A vs X was a very successful and very big crossover event that tool place just over a year ago. If you haven’t read this series, i recommend you stop reading this and go read that…still with me? Ok, in the original story, The Phoenix is coming to earth to inhabit the body of Hope Summers. Afraid of what this may mean to the world, Captain America takes the Avengers to where the Cyclops and his X-Men have relocated, Utopia, in order to address the situation. All doesn’t go well as Cyclops is unwilling to hand over one of his own. From there a war breaks out pitting Avengers against X-Men. Once the Phoenix arrives it is split into pieces that bond to 5 of the X-Men, creating the Phoenix Five. This overpowered team begins to reshape the world as they see fit. As each member is defeated, the powers become concentrated in the remaining members until it is down to Cyclops, who ends up killing his mentor Charles Xavier. Once defeated, the Phoenix force lets out an energy that begins the rebirth of the mutant population. Cyclops is imprisoned while the rest of his X-Men regroup and stay off the radar. Now, a new version of this A vs X story has been written with those two famous words in comics, “What if?”

!!! Spoiler Alert !!!

This book sets up much like the first one did. Cyclops and his X-men are on their island home, Utopia, only this time instead of Cyclops training and pushing Hope it is Magneto. This leads to a much different confrontation between the Avengers and the X-Men. Since Magneto is doing what Cyclops did originally, the master of magnetism goes to do the negotiating this time around. Similar to the original confrontation, Magneto is reluctant to hand over Hope for similar reasons that Cyclops had. It’s a mutant problem, let mutants handle it. Magneto also feels that the coming of the Phoenix could mean the rebirth of his people who are already in dwindling numbers. The real game changer comes towards the end when an out of control Wolverine, going after Namor, accidentally stabs and probably kills Storm!! This enrages Magneto as he uses his powers to destroy the ship they are on while screaming, “This Means War!”

WOW!! I’m a huge X-Men fan and the original A vs X story blew me away. I like Cyclops as a rogue element more than I did as a goody-goody, but I’ve always liked Magneto’s stance on human/mutant affairs and it will be fun to see the direction writer Jimmy Palmiotti takes this “What if?” story. This time around we’ve got Jorge Molina on pencils with Norman Lee on inks and Rachelle Rosenberg on colors. What if? A vs X #2 should hit shelves on July 17th. Hit up your local comic shop for this and other great titles from Marvel Comics!

Source(Photo): Marvel Comics

