Part two of the cut-throat, hard-knocks, battle royale series known as ‘AvX: Versus’ hit stands this week, and just like the first one, we got two hard fought battles between Avengers and X-Men. Currently, the tally is Avengers 2 X-Men 0, which makes me pretty happy because I’m team Avengers, but X-Men fans will be happy to know that in this issue, the children of the X finally make an appearance on the scoreboard.
The first battle pitted the Star-Spangled Avenger, Captain America vs. the Ragin’ Cajun, Gambit, in the Savage Land while their respective teams clashed there during their search for Hope Summers. This fight is officiated by Steve McNiven, who wrote and drew this story. Both competitors pulled out some impressive maneuvers and it was evenly matched throughout, which is a nice thing to see in this series. I like that it didn’t have an obvious winner from the get go, which made me want to continue reading. I’ve been a fan of McNiven’s work for a while now, and this was a nice opportunity for him to show off.
The second battle took place in Latveria after the Avengers cleared out some Doombots. When the X-Men dropped in, Spider-Man got stuck with fighting Colossus, but not just any regular Colossus, rather a supped up, Juggernaut version of Colossus. Kieron Gillen wrote the story and Salvador Larroca handled the artwork. My favorite part of this battle was Spider-Man’s wit. I enjoyed the angle that Gillen took with her Spidey-banter. The writer provided some interesting play by play from Mr. Parker, but the ending left me a bit unsatisfied. Although, I understand why he did what he did, I’m not totally happy with Spidey’s choices in the fight.
Yet again, we got an awesome, action-packed issue of ‘AvX: Versus’. And yet again, I preferred reading this book over watching another Michael Bay movie.
Verdict: Buy
AVX: VERSUS #2
Written by STEVE MCNIVEN AND KIERON GILLEN
Art by STEVE MCNIVEN, JOHN DELL, MORRY HOLLOWELL, SALVADOR LARROCA, & JIM CHARALAMPIDIS
