AVX: VS (2012) #1

I haven't had a lot of time to devote to this little ode to Sub-Mariner awesomeness lately. This book is perfect, then, because it devotes only 10 of its supposed 22 pages to a fight between The Avenging Son and The Thing from The Fantastic Four. Or actually, based on what he's wearing, it may be accurate to say that he's The Thing from The Future Foundation.

There isn't much point to this book but it makes no bones about it. It was a six-issue extension of the Avengers vs. X-Men limited series that ran throughout most of 2012. It features nothing but fights that would normally have taken place somewhere during the second issue of the main series.

A scrap between Magneto and Iron Man kick things off, then we get into the meat of the matter.

Of course they're fighting in the ocean. We don't know why they're there or why these two in particular are scrapping for the umpteenth time. Either that's explained in the main series or it isn't at all. We're just here for the fights, remember?

The ending, which I won't give away even if the book is six years old as I write this, is a little unclear. It involves outside interference, to borrow a wrestling terms, by a sea creature that I would have thought Namor could have simply controlled. In any event, if you simply consider where these two characters have been in the pecking order over the years, you can't probably figure out who was awarded the "victory". A fun distraction that doesn't pretend to be anything but.