A disapointing Bendis/Bagley book? Well, yeah, when compared to the rest of this storyarc, which had some refreshing approaches with the retro and painted art styles and an interesting storyline. This issue picks up from the last issue by looking at what the rest of the Avengers were doing after Doom, Sentry, and Iron Man were trapped back in time. Doom tricks Tony by using magic to return a half hour earlier, during which time he enlists Morgan Le Fay's help to raise an army to defend his homeland.

There's a nice bit with Ms. Marvel and co. fighting Doom's army horde. But it wraps up a bit quickly with them being overpowered and then incapacitated by some kind of paralyzing power ray thingy. Eventually Spider-Woman uses some as-yet-unknown aspect of her power to free them all (which of course puts her under a cloud of Skrullish suspicion), and Tony is saved when the Sentry reboots his armor with the power of a thousand exploding suns. It just seems like the cliches were adding up at this point.

There were some clever and funny bits, notably Doom going on an internal monologue in which he explains his whole plan but using thought balloons, a nice take on the usual villain exposition. Also some of Ares' thoughts were pretty darn hilarious. Often, though, the thought balloons seemed to get in the way of the story. I think Bendis may feel that he's got to use them because this is the thought-balloon book, but I'd like to see him pull back a bit and only use them when it really adds something.

The art in this issue was good, but Bagley's work didn't have the punch or clean, efficient pacing that it usually has. It was often a bit hard to follow or really care what was going on in the page. Djurovich's painting segments were beautiful, but not as integral to the story as previously. Overall, this is a good book that I did enjoy reading, but I still felt disappointed in the end.

Hopefully now that this title has caught up to the excellent New Avengers it will be more relavant and exciting in the future. Now, who's going to be the next artist?