New Avengers Vol. 4

The New Avengers collection that coincides with Avengers vs. X-Men event has a lot more heart than the main Avengers title.  Steve Rogers comes to Avengers Mansion to recruit all of the Avengers for multiple missions to combat the Phoenix Force.  Storm is immediately taken aback & leaves heading for Utopia.  Captain America goes to talk to Cyclops about the upcoming threat & about turning over Hope to the Avengers.  Wolverine knows this is going to back fire but the other refuse to believe it. The conflict ensues.  Next up is my favorite part of this collection it takes place in K'un-Lun during the time of Leonardo Da Vinci.  Master Yu Ti started having visions of the Phoenix Force making its way to earth.  Master Yu Ti had a vision of a red haired girl who possessed the power of the Iron Fist & the Phoenix Force.  He found a girl named Fongji  who was taken into the palace to begin training.  She received the power of the Iron Fist & the Phoenix, the dragon & the bird.  With this power she left earth.  This short story adds a great of amount of weight to Iron Fist as a character.  Hope is taken to K'un-Lun to begin training but she can not become the Iron Fist because Danny Rand already is.  However it is not Danny Rand who needs to train her it is the Spider.  Peter Parker shares the advice he lives by with hope & helps her see exactly what it means.  Captain America calls the Illuminati together in hopes of talking some reason to Namor.  Professor X has a breakdown of sorts in which he feels that he has failed & his life's work has been for naught.  Reed Richards says some very poignant things about how maybe Captain America is on the wrong side this time & that maybe that some good came from bad intentions.  After everybody leaves Namor shows up & the dialogue between Captain America & him is great it shows that Steve Rogers is one of the few people in the Marvel Universe that Namor respects.  The final part of this collection sees an Avengers prison transport attacked by the Purifiers while they are transporting Emma Frost.  The New Avengers rise up to the challenge & take out the threat.  After the Purifiers are neutralized Luke Cage walks off into the sunset.  This volume is more essential to the New Avengers title then Avengers vs. X-Men also it just feels like there is more life in this one.

Avengers Vol. 4

Avengers vs. X-Men is here & this volume of Avengers feels disconnected when you read it by itself.  This title & New Avengers are better read while reading Avengers vs. X-Men along with several X-Men titles.  The Avengers title focuses on the Avengers space plan to take out the Phoenix Force before it arrives to earth we are getting only parts of this story in this title.  It is shocking to see Wolverine & Beast siding with the Avengers instead of the X-Men.  There is another group looking to capture the Phoenix Force for their own purpose.  The Kree Empire is looking to take control with the help of Noh-Varr they come close to accomplishing this.  As if the betrayal of Noh-Varr was not enough for the Avengers they gain a little bit of an upper hand when they trick Rachel Summers into a trap in which some she feels that she has been betrayed by Professor X.  The big issue of the collection is the Red Hulk one in which General Ross travels to Utopia on his own to assassinate Scott Summers a job which the Ross know Wolverine would not be able to accomplish if asked.  However this does not come to pass & the Red Hulk is sent back to the Avengers as a message.  As a collection there isn't much here & should be read along with the Avengers vs. X-Men event.