I never cared about The Avengers until Bendis’s Disassembled storyline. Not only did it make me a near devout follower to the modern titles, but it inspired me to go back and pick up the classic titles. For me, Marvel couldn’t have asked for a better writer for one of their flagship books (I’m imagining a Marvel as a big armada that’s so spread out, it needs three or four “lead ships”.)

I’ve been reading The X-Men since I was nine. I stuck through it with Milligan on scripts, through Land on pencils (which can stop any day now). I even collected all of The X-Treme X-Men (and, for the love of God, why are they relaunching this particular trainwreck). For the most part, I’ve been enjoying it more over the past year than I was a few years ago. It’s always felt like it was going somewhere, but these days it feels like it knows where that destination is.

The idea of this crossover had me cautiously excited. And the #0 issue has made me both more nervous and more optimistic.

Brian Michael Bendis’s Scarlet Witch story is terribly written. I accept that this is a zero issue and he wants to get several years of storyline into a few panels so that he can hit is with his Real World Avengers Mansion dialog (At one point Iron Man says “Little rough on her, huh?”, and I expected Beast to snap and say “Oh no, he didn’t go there!”). But giving background and spoon feeding plot points is not a fine line for a writer of Bendis’s experience. This issue furthers my joy that Bendis is leaving the Avengers titles. It’s well past time he moved on to something else. The last panel is ridiculous to the point that I expect the iFanboys will put it up for mockery in panels of the week.

Aaron’s Hope story is in stark contrast to The Scarlet Witch’s. Sure, I’ve read the first few pages about a thousand times already, as it’s been in the back of every Marvel book since 1992 (this is slight hyperbole). I skimmed over it to get to the new stuff, and it’s good. I like the setup, I like the way Aaron incorporates the backstory in a way that doesn’t feel forced.

Cho’s art gives the title some consistency from Bendis’s story to Aaron, and it’s, you know, Cho art. I like it. If you usually like his stuff, you’ll enjoy this.

We have Issue One of Avengers Vs. X-Men tucked away in a box in the corner of the store, as Diamond is prepping everybody for Avengers Vs. X-Men “parties” next week. I don’t work for the kind of store that does events like that, but I’m going to let it sit in that box for at least a few days before I pick it up. Maybe I’ll read the back half of this collection again to psyche myself up for it.