Marvel Axis

As part of his plan to exterminate mutantkind, the Red Skull turned Genosha into a concentration camp, and abducted numerous mutants,[4] as well as Inhumans.[5] His activities were tracked down by Magneto[5] at the same time Scarlet Witch, Rogue, and Havok from the Avengers Unity Division were captured by the Skull's S-Men and brought to the island.

After escaping captivity, the Avengers encountered and rescued Magneto.[6] The Red Skull and the S-Men confronted the escapees, but Magneto managed to wipe out most of the S-Men with his MGH-enhanced powers. He killed the Red Skull without the use of his mutant gifts, offering him a "pure" death, but also unleashed a more powerful persona of the Red Skull - the Red Onslaught.[7]

AXIS

The Red Supremacy

The Red Onslaught used his powers to spread hate across the world, unleashing a "World War Hate" which even affected the Avengers. Once Iron Man snapped them out of the telepathically-induced fit of rage using a telepathic inhibitor, they located the source of the attack and arrived to Genosha to assist Magneto, Rogue and the Scarlet Witch, bringing reinforcement in the form of both X-Men fractions and other allies. Iron Man used a telepathic tamperer to stop the Skull's influence. When more heroes arrived to help, the Red Skull revealed that he had influenced Stark to create a model of Sentinels, based on the knowledge of different superheroes he acquired after the Civil War, before erasing the latter's memories of constructing them. The villain then deployed his Stark Sentinels to fight the heroes.[8]

With the appearance of the Stark Sentinels, the tide of the battle was quickly turned to the Red Onslaught's favor. Using their opponents' own strengths against themselves, the Sentinels countered the heroes, bathing them in Pym Particles to shrink them and hold them prisoners. Rogue came up with a plan to defeat the Skull, proposing that Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch cast a spell to invert the axis of Skull's brain and bring out the fragment of Charles Xavier to defeat Onslaught. The plan failed due to Nova's inexperience, and the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange were targeted and captured by the Sentinels before they could cast the spell. As Magneto fled from the battle, the heroes hid in Genosha, hidden with the help of Quentin Quire. After coming to, Iron Man organized a last attempt to defeat the Sentinels, but failed and was left the last one standing. The Red Skull told him he had seen into his mind, and that he was a sociopath fueled by competition, but his boast is interrupted by the return of Magneto. Magneto is accompanied by a group of villains he had recruited to fight the Sentinels, as the robots were not able to properly counter villains as well as heroes.[9]

The villains managed to defeat one of the Sentinels, which allowed the heroes trapped inside to break free. Doctor Doom and the Scarlet Witch attempted to cast the inversion spell again, and the Red Skull was knocked unconscious and reverted from his Red Onslaught form. The other Sentinel was defeated afterwards, freeing the heroes inside, but not before the villains had left the scene. Before the Skull could wake up to reveal whether Charles Xavier was now in control or not, as the X-Men wanted, the Avengers decided to be cautious and take the Red Skull to Stark Tower. This caused Havok to resign from the Unity Division and side with the now-unified two teams of X-Men and his brother, with whom he reconciled.[10]

Inversion

Days later, S.H.I.E.L.D. gathered Captain America to discuss what was going to be of the Red Skull, now that the Stark Sentinels had been dismantled and the concentration camps torn down. Nick Fury tried to convince Sam to hand him over, but under the influence of the inversion spell, Wilson was violent and punched him before leaving. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, a family held hostage was saved from the Squid by the now-heroic Carnage. Spider-Man arrived to the scene shortly after Cletus had left, and to his surprise, found the family unharmed, as well as the villain. In San Francisco, Iron Man arrived to the Giants Stadium where he presented his new digital version of the Extremis, free for every citizen of the city to achieve perfection. Matt Murdock was among the crowd, and noticed something was off with Tony, who had also started drinking once more. At the Jean Grey School, the X-Men were revealing the unification of mutants as they also revealed their new agenda of no longer seeking coexistence between humans and mutants, but to stand above them, with the help of Evan Sabahnur, who had become Apocalypse due to the inversion. Back at the Avengers Tower, Captain America informed the team about the current movements of the X-Men, leading them to decide to execute the Red Skull, and any opportunity of Charles Xavier still being alive inside their shared brain, in response to the mutant's claims. Both the Hulk and Jarvis tried to stop them, but were ignored and attacked. This caused a new persona to surface, the inverted Hulk, Kluh, who proceeded to attack the Avengers before fleeing the Tower, stating his desire to cause destruction. After deciding that Kluh was not their problem as long as he didn't stand in their way, the Avengers opened the Skull's cell, only to find it empty.[11]

Following the Skull's escape, Captain America called a meeting in the Avengers Tower of all the heroes available who were or had been Avengers. After informing the guests of the Red Skull's disappearance, Sam Wilson told them that only somebody with Avengers clearance could have been able to have done that, making everyone in the room a suspect. Spider-Man's spider-sense triggered, and quickly escaped the Tower through the window along with Nova as Captain America activated a button which sprayed all the heroes in the room with Pym Particles, in order to send them to Hank Pym's "ant farms." Spider-Man and Nova were chased by the Axis of Evil Avengers, but escaped with the help of Magneto, who took them to the Avengers Mansion, where Steve Rogers informed them about the effects of the inversion, including the rampage of Kluh across Arizona. After Nova took off to confront Kluh, who was approaching his hometown, a massive airship appeared above New York City, carrying the inverted X-Men. The inverted X-Men arrived to the Avengers Tower where they beat up Captain America, the only one present, so he would give the inhabitants of New York a message: every human was to evacuate Manhattan within the next three hours or be slaughtered, as the island was going to be the first prize of the mutant uprising because of its importance to humanity, and mutants would take everything they cared about.[12]

After broadcasting their warning to humankind, the X-Men, who had created a gene bomb designed to kill everyone on Earth without a X-Gene in their body, were confronted by Mystique, who attempted to make them see the errors of their ways. Rogue and Nightcrawler confronted her, and forced her to leave with Sabretooth. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Daredevil confronted Tony Stark about unleashing Extremis, and the problems it caused to society. Tony surprised Matt with increased agility and strength, and beat him up before throwing him from his headquarters. In Latveria, Doctor Doom admitted to a crowd that he was but a man in the eyes of God and claimed his desire to try democracy on Latveria before he was attacked by the Scarlet Witch, who wanted revenge for having tampered with her and indirectly causing the House of M. He was saved by Quicksilver and Magneto, who stated Wanda would never recover from killing Doom if she did so. In Las Vegas, Loki tried to unsuccessfully make his brother Odinson listen to reason, and had to be saved by Steve Rogers, Nomad, and Spider-Man in the Quinjet. After returning with Loki to the Avengers Mansion, Steve revealed that he had assembled the solution to deal with the Axis and X-Men: he had reassembled the team of inverted super villains into the Astonishing Avengers.[13]

New World Disorder

As the Astonishing Avengers stormed Apocalypse's ship and fought the X-Men, Zenpool and Spider-Man attempted to sneak past Apocalypse and try to defuse the gene bomb. Zenpool attempted to distract Apocalypse while Spider-Man deactivated the device, but both failed and were thrown outside the ship, where they joined the ongoing battle between the X-Men and the Avengers. Meanwhile, in Latveria, the Scarlet Witch unleashed her power to fight Doom, and seemingly killed both Quicksilver and Magneto, as well as discovering she actually had no blood ties with the Master of Magnetism since a curse she cast on members of her bloodline only affected her brother, before forcing Doctor Doom to flee. In San Francisco, Captain America arrived at Iron Man's Stark Island, where the Armored Avenger introduced him to the reassembled Axis, willing to join forces once again upon learning Steve Rogers was looking for the Red Skull to reverse the inversion. Back in Manhattan, Zenpool kept trying to reason with Apocalypse, but in the end he was beaten and beheaded, thus defeated like the rest of the Astonishing Avengers. As Apocalypse claimed his victory, the gene bomb's countdown was almost finished.[14]

With no options left, Carnage used the symbiote to wrap around the bomb and contain the explosion, sacrificing himself in the process. Soon after Spider-Man confronted the X-Men for the death of Carnage, the Axis arrived on the scene and began fighting the X-Men. During the fight, Loki distracted Thor, and tricked him into following him into a portal to the Moon. In the Avengers Mansion, Steve Rogers and Nomad were watching the fight when Jarvis entered, announcing that he knew a way to stop them. Meanwhile, in Latveria, the Scarlet Witch began destroying Doomstadt, as the defeated Quicksilver and Magneto tried to convince her not to do so. Doctor Doom returned with the resurrected Doctor Voodoo, who used the spirit of his brother Daniel to possess the Scarlet Witch and try to defeat her. In the Avengers Mansion, Nomad received a message from Steve, who had equipped himself with his old Exoskeleton and Energy Shield, that he was going to free the Red Skull. This piece of information was intercepted by Iron Man, who informed Captain America about it, and both set out to go to the Avengers Tower, where the Red Skull had been all along; he hadn't been freed, Jarvis had merely used one of Stark's cloaking devices to hide him from the murderous Avengers. When Sam entered the building, he encountered Steve holding the Red Skull, threatening Sam to stand down or face him.[15]

Using the Red Skull's telepathy, Steve managed to distract Sam for long enough to escape. After Cap's failure to capture Rogers and the Skull, the Axis set out to the Avengers Mansion after having defeated the inverted X-Men. While recovering from his defeat, Apocalypse was confronted by Zenpool's head and convinced to fight against the Axis. On the Moon, Loki was being chased by Odinson around the Blue Area. The trickster soon came across Mjolnir, which had been left there since Thor became unworthy. He picked up the hammer, and started fighting Odinson with the power of Thor. Back at the Avengers Mansion, Steve and the Skull were attacked by the Axis right after arriving. Before Cap could beat Rogers to death, Apocalypse appeared and fought the Axis while the Skull was taken from the location. The rest of the Axis still managed to catch up with them, but were confronted by Spider-Man and Sabretooth while Rogers tried to get the Skull to a Quinjet, which was soon foiled by Iron Man. Iron Man was about to kill the Red Skull when Doctor Doom, Scarlet Witch (possessed by Daniel Drumm), Magneto, Doctor Voodoo, and Quicksilver arrived. After Iron Man was incapacitated, Doom and Daniel began a reinversion spell and the Skull broadcasted it to those inverted, having only the options to either reinvert all the heroes and the villains or none of them. Unwilling to return to his regular self, Iron Man activated a shield to protect himself from the reinversion, accidentally shielding Havok and Sabretooth from the effect as well. The reinversion was successful, and every person affected by the inversion, except the three aforementioned, were returned to their regular selves. After the spell, the still-inverted Havok used the Wasp as leverage to escape. Magneto soon realized that due to the distraction, Iron Man, Doctor Doom, and the Red Skull had also escaped.

In the wake of the conflict, New York City was being rebuilt for what was an estimate of months; the press received a video which had been recorded by the inverted villains before the battle, in which they claimed to be behind the recent crisis, calling themselves the "Axis of Evil" and claimed to have manipulated the X-Men and Avengers using the Enchantress' magic; Steve Rogers was recovering from the wounds suffered during the battle; Iron Man had returned to Stark Island in San Francisco; Havok returned to his brother's X-Men; Deadpool and Evan Sabahnur had gone into hiding; Loki was still dealing with no longer being worthy; Doctor Doom had abducted the Red Skull and held him prisoner; the Avengers Unity Division had reformed; Peter Parker was building the rhinestone statue Carnage made Spider-Man promise was going to be made when he sacrificed himself; and Sabretooth turned himself in, finally seeing the meaning behind the heroes, as they show the world it's possible to be better, promising to overcome his past to become someone better like the late Wolverine did, now that he was permanently inverted.[1]