason I started listening.
2. Many of the characters that are fighting have been or currently are on both teams.
3. I am just taking the match ups as presented by Marvel.  I will evaluate the battle between characters based on my knowledge of them.
4. It would appear this fight is mutant vs. hero regardless of current affiliations.  No quarter will be given for friendship or teammate.  To elaborate abit more, it looks like both factions of X-folks are working together against the all non-mutant Avengers.
5. All the characters are fighting to subdue, no killing!  I just can’t see Cyclops unleashing his full optic blast on a normal human.  Also, Thor would not break the false “Goddess” Storm into a sack of flesh, he’s friends with her husband, T’Challa, for Pete’s sake.

First, Alex and Nakia both claim no team can take on the X-Men.  That is a bit too much hyperbole.  The X-Men aren’t that great.  They’re good, but there are many Marvel teams that are good and less fractured than the X-Men.  Besides, since Bendis started writing Avengers, he has pretty much made everyone join the team, even some villains.  If we just take one X-Men team from one comic, not all mutants, just a current roster of heroes and had them fight the Avengers from the same name comic, the Avengers may win or tie or lose.

            X-Sanction is just a bad book.  As the prelude to this event, it really is written by a fanboy of Cable.  Why do I say this?  Well, having read two issues so far, I have to say that Cable really picked the wrong team of Avengers to go against.  Red Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Falcon, Wolverine and Spider-man; I just don’t see Cable as that big a bad ass.  Even one at a time, I don’t think he could take any of these characters.  Probably Falcon (weakest character by far), maybe Iron Man, Cap, and Spidey but that’s about it.

So the game is to be played out because the Phoenix Force is returning to Earth.  The Avengers say no and the X-Men say yes.  They just frickin did this with Scarlet Witch!  Why do it so soon after.  At least it’s been almost 20 years since the X-men and Avengers fought before.  Oh yeah, they just did this set up for Civil War too.  Damn, Marvel really sucks!!  They can’t think of any new stories or have their heroes fight villains, so they just do the same things over and over.

Now Nakia claims that the Phoenix Force and Scarlet Witch’s actions are comparable.  I don’t think so.  The Phoenix killed a whole solar system and would need to do it again and again.  It is a force of energy that cannot be housed by a human being, it is too much.  By contrast, Scarlet Witch didn’t kill a race, she removed their powers from them.  Not such a bad thing in the long run because logically, most mutants would just go on living like normal folks.  And if you really wanted to be a mutant of worth, you could always join an X-team and you would have your powers returned, just ask the writers.  No real named members of the X-Men are the worst for wear from the Scarlet Witch’s “No more mutants…” actions.

It’s totally justified that if the Phoenix Force were returning to Earth that it should be stopped, after all, the “What If” story from a long time ago had Jean Grey destroying the universe after she killed Cyclops!

The end of Children’s Crusade hasn’t come out yet but the last I read, The X-Men want Wanda dead and she’s running around giving mutants their powers back.  I am not sure how that’s bad for the X-Men unless they want to be the last 200 left.  Of course, no one really dies in Marvel, so it doesn’t really matter.  How can you hate Wanda when most of her victims are ok now?

The Kid Omega issue is poor writing that has typified Marvel in recent years.  I don’t know Kid Omega at all so I can’t say what’s what.  I just know that mutants in Marvel are above the law.  Why?  Well, I me and 500 people decided to live off shore of San Francisco and make our own country, I don’t think the U.S. government would really let us.  I know they wouldn’t let us go back and forth destroying property in San Fran.  They would let me harbor murderers or thieves on my new nation.  Lots of stuff like that would not happen.  Kid Omega is wanted for various crimes but is allowed to remain free on a murderer’s that he is in school?!?  We’ll just have to suspend our disbelief here. 

I’m going to ignore the wankery rant the hosts went on at that point about Cyclops’ mutants on Utopia.  That’s all I’ll say for now.

So lets start.

• Wolverine vs Captain America: Nakia called Cap.  This is very wrong, although I want Cap to win.  Wolverine can’t be beat.  The writers and editors at Marvel have seen to it that Wolverine cannot be killed, cannot be bested, and in most situations, cannot even be hindered.  There are numerous examples from just the last 5 years about this but most notably are the Wolverine Origins story where Cap and Wolvie fought and the aftermath of Cap’s “death” (see no one really dies) where it’s revealed Wolvie was supposed to kill Cap (not sure what the reason was but it seemed to be an open order.)  I like Cap, but he’s just a man, he can’t regenerate his entire body from panel to panel.  Cap will tire and Wolverine doesn’t.  All Cap has is his shield but he’s still a man, not super anything.
• Cyclops vs Hawkeye: This has to be the worst pairing of this list, and there are some terrible pairings.  I can’t see Hawkeye winning this in anyway.  Trick arrows, mano-a-mano…there’s just no way he can win.  But why these two, Cyclops is the leader of the X-Nation, and he fights a normal human with a bow and some trick arrows??  (The beams do stop after a while, by the way.)
• Psylocke vs Black Widow: This is a good match up and honestly, I think it could go either way unless Psylocke uses a psychic attack against Black Widow.  Black Widow is a normal woman but so is Psylocke, physically.  And both are super expert fighters.  One being a ninja and the other fighting alongside some of the best fighters in the Marvel U.  So I call draw (with that caveat).
• Iron Man vs Magneto: First off, Magneto can only affect ferrous metals.  I am not sure what’s been going on in the X-books for the past 5 years or so but a lot more is being done with non-ferrous metals in our society that I don’t see Tony Stark using real iron in his armor anymore.  (Nakia, before you make another assertion about polarity and magnetism, get the science degree you’ll need so that you can stop yourself first.)  Most circuit boards are silicone so I would think Tony’s nanotech would be that or some other material that is non-ferrous.  That being said, this would be a short battle because Magneto could only throw metal things at Iron Man while Iron Man could blast them all day.  Iron Man is a genius thinker so in the end I could see him winning by outsmarting Magneto.  (The Kitty Pryde thing was Magneto exerting his Deus Ex Machina power that the writers like to give most mutants nowadays.  It is a transferable power that mostly lives in the Hope Summers mutant, but not exclusively.)
• Spider-Woman vs Gambit: This fight is kind of interesting.  I think they would just go to bed together and screw.  If that doesn’t happen, then maybe Spider-woman.  She can fly and cling to walls.  She can fire those energy bolts and she has those pheromones.  (She’s also, very curvy!)  He has energy powers.  Both are normal humans for strength but I think Spider-woman has better fighting skills. (S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra agent training.)  Yeah, Spider-woman.
• Luke Cage vs Beast – Fake??  No, this fight would have to go to Luke Cage.  Not only because of the incredible power up Bendis gave Cage but because Beast can’t hurt Cage with his claws.  So brawling, I am sure Cage will win.  (Nakia, don’t you mean “Sweet Christmas”?)
• Storm vs Thor: Real god vs false goddess?  (Thor being dead never stopped him from joining a fight before.)This would be interesting if Storm were more powerful.  I may have missed something where Storm lifted Mjolnir…either way, Thor has thrown that hammer and killed giants with one blow, so I doubt Storm (a normal woman) could catch anything Thor throws at her and survive.  Moreover, Storm is not immune to the elements.  Thor I am pretty sure is immune to lightning and it obeys his will.  Thor can also fire magic energy from Mjolnir, something Storm would be hard pressed to avoid.  Finally, as far as power goes, Storm can create any weather effect on Earth without borrowing it from somewhere else on the planet (as per the Marvel Universe handbook #12.)  Thor’s power is magical and doesn’t affect the Earth normal climate.  This being the case and her link to the planet’s biosphere, I doubt she could create a storm of enough fury to even bother Thor.
• Ms Marvel vs Rogue: This is a tough fight.  I don’t know what happened recently with Rogue’s powers but I do know that when Hope cured Rogue, Rogue lost the catalog of powers she had up to that point (does she still have Ms Marvel’s Strength and flight then?)   So the catalog of powers since then would be less up to now.  Ms Marvel has received a power upgrade and is a better fighter.  So power for power I think this could be a good fight and a draw as the Psylocke/Black Widow fight.  Here’s the caveat – Any blast Rogue fired at Ms Marvel would be absorbed and used against Rogue.  So I think Ms Marvel wins.
• Juggolossus vs Thing: Why??  There is no way the Thing can win this, NONE.
• Daredevil vs Archangel: Both have normal human fighting abilities…but Daredevil trains and fights all the time, heck he’s the best normal fighter and lawyer around.  The only way Archangel could win is by staying out of reach.  This is if Angel hasn’t reacquired the Death Angel knives he wielded while blue skinned.  If that’s the case, Archangel wins.  (Sorry, I am not super up to date on this crap, but Marvel really makes me not want to buy their books the way they keep repeating storylines.)
• Hulk vs Emma Frost: Unless Emma has the ability to knock Hulk out, psychically; this fight is over in short order.  Hulk can easily shatter diamond and Emma has been shattered before.  So Hulk physically, Emma psychically.
• Spider-man vs Iceman: Fake??  Not sure why this is here.  If Spidey can get close, Iceman has normal strength so he has no chance.  Creating ice out of the moisture in the air is a powerful ability.  Iceman is not a god but he can fight the good fight.  Spider-man can dodge bullets…It’s a tough call.  I want to say Spider-man (he’s my fave) but I really think it would be a draw.

So what do we have:

            Avengers: 5 wins

            X-Men: 5 wins

            Draw or writer decision: 2

What do you think?

That’s all for now.

Titles

About the title...
This will be a comic blog, reveiwing comics I've recently read.  Also, commenting on comic stories and whatever I feel like writing about having to do with comics.
The title of this blog harkens back to the state of comics today.  In a nut shell, I feel that comic books have lost their target audience.  Children.  With the stories being more mature to cater to the people who read comics 20 years ago, I think the comic companies are cutting kids out of the picture.  This is a bad thing because the market they are getting now is finite.
That's all I have to say right now but my next post will be about AvsX.