Avengers vs X-Men #4 Review

By Harrison Rawdin on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

The Avengers are scattered! The mutants are uniting! The Phoenix force is 10 hours from Earth! The penultimate issue of act one of Avengers vs X-Men is here, so will the Marvel universe ever be the same? Read on to find out.

The official description from Marvel:

The battle of hero vs. hero rages on! With Wolverine abandoned by the Avengers, where will he stand in the battle for Hope?

As we’ve seen in the last decade some events are compelling (Civil War) while others are beyond disappointing (Fear Itself), thankfully Avengers vs X-Men is at least engaging. It’s not a perfect story but the narrative tissue seems to be somewhat thought out as the book feels full of natural reactions with each issue building towards the story’s next logical step.

The creative team wasted no time getting the war between the Children of the Atom and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into full swing and since then AVX has refused to slow down. That changes a bit this issue as Jonathan Hickman wisely slows down the narrative as he picks a few specific characters and focuses in on them. Because of that we get a solid story that ultimately brings the diverging conflicts back together in an opus that feels a bit rushed but is still a fun ride nonetheless.

The art in this issue is done by John Romita, Jr. and he does a wonderful job rendering the many characters involved in the conflict. Each panel is drawn with a strong kinetic energy that makes the book feel like the action movie it so yearns to be. The characters presented here are indeed blocky but detailed. You can easily tell who is who whether they’re in the jungles of Wakanda or up in space.

With any event series finding a logical way to get everyone in your shared universe involved in a single story while marketing each of these characters must be one of the biggest challenges writers and creators face, and here for the most part it works. Is the issue worth getting? Yes, it’s a fun ride. So will the Marvel universe ever be the same? It’s just too early to tell.