X-Men/Avengers: Onslaught Vol. 2

X-Men/Avengers: Onslaught #2

by Jeph Loeb, Peter David, Larry Hama

The shocking saga continues - as Onslaught's unnerving origin is revealed! How can the X-Men defeat a threat that strikes from their very heart? As X-Factor battles a mind controlled Havok to save the Beast, X-Force defends X-Man from the manipulative Mister Sinister! And Cable and Storm must reckon with Onslaught's most incredible pawn of all - the Hulk! But can the X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four find a way to free Franklin Richards from the deadly Onslaught's grasp? Plus, as the Sentinels take Manhattan, the shockwaves are felt by the teenage Tony Stark; the new Spider-Man, Ben Reilly; and the heroic Green Goblin!

COLLECTING: CABLE (1993) 34-35, INCREDIBLE HULK (1968) 444-445, WOLVERINE (1988) 104, X-FACTOR (1986) 125-126, AMAZING SPIDERMAN (1963) 415, GREEN GOBLIN (1995) 12, SPIDER-MAN (1990) 72, X-MAN (1995) 18- 19, X-FORCE (1991) 57-58, X-MEN (1991) 55, UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 336, IRON MAN (1968) 332

Genres: Comics, X Men

448 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2020

About the author

Joseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an Emmy and WGA nominated American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a Co-Executive Producer on the NBC hit show Heroes, and formerly a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost.

A four-time Eisner Award winner and five-time Wizard Fan Awards winner (see below), Loeb's comic book career includes work on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, the Avengers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, much of which he has produced in collaboration with artist Tim Sale, who provides the comic art seen on Heroes.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This middle volume of the event is mostly filler. If you enjoy the New York based heroes fighting Sentinels, then this may be your thing. 75% of this could just be skipped as it doesn't really bring much to the overall Onslaught story.

On another note, Vol. 3 is coming out soon. I really home the solicits are wrong. According to the solicits, the story is skipping ahead a year into Operation Zero Tolerance territory. Completely bypassing the final confrontation with Onslaught that leads into Heroes Reborn.

[David Farrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably more filler than I would have liked. It's the middle part of a story, with chess moves around the board. Not enough Onslaught, merely talking about him. Catching characters up, recapping. I don't think the random Green Goblin issue needed to be included. Do you like watching heroes fight Sentinels? It's quite a bit of that. I'm more of a fan of X-men over X-force etc, so it wasn't the best for me. Loved the artwork of the 90's but wasn't feeling the look of the Hulk which changed a bit too much between issues.

[Fez Vaccaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's be clear, this is the 2nd of 3 volumes and while these updated collections are called X-Men/ Avengers: Onslaught, what's apparent is how little Avengers there is in this and how much this storyline ties into the X-Men. As befitting how popular the X-books were at the time, we get multiple X-books collected here - an issue of the 2 main X-Men titles, along with 2 issues of: Cable; X-Factor; X-Man, and; X-Force, as well as an issue of Wolverine. And as for Avengers, well there's 1 solitary issue of Iron Man.

The crossover is starting feeling a bit stretched at this point. There are 2 Spider-man issues in here, as well as a Green Goblin one and their only link is Onslaught's use of Sentinels in controlling Manhattan. I wasn't following X-Factor at this time so I found these issues initially confusing - there are ties with the over-arching Onslaught plotlines with Dark Beast and the Sentinel launch occurring here but I found these issues on the weaker side. The Sinister and Apocalypse appearances in trying to instigate their own little plots against the Onslaught backdrop, were also of less interest. It felt like padding when we just want to see the X-Men and the rest of the Marvel heroes take the flight to Onslaught. While I'm not a fan of the art in the Hulk issues here, PAD at least tries to make the stories enjoyable and continue his plot points without making them too over-bearing and detracting from the main crossover narrative, which is all you can ask for during a crossover.

So yeah if you're in for a penny, in for a pound at this point, you'll end up reading this. But I found all the plots dove-tailing together in volume 1 more satisfying, while this volume struggled to keep up the pace. There is however mostly good synergy between all the various departments to keep everyone on track, the quality of stories just do start to get uneven.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reminds me of a big event series *i.e. Civil War, Secret Invasion, House of M, etc.* where you have the main series, and then all the spin-off stories that spread through your normal monthly titles. Except with this, there is no main series, it's just a story that runs through several monthly titles, and sometimes, the books that are included barely have anything to do with the over-arching story line. Sometime you have to ask yourself while you're reading it, you wonder "Where is Onslaught?"

[Sean Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occasionally overwritten.

[Rickey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just pure 90's nostalgia