by Huw Parry
Writer Rick Remender and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort held a conference call this week to announce the second act of the upcoming Axis event. Avengers & X-Men Act II: Inversion will see what Marvel’s PR is describing as “The recalibration of the Marvel Universe’s moral compass.” The act will run from issues #4 – #6 of the Axis story.
Act I, which encompasses the first three issues of the nine issue event, will see Red Skull, newly empowered with telepathic abilities after having parts of Charles Xavier’s brain connected to his own, clash with the combined might of the Avengers and X-Men. This will directly lead into the second act, Inversion.
Rick Remender spoke about writing the event and said “The fun of something like this in my mind is to constantly subvert expectations and surprise people with exciting new things. We all have our attention spans destroyed by our cell phones so I don’t want to linger on any one idea for more than about five pages (laughs).” He went on to add “Moving to a new high concept each act keeps people on their toes, keeps things exciting.”
The events of the first act of Axis and what Remender called “The red tide” take their toll on characters normally regarded as heroes and this is where the inversion occurs. “It’s not so cut and dry for everyone as ‘good guy becomes super bad guy.’ I think there are a lot of character-defining moments, especially in the second act. It shows you the antithesis of what they normally are and getting into their character” explains Remender. This inversion of characters will lead directly into new titles, laying the ground work for books such as Superior Iron Man.
New attitudes for characters will lead to new looks, too. As you can see in the image below, Deadpool’s look is set to change dramatically with a new grey, hooded outfit. Luke Cage will be sporting a suit and glasses and we will see the debut of the silver Iron Man armour that will be taken into the Superior Iron Man book.
Remender teased the scale of the shift in Inversion by saying “Deadpool will be playing a really big role in AXIS in a couple of surprising ways. I’m really excited with what’s happening with him in the book. There’s huge changes coming for Scarlet Witch, Magneto, Doctor Doom, Loki, huge beat for Loki. Kid Apocalypse – basically it’s all fireworks here, there’s no lead-up.” The tie-ins will also show us some new attitudes for some of Marvel’s top villains in the tie-in books, including Carnage and Hobgoblin in their joint mini-series
“It allows us to look at these characters in a new light,” said Brevoort. “It’s a morally upstanding Carnage and a Hobgoblin who’s a good businessman.” Remender also said about Carnage “I don’t think I’m spoiling anything saying that Carnage trying to be a good guy, on a redemption arc, still winds up having some bloodshed. I don’t want to spoil what they’re doing there, it’s really cool.”
Axis issue #1 releases on October 8th 2014.
