Uncanny Avengers (Vol 1 - 3), Rick Remender

"The Marvel Universe's greatest era starts here! In the wake of Professor X's funeral, Captain America creates a new Avengers unit comprised of Avengers and X-Men, humans and mutants working together. But the Red Skull has returned - straight out of the 1940s - and he wants to destroy all mutants! What gruesome weapon has given him dangerous new powers? Rogue and Scarlet Witch face off against the Red Skull's S-Men, Wolverine and Captain America investi gate the worldwide mutant assassination epidemic, and Havok and Thor battle the spreading infl uence of Honest John, the Living Propaganda! And when an Avenger defects, the rest must face the terrible might of the Omega Skull! Plus: Wonder Man, Wasp and Sunfire join the team - just in time for the Grim Reaper's revenge! Uncanny Avengers Assemble!"

"The future begins in the past! It's an 11th century clash of the titans as Thor batt les Apocalypse! The Avengers' ancestors are being hunted, with Rama-Tut and Kang pulling the strings, and only a young Thor can save his future companions! And in the present, the beginning of the end looms as the Apocalypse Twins debut! Why are they targeting the Celestials? What is their connection to Kang? And how is Thor responsible for their mighty power? Apocalypse's Ship attacks S.W.O.R.D., a Celestial meets a shocking fate, and the Four Horsemen of Death are' unleashed! And as the Twins' new henchmen shatter the Uncanny Avengers, Wolverine discovers the Midnight City - and immediately wishes he hadn't! When all hope dies, Ragnarok begins! Plus: Kang and the Apocalypse Twins enter the Age of Ultron!"

"It's the dark origin of the Apocalypse Twins, as Kang's true motives are revealed! A secret pact between Ahab and the Red Skull will bring horror to all mutants. But against his masters' orders, a deranged and vengeful Sentry kills an Uncanny Avenger! It's no hoax, no dream...and only the first casualty of many! To allow reinforcements from other eras, the Wasp must find and destroy the Twins' tachyon transmitter, but first she'll have to defeat the Grim Reaper. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch makes an impossible choice that will define her forever. And Sunfire and Rogue, without backup, must defeat the combined might of both Apocalypse Twins - or watch the end of our world! Bring on the bad guys, because Ragnarök is now!'




Uncanny Avengers is the Avengers at its very worst, a joke line up that competes with West Coast Avengers for how much of the barrel it's prepared to scrape. The idea behind it is that following the events of AvX, and the fact that people now hate and fear mutants and ever before, the Avengers have suddenly realised that maybe if they stopped punching the X-Men for more than a week people might learn to trust them. So Captain America looks to create a 'unity' team of all the X-Men and Avengers no other writer wanted; Wonder Man! Wasp! Havok! Scarlet Witch!

If those aren't names to inspire confidence, they also have Thor and Wolverine thrown in. So, just to go over that: Wonderman (was a villain in last appearance), Wolverine (unsanctioned murder squad leader), Havok (Brother to 'Terrorist' leader) and Scarlet Witch (only Avenger to ever actually commit Genocide). Fortunately, they also have Rogue ... who's a former member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. So I can't see how that plan can possibly go wrong.

It's hard for me to express how much hate I feel for some of these characters. Not in a detatched, 'oh they're so annoying, but they're fictional' way, but in a very real, very visceral 'I wish they had never ever been written' way.

Scarlet Witch is a great example of that. Daughter of Magneto, chaos magic wielder and reality warper, Scarlet Witch's most famous action in the last two decades was to kill half of her own Avengers team, rewrite reality into a mutant-lead parallel universe, then destroy all but 200 mutants. She then came back and tried to hand wave it all away as being Doctor Doom's fault.

If you're looking for a reason why people hate mutant, that right there is it. She single handedly fought every superhero in the world to a standstill, then when she lost she almost destroyed a species. Wow, guys. I can't at all understand why someone might be afraid of that. You should probably put her up on stage as the face of mutant rehabilitation.

Or Havok, a guy whose very first defining action in the book is to renounce Cyclops, a flawed, but great, leader who successfully reignited mutantkind, saving his species. Then, he follows it up, by deciding he doesn't want to be called a mutant because Havok is a whinge. I hate Havok. When I say he's the third best Summers brother, you know that it's low.

You know what. There are better X-books, and better Avengers books. This is just a hot mess that nobody will remember in 5 years time. Art is lovely though.

Also Try:
Any X-Men book
Any Avengers book
Avengers Assimilate: Identity Politics in Uncanny Avengers, http://comicsalliance.com/uncanny-avengers-5-rick-remender-identity-politics-mutants/ (and Remender's response: http://www.newsarama.com/17328-remender-responds-to-uncanny-avengers-m-word-controversy.html)