A half-decent to completely nonsensical storyline that unfortunately is half drawn by John Romita, Jr, so it's even worse than it would otherwise be. I tend to like Olivier Coipel's work but unfortunately he has some... pretty bad moments in here. Or maybe it's just some of his worst quirks on display. Characters who talk with their mouths closed (when not using telepathy or just thinking). Nipple clothes. Wonky legs. Lots of boob shots. Weird faces that largely lack expression. The other artists aren't worth comment. ( )

I found this whole series SUPER frustrating as we were supposed to empathise with Cap and the Avengers and then think "Yay! They won!!" at the end. But the whole time I could only think "Wow, the Avengers are huge jerks. They are the embodiment of the "other is bad" "progress is bad" "screw your empirical evidence, my GUT tells me you're wrong" mentality that is slowly destroying civilisation." Oh well. It was still kinda fun. ( )

This story arc was an event that re-shaped the landscape of the Marvel Universe in many ways. When these issues were first landing on shelves, I recall being generally not interested, as it seemed to be a lot of fanboy match-ups and was running at a time when Marvel seemed to have lost all of its editorial direction and I was reading almost exclusively DC. To be fair, it is fanboy match-ups in the beginning. Who wins if Red Hulk and Colossus spar? Cyclops and Captain America? Those are the first couple of issues, and I thought that would be fun to read in a collected edition, but this is Bendis writing, so I should have known that it would go deeper.

The primary characters grow and change dramatically through the course of this arc as Bendis deftly handles life-altering events of a cosmic scale. The sorts of themes that have always underpinned the X-Men are a driving force here. I was surprised, especially given that this occurs after Civil War chronologically, at how easy it was to immediately mark the Avengers as the "good guys." While Bendis and the other writers certainly unpack the motivation of the X-Men, and we walk away (mostly) understanding why they do what they do, I expected something less black and white. The way that certain X-Men cross the line into overtly villainous actions also surprised me, as it happened quickly and with what felt like little preceding actions. Basically, the pacing was off.

My other complaint is that many characters appeared as background extras and felt as though they had no place in the story (Gambit, Daredevil), or were brought in quickly and didn't have their contribution realized (Iron Fist). I think that these were perhaps explored more in depth in the tie-in books that aren't included in this collection. There are moments of beauty in the dialogue with our main characters. There are also questions left un-answered in the end.

If you read any of the Marvel Universe from this time frame, this is an important collection to spend time with, as it explains a lot of the broader universe. Still, I think that it didn't fully live up to its potential. ( )

Avengers vs. X-Men, simply put, was one of the better Marvel events I have ever read. The story is told at a quick pace from the get go, and it is told in a quick, concise manner that doesn't waste your time with melodrama.

The art is brilliant, too; in fact, there were moments when I'd simply stop and just admire the great artwork. The fight scenes are cut from the main issues, but they are available in AVX VS, which is a "fight book" that I enjoyed a lot.

I am currently following AVX: Consequences, which is turning out to be even more interesting than the actual story line itself.

If you're looking for a quick read and like the Avengers and the X-Men, you will not go wrong with this. As stated before, this is one of the better Marvel events in recent history. ( )

This was a pretty good event, I was a little disappointed that the art in the core series was pretty poor for at least half of the issues. Seems like big events should get a bigger budget. I think the thing that really worked with this event was that Cyclops got to be the bad guy. He's the good guy that everybody loves to hate and this gave everyone a reason to hate him even more. Also a big event, the "death" or Professor X. Wonder how long he'll stay dead. ( )