AXIS (comics)

"AXIS" (also known as "Avengers & X-Men: AXIS") is a 2014 crossover comic book storyline published by Marvel Comics. Written by Rick Remender, the story involves an initial team-up between the Avengers, X-Men, and a group of villains against Red Skull, who managed to harness the powers of Onslaught and the recently deceased Professor Xavier. As the team rapidly begins losing the battle, Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom cast a powerful inversion spell, which mistakenly reverses the morality of everyone present at the battle, leading to further conflict between the now villainous heroes and heroic villains. Prior to the release of AXIS, tie-ins entitled "March to AXIS" set up the storyline in the September issues of Captain America, Loki: Agent of Asgard, Magneto and Uncanny Avengers. Despite the excitement leading up to the series' release, it received mixed reviews from fans and critics.

Red Skull tells Arnim Zola that everything is in place on his end. Zola is confronted by his daughter Jet, who refuses to return to her father's side. Captain America attacks Zola, while Ian Rogers finds and frees Sharon Carter, only to learn that Zola has a bomb strong enough to destroy all of New York City. Sam Wilson removes the telepathic antenna on Zola's body to stop him from controlling the bomb, but this only sets it to activate, so he flies the bomb high into the sky above New York before it goes off.

After defeating and imprisoning Loki, Doctor Doom discovers his countrymen attacking each other and threatening to overthrow him. Doom begins to feel the effects of the Red Skull's global telepathic assault, realizes the assault is the cause of the riots in Latveria, and casts a spell that renders him telepathically immune. Valeria Richards and Verity Willis free Loki, who ultimately stops the Red Skull's telepathic attack.

Magneto enters the island of Genosha to find that it had turned into a concentration camp for mutants. He frees two mutant girls who tell him that Red Skull is responsible and possesses Professor X's brain. Magneto attacks Red Skull, but is quickly stopped by the Skull's S-Men. Magneto is captured and telepathically tortured by Red Skull, who gives him visions of those closest to him suffering while being unable to do anything to stop it. After being freed by Scarlet Witch, Rogue, and Havok, he bites down on a vial of Mutant Growth Hormone beneath his skin, giving himself enough power to fight.

Havok, Rogue, and Scarlet Witch are captured by the Red Skull's S-Men and sent to his concentration camp in Genosha. Rogue (who still has Wonder Man's powers) is able to break the group free. They discover Magneto has been captured, and free him, as well. The three want to leave the island and alert the rest of the Avengers and X-Men of what Red Skull is doing, but Magneto says he's going to stay and fight. Before they can do anything, Red Skull appears. Red Skull now has the group mind-controlled. He plans on using Scarlet Witch's power to shape reality in his image. He tells Magneto to bow if he wants his daughter to remain alive, but Magneto manages to break Red Skull's control over the others. In a fit of rage over finding mutants being used for freak medical experiments, Magneto kills entire S-Men and attacks Red Skull, while Skull tells Magneto that Professor X's greatest fear was him leading the X-Men. Magneto kills him, while the others look on in horror. Magneto believes everything is over, only for Red Skull to reappear as a giant called Red Onslaught.

While a team of Avengers battle Plantman in Los Angeles, Red Onslaught broadcasts a telepathic wave of hatred across the world, creating countless riots and driving the Avengers to battle each other. Iron Man manages to deploy a telepathic disrupter and rescues the team, and the Avengers attempt to locate the source of the broadcast. Meanwhile in Genosha, Magneto, Rogue, and the Scarlet Witch fight Red Onslaught, who is still trying to control Wanda to rewrite reality. Magneto frees Havok, Cyclops, Quentin Quire, and Evan Sabahnur, who fight amongst themselves and against Red Skull's hunter Ahab. A team of Avengers and X-Men (Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor, Vision, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Storm) arrive to rally the heroes and fight Red Onslaught. Iron Man uses a telepathic dampener to stop the Red Skull's influence, and more heroes arrived to help (Angel, Beast, Cannonball, Doctor Strange, Hulk, Hyperion, Iceman, Invisible Woman, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Medusa, Nova, Shadowcat, and Sunspot) Red Onslaught reveals that he influenced Stark to create a model of Sentinels, based on the knowledge of different super heroes he acquired after the Civil War before erasing the latter's memories of constructing them. Red Onslaught then deploys these Stark Sentinels to fight the heroes.

With the appearance of the Stark Sentinels, the tide of the battle quickly turns to Red Onslaught's favor. Using their opponents' own strengths against them, the Sentinels bathe the heroes in Pym Particles to shrink them to hold them prisoners. Rogue comes up with a plan to defeat the Skull, proposing that Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch cast a spell to invert the axis of Red Skull's brain and bring out the fragment of Professor X to defeat Onslaught. The plan fails due to Nova's untimely interference, and Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange are targeted and captured by the Sentinels.

Magneto flees the battle, and the remaining heroes hide in Genosha with the help of Quentin Quire. After regaining consciousness, Iron Man organizes a last attempt to defeat the Sentinels, but fails and remains the last one standing. Red Onslaught gloats, telling Stark that he had seen into his mind, and that he was a sociopath fueled by competition, but this boast is interrupted by the return of Magneto, accompanied by a group of villains (Absorbing Man, Carnage, Deadpool, Doctor Doom, Enchantress, Hobgoblin, Jack O'Lantern, Loki, Mystique, and Sabretooth). Due to Stark's emphasis on documenting existing heroes, the Sentinels are not able to properly counter the unfamiliar villainous power sets.