The Bad Guys of AvX?

[Zen-aku]

She's not signalling the destructive firebird. The firebird is coming (already here) regardless. Hope is the only hope to control it. Sure, she may fail, but she might not, either. Without Hope, there really is no hope.

The Avengers just see things differently.

The Fire bird is only coming because of her.

[Old Sparky]

She's not signalling the destructive firebird. The firebird is coming (already here) regardless. Hope is the only hope to control it. Sure, she may fail, but she might not, either. Without Hope, there really is no hope.

The Avengers just see things differently.

Exactly, they see things differently because no matter how much "destiny" has been shoved in their faces, non-mutant heroes like the Avengers and Fantastic Four have defied the odds and saved the world countless times in the past. There is no hope? Wrong... there's always hope, and you don't always have to choose the lesser of two evils to win out in the end, and all sorts of other cliches and whatnot. The X-Men also should know a thing or two about defying destiny and beating unbeatable odds to know that Hope is their only hope is a false belief... but they aren't hoping that she's the only hope Earth has of surviving, they're banking on Cyclops' belief that she is the only hope of putting mutantkind back on the map... even thought they had and rejected another hope for that previously.

[Nomads1]

Although this time, Marvel seems to have the "No, you're side is wrong!" split a little better this time. Granted, it's more by both sides having enough wrong, as opposed to both sides having enough right, but Avengers and X-Men fans can take sides fairly easily on this one without feeling too guilty.

I see your point, and it's true. However it'll all ride on the way they'll present the rest of the story. I guess, in the end, one side won't be able to be right without the other being wrong. If Cykes saves the mutant race, and nothing happens to the Earth, Cap was overreacting. If the Phoenix takes a crapper on the mutants heads, and tries to have the Earth for breakfast, and the Avengers have to stop her, Cyclops was the blind fanatic. I really don't se how Marvel is going to come out of this without throwing at least one of it's "heroes" under the bus, and offending at least part of it's fanbase. My money is on Cyclops being the scapegoat.

Peace

[LeonardEugenius]

It only took five pages for this to become another thread of people patting each other on the back for disliking the X-Men.

The Avengers aren't supposed to be the bad guys nor are the X-Men. It seems as though the X-Men are going to be portrayed as the bad guys in the end though.

[coveredinbees]

Everyone is a bad guy, except Hope.

[Habis]

Okay, but EVEN IF those kids could be considered mature enough to make decisions for themselves, Captain America has every right to try and prevent them from interfering in the conflict. Duly appointed representative of the United States government... potentially world-ending threat on the horizon... Cryclops and his fanatics running around. Yeah, he has as much right to "ground" them as a fire chief would to restrain a teenager from entering a burning building because its their home because then there would be one more person that firefighters would need to endanger their own lives trying to protect. Or do you believe teenagers have the right to endanger themselves recklessly also?

We also have to take into account that, if they don´t take the kids out of the way, they will probably end joining the X-Men, fighting the Avengers and getting hurt of killed…

If a kid is trying to join paramilitary group and join the war, I think any responsible adult has the duty to try to avoid that for their own sake.

She's not signalling the destructive firebird. The firebird is coming (already here) regardless. Hope is the only hope to control it. Sure, she may fail, but she might not, either. Without Hope, there really is no hope.

The Avengers just see things differently.

They could take her from Earth and see if the Phoenix stops coming; they could even use her as bait to lure the Phoenix far away.

At the very least, even if the X-Men wanted the Phoenix to possess Hope, they should try to do it far away from Earth; what if the Phoenix decides to destroy Earth before going after Hope?

Although this time, Marvel seems to have the "No, you're side is wrong!" split a little better this time. Granted, it's more by both sides having enough wrong, as opposed to both sides having enough right, but Avengers and X-Men fans can take sides fairly easily on this one without feeling too guilty.

You know, they should have kept Tony Stark as an outcast for the superhero community until this event; they all forgave him too easily, but if they had shunned Tony all this time and then he came and saved the day helping them defeat the Phoenix with his scientific skill, it would make his redemption and their forgiveness more acceptable.

That´s a problem with the Marvel heroes: Some characters like Tony Stark and Wolverine can do anything and they are easily forgiven (Wolverine was an hunter of native americans, killed the women and children of a japanese village and gave the men to a laboratory that turned them into zombies, worked as a hitman for the CIA; Tony Stark…were to start? brainwashed the world to make it forget his secret identity, sent Hulk to space, cloned Thor, betrayed Spidey giving him a high-tech uniform that allowed him to secretly study and copy his spider-sense without his permission, made all that Armor Wars stuff, sent people to a prison at the Negative Zone without a trial, forced all superhumans to work for the government no matter if they wanted or not, took supervillians out of prison and sent them to fight heroes, put Osborn in charge of the Thunderbolts as payment for taking the fault of an assault against an atlantean embassador, which almost caused a war with Atlantis, killed several Avengers and Luna´s babysitter, tricked his loved ones into believing he was death/dying at least twice for his own selfish reasons…)

O.K., many of the things Tony did weren´t his fault or were justified, but I think the other heroes should be a bit more pissed with him.

On the other hand, less popular characters are never forgiven for much less important sins: Hank Pym suffered a lab accident that made him become psychotic and suffer from schizophrenia and splits personality, the Wasp realized that and instead of forcing him to receive treatment had the wonderful idea of taking the chance of marrying him, and their “friends” went along with it, and when later, poor nutjob schizophrenic Pym slapped the woman who had married him knowing he was mentally sick, everybody treated him as a monster and keep treating him like a wife-batterer and a loser still today…

[Mark_S]

Despite Gage's pointing out that the cover was metaphorical in interviews, and holding up the "concentration camp" comparisons as ridiculous via in-issue impartial dialogue, some fans have latched on to the idea and refused to let it go; hence inflammatory and unfounded claims of "torturing" Martha, etc.

He can give all of the interviews he wants, the cover is just so good it nearly drowns him out. It doesn't help that we saw the cover months before the issue came out. That and marvel's general theme of making good guys bad guys combined to give the issue a lot of negatives before it came out.



Mark_S

[Mark_S]

The only bad guys in this story, are the people who green lit this as an event.

Anyone else missing the time when the events included some level of story & characterisation? Before Marvel events just degenerated into Dragonball Z style, power level pissing contests, strung together by overly pointless fight scenes? I miss those days.

I miss them too.

Mark_S

[Mark_S]

Well, my personal opinion is that hero vs hero stories are inherently kind of stupid.

After all, don't these people have real villians to fight?

Marvel usually send the villains on vacation for this sort of battle.

Mark_S

[Mark_S]

If you wish to take the analogy this way then...

Utopia is a sovereign nation whose infrastructure has collapsed (quite literally, having seen Magneto's use of buildings in combat) and it's government has fled* after entering into hostilities with it's neighbouring country. Those deemed ultimately responsible for the welfare of the children have abandoned them**, leaving only a handful of local native medical and research staff in a position to care for the children.

These medical staff are approached by representatives of the occupying force and informed that there is a nearby facility where the children's needs can be met and their safety & removal from the conflict can be assured. Already aware of the facility, and left with no other choice, the medical staff take it upon themselves to assume responsibility for the welfare of the children, and to remain with them throughout the conflict. They agree to the plan to take the children to the facility, and they also agree that it is in the best interests of the children to remain there, despite any individual wishes on the part of the children themselves***.

As the infrastructure in Utopia has collapsed, and all representatives of government have fled, any local laws would be suspended and international law would come into effect; meaning that any label or claim to self-determination and adult responsibility the children may have had is also suspended, and the medical staff's assumption of guardians of their welfare would be supported.

So, there you have it - Jeffries and Rao do have a strong case for presently holding legal guardianship over the children, and any complaints over or arguments with the protective custody arrangement should be levelled at them for having made the decision.

*See AvX # 3
**Scott & Emma confirm this to be the case in AvX # 4
***Avengers Academy #29


EDIT - I believe that takes into account all salient points; from who has taken responsibility for the welfare of the kids, where the legal implications lay, and taking the situation as being one where Utopia is a recognised sovereign nation.

But Ultimately my lady it comes down to this: Cap wanted the kids out of the way, the Avengers were more powerful than the kids, so the kids are shoved out of the way. You can dress it up with laws and good intentions as much you want, but power wins. If the kids learn anything out of all of this it is that power is all that matters if you want to live a free life. Also never completely trust those in power, they always have an agenda and that agenda may be a good one for you.

Mark_S

[Old Sparky]

Everyone is a bad guy, except Hope.

Is she a bad girl?

[Zen-aku]

But Ultimately my lady it comes down to this: Cap wanted the kids out of the way, the Avengers were more powerful than the kids, so the kids are shoved out of the way. You can dress it up with laws and good intentions as much you want, but power wins. If the kids learn anything out of all of this it is that power is all that matters if you want to live a free life. Also never completely trust those in power, they always have an agenda and that agenda may be a good one for you.

Mark_S

No one is free from all rules, regulations and laws, the guys who think otherwise to that are supervilians.

[Mark_S]

No one is free from all rules, regulations and laws, the guys who think otherwise to that are supervilians.

What rules and regulations are the Avengers currently following? It's the old saying, the golden rule means who ever has the gold makes the rules, substitute power for gold and you have the mu. The Avengers are more powerful, they make the rules for the kids and the X-men who are less powerful. In cw Tony was more powerful and he made the rules, in DR Norman was more powerful so he made the rules, now Cap is more powerful so he makes the rules.
Part of the problem with AA right now is that we never saw the decision making process that put the X-kids there so there really is no way to know what that was. We do know from the last issue (I won't be able to get the current one till tomorrow or next week) that Cap put them there to keep them out of the way and he told the AA students to keep them there. So Cap has made the rule that none of the X-kids can interfere-even if they might loose a friend because they don't-and he has further made the rule that the students at AA are to be the turnkeys for the X-kids. You have the power, you make the rules.

Another problem with this is that marvel probably put more thought into marketing the event than writing the actual story.

Mark_S

[MichaelChen]

If you don't think that this event is trying to make the X-Men look evil and the Avengers look good, you're a moron or in denial.

More precisely, they are bending over backwards to make CAPTAIN AMERICA be completely right, just like they always do. The rest of the Avengers are just benefiting from the splash-off of Cap's incredibly preferential treatment by Marvel.

[Majinoaw]

Nah. The Avengers are the good guys. The X-Men are villians in this.