Avengers & X-Men: Axis

  During a combined effort of X-Men and Avengers to take down the Red Skull, his newly acquired psychic abilities combined with the chaos magic of the Scarlett Witch and the orderly spells of Doctor Strange causes heroes and villains to swap sides. Now Carnage is your friendly neighborhood symbiote. Deadpool has fore-sworn violence and the X-Men and Avengers have vowed to exterminate each other. 

    Thus, the Marvel Axis is tipped and man what a fun ride. Anyone present during the Red Onslaught affair has occurred a Freaky Friday like change from good to evil and vice versa. Only a few heroes haven't been affected by this switch, such as Spider-man, Steve Rogers, and his son Ian: the New Nomad. With Manhattan now a human-free zone of Apocalypse and the X-Men, Steve must work in secret to come up with a new band of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. 

    While seeing who Steve Rogers recruits might be a shock to the system, the real surprise is the level of camaraderie between the original Captain America and his new ally, the White Skull (formerly, that dastardly Nazi, Johann 'Red Skull' Schmidt.) Why even Doctor Doom's level of evil is tilted to the side of good and the citizens of Latveria finally live in peace under Doom's benevolent rule. There are some many more surprises in this volume that if I got on, I'll spoil all of the fun.

    This story along with the art was fantastic. I was blown away by it and I didn't want it to end. I must say that as this story takes place in the post-Wolverine Marvel world, his presence is sorely missed. But the action, adventure and insane banter between Spider-man and Deadpool help to fill up the void left by the vacuum of the mutant's death.

   Oh, and you must check out the variant cover gallery. There's a very funny cover along with a stunning alternate cover to issue #1 starring the Scarlett Witch and the Enchantress.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.