Avengers (Vol. 4) #3 (Story 1)
Background
Kang has warned the Avengers of an apocalyptic future and the breaking of the time stream by the Avengers' children. While trying to figure out what to do, the Avengers are first attacked by Wonder-Man (who wants the Avengers to disband) and then a future Apocalypse and his horsemen...
Story Details
Avengers (Vol. 4) #3 (Story 1)
| Editor: | Tom Brevoort |
| Writer: | Brian Michael Bendis |
| Pencils: | John Romita, Jr. |
| Inker: | Klaus Janson |
| Cover Art: | John Romita, Jr., Klaus Janson, White |
The Avengers battle Apocalypse and his horsemen. During the battle Tony analyses Apocalypse to narrow down where in the timestream they need to go to solve the problem. The battle is ended by another time flux and Apocalypse and his horsemen leaving. Hill formulates a plan to split the team and have Iron Man, Cap, Wolverine & Noh-Varr go into the future to fix the timestream, while the rest of the Avengers take care of any more time anomalies.
The issue ends with Iron Man's time going into the future and the other team arriving on the streets of New York to find Killraven and a giant red dinosaur
General Comments
There's a fair bit of pointless action this issue, that looks pretty, but does little to further the plot. In fact not much happens in terms of the main plot at all! It feels alot like filler and after the promising first two issues, I'm disappointed.
The only real reason I can think of for the issue being the way it is, is that there a lot of little character interactions during the battle and maybe Bendis is going for a "getting to know each other" sort of issue. Spider-Man has a bit more screen time, a scene saving Tony, a joke or two with Spider-Woman and Noh-Varr. And there are other little interactions in there too. Most of which is fine, but Bendis' take on Tony Stark is really becoming annoying and doesn't ring true at all. I know Tony is supposed to be flippant and a 'by the seat of his pants' type of guy. But, the dialog for Tony is like some old guy trying to be hip and really not hitting the mark at all. And Wolverine's whole "This ain't the thing" bit, really sucked. Not to mention Hill calling Noh-Var "alien boy" all the time, which made me want to punch her in the head... basically I think the dialog for a few of the characters either just plain sucked and didn't ring true or one character's dialog was nearly identical anothers.
JR, Jr's art was still a highlight, though not as impressive as last issue. And I still have hope that this storyline is going to go in interesting directions.
Overall Rating 
A disappointing issue in which not much happens and the bad characrterisation/dialog is really annoying.