The secret of Marvel’s AXIS revealed.
Writer Rick Remender and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort talked with USA Today about the upcoming Marvel event starring the Red Skull.
Avengers & X-Men: AXIS will run 9 issues over 3 months starting in October.
Brevoort calls it “kind of a Michael Bay movie. It’s big and spectacular and has a ton of full-out bombast.”
“What we get is a story with a whole lot of heart that focuses on these characters’ interpersonal relationships. And, of course, breaking some hearts and ruining some lives.”
AXIS will be told over three three-issue acts leading to changes that will be “lasting and natural and additive,” Remender says.
“It’s a nice cathartic chapter in the history of the Avengers and X-Men at the worst moment in their lives. Writing it, there were a couple of moments where I banged on my desk and said, ‘Yes! Yay, nerd!’ and I got excited for it.”
There will actually be a team called AXIS.
“The Red Skull has seen things that Tony Stark is capable of, and seen value in them,” Remember teases about Iron Man.
The cast will include Cap, Thor, Luke Cage, Storm, Deadpool, Medusa of the Inhumans , Havok, Kid Apocalypse and Quentin Quire on the Avengers/X-Men side.
Doctor Doom, Enchantress, Absorbing Man, Carnage, Hobgoblin and Sabretooth are among the bad guys.
Brevoort says in the article points out “most Marvel villains have some sort of nobility that is undercut by their tragic flaws”, he says. But not the Red Skull, who “is pretty much black all the way in, and the deeper you go, the blacker it gets. The Skull is really all about grinding other people under his boot heel.”
In the aftermath of Avengers vs. X-Men, an Avengers Unity squad was formed by Steve Rogers and Wolverine. The Red Skull was reborn in Uncanny Avengers #1 in which he Nazi scientist stole the brain of Charles Xavier and gained telepathic powers. A future image showed the Red Skull as the new Onslaught (who was an evil merging of Professor X and Magneto.)
The story points to a major status quo for Iron Man. Kieron Gillen is leaving the book soon so we could expect an announcement soon of a new writer and new direction for the Armored Avenger.
Here’s the official description of Axis Act I: The Red Supremacy from Marvel:
“The conquest starts now. From the shores of once proud mutant haven Genosha, an evil power rises. Exploiting the gifts of the world’s greatest telepath Charles Xavier, the Red Skull has enslaved thousands and broadcasts his message of hate across the world channeling the unstoppable force known as Onslaught. The fragile alliance of Avengers and X-Men are all that stands in the way of total obliteration. Even united, their strength may not be enough to stem the coming darkness. In the shadows of the Red Supremacy, villains will rise, and heroes will fall. And the Marvel Universe will turn upside down. World War Hate has begun. ”
Avengers & X-Men: AXIS begins in October with crossovers into Captain America, Loki: Agent of Asgard, Magneto and Uncanny Avengers.
For the entire interview here’s the USA Today link.
By Editor