Uncanny Avengers #24 Review: To AXIS, We March

Is anyone getting the feeling that Avengers & X-Men: AXIS is going to be one of those stories where the good guys only realize what the bad guys are up to after it’s too late to stop their evil plan?

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If that isn’t your mindset yet, it will be once you read Uncanny Avengers #24. Thanks to the team’s preoccupation with Kang and the Apocalypse Twins during the last arc, the Avengers Unity Squad hasn’t really been looking for Red Skull. Last issue, Immortus, of all people, reminded them it was probably time to figure out what he’s been doing in the meantime.

Havok wants to get the gang together to hunt the Skull down, but after Rogue and Scarlet Witch have one last chat with Wolverine (not that they know it’s the last chat, but we do), it becomes clear that they’ve already been badly outmaneuvered. Again, not really their fault under the circumstances, but it is what it is.

Since Rick Remender is the mastermind behind AXIS, it’s only logical that everything starts here. It’s kind of a shame, though, that the lesson the Avengers and X-Men learned about coming together isn’t getting more time to sink in. Since this series is going on hiatus for the duration of the event, who knows if it’s even going to be around after that tale has run its course?

If this is the beginning of the end for Uncanny Avengers, at least it was (mostly) fun while it lasted.

Time for the warning …

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!

Still coming to grips with his Jonah Hex-esque appearance, Havok goes grocery shopping (’cause super heroes gotta eat too!) but never makes it home before he gets ambushed.

Wolvie has the aforementioned farewell chat with Rogue and Scarlet Witch, but the S-Men take them out as well. While captured in one of the Red Skull’s creepy mutant camps, Rogue is visited by the

Ghost of Christmas Past

remnant of Professor X, who convinces her to fight. The Skull and his troops don’t know she’s got Wonder Man on-board, which proves to be the heroes’ ace in the hole.

While trying to escape, they stumble upon Magneto, and even though things already look pretty bad, he’s always down for a philosophical donnybrook. Havok and the ladies want to get the heck out of dodge and come back with the Avengers, while Magneto wants to take a shot at killing Red Skull right then and there. Skull invites him to try, and one gets the feeling this isn’t going to go so well next issue.

On another note, it never even dawned on me until the end of the issue that Salvador Larroca drew this. I got so used to him from his lengthy run on Iron Man that his style kind of washed right over me the first time through. In any case, his art is more similar to Dnaiel Acuna than we got in the previous issue, which was a jarring contrast to what came before.

Favorite moment: Rogue to Wolverine: “What are you sayin’? You’re done killin’?”

Wolverine: “Right after the Red Skull, darlin'”

Yeah, about that …

Final thought: It’s pretty easy to play backseat quarterback now, but I guess even in the middle of the “Avenge the Earth” arc, someone with some Avengers affiliation should have been keeping tabs on the Red Skull, no?