Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artists: Alan Davis, John Romita Jr and Stuart Immoenen

Following Siege Steve Rogers takes command of the super hero forces. No more registration act, no more Hammer, just the best of the best heroes running the show. The Hardcover follows 3 different stories featuring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as they enter the Heroic Age.

Avengers Prime is up first. It’s basically Cap, Iron Man and Thor getting whisked away to a magical dimension. They must battle various creatures and put their long lingering hatred/doubts/fears aside in order to get back home. Not a truly epic story but it does re-unite the Avengers big 3 once again. Alan Davis knocks it out of the ball park on the art. I’d give this story a B.

Avengers by John Romita Jr are up next. Steve Rogers assembles a new team just at Kang come from the future telling the new team of heroes that their kids kill him and rule the future. With the help of newest member Protector part of the team visits the future where Ultron has won his war and Earth is in shambles. The Next Avengers, the Maestro (not the Future Imperfect one) and older Tony Stark reveal that the Kang/Ultron War must never come to pass. With a lot of time travelling and such the Avengers convince Ultron not to start the war with Kang for all of existence is in danger. Due to the time stream being all crazy, Apocalypse, his horsemen, Killraven, Devil Dinosaur and more drop in to the join the fun. In the end the time line is saved but the Ultron War is still inevitable. Yes this sounds confusing but it really is a solid, fun story. John Romita Jr. knocks it out of the park, love his huge, blocky art on big bold characters. This arc gets an A from me!  Plus, Omar LOVES Wolverine telling the Avengers “This ain’t the fight” as they fight Apocalypse. Look to past podcasts we did for more info on this

Finally New Avengers brings us a story about magic, mayhem and Brother Voodoo. I never liked this character so I didn’t really like this story. Luke Cage puts together a new team of Avengers. The Eye of Agamotto goes crazy possessing various Avengers. Broother Voodoo and Son of Satan show up, more craziness happens. In the end Voodoo dies and Dr. Strange is Sorcerer Supreme again. There is more to it but again, I didn’t really care for this arc. It gets a D from me, meh story and bad art. Kinda wish this wasn’t included in the volume.

The overall book is fun, despite having an Avengers Movie cover (a note even states this book is not tied into the movie). There are tons of variant covers and promotional material from the heroic age. I’d give the overall book a solid B-. Omar told me that even Jack Kirby came back from the dead to write the intro saying how awesome Bendis is Yes we are all crazy, but it’s all in good geeky fun!