It's not just about chaos for the sake of chaos - Bendis crafts a compelling storyline that puts our beloved heroes in their most vulnerable state yet. It's like he took a sledgehammer to the Avengers and then watched as they struggled to pick up the pieces. The action is intense, the plot is intricate, and the emotional beats hit like a repulsor blast. ( )

A strong premise, but a shallow and underwhelming execution. Bendis' trademark dialogue skills help a lot, but while the series of (intentionally) confusing crises do a decent job of building stakes, the payoff is lacklustre. We get a talk-heavy exposition scene with complicated continuity ironed out by Doctor Strange deus ex machina style and then a by-the-numbers and over before you know it showdown follows. (In fairness, there might be more nuance in the various tie-ins, but they're not included in this collection, nor are they stated to be necessary for the story in the interview with the writer in the back.) I still ended up liking the story more than not, though, as the emotional goodbyes in the final issue landed well for me, despite the hurried nature of the story preceding and causing it. ( )

Perhaps this book was moving and deep and resonant and a powerful end to a long story, all the things it strives to be, if you had spent a few decades reading all the avengers comics that led up to it. As a part of a survey catching up on a bunch of the big marvel books of the past decades, it fell extremely flat and represented basically everything I dislike about a lot of the medium. My eyes were firmly rolled into the back of my head from the moment the skeleton arm of one of the few consistently likable marvel characters stuck out of the ground announcing his death indicated the tone of things to come. We then get a few issues worth of meandering grim darkness with some slowly doled out main character deaths from seemingly random events, before a conclusion of a pile of macguffins with a villain out of nowhere and a hero out of nowhere to give supposed context and resolution (which I know only sets the table for things to come, but it'll take a while for me to have any desire to pick up those plot threads.) And then the Avengers kinda just break up because they're sad.

This book was not a tearjerker but it made me sad for all the wrong reasons. I desperately need a palate cleanser, thank goodness so many comics are actually fun nowadays. ( )

Part of my "Oh shit Captain America: Civil War is next week and I need to read the original" reading list. I haven't read any previous Avengers, but easily can see how this rocks the Marvelverse. (I have read quite a bit of the Uncanny X-Men, though, so I'm familiar with the Maximoffs and am looking forward to House of M) ( )

This started off really crazy, then settled down, then got weird, ended quickly and then to an entire issue with the Avengers saying goodbye. I guess if I would have read it when it came out I might have been more sentimental about the "end of the Avengers", but really no one ever thought the Avengers would be over. They just broke into a bunch of lines Secret Avengers, New Avengers, All-New All-Different, Uncanny etc...

So yes this is an important part of Avengers history, but it really wasn't incredible. ( )