An uneven must for fanboys.
In this 23-issue collection produced by a variety of creators (with multimedia material available via app), two of Marvel Comics’ premier superhero teams wrestle for control of a young mutant messiah linked to the infernal Phoenix Force.
As the Avengers track the fiery approach of a nigh-omnipotent cosmic entity known as the Phoenix, they’re surprised to find a matching energy signature already here on Earth, in the X-Men’s island base of Utopia. Years ago, the Phoenix had possessed, corrupted and led to the death of founding X-Men Jean Grey. But feeling he’s matured since his wife’s fatal genocidal turn, Cyclops now plans to harness the Phoenix and restore mutantkind, which had recently been decimated by gone-mad Avenger the Scarlet Witch. The fulcrum of Cyclops’ plan is new pupil Hope Summers, a powerful young mutant with the ability to channel the Phoenix Force. When the Avengers arrive en masse at Utopia, insisting on protective custody for Hope, Cyclops refuses, and the fists, shields, lightning bolts, adamantium claws, repulsor rays and optic blasts fly. The book paints the entire story in broad, workmanlike strokes in 12 straight issues of Avengers vs. X-Men, then punches in texture with six straight issues of AvX:Vs, a series of one-on-one-battle vignettes that roughly follow the main arc’s chronology, featuring standout “How We Roll,” which winningly parodies the whole affair. Ordering the collection by story, not series, would have allowed for a more organic appreciation, as Marvel treads similar ground of morally ambiguous conflict in Civil War (2006). AvX does take an appealing twist, with a handful of X-Men reborn as the Phoenix Five, who rule as benevolent global tyrants. But the Phoenix always goes dark, and the finale marks the apotheosis of Cyclops’ recent trajectory from his stiff and bland original incarnation to flawed and fragile in Morrison’s 2001 New X-Men and, now, to villain, à la Green Lantern in Emerald Twilight (1996). Artist Olivier Copiel, who illustrates a third of the Avengers vs. X-Men issues, stuns with his sleek redesigns of the Phoenix Five X-Men, particularly the avian Cyclops’ Robocop-like visor. The digital material available via Marvel’s Augmented Reality app offer some insider looks, with video creator interviews and animated step-by-step recreations of panels, but it seems underutilized in terms of dynamically connecting the story to the decades of Marvel cannon.
An uneven must for fanboys.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6317-6
Page Count: 568
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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