AXIS #7 Review: A Groovy Kind Of Hate

Yes, I just inverted a Phil Collins cover song. And I’m not even sorry about that. Bonus points if you can name what movie it’s from without searching the interwebs.

More from Comics

• X-Men: 6 reasons why Marvel’s mutants are the best superhero team
• Harley Quinn renewed for a fifth season on Max (and it’s well-deserved)
• Marvel Comics announces seven important X-Men comic books
• The X-Men were betrayed by Captain America in Uncanny Avengers
• Spider-Man: Miles and Peter team-up for their first ongoing series

It’s relevant because much of this issue is Rick Remender having fun with the inverted Deadpool, who’s really taking his new peace-loving persona seriously. Unfortunately, attempting to talk Apocalypse out of destroying all the humans doesn’t work out too well for him, as we’ll discuss in the spoiler part of this review.

The rest of this issue is primarily made up of a series of fights: inverted villains against inverted X-Men and Scarlet Witch vs. Doctor Doom and her family. Somewhere in there, the inverted Avengers have a meeting and make a decision. It’s all part and parcel of the unusual pacing of AXIS in general. Some issues had almost nothing but fighting, others were almost completely the opposite. Adam Kubert is back on art, so he must have asked for all the fight scenes.

I’m really having trouble deciding how this whole thing is going to read when it’s all collected. My guess is not very well, and that’s a shame, because I really wanted to like thsi event and have found myself less and less interested in it as it goes. It just feels like it should be a much bigger deal than it’s turning out to be, possibly because we already know how most of it is going to play out.

Well, except for that last page. That was pretty surprising.

Again, we can’t talk about that here, ony after the …

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!

Havok asks Cyclops if they can save one human, his wife, the Wasp. Cyclops says no, making me wondering if, like Tony Stark, he should have been inverted because he was already a jerk before this.

The villains and X-Men start duking it out, but Spider-Man and the groovy version of Deadpool have another mission. They’re trying to stop the gene bomb, but Apocalypse isn’t about to let them mess with it. Kubert draws a pretty solidly built Apocalypse, almost like a meaner looking Hulk. That fight eventually spills outside into the other one.

In Latveria, Quicksilver tries interfering in the fight between his sister and father, and Wanda casts some type of spell intended to kill Magneto that hits Pietro instead. She’s got another one for dear old dad, but Doom takes a powder. Smart move.

The inverted Avengers stop acting like self-centered bad guys long enough to decide they need to stop Steve Rogers from using the Red Skull to undo the Inversion. Naturally, they decide that the only logical course of action is to kill everyone.

Back at the battle, Deadpool is still trying to talk Apocalypse down and … HOLY CRAP, HE JUST GOT HIS HEAD PUNCHED OFF! Not sure Wade’s healing factor is equipped for that.

Oh, and that bomb ticks down to one second, which seems bad.

Favorite moment: Spider-Man straightens out Apocalypse on Evolution: “The assumption that by being mutated you’re naturally superior — is a tad arrogant.” Yes it is Spidey. Yes it is.

Final thought: I’m a little confused about why Red Skull is the key to reversing the Inversion, because as far as we know, he’s not the one who caused it. But hey, it’s great to see the guy who started all of this hasn’t been completely forgotten since he hasn’t made an appearance for several issues now.