AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #12

Review by: Fractal514

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Story by Jason Aaron
Art by Adam Kubert
Cover by Jim Cheung

Size: 0 pages
Price: 4.99

This review contains spoilers, click here to read

Cyclops was right. In the beginning of this whole mess we were presented with a simple conflict of opinion. Captain America was convinced that the Phoenix coming to the Earth meant only destruction; Cyclops was convinced it was the last and best opportunity for the rebirth of mutant-kind. Ultimately, that has been the central argument of AvX, and they were right in telling us there would be a winner, and that winner is Cyclops, because as far as that main argument is concerned, Cyclops was right. So why is Cyclops the villain? Why is he in chains (and visors)? Why are the X-Men scattered and underground, those who chose to stand by his side anyway? Because, well, I don't know why exactly, let's look at the evidence. The Avengers show up and demand to remove Hope from the island. This isn't a let's work together thing, this is a, we know better than you thing. In retrospect it's easy to say that Cap was wrong here because in the end, Cyclops was right about Hope, but in the heat of the moment it was all just conjecture. Cyclops threw the first punch (or optic blast as it were) so he definitely started all of the fighting up until the phoenix entered the scene. So let's take a moment to look at the ramifications of him losing his temper (perhaps justifiably): nothing. No one died, no major cities were destroyed, nothing. The first act of this story was just a bunch of superheroes being dicks to each other and fighting, but if that is a reason to condemn Cyclops then we should condemn all heroes, because they have all done it at one point or another. So let's look at the second act of the story, the part between the fight on the moon and Namor invading Wakanda. During this time the X-men used the Phoenix power to make the world a better place for all, not just mutants. In fact it wasn't until the Avengers attacked the X-men by once again showing up uninvited to their home and trying to take Hope, that we saw the X-men get aggressive at all. I would say that up until Cyclops is provoked into taking his stance of "No More Avengers," that he was once again right, in that he was controlling the power and doing good in the world. The third act is where it gets really hard to defend the X-men. Namor is angered by the Avengers assault and prodded by Emma into the horrific attack on Wakanda. There is no justifying that. Illyana went crazy and brought Hell to earth and her brother seemed to go along for the ride, no defending that. Emma's years of pent up anger and rage boiled over in some really frightening ways, and I can't really defend that. Cyclops though seemed to have it under control, his trip and subsequent attack on Kun'Lun being the first time he showed signs of losing it. It wasn't until he was once again attacked in his home that he lost it competently and Dark Phoenixed out. Indeed this act in the story is hard to defend. Unless of course we consider the fact that they were all under the influence of a crazy cosmic entity bent of burning everything away and rebuilding. How many heroes have done horrific acts while under the influence or mind-control of some villain, and most of those aren't the same level of the Phoenix. Cap forgave Bucky for his Winter Soldier actions, why shouldn't he forgive Cyclops. Now, you might say that being possessed and not in control is a fine defense if you didn't seek that power, but to lust for it, pursue it and then claim you couldn't control it, well that makes you a villain. That would be a great point if Cyclops and the others had done that, but they didn't. Iron Man, who seems to have no true understanding of the Phoenix force this entire series, concocted a weapon to destroy the Phoenix and instead split it in five and thus gave the power to the X-men without them seeking it. Up until that point Cyclops was still fighting for Hope to get the power, which, in the end, is the exact same thing that Cap fought for. The Avengers literally created the Phoenix X-men through incompetence and ignorance. Had they simply let the Phoenix possess Hope on the Moon, who knows what would have happened? Marvel (and I say Marvel since this was obviously written by all of the main Marvel writers together, with heavy editorial input) clearly wanted the Avengers to be the heroes here. Was it because of the TV and Movie properties? I don't know, maybe. Was it because they wanted to get to this new status quo? More likely. We've heard before how editorial wasn't interested in the crossover so much as where it got us (Secret Invasion). I really hope AvX Consequences deals with this. Someone like Reed Richards really needs to point all of this out TO Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers, they, as characters need to hear it, so we as readers can see their reactions. Ultimately, if you ask me, the winner of AvX is Marvel and the loser is long-time X-men readers. I wanted to like this story, I wanted to have it be the best damn thing since sliced bread, but it simply wasn't, at least not for me. Throughout this entire series I kept getting more and more convinced that they wanted to present Cyclops as the villain so that everyone could rally against him, and dammit, I was right. That's ok, because I'm in good company, after all, Cyclops was right too.

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 4 - Very Good

Comments

ryan555 says:

October 3, 2012 at 12:35 pm

Bravo! Excellent summation of why this vilification of Cyclops was horribly executed. I’ve been thinking the same thing myself this entire series. Can you really blame someone for losing it if all you do is antagonize them? If you keep poking them when they’ve done nothing wrong. I couldn’t stand Captain America during the talk with Scott at the end of this issue…very disappointing that with all of the writing talent on board no one could draw these rational conclusions.

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MeNSinestro says:

October 3, 2012 at 1:34 pm

I agree too with this whole book being a way to promote the Avengers and villify Cyclops, who was right. From the first issue you could see this story was going to be written without reason in mind. You mention that Cyclops is the one that throws the first punch when Cap shows up to basically kidnap Hope from her home, but I would disagree. While he literally did so, it was Cap that A) showed up with an army – basically pointing loaded guns at the X-Men, and B) tries to forcefully kidnap a child from their home. Where is the logic in that? They were not there to negotiate at all. Self defense is not an act of violence. I think you were right too when you say that X-Men fans were the losers, too. But I think the thing that disturbed me more than all the irrational logic behind Cap and the Avengers’ motives was that Wolverine stood by Captain America purely because he hates Cyclops, even after Cap attacks him. It was really dispicable that Wolverine would willingly and eagerly fight against the mutants he had fought so hard with and to protect for so many years. I just don’t think this would have happen in a naturally organic story. The Marvel writers had a huge agenda to push and it didn’t matter how they got to that point.

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Sunstrider46402 says:

October 3, 2012 at 2:07 pm

People seen to forget the Phoenix always brings death and destruction. Scott has the same problem that I have with Captain America that they see the world with a single view. It has to be their way or no way at all. Beside with Scott’s history with the Phoenix I really don’t see where he get the faith in the Phoenix since it got Jean killed and the Grey family was killed because of it.

As for the issue itself, it was a great bookend to a good event. Was it a excellent no but it was an event that made me wanted to read more and Wow!! I can’t wait until Uncanny Avengers#1 next week.

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fo sho says:

October 3, 2012 at 6:56 pm

This is a fairly excellent review and synopsys of the story arc…

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monkeyking says:

October 3, 2012 at 6:59 pm

Regardless of how Cyclops got the Phoenix force in the first place, you have to decide if he was truly in control of it or not. If not, then his imprisonment doesn’t make sense. But if you think he did have control really, then his murder of Professor X is the thing at the very least that would land him in prison.

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Self Aware Fanboy says:

October 3, 2012 at 7:37 pm

I don’t think Cyclops has been necessarily painted as a villain. If you really pay attention to the story and history, almost everyone who stood against Cyclops came off as a contradictory hypocrite. These are just my top three reasons why they have no case against Cyke. 1.) Why is it ok for mentally unstable Scarlett Witch to just float around in the world freely after completely altering reality and erasing the majority of mutants on earth, and it’s not ok for Hope to try harness the Phoenix Force (Which was coming no matter what) under training and supervision in order to try to use that power to fix what Wanda broke? 2.) Why can’t Cyclops prepare students to fight as a last line of defense against something that won’t stop hunting them, and Wolverine can try to kill Hope as a first option, use X-23 and Elixir with X-Force and recruit Skarr to fight against Romulus? 3.) Isn’t Captain America taking Hope into custody because of her potential threat kinda like the U.S. Government wanting all superhumans to register because of their potential threats? In fact, isn’t what Captain America is about to do with the X-men, just a more polite way of doing almost exactly what Tony Stark and Norman Osborn did in Avengers Initiative and Dark Reign? Since the Phoenix is this great omnipotent force that couldn’t be stopped from getting to Hope, Cap should have listened to a more informed Cyclops and allowed him to continue to focus Hope into a prepared emotionally calm state to absorb it, instead of just showing up to Utopia exactly like Norman Osborn did at Asgard, making Hope feel like a hunted criminal and running for her life from Wolverine. The only thing the Avengers did was, Create the Phoenix Five, put Hope in an even more stressful state to receive the Phoenix in and finally end up using Cyclops plan once their backs were to the wall and had no other choice. Cyclops may not be too popular among the Avengers and X-men anytime soon, but the opinion of him probably wouldn’t be that bad among the overall mutant community. His sacrifice of playing the “bad guy” actually ended up repopulating the mutant race and will finally bring the X-men and mutant issues into the mainstream marvel universe. They should all start wearing T-shirts saying, “Cyke was Right!”.

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Bluestreak says:

October 3, 2012 at 10:40 pm

While i’m not reading AvX (I don;t read events anymore) I have been reading reviews etc; and I find it interesting that people who think Cyclops is right think that the fact that he is defeated means that he is wrong. Why can’t he be right but also have lost? They aren’t logically incompatible

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- ResurrectionFlan says:
  
  October 4, 2012 at 5:26 am
  
  Because Captain America yells directly in his face about that at the end of the issue.
  
  “DON’T YOU DARE! DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO TURN THIS INTO WIN!”
  
  “YOU WAGED A WAR THAT SET FRIEND AGAINST FRIEND! YOU PLAYED RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH THE PLANET!”
  
  “YOU LEFT WOUNDS THAT WILL TAKE YEARS TO HEAL. IF THEY EVER HEAL AT ALL.”
  
  “AND YOU KILLED ONE OF THE FINEST MEN I’VE EVER KNOW.”
  
  “IF YOU CONSIDER THAT A WIN…”
  
  “I PITY YOU. I REALLY DO.”
  
  What an effing jerk Cap is. He started it. Can his ass.
- KenOchalek says:
  
  October 4, 2012 at 9:55 am
  
  @Bluestreak: I think you’re right on the money here. While a lot of people are claiming that the creators put their agenda for the Marvel Universe in front of the logic of the story, I think many fans are bringing too many pre-conceived notions about how these characters ought to behave.
  
  There are a few conceptual premises I think you have to have in order to “get” AVX:
  
  1. Since M-Day, Cyclops has been getting more and more hardline about saving mutantkind. To the point where he might be psychologically imbalanced about it. I mean, he could ACTUALLY NAME every single mutant left in the world. He’s had the best minds in existence searching for evidence that mutants weren’t facing extinction, and all of them failed. All he had, literally and figuratively, was Hope. Hope has been displaying a connection to the Phoenix since she was born, so I think it’s conceivable for Cyclops to do the math and think that the Phoenix and Hope could save mutantkind.
  
  2. Captain America did the best he could with the information he had. All he really knew about the Phoenix is that it can destroy planets. The fact that Rachel Grey controlled it for a long time didn’t trump the intel he already had. So he made a call, and we saw how that plays out. The fact that we can second guess his decision is one of the things that I think is great about this. NOTE: I think the premise that Steve Rogers is always right is utterly boring bullshit. He’s not Superman.
  
  3. Why have people forgiven Wanda, but not Scott? Well, not everyone has forgiven Wanda, but I think time is the biggest factor. Also (generally speaking) Wanda’s actions merely depowered mutants. Sure, some of them died as a result of that, but it wasn’t her intent. Dark Phoenix Cyclops was tearing shit up — we only saw it at a high-level, but I think the implication is that civilans definitely died because of him.
  
  I think there’s a lot of (in-story) blame to go around here, and I like that. The Avengers and X-Men really NEED to work together now to ensure that this kind of thing can’t happen again (especially with new mutants around). I know some people like the franchises separate, but sometimes your mac and cheese touches your baked beans. Life is messy and things get mixed up and people make bad calls. Heroic acts (and interesting stories) come from how we behave despite those facts, and I think the new status quo provides some fertile ground for these characters to prove their heroism once again.
- ResurrectionFlan says:
  
  October 4, 2012 at 7:03 pm
  
  It would be nice if they proved their heroism AT ALL in situations they didn’t cause themselves!

AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #12

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