So, Obama Won...

So, Avengers vs. X-Men HC came out today. And I have this beast of an Avengers vs. X-Men review/essay that I've been wanting to put up forever, but cannot seem to finish. To prove I have been writing it, I present the first draft of the first four paragraphs of the text. Enjoy.

PS: There is nothing political about this post; I have hoodwinked you.

Avengers vs. X-Men is quite possibly the most descriptive story arc title there has ever been. No interpretation required, no possibility of error: this was a story that featured the Avengers and the X-Men beating the snot out of each other. To be sure, there was a reason for it. A rather important reason, actually. The cosmic entity known as the Phoenix was heading straight for Earth, destroying various planets in its path, to reside in Hope Summers: the first mutant born after M-Day, the Mutant Messiah. The Avengers of course were somewhat alarmed by this, as the Phoenix (as its name would suggest) is a cosmic force of death and rebirth. The X-Men of course were somewhat cheered by this, as the Phoenix (as its name would still suggest) is a cosmic force of death and rebirth. This is where the vs. part of the title comes in.

My aim in this review (if this can still be called that) is not to convince you of the overall successes or failures by the various authors involved in creating this. If all you’re looking for is whether or not this was a good story, then let me save you the trouble of reading further: yes. Or at the very least, I enjoyed it a great deal. There was pathos, there was action, there was a clear resolution, and the art was pretty nice. Plus, the promised Avengers fighting X-Men (and sometimes Avengers fighting Avengers and X-Men fighting X-Men) was very much in evidence.

With that out of the way, we can talk about what I actually came here to talk about: Scott Summers aka Cyclops, leader of the X-Men and commander-in-chief of the nation of Utopia. In talking with various cohorts and reading various reviews, I came away with the distinct impression that many people thought Scott was behaving out-of-character. That the writers (we’ll get to them in a second) had decided to ignore the past few years of stories, and made Scott act in a way that was completely contradictory even to what had come the previous few months. That because of Scott’s wildly inappropriate behavior, the storyline had been rendered terrible (or at the very least, not very good).

To quote President Obama, “Governor, that’s not true.”