1.The Length of the Story/Too Much Filler

I think a lot of people would agree that this series should not have been 12 issues long. IMO, this event felt more like story that needed to fill 12 issues than a story that needed 12 issues to tell. There were a lot of parts of the story that felt like filler and that the writers were trying to stretch the story. The first part of AvX is probably the biggest example of having the story be longer than it should have been. It was filled with many pointless fights and chase scenes. For Goodness sakes, Scott ended up fighting a dragon in one issue, and while I love Dragons, that fight was completely pointless. If a lot of the fluff was edited out, the story would be more concise and in my opinion better. If the series really needed 12 issues, then editing out the pointless scenes would allow for more panel time to characters that barely got any and really needed it seeing as they were, or at least should have been, important to the story (i.e. Hope, Scarlet Witch, etc.).

2.The Theme, Morals, and Philosophical Differences

The second biggest problem I had with AvX is how the writers handled the philosophical and political ideas in the story. Watchmen is considered one of the greatest stories in the history of comics, and I feel one of the reasons for this is because each of the main character’s beliefs were respected and presented as any of them could be in the right or wrong. At first AvX did (poorly) pit Cyclop’s X-Men’s ideology against the Avenger’s ideology, but once the Phoenix Five came into play, the story became about absolute power corrupting absolutely. Instead of presenting the Phoenix Five’s position of trying to turn the world into “paradise” reasonable perspective that can address certain issues, we got a black and white story where the Phoenix Five were continuously provoked into becoming evil, corrupt dictators. To be honest, a lot of writers come off as amateurs when it comes to politics. They seem to be the type of people who think that if you disagree with them, then you’re an idiot, and they often make poor arguments to support their positions. In the beginning of AvX we had both sides call the other side fascist, dictator, etc. as if they were posters on forums trying to troll each other.

Then there was the issue of Avengers Academy where one of the characters compares Emma wanting to destroy a Sentinel, a weapon used to kill mutants, to be homophobic.

AvX isn’t the only event with poor political discourse. Civil War was filled with them. I remember one issue where a reporter said Captain America was out of touch because he didn’t know what MySpace was. Look, whether or not you think characters like Captain America are boring or outdated, I think we could all agree that the argument that he’s outdated because he DOESN’T KNOW WHAT MYSPACE IS is completely stupid and ridiculous. If Marvel doesn’t know how to handle complex ideas, then they shouldn’t incorporate them in their stories.

3.Where The F*** Is Hope?

I touched upon Hope not getting enough panel time in AvX in the beginning of the article and left if for last because I feel it hindered the story so much. She is the mutant messiah. The story was based around her getting the Phoenix Force. Instead of building her up, they barely gave her any time and made her nothing more than a MacGuffin. There was only one issue that truly showed us her thoughts and feelings on the matter, and she was then ignored for the rest of the series. In issue 6, Hope decides to leave Utopia with the Avengers. However, we never learned why. I’ve read some people argue that it was simple teenage rebellion, but even though teenagers are emotional, they do use logic to justify their actions. I know a lot of people wanted Cable to show up in the story, and I have to agree with them. I was against it at first, but having Cable show up would have at least given Hope some panel time and possibly character development. It wasn’t just Hope that was left out.

Also, I feel Scarlet Witch was unjustifiably left out of AvX. Her actions in House of M were the cause of this event, and yet she also was barely in the story. They had an opportunity to do something special between her and Scott, who hates her for what she’s done to the mutant race, but Marvel did nothing. Hope and the Scarlet Witch should have been main characters right alongside Cyclops and Captain America, but they were left off to be in the background.

Note: I did not mention or list how out of character everyone was because I thought it be too long of a list/article, that it wasn’t a surprise considering some of the writers involved (cough*Bendis*cough), and because some of the plot called for it (i.e. the X-Men and Avengers fighting instead of compromising because this is an event and there are books to sell).

It would have been better if the first chapters showed Cap, Cyclops, T'Challa and Storm attempting to bridge something.....then Red Hulk and a few other jerkier avengers went out to take Hope by force and the rest of the Avengers got dragged into their little rouge op

@krspaceT:Yeah, it would have been better if some sort of compromise was made, but the gimmick of the event was having the Avengers fight the X-Men, so they went that route instead.

This event was a failure from the word go.

People can run around blaming Cap, Cyclops, or whoever all they like, but at the end of the day, this rests solely on the shoulders of Marvel Editorial and Creative.

Let's all for a second remember that we're dealing with fictional characters who are and have been written by dozens and dozens of different people.

I think most of us can agree that many, if not all, of the characters acted in very inconsistent ways from what we'd typically expect from them in this event.

Who was "right" and who was "wrong" in this are both BS. Both sides (yes both) were looking for a fight. Either side could have stopped at any moment, presented their point of view, and worked through it.

But no. Marvel needed to try to recapture the audience that it gained from Civil War.

At the end of the day, this event wasn't Avengers VS X-Men, it was Avengers and X-Men VS People of Earth, because neither side could pull their crap together enough to think about the real damage they were doing.

There were no heroes in this. Marvel's "our world is the real world" has never rung more phony. Were something like this take place, every last individual involved would be awaiting trial.

bitch thread has been made. HOORAH!

@Crash_Recovery: I just hope Trinity War doesn't do this too.

@krspaceT Trinity War will almost certainly do it. The whole "hero VS hero" thing is a sad, run-into-the-ground trope that is used as a story crutch. Unfortunately, we as fans keep fueling these type of stories.

Look how many threads we have around here. "Can so and so beat up so and so". "Who's strongest" etc.

When we outgrow the need for our heroes to fight each other, that's when these stories will stop.

@Crash_Recovery: Hopefully the reasons are better

You have really hit the nail on the head with this event.  From the beginning, I felt that this event wasn't going to end very well since it seemed too forced to begin with.

Well my first post but at least it's not a thread. I don't usually respond on a forum but after reading the events in AVX issue 12 I needed some closure. Basically what TCR7 said and then some. Heres my 10 cents.

I'm not really expecting much. From comics these days. Nice read. Reasonably o.k art and comprehensible compositions. That's enough. I know I'm not going to get the Chris Clairmount x-men days of my child hood but theres been alot of good interesting and gripping story lines that have focussed the x-men and in recent times the marvel universe - though imperfectly so. M day was awesome even if it was a rehash of AoA and countless other alternate realities are fun story lines. Epic global struggles and team ups are also fun along side world shattering events that supposedly change the course of marvel history.

AvX was not to bad on that score. Had some interesting plot developments that surprised me, some interesting dynamics that really posed some thought provoking predicaments in regards to the characters. An epic scope and some o.k art. Nice read. But the problem was for something that was earth shattering it just didn't seem real nor did it seem to do enough to impact the characters involved, because at the end of it characters I rather liked were changed forever but with no particular consequence on the world or the other super heroes, that is to say, the avengers most of whom I never really liked very much anyway. Lets face it, the Avengers are in at the moment so this was really about Super Heroes taking on the confused hapless mutants who have been led astray, some of whom have become evil power mad nut jobs. But they were kind of right, so in the end everyone wins. Really? What I wanna ask is what the X-men often asked but on a readership level: Get the hey out of our story arc! Why are the Avengers fighting the x-men again? More importantly why are these Avenger dudes messing around with the entire structure of the x-tittles when they never really bothered that much before. Did Captain America really chide Cyclops for killing Xavier like a cop tells a murderer in some law and order drama “your gonna fry for this summers!”, believe me Cyclops just lost a man he thought of as a father, his wife, his x-family any shred of dignity he had as a leader. He knows! He’s Cyclops not Hannibal Lecture.

The thing that got me though was this:

There were no heroes in this. Marvel's "our world is the real world" has never rung more phony. Were something like this take place, every last individual involved would be awaiting trial. - Crash Recovery.

And it got me posting on a forum to basically say that these characters you've come to love have become so devoid from the normal reality that grounded them that they live in a world without consequences – even when they do have consequences it just seems inconsequential. I don’t know if that makes any sense but AvX has shown just how devoid it is and it’s been happening for awhile now. The world burned for an interesting but unmoving story arc that meant that you could mix up tittles and reinvent characters displacing their entire histories into boxes for the time being while they can go about beating things up in a super hero kinda way, with only vague cynical reflection about the meaning of it all.

Cyclops as dark phoenix must have like maybe killed 100 million people on the planet from all that destruction. O.k we’ll say at least a million. And their talking about the death of one man, Xavier. Oh wait, actually only Xavier died. And he didn’t really die, we all know he’ll turn up somehow. There was no death in AvX. No real threat. Just some super heroes trying to beat up the x-men and failing heaps, until the x-men go crazy and self explode. But no one got hurt thank god. It was very PG. Even after they defeated the Phoenix five members they were just miraculously unconscious.

I don’t know, it would be nice if these dudes could just stop, take a breather, go out down to the shop and buy some milk and bread. Maybe fall down a manhole cover and battle a mutated cockroach dude who’s stealing babies from the local orphanage. You know meet people. But once again it was an o.k read. I had fun and anticipated the next issue. Emma frost looked hot in her phoenix outfit. Wanda too. Lots o other stuff but I think that’s enough ranting.