There are things about this script I enjoyed. Bendis captures a sense of war here as opposed to a typical super-hero action sequence, for example. But the sense of finality and crisis at play here still seem forced. Furthermore, the crowd of heroes in this book doesn't add to the story; it merely fulfills a marketing promise that every Avenger would participate in this event. The art captures the critical and dark tone of the plot, but again, Finch's male faces all tend to look alike and a single color dominates the entire issue, washing the visuals out.
The core Avengers team arrives at their decimated headquarters to find every other hero who ever served as an Avenger waiting for them. The call for help had gone out, and everyone has answered it. That doesn't sit too well with Nick Fury, though, who reminds the heroes they're contaminating a crime scene. Before the colorful crowd can clear out, though, another assault by old enemies rains down upon the heroes, and they mobilize to avert disaster... and a war. In order to pull it off, though, one of their own must make the ultimate sacrifice.
Finch's art definitely brings a gritty quality to the world of super-heroes, and that suits the overall feel of this story arc. The same narrow-eyed look dominates the faces of far too many male characters, but there's still a dynamic look that shines through for the heroes. Unfortunately, the art is marred by a red color motif that never lets up, and it's quite distracting.
The promised death of a hero in this issue is just too over the top. He looks silly enough when he gears up for the big fight, but the manner in which he dies and the fortuitous side-effect of his death just stretches the story's credibility too far. There are a lot of heroes to be found here, but the focus is incredibly limited. We don't get to see most of them in action.
Nick Fury's speech about how inappropriate it is for the throng of super-heroes to be hanging around showed the sort of realistic and compelling dialogue that I expect from Bendis. I also appreciated the larger-than-life nature of the conflict with the Kree, and I'm genuinely interested in the mystery behind the lack of logic of the attack, as Fury points out.
OK, so there's this story, right? The end of a heroic era is approaching, and bad guys with access to information from the future learn about the exact time and place of the downfall. They rush to be a part of it, to bask in the ultimate defeat. It was a really good story, actually, but it's not this one. It's Alan Moore's Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, the classic two-part story that brought the pre-Crisis Superman's story to an end. Similar elements show up on Bendis's destruction of the Avengers, but it just doesn't work as well. Moore's story was a personal one, delving into the heart of the main character. But there's no focus on character here. Furthermore, the reader knows that this isn't the end of the Avengers. Many know there's a new team and a new series on the way. Those reasons are why, in part, this effort falls flat.
