Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #3

By Rick Remender, Leinil Francis Yu and Matt Milla

Avengers & X-Men: Axis has been a pretty good event so far. This of course was initially supposed to be an arc in Uncanny Avengers, but the Marvel staff liked it so much that they decided it should be made into an all out event. They were right in their decision because even though only three issues have passed, this has the makings to be the best line wide series in quite some time.

When thinking of writers who have a grasp on multiple characters, surely Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis come to mind, but hopefully Rick Remender is on your list too. His work on this series so far has been excellent and he gives so many characters a good voice. In this issue alone, Deadpool, Carnage and Magneto stand out, but there were many more. There is just a certain charm that Rick Remender uses when he decides that he wants to use them for a story. They almost always come out of it a better character and better rounded. This issue was mostly all action, but the plot progressed along nicely as well. The Villains acting like heroes was excellent as well, and Remender gives us great interaction among them. The brilliant thing about this issue is that we don’t actually know if the inversion has started to affect our heroes yet. There were some big decisions made, but at the end we really have to question if the effects have started taking a toll on the characters yet. AXIS #3 is a very well written issue from Remender that paves the way for the rest of the event.

The art duties this issue were handled by Leinil Francis Yu, who takes over for Adam Kubert. Yu’s style works very well here and is a welcome change from Kubert’s work, which looked tired at times. While there are a few panels where Yu doesn’t draw faces on characters, it isn’t as bad as some other artists who attempt it; it actually seems to fit in this issue. Truth be told, this is the best artwork on the series so far as Leinil Francis Yu brings a fresh breath to the art. His characters look great and the colors provided by Matt Milla, Laura Martin and Edgar Delgado add depth to the strong pencils. A strong showing from Yu this issue that makes the story more enjoyable.

This has been the best issue to date and Remender is only getting started. There is excitement when reading this to see what happens. The art gets a boost this week from Leinil Francis Yu, and the story gets more interesting as well. If this is a sign of things to come, we’re all in for a wonderful ride.