AXE: Judgment Day Omega #1: Don’t leave me this way…

Kieron Gillen and Guiu Villanova reunite to give us the final nail in the coffin with the AXE: Judgment Day event, and we see where the Eternals are in the MU hierarchy, and where they’re going from there. We also check in on a couple of the players who were most affected by the attack, and a deeper understanding from the Hex. While I was let down by the ending, I’m still all in for the Eternals, and what Marvel does with them moving on, so let’s get on with it. 

As the issue begins we see where Makkari continues to worship her gods as has been done for centuries, but the newly created goddess, Ajak, has some thoughts on the principles, and how they should be changed for this new era between the Eternals, Celestials, and the people of Earth. There’s already some progress, with Sersi still being dead, and the Machine isn’t on the verge of self-destructing, so things are already different. I won’t lie, Sersi’s death hit me hard. Sersi has always been one of my absolute favorite characters in the Marvel universe, going all the way back to the early 90’s, when I first really got into buying comics. Her tenure on the Avengers, and the development that Bob Harras and Steve Epting has always stuck with me. While everyone was devouring the X-Men, I was just eating up the melodramatic adventures of Earth’s Mightiest. 

The other character who really got pushed here was Ikaris, and we see a side of him that we’re just not used to. Ikaris has come kinda full circle with this issue. I’m hard pressed to find a character that Gillen developed more than Ikaris over the last two years, and it feels like he’s trying to make him become something more than just the Eternals front man. I haven’t seen a creator delve into the depths that Gillen went with on Ikaris is something I haven’t seen in an ensemble cast book at the big two in quite some time. I finally feel like Ikaris is more than just a two dimensional Kirby cast-off, like I felt for most of the stuff I’ve read with him in it. He could become the one to keep your eye on in the coming months. 

Despite all this, I left the issue feeling unfulfilled. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fate of Sersi being so…up in the air, or the ending of the event just left me cold. It could be the fact that we’re probably leaving the Eternals alone after getting invested in them over the last two years. I hate that I still feel a certain way about these characters, but I feel that’s a testament to Gillen’s work on this franchise.