For those wanting to read a balanced review that isn't essentially a bile-filled tirade, please look elsewhere. You have been warned. In my review of the previous issue I complained about this series being a bullet point list of "epic cool moments" with no character response and interaction to link them together in a satisfying way. In this issue Fraction tries to include some pauses between the wanton disaster in order to bring the reader along for the ride, to make it all matter finally. It is such a shame that he seems so utterly tone deaf to the voices of the characters he uses. By voices I can of course include Thor's manner of speech which I know is supposed to be toned down from his previous Shakespearean cadence, but "always a pain in the ass" just isn't something Thor would say. Thor calls the Breaker of Souls Benjamin, the name of his friend, then fells him with a fatal blow. Again I just don't believe Thor would drop one of the people he respects most, particularly when he knows he is not in control of his actions. Thor of course does this as we are having a message bludgeoned over our heads. "This is epic, this is a true apocalypse, the heroes are facing something greater than anything else they've ever faced!" So we have Cap's shield shattered (done before by the Beyonder of course) and most egregiously we have Spider-Man give up. Spider-Man asks for leave to go see his family. Yes, that Spider-Man. And Captain America agrees as he knows they have lost. Yes, that Captain America. Both of these characters have faced certain death many times and never responded in this way. Both of them have been absolutely sure they were going to lose and sacrifice their lives in the process and never wavered. Now apparently they're really absolutely convinced they can't win (before they were apparently just mostly certain they would lose) so they give up. Utter bollocks. Showing new aspects of characters in the face of new danger leads to an interesting story. Having characters do things that are completely against their nature in order to make a story interesting is cheap trickery. Cap knows Tony is still out there and up to something. Thor is down he isn't out and he is destined to defeat the all-powerful Serpent, something that Cap knows and has already stated would give the evil Asgardian reason to be afraid. Most of the heroes are still able to fight, there are still heroes (the X-men spring to mind) who could join the fray. There are still obvious options still to be pursued. But if Cap were to consider those things Fraction might lose yet another opportunity to have the neon flashing sign plastered over everything screaming "Danger!" This could be all a ploy of course, Cap is trying to buy time, Spider-Man is playing along, off to try and find Tony (or Mephisto, "This time I'll let you have my coin collection"). Even is that is the case, it still isn't a big enough twist to have the characters behave so, well, uncharacteristically. This is the worst thing I have read by Fraction by a country mile. It feels like a story done by committee, written on post-it notes and then phoned in. It's a shame that the phenomenal art is having to service such an infuriating story.