Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #6

Writer – Rick Remender
Artist – Terry Dodson
Inker – Rachel Dodson
Colours – Edgar Delgado, Jesus Aburtov

The first book of the series, comprising issues one to three, was fairly exciting as we saw our heroes battle the Red Skull as Onslaught.  The second book, of which this is the final issue, has been a little ho-hum.  It is not boring per se, but it is not as exciting as the first few issues.  It is fairly interesting though seeing how the various heroes and villains act when their personalities are reversed, but not a lot has really been happening to even justify stretching this part of the story out into three issues.  This book has Remender make the X-Men into even more formidable foes thanks to Apocalypse, but also paints an even larger target on their backs for the world to aim at.  The rest of the book essentially just pops in on the various characters to see how they are doing which just felt like it was padding the story out a bit too much.  The book did finish strongly though with Sabretooth taking charge and almost looking like he could be the new Wolverine in the process.  This was not a bad issue, but neither was it an excellent one and Remender has done much better work than this, and continues to do so, it is just a shame that there could not have been a little more substance and excitement.  The best thing about this story-arc has been seeing the villains try to do good deeds and those moments definitely add a lot of brevity to the situation and hopefully, Remender continues to interject them into the story.

3.5 out of 5

Spider-Woman #1

Writer – Dennis Hopeless
Artist – Greg Land
Inker – Jay Leisten
Colours – Frank D’Armata

Dennis Hopeless seems to be the go-to guy at Marvel these days when you need something done which brings us to Spider-Woman.  Spinning directly out of Spider-Verse, specifically Amazing Spider-Man #10, it finds out heroine on the road, sort of, and protecting Silk who is a totem called ‘The Bride,’ with a little help from Spider-Man Noir.  This book has everything that a first issue should have including a ton of action, suspense and funny banter between its characters to lighten the ever-present mood of impending death.  And impending death it is as two members of the Inheritors are hot on their trail, chasing Spider-Woman and her charge from dimension to dimension.  The book is a lot of fun and while Hopeless might not have had a lot of say on what the first arc might have been, spinning off of Spider-Verse and all, he makes it his own with some great situations and some guest appearances by various other Spider-people.  On art duties is Greg Land, who in recent years has been getting a lot of flak for using photo references, but he really does a great job here and the book looks wonderful.  Whether referenced or not, his Spider-Woman looks fantastic and he really does a great job on Spider-Man Noir as well.  It was hard to say if this book was going to be any good as it pretty much came out of the blue, but suffice it to say, it is.  If you like Spider-Verse, Spider-Man, Silk or Spider-Woman, this title is for you.

4 out of 5