For starters, there’s no real explanation of what an Onslaught is. Is the Red Skull actually dead or transformed? Is Red Onslaught a separate entity and the dead Red Skull’s voice is still somehow around? Is the Red Skull in control of Onslaught? I have no idea. I guess if I’d read the Onslaught X-Men comics back in the mid-90s, I might know, but I dropped those like a brick before the lead-in to outsourcing the core books to Image happened. That wasn’t really covered here except a line about Onslaught being a construct of pure hate, which didn’t exactly enlighten me. Still, the character (characters?) has multiple voices which seem to be dominant at different times and it wasn’t exactly clear storytelling. The story reads like everyone is supposed to know what an Onslaught is. If the characters were confused, I might not feel like I’m missing out on something.
This made me feel very glad I decided not to try out Axis today after all. I’m burned out on Marvel events and the whole massive continuity clusterfuck of them all.