AXIS #8 Review: Jarvis To The Rescue

A bunch of the Avengers and X-Men have been inverted, and the rest are captured. Some inverted villains have been pressed into service as the forces of good, along with Spider-Man, but they aren’t enough. Steve Rogers won’t even let Nomad help out. Is all hope lost?

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Not when Jarvis is around! The Avengers’ faithful butler gets his turn to shine in AXIS #8, which is otherwise one big multi-sided slugfest. I don’t mean that as a criticism either. This is the issue I’ve enjoyed the most in a while, because it starts off fast and doesn’t let up. What few good guys we have left have to stop Apocalypse’s gene bomb and intervene before the Avengers/X-Men battle sends everything completely to hell. There’s a heroic sacrifice involved from someone who isn’t normally a hero, some good one-on-one moments among the overall chaos — especially the most different Thor-Loki dynamic ever — an unexpected guest appearance and a moment of inspiration from Jarvis that could turn the tide in the finale.

Other things that made me glad, in no particular order: Leinil Francis Yu is back on art, and some of his inkers really do a nice job making his action scenes shine (I’m less enthused when he inks his own stuff — too muddy for me), the “Red Skull is missing” subplot is finally addressed, and someone finally shuts up the inverted Scarlet Witch, easily the most annoying character in this story. It’s not enough to make me feel differently about AXIS as a whole, because just like Original Sin, I feel like it’s six issues of event stretched out to be more. But this issue wasn’t too shabby, and I at least care to see how it all wraps up, which I wouldn’t necessarily have said over the past two issues.

Well done, I suppose. Let’s move on to the …

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!

Time is running out to defuse the bomb, and Spider-Man is the only person working on it. He’s getting nowhere, but Carnage volunteers to use his symbiote to smother the blast (which will kill him), provided Spidey promises to make him a memorial “made out of gold an’ jewels an’ rhinestones, draped in the Confederate flag.” Also, it needs to play “Free Bird” around the clock. Play some Skynyrd man!

Apocalypse realizes something is wrong, but he doesn’t get much time to reflect on what it might be before Spider-Man, the inverted Avengers and the inverted villains all show up. Much fighting ensues. Loki and Enchantress before Loki lures Thor off the battlefield, and Absorbing Man bails out Mystique after she is nearly killed by Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Jarvis tells Steve Rogers he knows a way to get everyone restored to their right minds.

We flash to Latveria, where Scarlet Witch is still busy kicking the crap out of Quicksilver and Magneto. Doctor Doom interrupts the family drama with Jericho and Daniel Drumm, the latter of whom takes possession of Wanda’s body. There’s a joke there, but I’m going to leave it alone.

Back at the big battle, Iron Man and Captain America finally realize they are wasting their time, because the X-Men don’t have the Red Skull. Figuring that Rogers is involved somehow, they circle back to Avengers Mansion, where we see Old Man Rogers sporting Captain America powered armor (Possibly the one from the “Fighting Chance” storyline? Don’t look it up, it’s horrible …) and telling new Cap he’s freeing Red Skull.

Favorite moment: The very last panel! When a dude who is like 90 years old tells you to stand down or he can’t guarantee your safety, that’s a black belt in badass.

Final thought: Let me see if I’ve got this right. Red Skull started all this by becoming Red Onslaught. The Inversion was just a desperation tactic to try to stop the Skull. Sure, the cure turned out to be worse than the disease, but I hope there’s a contingency to stop Onslaught again once things are more or less back to normal. Also, we’re to assume that Jarvis stashed the Skull somewhere, right?

Next: What came before: our AXIS #7 review

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