Uncanny Avengers vol. [DERP]: Counter-Evolutionary

Inanity about the numbering of this volume aside — it’s the first and ONLY volume in this run — it actually makes for a decent wrap-up to Rick Remender’s run on this title.  In the wake of “Axis” and the revelation that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were not Magneto’s kids, the two Avengers head to Counter-Earth to get some answers from the High Evolutionary.  Naturally, the rest of the team, made up of Cap, Rogue,Vision, Brother Voodoo, and Sabretooth, follow in their wake.  What they find there is the High Evolutionary’s latest attempt to create utopia — genetically engineering his own species and then murdering them by the billions when they fail to live up to his lofty expectations.  While Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch hook up with the local resistance, the rest of the team is split up and left to fend for themselves.

It’s fun seeing the various Avengers struggle in their various situations — Rogue winds up as a mad scientist’s test subject, Brother Voodoo negotiates with the victims of the High Evolutionary’s experiments, Cap winds up as a plant zombie — and things end with a solid win for the team.  We also get some great art from Daniel Acuna, who makes the diverse and stylized realms of Counter-Earth look imaginatively stylish.  Granted, even Remender’s imagination can’t make the “Now 75% More Wolverine-Like” Sabretooth interesting or really get met to care about the generic resistance on the planet.  His work also can’t make me forget that the main reason this story exists is to retcon the origins of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch so that they’re no longer mutants (and now fully under the purview of Marvel Studios).  If you can put that out of your head, you’ll likely enjoy this more than I did.  It’s still mainly of interest to people who have stuck with “Uncanny Avengers” this far and want to see how its original writer wraps it all up.