Anyone who’s read my reviews before knows that I’m a fan of Brian Michael Bendis’ work. The things that he’s done with the Avengers’ titles have been a welcomed change. The stories are engaging, intelligent, and humorous, so they’re always a pleasure to read. I usually end up looking forward to the next installment after I finish an issue. However, ‘Avengers’ #25 didn’t really do too much for me.

The book opened with a great two-page spread from the battle in Utopia from ‘Avengers Vs. X-Men’. Beautifully done artwork by Walter Simonson here. After the connection was made between the company-wide crossover and this book, the events that unfolded afterwards were sort of ho-hum. The Avengers took down A.I.M. again. That was pretty standard stuff. The dialogue was great, which is business as usual for BMB, but the story was just a buffer zone between the last major story arc and what’s coming next. The seeds were planted for something that could potentially be very troublesome for the Avengers concerning A.I.M. later, but for now that’ll most likely be put on hold in favor of their battle against the Phoenix Force and the X-Men. It’ll be interesting to see how things progress in this series since the core team in this book will be split up with half going into space to try to stop the Phoenix Force, the other half going to Utopia to aid Captain America, and Storm joining her X-Men team.

The first couple pages and the last page is where all the interesting stuff comes in. It appears that we’ll be seeing a lot more of the Kree warrior Noh-Varr AKA The Protector and the role that he’ll be taking in the Marvel Universe. That’s not to say, however, that there wasn’t some good stuff scattered throughout. The inner conflict of Captain America in his new role as the head of the world’s peacekeeping forces was great character development. Iron Man joking with Clint Barton and Jessica Drew in the training room was funny, even though Simonson made some questionable choices in the way that he drew Miss Drew out of costume. The hairstyle and the outfit seemed like something that one of Power Man’s old groupies from the 70s would wear.

This probably wasn’t the strongest tie-in to ‘Avengers Vs. X-Men’, and it wasn’t exactly the most exciting issue of ‘The Avengers’ that I’ve ever read, but some seeds were planted that will lead to big things.  Like Ted Mosby said, “If every day is legendary, then none of them are.” Hopefully the next few issues in this arc will legendary to make up for this one.

Verdict: Borrow

THE AVENGERS #25
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Art by WALTER SIMONSON, SCOTT HANNA, & JASON KEITH
Cover art by DANIEL ACUÑA