Chess to Boxing
The Avengers and the X-men are in the heat of battle, fighting for the right to keep The Mutant Messiah. With two very large teams going at it, this series was made to focus on individual battles that are happening on Utopia.
Plus
This issue doesn't really have a plot as it highlights match-ups from two very prominent teams. For comics like these, you tend to heavily focus on the artwork and I must say that the team of artists for this issue gave us justice with their brilliant drawing.
The Avengers vs X-men fight is rocking the entire Marvel Universe and there are a lot of tie-ins for this storyline from multiple on-going series from Marvel, so in a certain way, I feel that this series would be a filler. Despite the fact that it is, it does a great job of keeping up with The Avengers vs X-men hype. The decision to pick Iron Man vs Magneto and Thing vs Namor was brilliant as new and old readers are mostly familiar with them. Also, the fights showcase that the heroes are not all arsenal and strength, but they actually use their heads as well, especially for the Iron Man vs Magneto battle.
Minus
Going back to the idea of a series with very little if not non-existent plot, there really isn't much to take away from this issue. Only thing I would say though is that the fun facts that were scattered in the panels were distracting. Fun facts for comics tend to be a hit or miss, and for this one, it was a definite miss. The fun facts were far too distracting that it takes away a little emotion from the issue. Both teams are fighting for pride and survival which makes the tension very high, and those scattered facts makes the readers drift away that they wouldn't be able to grasp the need of the heroes to win.
Final Score
Smashmouth fights between the two core teams of the Marvel Universe is something that most comic book fans want to see. Even though there are many tie-ins from other series for the AVX storyline, this issue is still something you want to own a copy of. Just think of the collector's value this comic will have. It will be something you'd want to show to people in the future. 4/5 stars.