UNCANNY AVENGERS #5

• Wonder Man, Wasp and Sunfire join the team just in time for Grim Reaper’s revenge! Tension between the team builds as Havok’s leadership is questioned!

• The death of a major character at the hands of an Avenger in broad daylight!

Story by Rick Remender
Art by Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales
Colors by Laura Martin
Cover by John Cassaday, Laura Martin, & Olivier Coipel

Price: $3.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 7.8%

Reviews

UserAddedSpoilers
nastysnow03/30/13NoRead Review
wraith170103/29/13NoRead Review
ghostmann03/27/13NoRead Review
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Avg Rating: 4.4
 
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Comments

  1. Grabbing this just for the Coipel art! Only picked up the lacklustre first issue so far, so I hope the story has picked up since!

  2. This is the last chance I’m giving this book. I haven’t really been digging it so far, but with Coipel’s art, I’ll give it one more chance to hook me in.

    • I agree that this has not been a good start for this series. The Red Skull story has been boring. The delays for the lack luster art also hurt this book for me as well. I am going to give it 1 more arc to get better.

    • Completely agree, I’ll be dropping this unless this issue wows me. With so much good stuff coming out right now there’s no room on my pull list for books that are just ok.

  3. Love this book. Not quite sure what others were expecting, but it seems like Remender is going for part Claremont X-Men, part Busiek Avengers, and that works for me.

    • Yeah, same here. There are plenty of things to point at when making the claim that this book hasn’t been perfect (Remender isn’t as good as he was on X-Force, Cassaday isn’t as good as he was 5-10 years ago), but this has been solid superhero comics as far as I’m concerned. I like Coipel a lot, and I like Acuna more than Cassaday even, so I’m down with this series for a while.

  4. Really enjoyed the first arc. I will stay on.

  5. Coipel! I’m so excited!

  6. Giving this one more chance with Coipel on art but it’s definitely on the chopping block.

  7. Been enjoying this book a little more than the Avengers title

  8. Great issue, hopefully Acuna can uphold the quality of this issue.

  9. In for the first dozen issues.

    Hoping for Remender goodness.

    Dropping a lot of my subscriptions at the end of this year.

    Everything except Daredevil, actually.

    It’s a weird feeling, filling up the final short box.

    Forty years of collecting is drawing to a close.

    Now to sell off all this stuff.

  10. Man, I love a “hanging around the mansion” issue, fraught with drama and relationship friction. Classic Avengers.

    Also, damn. Dat Coipel. If only we could get him on a monthly series…

  11. Damn! I was going to get this anyway, but never expected Coipel to show up… Still can’t wait for him and Wood’s “X-Men”…

  12. That’s gonna be bad for business.

  13. Liked this better than the previous issues. I was just about ready to move on, but I’ll stick around for a few.

  14. Yup, this was pure gold. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

  15. Now THIS was a great issue, its a shame copiel was only on for this issue because he did a really great job as well but Remender really stepped it up on this one too he jam packed in quite alot of plot

  16. I love how he is writing this Claremont style. I am so in!

  17. Was anyone else genuinely moved by Havok’s speech?

    • I loved it

    • From day-one, the X-Men have been an allegory for disenfranchised groups in the world. In the Marvel Universe, the word “Mutant” is a non-derogatory descriptor, like “Black”, “White”, or “Polka-dotted”. Havok calling the word “Mutant” the “M-Word” is an obvious nod to the use of the “N-Word” in today’s society. He’s basically stating that he finds the word “Mutant” offensive.

      As an African American, I find this line of thought as ridiculous as the idea of finding the word “Black” or the term “African American” offensive”. Fortunately, I do not. And I feel safe in saying that neither does society. After all, how often do you hear someone say “The B-Word” in place of “Black”? You don’t, because black is just a descriptor.

      It is NOT an insult.

      Havok says “Don’t call us Mutants. The ‘M-Word’ represents everything I hate.” This is where his speech went off the rails.

      Imagine a Catholic saying “Don’t use the ‘C-Word’. It represents everything I hate.”

      Imagine a gay person saying “Don’t use the ‘G-Word’. It represents everything I hate.”

      Imagine a woman saying “Don’t use the ‘W-Word’. It represents everything I hate.”

      Imagine a white person saying “Don’t use the ‘W-word’. It represents everything I hate.”

      Imagine a black person saying “Don’t use the ‘B-word’. It represents everything I hate.”

      As depicted by Remender, Havok is a textbook example of a self-hating Mutant. That flies in the face of what the X-Men stand for in the comics, and for what the X-Men comics have stood for for many readers. The X-Men are about inclusion and equality, but they are NOT about rejecting or hating any aspect of themselves. They are about accepting and celebrating difference, NOT about rejecting or denying it.

      Rick Remender is a great writer. He’s one of my favorites in fact. I applaud him for trying to tackle the subject of identity politics. But unless he meant to portray Havok as a self-hating Mutant with self-identity & self-esteem issues, he seriously dropped the ball here.

    • @wraith1701:

      As a straight white male, I realize I can’t necessarily speak to this issue with as much personal conviction as others. So I don’t intend my comments to diminish the way someone might see their own struggle reflected in the X-Men. However, I think this is an example of allegory only taking us so far.

      No one becomes a mutant until their powers develop at adolescence (except Hope, but… whatever). So even though there are allegorical parallels between the fictional mutant rights movement and the real-world civil rights movement, I think it’s a little confining to view mutants as symbolic stand-ins for any specific community. The struggle of African-Americans is similar, but not the same as it is for Latinos, Muslims or LGBT people, right?

      So while many writers play up the allegorical connections, I think the key differences in the minorities mutants symbolize make it hard to pin meaning to what Alex says in this issue. Is this a “mutants = racial minorities” thing, a “mutants = religious minority” thing, or a “mutants = LGBT” thing? I don’t know, but I think this scene reads differently through those similar, but different, lenses.

      Beyond the potential dangers involved when a mutant develops powers for the first time, what makes a mutant all that different from the other super-beings who weren’t born with super-powers?

      Peter Parker was a normal guy until he was bit by a radioactive spider. Sue Storm was a normal girl until she was exposed to cosmic radiation. Alex Summers was a normal guy until his X-gene expressed itself.

      Why does Alex have to stop being that normal guy and become “a mutant” when Peter and Sue do not?

      While I appreciate that the potential exists to see bigger issues in these fictional characters, I don’t think Stan Lee designed them to hold up a tremendous amount of analytical scrutiny.

    • I also think a lot of people are ignoring the part where the reporter asks what he wants to be called then and he says he simply wants to be called Alex.

      I don’t think that he honestly feels mutant is a derogatory word, I think he’s using it as an example to say that the word mutant is just a way of further segregating the mutants from humans. Alex’s point is that they are all humans, essentially.

      He doesn’t want to be seen only as “a mutant”, he wants to be seen as the unique individual he is. Just like you, wraith1701 (if that IS your real name 🙂 ) I’m sure you don’t want to be seen as just “a black guy” but instead the individual, unique human being you are.

      Your skin color is not the sole thing that defines you and Alex’s X-gene isn’t the thing that defines him. He’s saying that he’s not interested in being the poster boy for the mutant species, he wants to be a hero, that happens to be a mutant.

      Lastly, the point that I think almost everyone is ignoring here, is that this is just one character’s viewpoint. Rogue, Scarlet Witch, Sunfire, Wolverine, and even Rick Remender himself don’t necessarily share this viewpoint. It’s just the view of one individual. We’ve seen since issue 1 that Havok isn’t interested in crusading for the mutants, he doesn’t fight for it like Cyclops or Xavier or Magneto, he’s perfectly content being seen as just another super-powered dude, because that’s how he thinks of himself.

  18. I am so glad I held out and didn’t drop this book. This is the Remender back to his best, loving the tie in with UXF. Absolutely loved this issue and finally get some of the team I had no time for before. The art was immense.

  19. Was right about to drop this book until I read the comments here. Thanks guy. Looks like I’m all in for another arc

  20. Is this a good jumping on point? i haven´t read this book but i believe the last 4 issues aren´t so great so can i start reading in this number and get the grip of the series?

  21. Yeah I have em all issue 5 is a perfect jumping on point hopefully now this series takes off

  22. With all the Mega-Villains hanging around this title, the shit is surely gonna rain at some point. All of a sudden, this feels like the most ambitious storyline in Marvel Now. And that’s including what Hickman’s cooking up in his kitchen.

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