(Akamuu overslept for work today, and was worried about letting down both regular readers of his comic reviews. Imagine his surprise when he found that someone had read his comics for him, and left a pile of reviews pairing comics, and judging them against or with each other.)

Both this week’s New and Secret Avengers begin with a dream. A dream about The Phoenix. (This may have something to do with them both being nestled under blue and white AvX covers.) In New Avengers, Yu Ti dreams a young redhead will consume a flame that may also consume the world. In Secret Avengers, Hank Mccoy has a nightmare about The Phoenix consuming Jean Gray and the X-Men back in the halcyon days of Claremont.

In New Avengers, the dream is six beautiful pages long, and contains two words. Secret Avengers crams one hundred and five words into a one page dream sequence. That pretty well sums up the two books this week. Remender explains and explains and explains what’s going on. Possibly because Guedes’s art not so much demands, but encourages it.

I’m not sure who Guedes’s art reminds me of. A little bit of Rafael Grampa. But there’s someone else that I can’t put my finger on. And while it is by no means bad, it’s not my favorite style. I like more defined faces on my humans, and a little less lines on my Beast face. I do like how Guedes conveys a drunk Thor sloshing into the room. But the fight with The Phoenix didn’t fill me with awe, so much as eh. (Not “meh”, which is a lazy apathetic word, but “eh” which is a sound of approval accompanied by slightly raised shoulders and a tiny head bounce.)

It would be an exaggeration to say that Deodata and Conrad’s art was breathtaking, as I do still have all the in and exhalations I budgeted at the beginning of the day. No panel made me audibly gasp. But there were a few one and two page spreads that I thought would make fantastic posters, and a better cover than what they used for this issue.

Both these issues are decent tie-ins to the AvX storyline, but while New Avengers is much prettier to look at, the Secret Avengers story might be more fun to follow.

The rating below is for New Avengers 25, and in no way reflects my opinions on Secret Avengers which you can read in my rebooted review of issue 26.