SEQUENCE

In “AvX: Consequences” #5, Kieron Gillen and Gabriel Hernandez Walta do exactly what they should: deliver a strong and logical conclusion to this weekly mini-series. It’s easy with a set-up like this to imagine that when the dust settles, everything will be just like it was at the beginning. Instead, Gillen has told a complete story about Cyclops, post-Phoenix. At the end of “AvX: Consequences” #5 he (and several other characters) is in a different spot than he was at the start, and it’s one that’s been informed by what happened in the first four issues. Perhaps more importantly, it’s one that makes sense. With the sheer firepower even just a handful of mutants together can wield, Cyclops having a three-person escape team (as established at the end of “AvX: Consequences” #4) is something that works well and is believable. Gillen not only ends up with something fun for the reader, but at the same time through actions reminds us just why mutants in the Marvel Universe are feared so muc

As an epilogue to the latest big crossover, “AvX Consequences” has a difficult role to fill. On one hand, it’s got to be a logical outgrowth of the events of the story it’s concluding. On the other, it can’t tread on the toes of the other Marvel NOW! launches, many of which are themselves growing out of the same events. As such, the focus here is on the X-Men, the characters who were most dramatically affected by the story with the loss of their mentor, leader, protectorate and home. Event epilogues occasionally fall into the trap of bouncing randomly from scene to scene in order to hit various pre-determined plot beats, and while “Consequences” isn’t entirely immune to that, Gillen has taken a slightly more coherent approach. Despite occasional scenes with the likes of Iron Man and the Black Panther, the story is largely ordered around the remains of the Extinction Team — the former cast of Gillen’s “Uncanny X-Men” — with Cyclops as the figurehead. The problem is that the structure

“AvX: Consequences,” by Kieron Gillen with art by Scot Eaton, serves as a direct epilogue to “Avengers Vs. X-Men,” getting inside the head of the former mutant leader, forcing him to face the results of his actions in “AvX.” Gillen has been on point with this miniseries and continues to be so here — the direction taken with Summers reinforces the idea he has indeed become the new Magneto — at least ideologically. Cyclops put mutantkind above everything else in “AvX,” including the mass loss of human life. As a result he’s been imprisoned by Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes. However, these characters are living in a more complicated world than when Magneto was top dog and with that realization comes the crux of this mini: a muddied line between right and wrong. Gillen and Eaton show Cyclops doesn’t need his mutant powers to survive, displaying his hand to hand prowess during a jail fight in defense of a newly activated mutant. With this mutant, a fellow inmate named Jake, Gillen has created

Though I’m hesitant to be interested in a spinoff from a crossover I was never entirely fond of, I am glad to see Marvel taking some of the changes seriously, especially as pertains to Scott Summers. Kieron Gillen is a writer that gets Scott Summers and it’s evident in some of the details he presents in this second issue of “AvX: Consequences.” That said, only about half of this book works. The first half feels mostly like bluster and “Boy, wouldn’t it be cool if Wolverine came to give Cyclops what for in prison?” It’s just not that interesting. However, when Cyclops begins to make his case, both for accepting responsibility and his unwillingness to take it all back because the end result is just too important, the book begins to sing. The commitment to this idea has impact and in the right hands, if we delve deep enough, it could be wonderful. In fact, without taking a stance, the whole situation makes Wolverine seem incredibly naïve. I’m not sure I buy it, considering everything L

With multiple writers and perhaps a few too many chapters, “Avengers vs. X-Men” felt a little rambling and unfocused from time to time throughout its twelve issues. And if you created a plot outline for the first issue of follow-up mini-series “AvX: Consequences” by Kieron Gillen and Tom Raney, it might sound like another rambling story. In the execution, though, it’s a comic that spends just the right amount of time on each plot line and ends up more interesting than its parent story. “AvX: Consequences” #1 offers up exactly what the title gives us; consequences from “Avengers vs. X-Men.” There are several threads followed here: the destruction of Wakanda and its going to war with Atlantis; Cyclops’ imprisonment by the government; Hope trying to find a new path for her future; the Avengers trying to find the remaining at-large members of the X-Men’s Extinction Team. It’s the rubble (both figuratively and literally) from “Avengers vs. X-Men,” and these four wide-ranging stories don’t