MARVEL’S AXIS Flips Moral Compasses And Brings Back Apocalypse!

Writer Rick Remender and executive editor Tom Brevoort recently spoke about October’s AXIS crossover event. The first act, The Red Supremacy, features Avengers and X-Men trying to stop the Red Skull and his S-Men. The second act, Inversion, will see heroes being less than heroic and villains toning down their villainy.  When I initially heard this rumored I thought that it sounded a bit cheesy and gimmicky but seeing Remender talk about how they mapped out, in detail, the defining features of the characters who are being ‘inverted’ and then doing the opposite has sold me a little more.

Avengers & X-Men AXIS #6 cover by Jim Cheung

Remender also calmed my nerves by stressing that there’s no weird mind control shizz — these characters decide that they should do things differently, therefore their decisions will carry on after the event is over, for example Iron Man is becoming Superior, ready for his new book, Superior Iron Man (the new, superior, armor is seen in the above cover).

Avengers & X-Men AXIS #4 cover by Jim Cheung

There’s also Kluh (Hulk backwards), who’s EXTRA angry Hulk (as seen in the lower part of the #4 cover above). Luke Cage, Medusa, Thor, Deadpool, Sabretooth, Hobgoblin, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Cyclops, Havok, Magneto and more are ALL also said to play a ‘large role’ (So, y’know every character is going to be in this).

The thing that excites me most, though, is that Remender’s doing more Apocalypse stuff! In any book written by Remender that has been related to The X-Men (Uncanny X-Force, Uncanny Avengers — two books I adore), Apocalypse has played a major role (despite the traditional En Sabah Nur version of Apocalyspe being dead for most of them — although by the looks of the above cover, he’s back) and Remender says that this is one of the last things he wants to do with Apocalypse.

Avengers & X-Men AXIS kicks off in October

There’s also this funky GIF