Wolverine & the X-Men #11 – Review

by Jason Aaron (writer), Nick Bradshaw (pencils & inks), Walden Wong & Norman Lee (inks), and Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

The Story: Going to the X-Men’s aid, Jean Grey School teachers battle Avengers while Logan and Hope are intercepted by a squad of Shi’ar Death Commandos.

The Review:  Two issues in, it’s become clear – AvX has effectively derailed one of Marvel’s best books, and isn’t that the eternal nightmare for comics readers wary of event tie-ins?

The problem is that focusing on Avengers vs. X-Men forces Aaron to move away from much of what’s made the book a rousing success.  We spend far too much time away from the school and from the students.  Indeed, much as the bit with Genesis was last issue’s best moment, this issue’s bits with Kid Gladiator and Kitty’s class’ reaction to Iceman’s fight with Hulk are the highlights, but these portions are far too brief.

No, instead, the bulk of the issue just features mindless action.  Once again, we get to see Avengers and X-Men punching each other in Wakanda/Tabula Rasa/Wundagore/Savage Land, exchanging dialogue that feels completely phoned in, with heroes reiterating their teams’ basic stances.  Most of these characters fighting have no real beef or connection to one another, so the fights really feel meaningless, while other characters have never even played a role in this book prior to this issue (Red Hulk and Doctor Strange, for instance).  Frankly, this “splitting the teams amidst four locations” has been a point I’ve really hated about AvX, as it’s just led to tie-ins like this one, spinning their wheels by filling pages with random heroes punching each other.  Perhaps it would be more forgivable for readers with less extensive pull-lists, but it’s starting to feel like every damned tie-in is doing these “checking in” action scenes; it was lifeless and tiresome to begin with and at this point, it’s simply irritating.