Boy, am I tired. There must be more to it than just running on three and a half hours of sleep, though. I'm thinking it was also the fact that this book was one of the most exhausting things I’ve had to read and look at in a long time.

The issue starts out with Emma dreaming after a long night of optic blasts to the crotchal region. She’s still feeling guilty about Kitty Pryde, whose bullet ride of a death/disappearance is stilla a deep wound in Bendis’ heart. Suddenly, a knock on the door by a Thunderbolt agent and Emma quips at Osborn’s henchman and reads the message addressed to her. (By the way, are the X-Men really just hanging out in some apartment complex or something? Hard times, man…)

Cut to her arriving at Avengers Tower, where she waltzes down to a sub-basement. She enters the room to find my man Victor who more than makes up for the lack of others’ presence. The page in which Doom greets Ms. Frost is easily one of the best things about this issue. Soon the two are met with…um…well, he’s dressed like Namor, and is addressed as Namor, but he sure as FUCK doesn’t look like Namor. (Also, he smells bad.)

Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood soon presents himself, and done so in what I’d say was fairly appropriately; Robbins is still very young – at this point he’s around 21 years old – so it’s easy to imagine him being a sniveling, cursing punk.

POOF! Here’s Loki, whose recent makeover confuses Ugly Namor and his trident. Pretty much the only thing the Trickster offers to the meeting and this issue.

And finally, the star of the show, the new American Idol, the Goblin King, has arrived. Stormin’ Norman Osborn. Glad to see being in total control of every major superpower team can help you afford a decent haircut.

Everyone’s finally in their seats and now the meeting comes to order. And that’s just what this is. A boring, one-sided conversation of a meeting. The long and short of it being “You scratch my back I scratch yours.” It took Bendis ten pages to basically have Norman say that he’ll help out his little cabal if they help him (even though Doom is the only one who really gets anything, which was a return to Latveria). I know Osborn loves the sound of his own voice and all, but come the fuck off it. Afterwards Doom reveals he is plotting against Osborn, who shows he is just as unstable as ever. Big surprise.

Also, Maleev is a hack. It should be a requirement, in order to work for Marvel, to know how to properly illustrate the Invaders. How he drew Namor is just downright unforgiveable. For all I know Maleev thinks the King of Atlantis is a side character in Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Other then his renditions of Doom, every character looks incredibly sloppy; Loki’s haggard, Hood’s wide, Norman’s lanky, Emma’s plastic.

Oh, and isn’t there a rule that you can’t use the same exact page more than once? Piss off, Bendis, I’m glad we’ll never see your nice little Jewish girl ever again.

So, let’s recap what was actually good about this issue:
- Doom greeting Emma Frost
- Doom getting Latveria back
- Doom plotting for the future
- Doom
As expected.